 FASA video game rights back where they belong |
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 Dec 11 2007, 06:32 PM
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#51
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Prime Runner  Group: Retired Admins Posts: 3,929 Joined: 26-February 02 From: .ca Member No.: 51  |
I'm not saying anything about S&T's intent [and don't know anything about it, either], but what I'm saying is: the former FASA properties have not been "saved from Microsoft" or anything like that. From everything I can tell, it's just a license deal; more or less the same sort of situation as Catalyst licensing Shadowrun from WizKids, just a different set of rights.
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Dec 11 2007, 07:56 PM
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#52
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
Clearly we need someone to break into MS's offices and steal the rights.
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Dec 11 2007, 09:26 PM
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#53
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Gee... That sounds a bit... Shadowy.
And I daresay on an expedition like that, there would be a lot of running (like you stole something), woulden't there be? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....... |
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Dec 12 2007, 03:24 PM
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#54
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 |
It does mean, though, that it's far more likely that something will be done with those rights rather than sit and gather dust in Microsoft's Basement of Unprofitable Ideas. It also means that FASA Studio won't have anything to do with whatever comes next with those rights and that someone with a personal connection to Shadowrun's roots will.
Everything I've been able to find out about Smith & Tinker suggests they are geared towards "transmedia." In the past, transmedia has been used by properties like The Matrix, Lost and Heroes as a way of promoting a fictional setting across many forms of media simultaneously, such as movies, television, cell phone short episodes, comics, online animations, anime, video games etc. Looks like Smith & Tinker is interested in that sort of thing, as well as adding toys to that mix. Transmedia Shadowrun sounds really cool, though I have no idea how that would bump up against the publishing rights. |
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Dec 12 2007, 11:57 PM
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#55
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 640 Joined: 8-October 07 Member No.: 13,611 |
Just what the world needs--more ARGs.
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Dec 17 2007, 11:59 PM
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#56
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 249 Joined: 2-November 06 From: Bozeman, MT Member No.: 9,762 |
Just thought that I'd point out that FASA studio (i.e. the video game design studio) Has been disbanded by MS. I was under the impression that most of its employees were subsumed into other devisions of MS's software development section. |
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Dec 18 2007, 08:51 PM
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#57
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
Wonderful. We can expect more quality product from the 'soft, then. |
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Dec 18 2007, 08:56 PM
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#58
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Um, you didn't happen to think that this team was particularly bad or something, did you?
(Not to disparage the 'Soft's developers. I'm sure they've got bad ones around, but from what I hear most of the suck is introduced at the management level.) ~J |
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Dec 18 2007, 08:59 PM
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#59
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,640 Joined: 6-June 04 Member No.: 6,383 |
Lots of people on these boards was saying that Shadowrun the video game was a mediocre project and that the lack of a single player mode was just a cheap effort to slash man-hours and not need any creativity in terms of level design. |
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Dec 18 2007, 10:07 PM
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#60
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
I've been loitering around the MS forums for a while, kicking out windows when no one is looking...
Yeah, about a third of the team was let go. Unfortunately, that seems to include the only guy on the team who actually played Shadowrun before the project was started and liked it (he actually has a Shadowrun Duels figure modeled after him!) Fortunately the guy is working again for... darn it, forgot the company. Someone that bought a bunch of pieces of Interplay and is based out of Illinois.) |
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Dec 18 2007, 10:26 PM
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#61
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
Berthesda?
Same guys making the new fallout? allways been saying, that a shadowrun mod for fallout 2 or tactics would have been RAD indeed *g* |
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Dec 18 2007, 10:39 PM
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#62
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Well, there's a few parts to this. One thing that is necessary is to recognize that there is a difference between a bad product, a bad team, and a collection of less-than-capable individuals. While these things are relatively interchangeable in one direction (less-than-capable people usually combine into a bad team, and a bad team usually produces a bad product), it isn't the case in the other—less so in the pairing of the first two parts, though a good team can produce bad products, but very much so in the pairing of the second two—taking individually competent people and combining them will not always, and I might go so far as to say will frequently not, produce a good team. Thus, the question's whether the individuals were bad, or if the rot started at the team level. If the latter, most of the individual members should be able to be placed into a team in such a way that it is a good team, which means that (especially for an organization this large, with this many teams) if they were hirable in the first place it's probably a good first choice to try to put them somewhere else, in a good team, rather than toss them out on the kerb. So now I get down to the question of why I think it may have been a team-level issue. The first is Mitch Gitelman, who was a manager and thus in a position to dictate much of the tone, focus, and design of the game. I'm not going to bother providing a detailed attack on him; if you don't already know, a quick search to see some of his public statements during development and shortly post-release should suffice. The second is the nature of the things you mention (I'm going to assume they're all true right now—I don't know what their reason for not including a single-player mode, and don't really care enough to determine the truth). They're all pretty explainable by bad direction at the top—slashing man-hours isn't a decision that most of the team makes, for example, that's a managerial decision. Level design is a little less direct, but I'm guessing that the game has bad level design because they didn't spend much money on level design, which means they didn't get many level designer and didn't have them spend a lot of time on this game. This would also be a managerial decision, as the level designers don't choose whether they get assigned to the project and in what numbers, or how long they're given to fiddle around and see how things work. It's possible that they got a proper team together and they were simply composed of bad designers, but I'm not sure I give much credence to that. Finally, there's the fact that from what I know, management is a fundamental weak point throughout Microsoft. All of my information is from third parties, so I'll defer to them for the defense of this (the first example that comes to mind is Mini-Microsoft). If true, this would increase the degree to which it is reasonable to assume managerial issues. So yeah, what you say doesn't indicate the members of the team are necessarily not the kind of people you'd want to have working on your game. ~J |
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Dec 19 2007, 01:39 PM
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#63
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Incertum est quo loco te mors expectet; Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,548 Joined: 24-October 03 From: DeeCee, U.S. Member No.: 5,760 |
No, Bethesda is based out of Bethesda (MD). Lemme check... Volition. Like I said, a good guy, actually plays Shadowrun and was the only developer who came to the forums to answer questions, explain things and so on, and never once told a lie (even when he was put in a rough spot). Apparently he was fired for 'failing to spread sufficient evil'. |
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Dec 19 2007, 05:49 PM
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#64
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,095 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Wa, USA Member No.: 1,139 |
I think conceptually it would be incredibly easy to make a good shadowrun MMO.
Races - Troll, Ork, Elf, Human, Dwarf Classes - Rigger, Decker, Adept, Shaman, Mage, Street Samurai, Face You go on "missions" to get "karma" and then spend "karma" on new abilities ala WoWs skill tree. The game would be similar to DDO in that you have to go on missions in order to gain karma (ie go on quests to get xp) running around killing random npc gives you no karma or loot. Sorta reminds me of a multiplayer version of the old sega game, only updated for modern gaming. |
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Dec 19 2007, 07:05 PM
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#65
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
that's only good if you want to play WoW with cyberware. i already play WoW; playing it with cyberware doesn't really appeal much.
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Dec 19 2007, 07:22 PM
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#66
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 |
I agree with mfb, but there are also other obstacles in the way of something like that. In WoW it's easy to have big social and quest hubs like the capital cities, with a scattering of appropriate adventurous NPCs. But in Shadowrun, you're talking about large city settings and shadowrunners make up a small segment of the population. Populating a quest/social hub with just fixers and Johnsons would feel wrong, conceptually. But filling it with all manner of random Sixth World people is a lot of overhead for little use, since most normal Sixth World people don't interact with the world of shadowrunners much.
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Dec 19 2007, 07:49 PM
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#67
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
there's also the question of what type of content to use. do you really want to raid Deus every week, hoping that he'll drop the +5 Ares Predator you've been after?
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Dec 19 2007, 07:57 PM
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#68
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
I know it's what I do. We've been farming bugs in Chicago for the last year looking for a rare drop.
~J |
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Dec 19 2007, 09:38 PM
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#69
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,579 Joined: 30-May 06 From: SoCal Member No.: 8,626 |
I could see an instance-based FPS/RPG hybrid working out quite well. Sort of a mix between Rainbow Six (Raven Shield, not that silly Vegas) and Deus Ex. You put a team together, pick a mission (that is algorythmically generated to be somewhat random at least) and run it. Maybe it's clearing a ghoul nest, maybe it's a simple package run, maybe it's breaking into Ares and fending off fire teams and hell hounds and drones, oh my!
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Dec 19 2007, 09:57 PM
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#70
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,095 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Wa, USA Member No.: 1,139 |
You assuming you need a +5 predator and that enemies drop loot. I'm saying you go on a run, you get cash and karma thats it. Karma is spent on abilities (no levels). Gear you buy off the fixer or other people. Also you could kill the "raid the same place" by not having repeatable quests. There of course are only so many combinations but you could randomly generate a whole lot of options. It would work out just fine but as a game company you need to accept the more true to shadowrun you are the less likely you are to get the number of players WoW has but you can still make plenty off a loyal following. |
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Dec 19 2007, 10:22 PM
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#71
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
This assumes that all of the PCs are Shadowrunners. Good MMORPGs have non-combat jobs for people who want to roleplay doing completely mundane everyday things. Ultima Online's extensive crafting system allowed PCs to roleplay seamstresses and chairwrights. A Sixth World MMO could, for example, include an extensive spreadsheet-based accounting engine, for players who want to roleplay accountants. Johnsons have to meet their clients somewhere, which provides a good excuse for the important parts of the cityscape (bars, night clubs, and adult book stores with viewing booths with holes in them). Actual meetings can be arranged by telecom. |
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Dec 19 2007, 11:05 PM
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#72
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
I just never understood this. Is there really that many people that actually pay money to do this? |
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Dec 19 2007, 11:14 PM
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#73
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Ain Soph Aur Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,477 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Montreal, Canada Member No.: 600 |
Not really different from paying money to sit at monster spawns and farm them for XP and some gold. Hell, playing a crafter, you probably end up with more diverse social interactions than "Heal Me!".
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Dec 19 2007, 11:34 PM
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#74
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
i'm still saying the guys of Shadowrun Online(now 6th world games) had it pretty much spot on with most of their design/concept ideas . .
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Dec 20 2007, 12:09 AM
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#75
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i don't see this working. that is to say, i've seen similar game design choices made in other MMOs--specifically Matrix Online--and they didn't work. if you just hand out universal resources as rewards for playing, then everybody will be able to acquire the best gear. similarly, randomizing missions will just become stale and boring, because any player will have exhausted all of the randomization options within a month of play--and some players will exhaust them within hours. non-randomized missions, while also repetitive, at least give one a strong sense of progression. MMOs, as they are currently played, are about repeating the same content over and over again in order to achieve goals (drops, levels, reputation, etcetera). in other words, grinding. the best MMOs give players many grinding options--many types of loot for their class, many factions to grind reputation with, many resource drains which the player must compensate for with further grinding. i don't think it's possible to create a set of SR grinding options that are both fun to do and even remotely true to the setting. but however it's done, i'm personally not interested in grinding SR at all. |
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