 Shadowrun MMO (Dumpshock Vision), Not here (yet?), but what would you want |
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 Dec 20 2007, 10:56 PM
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#26
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Immortal Elf  Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670  |
that can be accomplished without making it an MMO. considering how difficult it apparently is to produce a good SR game, compounding that difficulty with the large problems inherent in producing a good MMO seems unwise.
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Dec 20 2007, 10:57 PM
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#27
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
sadly all of the stuff the guy of shadowrun online(now sixth world gaming) had planned/written up were taken down after micro shits cease and desist order . . there were some pretty good ideas in there . .
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Dec 20 2007, 11:42 PM
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#28
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Did SRO actually produce anything worthwhile? I kept tabs on them until such time as it seemed to me obvious that it wasn't worth my time.
~J |
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Dec 20 2007, 11:46 PM
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#29
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
they had a playable pre alpha if i remember correctly . . of course not even closed beta, only who had to got to see/try it . .
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Dec 21 2007, 01:54 AM
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#30
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Well, that's a matter of definitions. I mean, I've got a "playable pre-alpha" of a Shadowrun game if one is sufficiently generous…
~J |
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Dec 21 2007, 02:02 AM
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#31
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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 |
One thing that could be done is use player involvement to reduce development workload. Allow some players or groups of players to work their way up, own small to medium businesses, build facilities, and contract shadowruns against each other. Including a limited set of design tools can greatly expand the game without putting a an absurd workload on the paid developers.
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Dec 21 2007, 02:03 AM
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#32
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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 |
That was pretty much my feelings on SRO as well. |
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Dec 21 2007, 09:25 AM
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#33
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,629 Joined: 14-December 06 Member No.: 10,361 |
The biggest problem with a Shadowrun MMO is the second M. It's multiplayer. People will ruin it. Roleplaying and immersion are thrown out and grubbing for experience and loot and the need to be an anonymous dickhead to random people. This is what it would do to the role-playing game we enjoy:
BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? BLOOD_ELF69 [Troll_Killaz_Klan]: Any1 trade 4 Ruthenum? I need 8 Polymer 4 gank suit plz. Need 4 Arcology instance. Any1 trade plz? Mohawk_Blade: OMG Shutup stop spaming noob! every1 has ruthenium gank! R U Retarded? BLOOD_ELF69[Troll_Killaz_Klan]:: U R Noob! my clan wil KIL U, dickhed! Mohawk_Blade: Lol I have wired reflexes 2 u loser Il rape u and ur shit clan, my sammy has DIKOTE, noob. Hence the only Shadowrun game I could accept would be a non-linear FPS style RPG. Shadowrunning in a large sandbox style cyber-punk city. Runs and etc. would be a combination of one or two major story arcs, side-missions and randomly generated (mark a citizen for wetwork and get to it, bypass his security systems, incapacitate the guards and ice the target). A lot of the downtime between runs would involve traversing the city, avoiding the heat, hanging out in bars, cultivating contacts, fencing gear, breaking into random houses and such. It'd be much more like the Shadowrun that we play, although a lot of stuff on the edges of the game would have to be removed, eg. ship-to-ship combat, indirect fire, etc. Hopefully most of the conversation would be text based because voice-acting takes too much effort to comprehensively express a complex world (Compare Morrowind and Oblivion). It could be quite fun, I suppose. Wired Reflexes allowing you to use a Max Payne style Bullet-Time reflex trigger. Astral projection (with a load of crazy graphical filters and creatively designed spirits). The Matrix would probably the most interesting part, if done creatively. Wierd "gravity" and visual metaphors, running about on the ceiling, dying icons derezzing into static and blowing away, tron-esque neon pathways and such. Anyway, I'm rambling again. What's good about shadowrun is the atmosphere and the immersion. This is about as possible in a MMO as it is in a pig-pen. |
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Dec 21 2007, 12:29 PM
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#34
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
The FPS-style came can still have some RPG elements to it. The Vampire: Bloodlines game would be an example. You move around like it's a first (or third, your choice) person shooter, with the standard FPS button layout for "fire a gun" or "slash with a sword" but your effectiveness with those attacks varies based on your skills and attributes. Hell, even the Ghost Recon games had it (not the 360 ones, but the older ones) to an extent with characters getting better at shooting, leadership, etc over time. So an FPS feel and an RPG aren't completely incompatible, in theory at least.
Cockblock, Skywalker style! |
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Dec 21 2007, 12:35 PM
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#35
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,629 Joined: 14-December 06 Member No.: 10,361 |
Well that's what I meant by FPS style RPG. The Elder Scrolls, Vamp: Masquerade, Deus Ex (is the biggie), STALKER etc.
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Dec 21 2007, 03:44 PM
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#36
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 174 Joined: 21-May 06 Member No.: 8,583 |
:rollin: Doesn't anyone see how truly in character that exchange sounds? Okay, l33tsp3@k will be a tad dated in 50 years (or whenever it's set), and these folks sound more like recently graduated gangers than long time runners (the kind Mr. Johnson might want to use as decoys rather than for the "real goal,") but I would say Sir Psycho just now gave the most in character exchange I've seen outside of officially published material. 8) Seriously, folks. I think that while a Shadowrun MMO would be wonderful in principle, there are going to be a few problems: 1.: Scope Even if we just use Seattle, it stretches from Southern Puyallup all the way to Everett (80 miles ({ca. 130 Kilometers}), and from the Downtown Waterfront to the wall keeping Redmond from spilling into Salish-Sidhe (at least 35 miles {ca. 48 Kilometers}). That's a lot of streets to lay out and buildings to build even if only on the outside. Then there's the Tubes, the Ork Underground, the Big Garage, the Waterfronts at Tacoma and bellevue.... 2.: NPCs and PCs. We need more than just runners. We need fixers, Johnsons, talisleggers, fences of all kinds, gangs in the slums, syndicates, Lone Star, Company Men and Women (like Corporate Security), initiatory groups, policlubs, "charities," and even honest small businesses to launder money with and runners to hide behind. 3.: There will need to be at least some times when buildings will not be instanced, or at least not completely. For example, if multiple teams are hired, but at least some teams are decoys. Or when teams are sent after the same thing, or one team picked up something another team needs and doesn't know it... |
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Dec 21 2007, 05:02 PM
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#37
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
I think it's the first M. If it were a team-based FPS/RPG where you and up to three friends could try to complete the missions, that would be fine. It's when you add 10,000 other people you didn't personally invite that you get your hilarious example. Multiplayer campaign in Halo or Gears is great, if you could take good FPS action like that and string it together with RPG elements and a real plot, it would be phenomenal. A difficulty setting (like in every other FPS, only with a wider range) could adjust for having anything from 1 to 4 people playing though the campaign. You could make yourself a generalist and play by yourself on Easy, and you'd probably be forced to solve a lot of problems the hard way, 'cause you're a generalist, but that's okay because you're playing on Easy. Get yourself three friends and you can all make specialist characters who really kick ass and you can turn the difficulty from "easy" up to "Arcology." ;-) I think that would be fun. |
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Dec 21 2007, 05:04 PM
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#38
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,012 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
It would also mean you could be a lot more flexible, because you wouldn't have to worry about barring cheating—provided that you give an obvious way to play a "fair" game, anything the players do to make themselves overpowered is their own lookout.
~J |
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Dec 21 2007, 06:44 PM
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#39
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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 |
Then expand slowly. Build the barrens first. That's pretty easy anyway. If any part of Seattle draws on the current WoW paradigm it's Puyallup. As your player base grows, expand. WoW does that now, no reason 'we' couldn't. It's even more the case if you allow the players themselves to design new things. The first players will get more lucrative pay in order to keep up with the curve of expanding the world for the following players. That's an instant incentive to be an early adopter, which is a plus.
And many people have suggested that. You would have a bunch of NPCs who are basically monsters or standard fixers. That's pretty standard as MMRPGs go. So if you run into a part of the barrens, a bunch of gangers jump out and they're not interested in talking (or maybe they are, but only for money). You'd also have 'color' NPCs - bums getting warm by the fire, people walking between buildings, whatever. Pretty straightforward and boring. Corporate security and Lone Star would be generated specifically in response to particular actions. You break into a building, after a set number of minutes they span. They're reactive NPCs. But then you get into all the diverse PC jobs that could also be taken by NPCs if necessary. Drug dealers, pimps, street docs, Johnsons, fixers, weapons dealers, mafiosas, security people, hitmen, doc wagon and yes, possibly even runners if we have enough people. NPCs CAN play these roles, but there isn't much reason for them to if we can make it fun and profitable for players to. And the natural market forces will make it such that people will naturally seek whatever jobs are generally unoccupied. If people don't like to make drugs, the price of drugs will rise until people do it just for the money (just like real life!) and some people will learn how to do it well enough to drive the NPCs out of business.
I already gave my opinion on this. Generally speaking buildings shouldn't be 'instanced' and people should be able to interfere with one another. However the maps don't need to be static either. |
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Dec 21 2007, 06:55 PM
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#40
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 829 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 770 |
(snip) We should be so lucky - like every single other MMO out there the names would be some variant of Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, or Final Fantasy characters, or, more likely, Drizt. |
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Dec 21 2007, 07:01 PM
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#41
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
one thing i'll say that an SR MMO would have going for it--names like that would be perfectly realistic. runners aren't necessarily the most well-read group; i'm sure there'd be lots of them who'd think it the height of cleverness to name themselves after a character in some 100-year-old book.
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Dec 21 2007, 10:29 PM
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#42
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
I think it's not the names so much as the spamming and the use of numbers in place of letters. Mainly the fact that you have this schmuck standing outside of a black market auction house begging for something.
This could be solved, I think, by making the 'Star show up for you if you spam or make yourself a menace. Make it self-enforcable. IE, say this schmuck is making a nuisance of them. I can buy a disposable cellular comm at Stuffer shack, call and report him for something (murder or something), and dispose of the phone. Sooner or later the Star will show up - sooner, the more reports they get for one person. And in the Barrens, well... I can just put my gun to his head and tell him to shut up and hand me everything he owns, or I'll shoot him and take it myself. |
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Dec 21 2007, 11:30 PM
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#43
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Cybernetic Blood Mage Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 |
Personally I'd like to see a MMORPG that actually offically supported stand-alone servers and had decent AI 'bots' included.
Death would have to be very, very harsh, but Fourth Edition gives us a work-around, burn Edge or your character is trash. Total PvP would be a must, but combine it with realistic enforcement, gangs making everyone they see their bitches if they don't cough up protection money is doable, but watch out what you carry in the good side of the 'plex. Oh, and no name restrictions per-say, the only reason there aren't a million Runners calling themselves Fastjack is that Fastjack has his own ways to handle the problem, naming conventions should be policed by the community ... the flip side is that there isn't anything to keep a Runner from changing his streetname every couple of days other then possibly losing some of his contacts. However, I agree with the sentiment that if a Shadowrun MMORPG was ever done "right" it would be a huge failure because most people wouldn't want to deal with the grit and darkness that is necessary to stay true to the source... |
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Dec 22 2007, 09:39 PM
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#44
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,009 Joined: 25-September 06 From: Paris, France Member No.: 9,466 |
I've done some thinking about MMORPG's in general, and also about a SR MMORPG and I've come up with a few ideas that I like but wouldn't comercially work. Actually, most of the ideas could also apply to single player games.
To sum up : Single player-compatible part: 1) You have a world. Most games already have this. 2) You have NPCs, but they aren't your average scripted NPCs (except maybe for some wild creatures or minor NPCs. They are individuals. They have a story and they have a motivation. Instead of doing scripted things, they just try to reach their goals. They gather information and try to find the best way to reach their goals according to this information, their abilities and their personality. 3) NPCs can have an impact on the world: if a NPC wants to build a house, he'll build it. MMO elements : 4) Your character isn't a race/class/skill combo. It's not a bunch of numbers and one of the 5^8 possible look. The character creation requires you to answer a lot of questions (each with a lot of different possibilities) about your character past. This serves three purposes. First, it generates the character's stats. Secondly, it forces the player to see his character as more than just a bunch of stats. Third, it generates a backstory that'll be used inside the game. If, according to your answers, your character's sister has been recently killed by a gang, the game will include this story. It can use events that happened previously (for example if a female NPC has been killed recently by a ganger, the game can decide that this female NPC was the sister), or add it to the world. This way, you won't have the same quest as everyone, but it'll be much more personal. 5) You also have to answer question about your gaming habits and your overall goal in the game. This helps tailor your story and events to you. For example if you don't have a lot of time to spend on the game, your story won't be too long, to allow you to complete it one day. Also, if you mostly play on sunday afternoon, the game will try to pair you up with other players playing in the same time-frame. For example it can lead another player playing on sunday afternoon to have a grudge against the gang that killed your sister, so that you can team up with him. 6) Because of these players/players, players/world and NPC/world interactions, the world will be constantly changing according to the individual story of all players. This also means that your character will probably have experiences that'll give him new motivations after having finished his initial storyline. These are the main ideas. I've also got some opinions about other aspects (how to handle death, how to handle character progression and so on, what perspective to use) but they aren't as important. |
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Dec 23 2007, 02:03 AM
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#45
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Man In The Machine Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,264 Joined: 26-February 02 From: I-495 S Member No.: 1,105 |
Untill the highest level players (who are 15 and have nothing else better to do) start demanding protection money from all the new players. Id be laughing my ass off right up until I canceled my recurring subscription. |
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Dec 23 2007, 11:02 AM
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#46
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I would love to see a GTA:Online with a Shadowrun theme. And I would actually like to see the "Mob Trains" generated by characters who racked up a big police attention. It would need a more comprehensive rubric than the one in GTA (get 4 stars and police teleport to your area) with response times and physical locations, but I think it would be very doable.
This being an online game, there would basically always be a full-scale riot response somewhere in the city, which is extremely atmospheric. Also it makes decoy runs where you pull out heavy weapons and spray bullets at downtown store fronts and then start booking it all the more practical. The Commlink signal ranges actually act as a great in-game filter. You can send Matrix communications to anyone who has sent you their access code (your friends and teammates basically), but you can only broadcast to people within your signal range. So if someone is hawking oxygenated fluorocarbons or something, you automatically ignore them if you're on an archology run. And yeah, if you wander around the Barrens, you'll pass all kinds of AR icons of people trying to get you to purchase severed hands or drugs - which is perfect. You'd want to have multiple servers in order to keep the game world from filling up with too much crazy. But the basic dynamic of running around in dive bars "looking 4 group" is fine. -Frank |
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Dec 24 2007, 07:56 AM
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#47
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Cybernetic Blood Mage Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 |
*shrugs* Lindt, given the lethal nature of Shadowrun and the fact that there hard caps built into Fourth Edition (Which I assume any MMORPG would be based off of if we are trying to remain true to the source.) means that no matter how much Karma you have you can still be ganked provided that the AI is smart enough to react realistically to the characters to prevent everyone from walking around with Pather Canons and Mil-Spec Armor.
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Dec 24 2007, 08:49 AM
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#48
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Man In The Machine Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,264 Joined: 26-February 02 From: I-495 S Member No.: 1,105 |
Well, there really arnt hard caps built in. Mages can just keep right on initiating and being able to cast bigger and badder spells. Correctly built you could have a cybered to the gills Sammy who's also can cast spells.
Besides, because it IS such a lethal system, you dont need a Assault Cannon. Just a heavy pistol and move by wire. Or be an adept. Yay for tossing 18 dice. Its got some intrinsic issues. But I also throw up a little at the mention of an SR MMO. |
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Dec 24 2007, 09:19 AM
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#49
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
in 4th there's both hard caps for skill and attributes . . but of course things like smartlink and vision magnification and stuff still add more dice to that . . whoever thought that trolls for example were rolling too many dice when doing damage resistance tests seems not to have done his homework when they decided on the SR4 mechanics *g*
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Dec 24 2007, 01:12 PM
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#50
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 323 Joined: 17-November 06 From: 1984 Member No.: 9,891 |
Well, PvP. Bring it on. No neutral zones and shit like that. All out fragfest.
But since that would be too much grief, there will be neutral zones and boring stuff like that. Or only faction versus faction PvP. And for some reason they cant talk to each other :rotfl: A MMO for SR is just not going to work on a roleplaying level. Either you toss out the dangerous side of the game with removing PvP and only have attackable and attacing 'mobs' outside savezones, or you toss out any playablility by going all out massacre style where the whole server will be killed by retards who think its fun. All its going to be is collecting cash and gear while trying to be faster than other players. Just like any other MMO. |
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Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.