Shadowrun Online - The MMO, What are your thoughts? Options

[paul_HArkonen]

well then what is your suggestion for how to balance the player speed vs. the character speed?

[Trax]

How about some kind of "bullet time" effect, or like what they are doing in the Matrix Online?

[paul_HArkonen]

For some of us, (me for example) you'll have to explain what Matrix online is doing.

[Trax]

Personally no idea, i'm not in the beta. But it's kinda like in the movies where the action around the person slows down and they do all those moves. Someone else watching however would see it all in a slightly accelerated motion, like when the agent is doding the bullets.

That's just a guess though.

[Kagetenshi]

Unfortunately for it to do exactly what you describe the game would actually have to bend time, so I'm going to say it probably doesn't do that.

What it probably does is slows the game down for everyone else in the immediate area, which is essentially a "weak" turn-basing.

~J

[Thanos007]

Paul. Seriously. PD. Not gonna happen. Ev-er. Give it up. The only way I would even consider playing a game with PD is if you find a way to limit or outright stop griefers. Don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

Turn based? How about if it can include anyone. You're deep in the arcology and stumble across a group already in combat. On the next turn as determined by your init. you can join, or not, combat.

As for the haters. How about this. Offer constructive criticism (which pretty much you have been) but with out some of the attitude. Why not say, "Heres where I think there is a problem for me personally or everyone generally. This is my take on it and how I would solve it. Or this is a problem but I don't know how to solve it. Good luck with that.

Think about it. Grey Pawn seems like he wants to change how these types of games work and are played. Is it too much to ask for a little help. Also think of how cool it would be if 1)they nail the atmosphere of SR and 2) they come close to a rules/character set that reflects the pnp game.

Thanos

Thought about it. Turn based doesn't seem like it would work.

This post has been edited by Thanos007: Jan 11 2005, 10:40 PM

[Kagetenshi]

How about this-- how about there's someone here making an extraordinary claim (that they can make a Shadowrun MMORPG work)? How about extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? How about nothing is going to get improved by saying what a great idea this is and coming up with all sorts of great ideas for it? The problem with this project isn't the lack of good things for it. They sprout up like weeds, they're so damn common. No, what we need is to rip this project to shreds, to tear every idea to pieces, and then if anything emerges, well then, then we'll say GreyPawn has a viable project.

We, or at least I, am telling him why he can't do this well. The only acceptable answer is to come right back and tell me why I'm wrong, not say I should stop the hating.

And I want to reiterate: I hope he succeeds. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother with all this.

~J

[Core Dump]

What's that thing about speed?

I mean, getting wired 3 doesn't make you go faster a la Max Payne or something, just makes you react much more quickly, allowing you to perform more actions without delays in a set amount of time.

move-by-wire only makes you go ultra smooth and maybe more fluid/speedy than normal human, but not a la bullet time.

The normal SR system works well in a MMORPG:
1d init: Act once every 3 seconds
2d init: Act twice every 3 seconds
and so on.

Or the other way around, initiative reduces cooldown of actions, which is more inline. For example, normally, Complex Action(spells) takes 3 seconds to cast, and simple, 1.5. If you are wired 1, it take 2 seconds for complex and 1 for simple, and so on.

Maybe not making it random with reaction tho, maybe an average, or use reaction just for surprise and round order or something.

[GreyPawn]

Let me see if I can answer a few questions at a time here.

On Combat
Firstly, to the suggestion and question about what The Matrix Online is doing for combat- The Matrix Online is doing an "interlock" system of combat, which is a unique thing to MMOs. It functions on a basic rock/paper/scissors style of determining who is winning the combat and why, interspersing this with interesting looking movie-esque manuevers. The advantage to this is that it makes combat really interesting to watch and participate in. The disadvantage is that the learning curve for the interface and system can be a little troublesome to players more accustomed to the more orthodox means of combat.

Turn-based variants are not a viable option for a persistant state world. At least not right now. The problem with making an MMO turn-based is that the entire world would be in such a flux it would be immersion breaking. Now, don't get me wrong, turns *will* pass, in very much a similar way that they do in the pen & paper RPG, but turns in combat will be seamlessly integrated. Wholly turnless combat in an MMO would create something along the lines of Unreal Tournament. The ideal is a balance between the First Person Shooter turnless style and a Fallout action points system. Balance, predictable user-functions and immersion are the key elements to consider when thinking about combat and how it will be translated into an MMO.

Permanent or even temporary character death is not an option. You don't get to put character death in an MMO that you want to be successful. As in, having over 10k subscribers. While I do understand the direction that the character death purists are coming from, do understand that a tabletop pen & paper and an MMO are different types of creatures. You cannot save your progress in an MMO, because the world is persistant and does not center around the personal player, unlike single-player PC games. When you log out of a PC game in which you can Quicksave and Quickload your 1 life character, the world ceases to exist. Not so in an MMO. When you log out of Ultima Online, EQ, DAoC, WoW and all of the other MMORPGs, the world continues to churn regardless of your absence. The investment of a great many man-hours in a person's character could potentially be wiped out completely by a faulty dialup connection or a lapse in judgement. Additionally, the pen & paper variant allows for GM discretion regarding character death. A universe programmed in cut and dry code is not so forgiving as your friend Bob the GM who hands out Hand-of-Gods like Halloween candy.

The character death issue is really probably the only thing not open for change in the SRO project. It would utterly doom the game before even being pitched.

In response to Core Dump, you hit the nail right on the head. Thats exactly how I see Initiative being used in the game, and it makes the most sense. Action number in a set amount of time and action recycle. It also lends to greater ease in mechanics balancing to avoid some issues experienced in the pen & paper.

[noneuklid]

[Kagetenshi]

I disagree; in my experience, the time to challenge the feasibility of a project is at the beginning. Again, this is something with loads of ideas possible: metaplanes? Following SR canon through the years and introducing tech, gear, etc. over time? Using the actual SR attack/damage system behind-the-scenes, allocating combat pool to attack and defense in a menu? I submit that the death of this project, if it comes, will not be lack of ideas; it will be a focus on the ideas and neat things to the exclusion of addressing what simply doesn't work.

That being said, I'll try to intersperse my assaults with a suggestion or two.

~J

[SpasticTeapot]

[noneuklid]

You can't do turn-based in an MMO that has any real-time components whatsoever. In other words, the game has to ALWAYS occur in turns- and every player logged in has to submit their action for the turn, so no going afk or whatnot without jamming up the entire world- or you can NEVER use turns, because the times wouldn't mesh up (you'd have a player running around doing realtime things while their teammate keeps an enemy locked up in a '3 second turn' for minutes or hours). There are ways to alleviate this problem (giving turns a real-time limit, for instance), but no real way to eliminate it. Belive me, I've tried (I do a bit of math and concept for a friend's MUD; can't code worth crap, but I can put it down in ways the programmers understand).

Oh, and you *can* do better than 'push button and slash' for melee, but it's pretty damn difficult. The uber way of doing this is to combine FPS and fighting genres, but that's probably over-complicated; you'd have to have a game that played sometimes like Counterstrike and sometimes like Soul Calibur. The compromise, of course, is to use the Brawler genre approach- if you've ever played a game like the Hunter console games (based on the RPG) or Red Star (I think it's called- newish one for xbox, based on a comic book), etc, you know what I mean.

[Arethusa]

Turn based strategy is potentially viable online with a hybrid squad based strategy format. However, my real advice would be to ditch most of the SR rules and start from the ground up. There's no reason you can't have an online RPG that handles its shooting like a game designed to handle firearms, as oppoesed to every mistaken online RPG thus far that has tried and failed.

But, all that said, while I can say I don't find a workable design impossible, I do find the project's success dubious, and I really fall in Kage's camp in terms of skepticism. From what I've read so far, I'm not sure you guys really understand what you can be getting into here.

[noneuklid]

I agree that it's unlikely, but like Kage, I really hope it succeeds. Since the whole premise of this project is to pitch a complete idea to Microsoft and then have them code and market the game, it seems like the two hardest elements are coming up with a design that enough of the community agrees on to have enough people supporting the project that MS is interested in the potential revenue.

Having a squad-based game probably wouldn't work for a persistant MMO, although it would function just fine if the characters were persistant but the 'world' was created on an on-demand basis.

[Arethusa]

To clarify, going the turn based squad level strategy route demands instancing, which has its own fairly significant downsides.

[noneuklid]

Well... you'd have to have a totally instanced system; even something as simple as walking into a shop from the street would need a new 'area'.

And oh Eris the streets... frag, how would you handle those with any nod towards reality whatsoever?

[FrostyNSO]

It'd certainly be great for Shadowrun as a genre if this were to succeed, but alas, a small part of me hopes it doesn't...I in no way have enough free time to devote to an MMO game, which by their natures, tend to be very time consuming.
I think an MMO would turn off quite a few players because of this.

A Deus-Ex style game with multiplayer capabilities would be ideal in my opinion. Especially if it included a world-builder and GMing system (only much better) similar to that found in Neverwinter Nights.

[Sabosect]

I've been reading this for some time and must say that without PD, you pretty much defeat the purpose of ShadowRun and make a game as far from SR as you can get. A lot of the SR's atmosphere is provided by the little voice in the back of your head that is telling you your character can very well die. It is how you sit there and ask yourself how you can get your character out alive ICly. And you know that there are no "Get out of Death Free" cards and that it will be permanent. You remove that, you might as well make a fancy version of Candyland, as they'll both be equally SR.

What you have is a game that will be based on SR, but it won't be SR.

[Stumps]

[Stumps]

And another thing.

Everyone seems to be concentrating on an idea based around the concept that "Shadowruns" will purely come from the game engine and be game made quests.

Why does that have to be the case?

Offer up the option for players to play as Mr. Johnsons.
This removes ALL of the responsibility resting on the game to offer jobs, and it opens up more diversity to what the players are offered.

Every roll that there is in Shadowrun (minus the "don't touch that's" ...IE's) is an option for the players to play as.

Corporate Executive? Sure.
Corporate Runner? Sure.
Corp Scientist? Why not.
Street Doc? Go for it.
Mr. Johnson? Almost a must.
Lonestar Officer and other positions? Hell yes.

It can go on and on and on.

Players are the BEST counter-check for players.

[paul_HArkonen]

I have to agree with Stumps on the option for players to be a Corp employee, Johnson, or whatever else, but I'm not sure people would want to play one. I can see Myself, an Avid RPer, a person who would be playing this to RP a character, choosing to be a johnson, or a Corp exec, or whatever, but the average Joe that an MMO has to sell to, I'm not so sure. I can see Johny "first time ever hearing of SR" Smith sitting down in front of his computer and building his character. "Ooh, I can have cyberware, and be fast like Neo, or I can have magic and 'cast the spells that makes the people fall down'" but I don't see a first time player deciding, "I can have cyber, or magic, but I think I'll be really good at talking, yeah, that's it, I'll talk, a lot." It's a great Idea, and I wish people were interested enough in it, but some how I suspect they wouldn't be.

In terms of PD I think Sabosect is right, with no PD it's not really SR. Now I understand that it would be hard to sell, but I just don't know of a way to have characters not die and still maintain the atmosphere of SR, where every mistake could end it, permanently. I am open to any realistic suggestions, but without PD I have visions of runners all just trying to cut their way through the Arc, dieing, and then trying it again to try and gain XP, or complete the "run" they've been assigned.

I don't know what to do about the speed issue, but my only thought is, You can't make it real time. The obvious reason for that is I, the player, can't even track movement of 4-5 actions a second, it becomes a giant blur to me. If you slowed down everything all the time you'd have a feeling of clunkyness, and just going to shop for something would take hours in real time. I understand the difficulty of turns, and I realize that they are difficult to implement in an MMO, because they do lead to a discontinuity, And they lead to set aside "combat zones". I don't know, Stumps's idea has merits, but only if we were to slow down a combat turn, like if instead of 3 seconds it was 30 seconds. I could track the movement, a Sam could get his X number of actions off, and the mage could spend the full 30 taking his. I don't know how well it would work, but that's my suggestion.

I would love to see this succeed, I really would, but I agree with Kage, as do a few others. If we don't really scrutinize the project now, before we're enamoured with our own brilliance, we never will, and we will end up with a second rate Idea, one that doesn't do SR justice.

[Kagetenshi]

Stumps: in addition to Paul's point, you need a huge userbase to make that kind of thing self-sustaining.

~J

[paul_HArkonen]

I'd think you need a huge Userbase to make any MMO work. And don't get me wrong Stump's idea is exactly what I think an MMORPG should have, almost entirely self contained content, everyone is a PC, but I just don't know that it could work.

[Kagetenshi]

It's true that you need a huge userbase to begin with, but I think really making it self-sustaining would require an order of magnitude more users (I could see a MMORPG growing rather than dying with high hundreds of player, but I can't see self-sustaining without player quantities in the thousands).

~J