Edit to nix the cross-posting. Arguments in the other thread.

Hey, you know, I think Shadowrun is all about that big "fuck you" to everybody who isn't the right five guys for each given situation.

~J

exactly. that's part of why i'm saying an SR MMO would either not be fun, or not be true to the setting. because you can't say "fuck you" to all but five of your player base and honestly expect anybody who isn't those five guys to stick around.

You get 60,000 people slapping themselves for not having the guts to try it themselves. Then 30,000 of them get killed trying to take out Hestaby the next week. I think that's about perfectly SR....

Most people of the baby boomer generation remember where they were the day a lone gunman [on the grassy knoll] shot down John Kennedy. People of my generation remember where we were the day a lone magician firefielded Lord British to death.

He got banned, by the way.

The assasination of Lord British has one thing in common with the assasination of Lofwyr. It shouldn't happen. Lofwyr is a statless ultimate NPC. He is a plot device. He shouldn't be killable in an MMO under normal circumstances. Lord British died because Richard Garriott forgot to turn on his invincibility. It was a purely OOC error. It is certainly possible to program the game such that Lofwry's "I win" flag is set automatically.

i could be wrong, but isn't UO also the game where NPCs ran around and led their own lives, and if you wanted to get a quest or turn one in, you had to actually track down the NPC wherever it was in its daily routine? as i recall, that behavior was eventually removed--questgiving NPCs sat in one spot, so they could be easily located by players.

this illustrates an import facet of MMOs. if you ask most people who want an MMO for their favorite setting, be it SR or Star Trek or My Little Pony or whatever, they'll tell you that they want a complete, living world. they'd think the idea of NPCs who run around doing their own thing all the time would be pretty cool. in the event, however, almost nobody actually wants that. people who play MMOs want, in large part, the same thing that people who play other types of game want--to have fun playing. that basically means that they want the world to be about them.

Blizzard understands this; that's why lore figures like Thrall and Illidan are either questgivers or raid bosses. hell, even Matrix Online got that much right--Morpheus talked to players all the time, giving them quests and stuff, up until he was killed by a cloud of flies wielding a pistol (no, i'm not kidding).

it's a catch-22. if you allow characters to interact with Lofwyr all the time (either by getting quests from him or killing him), you cheapen the experience. Lofwyr, Harlequin, and the rest stop being cool and special. if you lock the majority of players away from the big names, though--if you don't let them get quests from Harlequin, or down Lofwyr every week--people won't feel like they're playing SR. because as cheap as it would be to let everybody talk to Harlequin, or let everybody loot Lofwyr, that's the sort of thing that the LCD equates to partaking in a given setting.

I remember in one of my favorite text-based MMORPGs Gemstone:Dragonrealms a time when a storyline villain basically made people's heads explode at random by experimenting with ritual sorcery. One moment you'd be minding your own business, the next your head would explode for no apparent reason. He also made a volcano erupt, instantly killing countless PCs who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Losts of people activly looked for the guy. Some people found clues randomly for no apparent reason. I stopped playing before it was complete, but it was a damned fun storyline.

You don't need direct interaction with absurdly powerful NPCs, but their presence must be felt regularly. In the case of the Matrix Online, it is reasonable for the players to talk to Morpheus, given his role in the setting. In Shadowrun, it is reasonable for the players to be bystanders while Lofwyr does huge world-changing stuff due to his position in the setting.

that makes the players spectators. players don't want to be spectators, they want to be active participants in everything.

Well, Lofwyr's in Germany. This thing will start in Seattle and won't expand out of it for some time, let alone North America. Lofwyr will be unavailable to kill for the same reason the Dalai and Pachen Lamas, the king of the Zulu nation, and Australian Dreamwalkers will be. (Personally, I would think that the board of Aztech, "Tricky Dick" Villiers, or even Ghostwalker's clock would be in more need of a cleaning than Lofwyr's, but that may be just me.)

[RANT MODE=1]
If I'm in some bar in the Ork Underground sharing a few brews with my chummers after a run we all survived from while off in the corner someone is slotting a beetle and up on stage some Goblin Rock band is wailing (or yakking) on about how Lone Star, by its very nature, has no clean hands in any legal matter, I'm partaking in the setting. If I'm browsing through a lore store named "The Practicing Bitch" and Kritter Kibble and Hellhound Chow are on sale for 15.45 and 12.75 a bag (plus tax) respectively, I'm partaking in the setting. If I'm watching remakes of Sin City, Kill Bill, and Shoot 'em Up in a Holopic grindhouse triple feature and I can't but help but realise that Melody Tiger makes a much better Gail than Rosario Dawson, but Crime Time was the absolute worst possible choice for Dwight, and nobody can replace Paul Giamatti, Powers Boothe, or David Carridine, I'm partaking in the setting.[/RANT MODE]

i'm still saying that if MMORPG is not wanted shadowrun should be realized kinda like fallout/fallout2/fallout tactics maybe with a more up to date graphics engine . .
but system wise those games come pretty close to the shadowrun PNP RPG i'd think O.o

That's because D&D online was a miserable failure.