[X] My Assistant

[Stahlseele]

http://video.golem.de/games/3264/deus-ex-h...on-trailer.html whoo O.o doesn't THAT sound like Shadowrun? ^^

[Abstruse]

Yay, dragging up a dead thread!

However, Mr. Dowd was speaking about the processing power of having dual textures for everything in Physical and Astral. I used to play Ultima Online (6 years clean next month) and, in that game, when you died everything turned black and white. Same textures, just the color pallet was turned greyscale. How hard would it be to create a system that did something similar, but any active components (character avatars and NPCs) have a different texture? And, since it's astral, it wouldn't need to be as detailed. One for each character type and just differ the colors based on emotional states (which could be simplified to something like combat ready vs. not combat ready, wounded vs. not wounded, magically active vs. not magically active). If you want more info beyond that, you would then have to attempt to assense the target using your...whatever the hell the 4th ed skill is for it is, I'm too lazy to look it up. Then you get detailed info similar to the sort of AR HUD you'd get on users if you clicked on them (like in UO, you could get someone's basic that were available on-sight by pulling up a menu on them).

Just a thought...I'm just a casual gamer and not a game designer or programmer...just seems like it doesn't have to be as hard as it sounds.

[Blade]

No, seriously the whole physical/astral texture thing is a non issue. Today graphic cards can do a lot of fancy operations on the fly that would do the trick. Switching between thermo/low-light works seamlessly in a lot of games and making something similar for the astral world isn't a problem.

[Stahlseele]

that is the EASY part though. . .

[Abstruse]

No, seriously the whole physical/astral texture thing is a non issue. Today graphic cards can do a lot of fancy operations on the fly that would do the trick. Switching between thermo/low-light works seamlessly in a lot of games and making something similar for the astral world isn't a problem.

Frankly, I wouldn't care if the graphics were on the level of Nethack...I'd still play it.

[KarmaInferno]

It'd be neat if the Astral WASN'T a clone of reality, that it was depicted as similar but distorted, like the way the astral plane in the Soul Reaver games was depicted.

Like in an urban blight area the buildings grow slightly and look even more oppressive and gloomy, while a wilderness area would look even more wild and lush. You could even have areas become more or less accessible due to the distortions.


-karma

[Fuchs]

Did anyone check into APB? All Points Bulletin, new MMOG/FPS.

[Stahlseele]

Did anyone check into APB? All Points Bulletin, new MMOG/FPS.

A Point Buy?

[CanadianWolverin...]

A Point Buy?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/57500/

About the Game
Imagine a living, breathing Pacific Rim city, its streets full of vehicles and thousands of civilians going about their daily life.

For the first time ever, put such a city online. Introduce 100,000 players to each world and 100 players to each action district instance of the city. Their mission: to gain fame and fortune, fast.

Many will become Criminals, supporting themselves by feeding on the citizens of San Paro. Other players will choose to join the Enforcers – and feed on the Criminals.

Every single player will be unique, thanks to APB’s cutting-edge customization technology, with personalized looks, clothing, tattoos, vehicles, and music.

Imagine joining in. Which side will you pick? How will you play? Will you choose to achieve celebrity for your sheer style? Notoriety for your skills with a gun? Will you join a Clan, or lone-wolf it?

Will you do favors for Contacts around the city, completing directed missions, or choose to concentrate on open-world sandbox activities? Do you want to top the leaderboards (tracking Kills, Arrests, Mission Success rates, and other competitive stats) or do you want to stay under the radar, pulling off daring jobs under the opposition’s nose?

Welcome to the evolution of action games into a persistent online space. You’re going to love it.

Experience fast-paced third-person action in a persistent multiplayer online world.
From Dave Jones the original creator of GTA.
Earn money, clothing, weapons, and cars as you play
Master the radically different styles of gameplay aimed at each Faction
Gain real-life celebrity through in-game displays of your characters and designs
Cause havoc, gunning down your rivals while hanging out the window of a speeding car during a chase
Stalk Criminals through back alleyways to arrest them
Become San Paro’s premier car thief, clothing designer, “death theme” artist, or assassin. It’s up to you

.....

Oh yay! We are talking about one of my favorite subjects again!

First off - Forget a ShadowRun MMO, it would suck. The biggest point of "suck" for me IMHO would be essentially once I paid for my digital BBB (or DVD boxed set if you still retail despite most brickNmortar treating PC gaming like a-holes) for x amount of $ plus the mothly subscription ... and then it runs out, my character's involvement in that world goes *poof* and I have some useless digital form of a BBB on my digital shelf. Oh, I want to use it again? Better fork out for another month! *gags* And you thought the DLC cash grab was sick.

Next up - This is a way better point than my first negative nancy point. I buy (usually on a 50% or more sale) and play a lot of games and they all have a lot of elements that scream Shadowrun to me:
XCOM, Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Jagged Alliance 2, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, No One Lives Forever 1 & 2, Vampire Grand Theft Auto series, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 (and expansions and DLC and fan made mods and servers), Splinter Cell, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Alpha Protocol (want to get) ... and the list can go on and on as I am sure you are all aware.

I think the possibility of a Shadowrun "video game" is more than just a possibility with all the good games that have paved paths along all the various elements that make up its diverse setting. I believe the games not only represent that the technical and thematic hurdles can be over come but that they also represent there is a market among gamers in fairly profitable numbers even at the ridiculous margins of AA or AAA games after all the involved parties get their piece ... and that is only the start too, when you start getting into expanded content thanks to community efforts and commercial ventures with a stable development platform to launch off of for new content which costs less to produce into an established loyal bunch of consumers who are active in participating in communicating their desires to purchase new product...

Oh, and PC Gaming is far from dead, the big publishers are just pricing themselves out of the market with their inefficiencies due to lack of meaningful discourse with their consumers, that is a power vacuum new and innovative independent (free of most publisher restraints) are moving into, especially thanks to expanding Digital Download platforms or even self distribution they are cutting out the middle men for bigger piece of the pie.

Oh well, I guess until Smith & Tinker wake up and realize that the piss poor showing had a lot to do with it competing in the wrong section of the electronic gaming market (Multiplayer FPS - taking on the likes of the Unreal Tournament series, seriously?) since it didn't hold true to its RPG roots, I'll just have to content myself with all the other games that have elements of the Shadowrun setting and mechanics that new releases seem to have little problem entering into. *shrug*

[Tanegar]

First off - Forget a ShadowRun MMO, it would suck. The biggest point of "suck" for me IMHO would be essentially once I paid for my digital BBB (or DVD boxed set if you still retail despite most brickNmortar treating PC gaming like a-holes) for x amount of $ plus the mothly subscription ... and then it runs out, my character's involvement in that world goes *poof* and I have some useless digital form of a BBB on my digital shelf. Oh, I want to use it again? Better fork out for another month! *gags* And you thought the DLC cash grab was sick.

An MMO subscription fee is qualitatively different from DLC. Running however many server farms it takes to have an MMO costs money, and lots of it. The subscription enables the basic functionality of the game. If nobody subscribes, there is no game. The fact that it also pays for continued development in the form of new features and content is a bonus. DLC is nothing but content, and usually not much of it. (I have to say the first Borderlands DLC was pretty good, though, more like a small expansion.)

Whether or not you are willing to subscribe to the service is, of course, a personal decision, but please don't try to argue that the subscription fee is somehow a ripoff.

[CanadianWolverin...]

An MMO subscription fee is qualitatively different from DLC. Running however many server farms it takes to have an MMO costs money, and lots of it. The subscription enables the basic functionality of the game. If nobody subscribes, there is no game. The fact that it also pays for continued development in the form of new features and content is a bonus. DLC is nothing but content, and usually not much of it. (I have to say the first Borderlands DLC was pretty good, though, more like a small expansion.)

Whether or not you are willing to subscribe to the service is, of course, a personal decision, but please don't try to argue that the subscription fee is somehow a ripoff.

Oh, I understand that is why the subscription fee exists, perhaps if an individual could set up their own server rather than have to buy into it I might not disagree so vehemently with the model, but in comparison to other existing models, IMHO, it is a rip off. The expansions of the NWN series and Guildwars series were far more desirable for a customer such as myself. I quite enjoy as well that my copies of games don't have an expiration date that I feel I have to play right away to get full satisfaction for my entertainment $, that's a load off that it is, not having another bill to worry about on top of the essentials already taking up the majority of my monthly income. I simply detest the MMO subscription payment model as a consumer.

I liken it to being akin to if a book I bought goes out of print, doesn't stop me from reading my copy and I don't have to pay again at that. But if I was told I had to pay again in order to continue reading my copy of SR4A repeatedly and at my leisure? I don't think I would have bothered picking it up in the first place.

So yes, I will try that argument, heck I'll live it and not spend a $ on an subscription based game, thank you very much.

[Dumori]

Guild Wars is a still active and to and extent thriving MMO with out subscription.

[KarmaInferno]

Guild Wars is an odd duck in the MMO industry. (And yes, I know a lot of folks don't consider it a true MMO)

It relies on purely box sales, which also means it relies on a steady stream of folks purchasing boxes. This is a mix of new customers buying the game for the first time and existing ones buying the expansions.

This however means they make a LOT less profit than a standard pay-to-play MMO. Or even a Micro-Transaction MMO, which is what most other so-called "free" MMOs are.

I can certainly believe they are turning enough profit to be 'comfortable'. I think, though, that a part of the reason they're still around is because they are attached to the MMO giant NCSoft. Since NCSoft has multiple other MMOs out there oing quite well, they can probably afford another one that might not be quite as profitable and thus are willing to keep it around.

Another game studio might not be that willing, especially since most of the other studios at most have one MMO running and don't have the 'padding' to spend on riskier propositions.




-karma

[Tanegar]

The expansions of the NWN series

Neverwinter Nights is not and never has been an MMO, and is irrelevant to this discussion. Guild Wars, as KarmaInferno pointed out, uses a unique revenue model, and even its own developers don't classify it as an MMORPG.

[CanadianWolverin...]

Neverwinter Nights is not and never has been an MMO, and is irrelevant to this discussion. Guild Wars, as KarmaInferno pointed out, uses a unique revenue model, and even its own developers don't classify it as an MMORPG.

Er, I didn't classify NWN as a MMO and it is very relevant to this discussion about a SR "video game". Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the multiplayer side of Neverwinter Nights 1&2? There were persistent community servers last I checked.

Are you trying to say only MMO games are only relevant to a discussion about the possibility of a SR video game? If so, I very much disagree with that opinion. We have plenty of praise even without the nostalgia for a decades old SR single player video game and heap large amounts of well deserved scorn on the more recent SR multiplayer FPS video game - what should that tell you about only using multiplayer games as examples for a possible future SR video game?

Irregardless of classification, if a game uses a subscription model so I can use its mechanics and content only while their servers are up doesn't work for me personally as a customer and I am sure I am not alone in that opinion.

[Tanegar]

Now I suspect you of being deliberately obtuse. You're the one who brought up NWN and Guild Wars in relation to MMOs, in a thread where the last ~1.5 pages of discussion has been about MMOs.

Oh, I understand that is why the subscription fee exists, perhaps if an individual could set up their own server rather than have to buy into it I might not disagree so vehemently with the model, but in comparison to other existing models, IMHO, it is a rip off. The expansions of the NWN series and Guildwars series were far more desirable for a customer such as myself. I quite enjoy as well that my copies of games don't have an expiration date that I feel I have to play right away to get full satisfaction for my entertainment $, that's a load off that it is, not having another bill to worry about on top of the essentials already taking up the majority of my monthly income. I simply detest the MMO subscription payment model as a consumer.

(emphasis added)

In point of fact, I am firmly convinced that the only way to deliver the Shadowrun experience in a video game is in a conventional multiplayer (not massively multiplayer) format, possibly but not necessarily including realtime GM capability. A single-player game would either need some damn impressive teammate AI, or it would have to be a squad-based tactical game. As for MMOs, once you open the door to every Tom, Dick and jackass on the planet, the experience goes right out the window and it's just another grind.

[CanadianWolverin...]

Now I suspect you of being deliberately obtuse. You're the one who brought up NWN and Guild Wars in relation to MMOs, in a thread where the last ~1.5 pages of discussion has been about MMOs.

(emphasis added)

In point of fact, I am firmly convinced that the only way to deliver the Shadowrun experience in a video game is in a conventional multiplayer (not massively multiplayer) format, possibly but not necessarily including realtime GM capability. A single-player game would either need some damn impressive teammate AI, or it would have to be a squad-based tactical game. As for MMOs, once you open the door to every Tom, Dick and jackass on the planet, the experience goes right out the window and it's just another grind.

Honestly, not trying to be obtuse at all. The sentence you put emphasis on, it was not my intention to say those were MMOs but rather games that met my expectations of being able to pay once, play with no strings attached, and bonus, the games provided multiplayer experiences if that is what I wanted but they also provided single player experiences as well. That those games were not MMOs or subscription based is why I brought them up, they served as examples of another option to the problem of a electronic gaming space that would serve the needs for SR game that players could run together. I think NWN was especially good example since it also allowed for the GM interaction in the game play in addition to all the custom content generation with a player side client map designer and if the scheduled instanced games didn't work out, one could visit the persistent world servers with multiple GMs / server admins.

I hope you can see now, we weren't really disagreeing at any point, perhaps I wasn't clear enough or perhaps you didn't comprehend. *shrug* Oh well, neither here nor there but I hope it has become apparent there is stuff there we agree on as well.

Ugh, the grind, the completely unnecessary dragging out of repetitive tasks either to advance character level or complete a gather x items job that doesn't even have any impact on the setting. Definitely a point not in a MMOs favor without a doubt. But how do you feel about instanced mission areas? I heard D&DO uses those to good effect by having goal oriented missions rather than the grind fests.

The Tom, Dick, and jackass thing we manage to over come though by finding like minded individuals, which is usually done just by joining a game in which the GMs of that server promote a particular style of play and joining a gaming community / clan. I find things like Steam and Xfire friend list pretty helpful as a way to end up in a multiplayer game with others I know I will enjoy playing with. I figure dealing with the a-holes is just par for the course of playing a multiplayer game.

[Mr. Mage]

It would be a lot of fun if they made a SR FPS similar to Deus Ex. You could incorporate a lot of fun shlock into it. You'd only get on-screen HUD information if you had a Smartlink, and otherwise you wouldn't even get a reticle unless you toggled Aim Down Sights. Wired Reflexes would let you turn bullet time on and off. Astral projection would let you float around in noclip spectator mode but your vision would be all jacked up. SR2 style decking would be like a FPS mini-game that looked like Tron. Hell yeah!

That does sound fun, kind of a mix between Oblivion, Modern Warfare and well...I guess Deus Ex....hehe....
Until your vision hits stores I guess I'll just have to make do with the three I mentioned though.

I personally would not want to see a Shadowrun MMO, and I have a few reasons:

1) Because even though it wouldn't be SR without separate, Matrix and Astral Planes, that is a bad idea (IMO) in MMOs
Only some people would be able to access each of these worlds so you'd be excluding some of the players outright. Also, having multiple worlds might get a little annoying. It's hard enough making just one realm of existence (i.e. the video games material world...or whatever you call it) but making two more that are supposed to be parallel might get a little difficult.

2) The system doesn't transfer well
I am particularly in love with SR because it has a very deadly system. As you gain Karma points or money, you keep getting more powerful spells, new skills and bigger toys with which to kill your enemies. However, your enemies often already have those bigger toys, and as you increase in karma, you don't tend to increase how much damage you can take before dying. This is a big thing in SR in that character advancement works a bit differently than conventional MMO advancement. in WoW or Everquest, as you gain levels your weapons and abilities get more powerful, but you and your enemies also gain a buttload of hit points to offset that. Plus, SR is a levelless system, freeform, I don't know of any MMOs that are already like that. If you find one and give me a link though, I may change my opinion a bit...maybe.

3) Stop with the new MMOs, I've got plans
Despite my two earlier arguments, and any others I might think of, it will still be SR as an MMO. I will buy it and pay for the subscription just like I did for Age of Conan, Matrix Online, RF Online, EverQuest 2 and Guild Wars (tho Guild Wars is free to play, but I still had to buy the game!) not to metnion the multitude of console games I play both online and offline. I am currently playing WoW only and would like to keep it that way. I only plan to stop playing WoW when and if the Warhammer 40k MMO arrives (which is being worked on by Vigil Games, if you're interested). If a SR MMO comes out, then that is money and time which will not be spent on WH40k. I'm not a millionaire after all!

So I say: NO SHADOWRUN MMO PLEASE unless I win the Lottery...