Shadowrun MMO announced, who saw THAT coming?! Options

[primetide]

Fair enough, but engaging stories don't go very well with a multiplayer-oriented game ... though, if you would focus on a single-player playable game, add in saves somehow (though no idea if that's even possible with online games), you could do story-driven 'runs'. that's forfeiting the core market for browser games though, the hardcore casual gamers.


That sounds a lot more promising than the words "bowser based online game" would imply, at least. Having a look at your Jagged Alliance game, how will you handle PvP in your Shadowrun game? Mandatory, only in an arena? PvP is one of the components that annoy me most in online games. Also, what about character death? Shadowrun is pretty harsh there, since the world disallows magic for resurrection, timetravel and teleportation.

What about looks? You said you want to improve on those in JA2? That's good, because the looks there are rather surprisingly uncrappy for a browser-based game (in case the images under "screen shots" are from your game and nocht "back in action"). How configurable will the avatars be? And please try and use artwork from the game's books instead of reinventing the wheel, we'd be eternally grateful if the MPUV actually looked like an MPUV and not just bore the name. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

- we will have a large single player PvE part - for Jagged Alliance we plan for 150 missions at launch, which can be played singleplayer or co-op. Multiplayer does not always mean PvP, although we will of course want that, since no one is as good and adaptable as a human player. But always voluntary, arena style PvP.
- hardcore casual is the core market for much of the US browser games. In Germany you actually have quite a big percentage playing traidional as well as browser games, for example. And why should casual gamers want to play Shadowrun when there is Whateverville to entertain them? So we stick to the smaller but no less viable group of gamers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
- On the official JA site, there are screens mainly of the "Reloaded" offline game. If you visit Cliffhanger and go to our JAO section, this is early screens of the game.
- for the rest, I can't answer that reliably yet. You will be able to equip them fully and see that, chrome up etc., but probably not much in the way of faces etc.- it simply does not show much inside the game and costs a lot of time I would rather spend creating cool features (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanadianWolverin...]

First off, welcome to the SR forums.

Second, may I so kindly ask you to back up your credentials in some fashion? A link to your profile on the Dev site perhaps or the name I could find you listed under in other games credits? Trust but verify, I hope you understand.

Now I will opperate under the assumption that you already passed muster and say, I am so very happy for you are not trying to develop a MMO in the vein of WoW. Good on you guys.

We actually intend to do a 'real' game. Translating the turn based vs real time is actually quite easy: You move in real time as long as no combat happens, then we switch to turnbased.

But let me ask a question here then: Would you prefer a true turn based combat (every action costs Action Points or one can do two simple actions per turn etc.) or would you prefer a slow moving real time, where the turn based is "hidden" (like with Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights) and each action simply takes a certain time. This choice means tactics vs action. True turn based would allow much more options in combat like changing stance, reloads, cover etc. while real time makes for a more fluid, action oriented experience.

If my opinion counts for anything, I loved Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansions (and the last of the NWN1 expansions Hordes of the Underdark) - I even recently picked up a back up copy on Steam. It should be possible to do the slowed down time and still have the expanded options, which is the method I would prefer to see. You could do slow moving real time with snap to cover, blind fire, stances, etc. The challenge I see in the slowed down real time ("hidden" turn based) is in a few things that I would think are in some ways essential to staying true to SR combat (from my limited understanding) would be Perception, Stealth, Surprise, Initiative, Initiative Passes, and Called Shots. But I think that those challenges are not insurmountable, in that you could allow those with higher Init and IPs to simply move faster through their actions than those at lower tiers while still moving the same total distance, which reminds me of the challenge and fun I had with Max Payne 1 & 2. Called Shot could be the difference between using right and left mouse buttons in combat or a shift/ctrl+click if you want a bit more finger gymnastics. I would strongly suggest using WASD (or whatever configuration) for movement rather than a mouse click on ground.

So yeah, I would like the action more than pause and go turns but I don't think it means we have to give up the tactical options.

[hermit]

- we will have a large single player PvE part - for Jagged Alliance we plan for 150 missions at launch, which can be played singleplayer or co-op. Multiplayer does not always mean PvP, although we will of course want that, since no one is as good and adaptable as a human player. But always voluntary, arena style PvP.

That's good, because nothing sucks as much as going to bed and finding your character dead the next day because someone PvP'd you over the night. For called matches, of course, a human enemy is much more challenging than a machine, which usually ends up being predictable quite soon (though, the extra hard AI in SupCom is really nasty).

- hardcore casual is the core market for much of the US browser games. In Germany you actually have quite a big percentage playing traidional as well as browser games, for example. And why should casual gamers want to play Shadowrun when there is Whateverville to entertain them? So we stick to the smaller but no less viable group of gamers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You do? I genuinly was unaware of this. Always thought there's quite the divide there, but it's not my business, but yours.

That said, your plans sound a lot more promising than I originally thought. I'm interested to see this develop. Will you keep us posted here with concept art, et cetara? Also, I assume this will work account based?

- On the official JA site, there are screens mainly of the "Reloaded" offline game. If you visit Cliffhanger and go to our JAO section, this is early screens of the game.

That's shown in the browser? That looks pretty stunning for flash graphics. Actually, it looks like 3D polygon based. There's an engine for this now?

- for the rest, I can't answer that reliably yet. You will be able to equip them fully and see that, chrome up etc., but probably not much in the way of faces etc.- it simply does not show much inside the game and costs a lot of time I would rather spend creating cool features (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Alright, how about custom faces for the character box (like the faces in the JA-O shots)? Of course, this game des not necessarily have to provide a de facto free character portrait generator, but it'd be ... nice to have this, especially for metahumans like dwarfs, orcs and trolls, not to speak of the possibly eventually added variants.

Speaking of which, how are you going to handle size differences? Trolls are huge, they won't easily fit through every door and air duct ...

[Doc Chase]

everything hermit wrote

And I get to the end, and now all I remember is 'Jello Shots'.

[X-Kalibur]

I like the idea to maybe take an Arcanum approach (speaking of steampunk) whereby you can choose real time or turn-based with APs. For those of us who enjoyed both the real time aspect of JA and the turn based style of Fallout.

[primetide]

First off, welcome to the SR forums.
Second, may I so kindly ask you to back up your credentials in some fashion? A link to your profile on the Dev site perhaps or the name I could find you listed under in other games credits? Trust but verify, I hope you understand.

Re: Credentials: Anybody can post this link, but for what it's worth I am the second guy from the top.

That said, your plans sound a lot more promising than I originally thought. I'm interested to see this develop. Will you keep us posted here with concept art, et cetara? Also, I assume this will work account based?


That's shown in the browser? That looks pretty stunning for flash graphics. Actually, it looks like 3D polygon based. There's an engine for this now?


Alright, how about custom faces for the character box (like the faces in the JA-O shots)? Of course, this game des not necessarily have to provide a de facto free character portrait generator, but it'd be ... nice to have this, especially for metahumans like dwarfs, orcs and trolls, not to speak of the possibly eventually added variants.

Speaking of which, how are you going to handle size differences? Trolls are huge, they won't easily fit through every door and air duct ...

We are building in Unity, which is a full 3D Engine - the polygon count for webbrowser compatibility is limited and we won't have a lot of the fancy bumpmaps etc., but otherwise it is a normal 3D game.

Faces to choose from: yes. Custom built: maybe - since you need to do this for multiple races it means multiple generators, so it is a quite a lot of work...
Size differences: Good question that. We haven't agreed on this yet, though we are leaning towards not offering air ducts and making Trolls duck through doors, so you choice of character does not prevent you from accessing any missions. But Trolls also won't be able to use just any tiny pistol etc., so we will limit certain items probably.

[primetide]

I like the idea to maybe take an Arcanum approach (speaking of steampunk) whereby you can choose real time or turn-based with APs. For those of us who enjoyed both the real time aspect of JA and the turn based style of Fallout.

The problem with having both is, that we have an AI Server who either understands one ruleset or the other. Making him understand both is again much more effort (read: costly). And in co-op multiplayer you would always have to agree on a system, which isn't ideal. So we would really need to choose...

[hermit]

We are building in Unity, which is a full 3D Engine - the polygon count for webbrowser compatibility is limited and we won't have a lot of the fancy bumpmaps etc., but otherwise it is a normal 3D game.

While I am sort of sceptical about browser prformance, if this works it's good for bridging the (gaping) quality gap between most browser games (graphically stuck in the 16 bit era, more or less) and modern computer games ... is there any game that actually uses this engine, so we can get a look at how well this works?

Faces to choose from: yes. Custom built: maybe - since you need to do this for multiple races it means multiple generators, so it is a quite a lot of work...

I was more thinking of sending in a portrait (an appropriatly trimmed version of this for instance), and you guys nodding it through to be used, or something like this. Of course, mapping your own character with custom textures would be very nifty, even though requiring a LOT of work to be anywhere near where, say, APB went. That's decidedly unrealistic, I guess.

Size differences: Good question that. We haven't agreed on this yet, though we are leaning towards not offering air ducts and making Trolls duck through doors, so you choice of character does not prevent you from accessing any missions. But Trolls also won't be able to use just any tiny pistol etc., so we will limit certain items probably.

It'S an often ignored problem of trolls as a PC race. Of course, you could do the maps to be solved in many ways, not all being viable for all characters. Again, that'd be a lot of additional work, though.

[Stahlseele]

The problem with having both is, that we have an AI Server who either understands one ruleset or the other. Making him understand both is again much more effort (read: costly). And in co-op multiplayer you would always have to agree on a system, which isn't ideal. So we would really need to choose...

Well, the turn based stuff from fallout would only be in combat like situations, anything else could be left real time. would that work?
Turnbased/AP-Systemf rom Fallout1/2/Tactics would be a good and simple way to make the difference in Initiative. By the way, are you going by the SR3 or SR4 Rule-System?

[primetide]

While I am sort of sceptical about browser prformance, if this works it's good for bridging the (gaping) quality gap between most browser games (graphically stuck in the 16 bit era, more or less) and modern computer games ... is there any game that actually uses this engine, so we can get a look at how well this works?

Unity is used by literally hundreds of games over all platforms, including console. It can run as a browser plugin as well. Brwoser games will get a lot more like real games in the near future...

I was more thinking of sending in a portrait (an appropriatly trimmed version of this for instance), and you guys nodding it through to be used, or something like this. Of course, mapping your own character with custom textures would be very nifty, even though requiring a LOT of work to be anywhere near where, say, APB went. That's decidedly unrealistic, I guess.

we were thinking about allowing you to upload your own (though with potentially 500.000 users, nodding each of it through will be next to impossible. We will see how we can balance individualization and budget constraints here.

Well, the turn based stuff from fallout would only be in combat like situations, anything else could be left real time. would that work?
Turnbased/AP-Systemf rom Fallout1/2/Tactics would be a good and simple way to make the difference in Initiative. By the way, are you going by the SR3 or SR4 Rule-System?

yeah, as we said: move in real time and go turn based once combart starts would be my current way to go...
Regarding rules: As far as our game goes, the differences aren' that much of an issue, as they mostly touch areas that do not affect us (for example the game would not have a Karma pool of dice anyway, we would need to "translate" that in some way). I must admit I haven't played 4th edition yet (and actually was introduced to Shadowrun with the second edition when it just came out), so I am reserving my judgement on that. From a business standpoint it would probably make sense to go with the current version of rules to allow some easy transfer from PnP to Game and backwards (with all the map and story material we will produce one could think of doing some nice pdf downloadable adventures). But again: we haven't decided yet.

[hermit]

Unity is used by literally hundreds of games over all platforms, including console. It can run as a browser plugin as well. Brwoser games will get a lot more like real games in the near future...

Sorry not to have been as clear as I should have, I was thinking of browser application examples.

we were thinking about allowing you to upload your own (though with potentially 500.000 users, nodding each of it through will be next to impossible. We will see how we can balance individualization and budget constraints here.

Understandable.

Regarding rules: As far as our game goes, the differences aren' that much of an issue, as they mostly touch areas that do not affect us (for example the game would not have a Karma pool of dice anyway, we would need to "translate" that in some way). I must admit I haven't played 4th edition yet (and actually was introduced to Shadowrun with the second edition when it just came out), so I am reserving my judgement on that.

Emotionally I'm all for SR3, and with a machine doing all the troubling and complicated rules stuff, it's also the more viable one, but it certainly will need modifications. Do you plan to include riggers with drones, too? And hackers and AR?

From a business standpoint it would probably make sense to go with the current version of rules to allow some easy transfer from PnP to Game and backwards (with all the map and story material we will produce one could think of doing some nice pdf downloadable adventures). But again: we haven't decided yet.

PDF downloadable adventues? That's a nice idea! Also, if there'd be an editor application of some kind, where one could create and upload their own maps from default tiles and objeckts ...

Then I'd only dream of a viable character model creatior with decent detail, and freedoms like APB (and yes, I know full well that isn't exactly soemthing that will see the light for business reasons, hence dream) in customisation, and you could do most character management in SRO ... though especially for orks and trolls, a good character image generator would really, really be helpful, sicne it's extra hard to find images on the internet for them.

I'd totally pay for that, FWIW.

[Stahlseele]

yeah, as we said: move in real time and go turn based once combart starts would be my current way to go...
Regarding rules: As far as our game goes, the differences aren' that much of an issue, as they mostly touch areas that do not affect us (for example the game would not have a Karma pool of dice anyway, we would need to "translate" that in some way). I must admit I haven't played 4th edition yet (and actually was introduced to Shadowrun with the second edition when it just came out), so I am reserving my judgement on that. From a business standpoint it would probably make sense to go with the current version of rules to allow some easy transfer from PnP to Game and backwards (with all the map and story material we will produce one could think of doing some nice pdf downloadable adventures). But again: we haven't decided yet.

What Hermit just said basically.
Sheeiit . . Micro$ucks should have let you guys do the game back then . .

[primetide]

Sorry not to have been as clear as I should have, I was thinking of browser application examples.

Emotionally I'm all for SR3, and with a machine doing all the troubling and complicated rules stuff, it's also the more viable one, but it certainly will need modifications. Do you plan to include riggers with drones, too? And hackers and AR?

I think Battlestar Galactica Online is using Unity, but I am not 100%.. But in all reality Unity in the web simply scales down things like textures and lighting. The rest is the amount of asset data (hence not an open world game, since it would constantly swap asset from and to memory)- otherwise you can do 3D just fine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Riggers - probably, but we don't want a pure "crafter" class which only runs drones in combat, so we are looking into some changes there. AR: definitely: if you can "see" AR, you will actually be able to see a whole new layer of the game (same for spirit world) you can interact with.

[Stahlseele]

Well, under SR3, you had more Vehicle Riggers who had some Drones maybe.

[hermit]

Riggers - probably, but we don't want a pure "crafter" class which only runs drones in combat, so we are looking into some changes there. AR: definitely: if you can "see" AR, you will actually be able to see a whole new layer of the game (same for spirit world) you can interact with.

I played my Rigger as part of an insertion team accompanied by drones since SR1 (it's really hard to play a dedicated rigger otherwise), since it was never stated you need to be in full immersion for captain's chair (and the drones just borrowed my rigged initiative). It's viable by 2E/3E rules. If you want to go with the more well-known, apply the rigger as he is in SR4, though really nothing has changed there, only now it's spotlighted.

I think Battlestar Galactica Online is using Unity, but I am not 100%.. But in all reality Unity in the web simply scales down things like textures and lighting. The rest is the amount of asset data (hence not an open world game, since it would constantly swap asset from and to memory)- otherwise you can do 3D just fine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Okay, thanks. It's just that this is soemthing the browser was never meant to do, so it could easily eat ressources like crazy, I guess. Also, I'm just curious. Will have a look at BSGO.

[Sengir]

Jep, close to that, but much more "stealth" missions, where you must not raise alarms, because the place will be crawling with rent-a-cops quickly.

Sounds a bit like Commandos, doesn't it?

Also AR will play a major role as will hacking.

Just AR, or will you give us the full matrix?

[Stahlseele]

Just . . one minor plea here . . Please DO NOT USE THE TERM HACKING. Use Decking. Please? ;_;

[Bigity]

Just . . one minor plea here . . Please DO NOT USE THE TERM HACKING. Use Decking. Please? ;_;

Oh no you didn't!


(Actually I'm on your side. I wonder if I could modify the pdfs to replace hacking/hacker/hack with decking/decker/deck (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[CanRay]

I miss cyberdecks. And I never got to play with them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Stahlseele]

someone even went to the trouble of macking a game called decker which was modeled after the SR3 Decking Rules.
yes, horribly complicated, why do you ask? O.o

[KarmaInferno]

One word:

Pixies?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

More seriously, is the race selection going to be just the core metahuman regular races, or will there be options to select racial variants and stuff like spirits and AIs and sapient critters ?

I'm guessing it's just the core races, but one can hope.




-k

[Stahlseele]

Pictsies

[primetide]

One word:

Pixies?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

More seriously, is the race selection going to be just the core metahuman regular races, or will there be options to select racial variants and stuff like spirits and AIs and sapient critters ?

I'm guessing it's just the core races, but one can hope.


-k

The game will run on micro-transaction- so it is a free to play and lives by people paying for extra stuff. In that sense: if you bring enough dough, we can talk spirits and AIs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[hermit]

Ouch. Do you not want my money? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

That said, I'm curious what will become of this.

[Blade]

@hermit: if you want to see what Unity can do, you can take a look here or there