A little something something one of my fellow SR players at work dug up on Joystiq:

Rumor: Footage of canned Shadowrun reboot.

Personally, if Jordan & co. want to get this thing off the ground, no force on earth is gonna be able to stop me from applying at Smith and Tinker to work on it.

The use of Godspeed You Black Emperor as the background music in the video is awesome, too.

A deus ex type shadowrun game would be 42 levels of awesome. I loved deus ex 1 and even found a little enjoyment out of 2 (sure it had more loading time than actual play time in each level, but hey, it's still good, right? *twitch*).

Though an open world from bethesda, the morrowind/oblivion/fallout3 type, would be better in my opinion.

Well, the original Shadowrun video game is still lauded as one of the best RPGs to ever be published from that era. It just had this...I don't know, quality that made it addictively interesting, and the urban fantasy/cyberpunk setting really fit with the times.

If they could replicate that in a Fallout 3 style game, I'd be all over it. And get off my lawn.

I dunno, I wasn't that impressed with Bethesda's take on Fallout, mainly because it felt more like another Elder Scroll game than a Fallout game.

I agree about the old SNES shadowrun game, it was totally awesome, tho kinda difficult at times lol.

In some ways the crappiness of the latest shadowrun computer game is an advantage for the creators of the next one. They could basically make anything, and as long as it was better than that one, people would still like them for it. And that's pretty much my stance on it. As long as it's not total shit, I'll buy it. I almost bought the crappy multiplayer one based mainly on the fact that it said "Shadowrun" on the front. In the end tho, 50$ and a load of bad reviews convinced me otherwise.

Oh man. I saw it in the bargain bin for $10 and still couldn't pull the trigger on it...

It's a fun game. It's just a waste of an IP. Why turn an RPG into capture the flag?

Are you talking about the SNES or Genesis version?

It had strong negative second-order effects for me. I was completely hooked into it for the first minute or so, at which point I realized that the reason I was hooked into it was almost totally due to the music; the visuals only really contributed a dark, vaguely ominous setting. This served to make me examine the video more closely, and I'm really not sure anything particularly interesting was shown.

We can hope, though. I'm still not convinced that first-person is the best way to take this, at least not for a first game, but a Deus-Ex-style game set in an SR3-style world would still be amazing.

~J

I agree with another poster that deus ex 1 like Shadowrun game would be quite awesome.

The only thing in my book that be more awesome would be a well made MMOFPSRPG Shadowrun game, maybe something down the line.

I see Shadowrun as a Sandbox game game, like Omikron: The Nomad Soul or Grand Theft Auto, mostly. I would /love/ to have the ability to explore a larger world like Fallout or Elder Scrolls series, but the problem is unless you make it more 'scripted' sort of like Syndicate and Syndicate Wars than anything, you're going to end up with the detached sort of feel a lot of people seem to have with the Bethesda games.

So, have the ability to explore the world and do what you want to do for missions, like the Genesis game, taking on missions in a sort of randomly scripted style, with a sort of random 'dungeon' generator like in Restricted Access. The story missions would be more programmed, with specific triggers and the like, but the game would be able to have a lot of atmosphere beyond that.

As for First Person, I like the idea of that, because it does seem to be the staple in RPGs these days. I mean, look at the difference between VtM: Redemption and Bloodlines, and Bloodlines had a more engaging game I felt, because you could 'see' it. Same with like Deus Ex as opposed to say a Grand Theft Auto sort of third person view. But at the same time, the 3rd person view makes it so a lot of the gameplay does not rely on the player's skill, but on the characters.

That last point was a gripe I saw online when Fallout 3 was being made. 'Don't make minigames like the lockpicking or the speechcraft game from Oblivion into Fallout, even a gambling minigame would suck because they all rely on the player's skill and not the character's skill'. It is a roleplaying game, so the character's skill should be important.

But either way, I like the look of the game, and agree, a single player RPG is the way to go for a lot of the game. Though, System Shock 2 had a multiplayer patch and I believe GTA: San Andreas did as well, which could be interesting and add a new layer to the game. Having a squad of PCs following a series of missions, sort of like a multiplayer party in Baldur's Gate.

Both have their advantage, but I just want a good cyberpunk style game, and Shadowrun seems to be one of the best ways to get it.

Well, obviously it was some kind of pre-alpha that the video showed - not even something with real content. My commentary on being pleased with it was primarily pleasure with two things.

First is the game engine, which seems remarkably well-developed - which means it will probably never see the light of day. The dynamic lighting and character animations seem very solid, which is one of the primary ways I determine if something has quality work put in it or not: lighting and character animation are very important for believability, in my eye.

The second thing I liked was the art direction for the subway station. It showed a lot of promise.

Neither of these things matters for beans in terms of Smith and Tinker's possible version, given that said code and development will no doubt be proprietary and we'll never see it ever again. But I like the concept of something LIKE this being developed.

Edit: I've also been listening to GYBE's Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada all week, which is what the song is from. So that's probably a factor too.

personally I think the greatest evolution RPG has taken is the fact it has become more balanced between character and player skills rather then being purely being a ma thematic number crunching of your characters skill, personally if I wanted to entertain myself with a character whose is 100% depended on his skills and not mine I rather watch a movie.

but each to there own I guess.

If they actaully made a good Shadowrun game I would be on that much like white on rice.

Right. I probably would've been satisfied with it as well if I wasn't so thoroughly hooked in by the music that the realization of how little content was actually there was somewhat of a shock, rather than an expected result.

It's true, the animation seemed well-done (what there was of it), but dynamic lighting? I don't play many recent PC games, but are they seriously still having trouble with that?

~J

You would be shocked at how many games I've seen that make no attempt at decent dynamic lighting. Tossing aside games I'd call "crap", somee of the most egregious examples I can think of in recent months are as follows.
In Fear 2: Project Origin, early videos of the game showed lots of awesome dynamic lighting, but when the game was released, only environmental elements affected dynamic lighting: characters didn't cast the same quality of shadows, weapons fire didn't cast light or shadows, and there are very few locations where physics can be applied to lights - primarily hanging solitary bulbs. I love Fear 2, but it made me sad.
Call of Duty 4 has weapons fire, but precious little dynamic lighting other than that.
Vegas 2 has environmental dynamism, but almost no ability to affect the environment lighting, and kinda crap shadows.
Fallout 3's engine, being a revamped Oblivion engine, is pretty much shit when it comes to dynamic lighting.
Mass Effect's shadows are pretty representative of the Unreal Engine at large: great lights, but shadows that are like "Ahh, wtf, why is this pixellated?!"

It's a wierd thing to harp on, but lighting and shadows are of those things my brain fixates on. And almost all of these decisions were driven by performance issues.

both yes and no, no they have no problem making dynamic lighting, yes they have problem fitting it in the limited space a game can take.

but all in all is one of those things: the more money a company can put into a engine= the more dynamic and realistic the lighting looks.

This portion of the Shadowrun community is polarized and no game can be expected to be great for all of us. I hope they focus on "game" and then worry about the name Shadowrun.

BlueMax

true but at the same time the game should hold close to the Shadowrun style or it risk becoming "just another FPS/RPG" or "a Deus Ex clone", Shadowrun is quite a unique IP and if they don´t play on that it won´t stick out enough.

The problem with an SR game, I just thought, is how many different things you'ld have to cover. Matrix, Magic, Rigging, Combat with ranged weapons and melee weapons, Mythical Creatures, the Urban Cityscape, the NPCs, etc.

I mean, I can see a Need for Speed style game being the best for Rigging, maybe a GTA/Saint's Row game being a good second. Matrix.. Well, depends if you go SR3 or SR4. If you go SR4, the Matrix being everywhere, you have to make sure it's done really good. If it's done like SR3.. Well even the Genesis game wasn't done like SR3 nor was Hacker. SR3 didn't care about the layout of the system, just the commands you were running, so I guess they'ld be taking artistic liberties with that.

Astral space could be a problem, as would some magic spells I could think, so they'ld probably have to come up with soem way to limit on those in some shape or form. I mean, imagine how complex it would be having to create the two (or three, if you use SR4's present matrix) layers for everything.

It'll have to pick a few things to focus on and do them well, as long as it captures the general theme of SR. It's why I think an MMO type of SR would be a problem. Too many things would be cut back or limited in the effort of fairness.

I'd be interested in a hybrid of an Elder Scrolls / X-Series / Dues Ex style gameplay using the Shadowrun IP. Put it in a city, set up a wide variety of competing but active, responsive, mostly balanced factions, then throw the player in there with Duex Ex style gameplay and Elder Scrolls style progression. It's really asking a lot, and I can't see it hapenning for less than 3 years of development... but a guy's allowed to dream, right?

The old SNES game, while mechanically broke some of the core rules - its atmosphere was brilliant and very much true to the old school setting of SR1. A timeless classic.

- J.

I was just looking these up but there are two MMO games I can see being pretty good for Shadowrun-like gameplay in some aspects.

All Points Bulletin
The Agency

Both of those have some pretty good features. The Agency being a great spy type action adventure game, and APB being a cops versus robbers game. For example, several Criminal players may rob a convenience store within the game; the game will then seek out one or more Law Enforcement players of equivalent skills and other criteria, and will issue an all-points bulletin for them to stop the robbery.

Matrix: just make it a seperate 3rd person action game where you run around blasting programs like it was your run of the mill action shooter

Magic: combine a spell with range, group etc and equip it to sole spell casting button like in Oblivion or Bioshock

Rigging: drone NPC companions as well as alowing lockpicking cars or other vehicles.

Combat (both kinds): obviously a Deus Ex like hybrid between RPG stats and player FPS skills works the best.

Mythical Creatures, the Urban Cityscape, the NPCs, etc: consider what todays gaming generation is growing up with this is the smallest thing to make it work.

btw I would be shocked if the game is based on anything else then SR 4th edition, it is the latest edition and there is nothing else to it.

my 2 about it.

I wouldn't. We're talking about a third party without connections to Catalyst, with a major figure who was involved in the game that evolved through SR1-3 but not SR4. I'm not saying that it necessarily won't, but they've got no reason to.

~J

Given what Weisman's done with Battletech, I'd actually expect the date to be reset to 2050, and be a hell of a lot more Pink Mohawk than the SR4 default...

(I am not saying it is good or bad. I love both styles!)

I wish I could find the post but buried in the archives here somewhere someone said that the only thing they needed to do to make the previous SR a smash hit among the fans of the IP would've been to set it 'in world': have it star Karl Kombatmage in "Shadowrun the matrix game!" with advertisements for NERPS and Stuffershack prominently displayed on loading screens / wallpapers in the game etc.

then the fact that the devs apparently didn't know anything about shadowrun could be turned into an asset instead of a liability

true but I have gotten the impression 4th is a more streamlined game in some aspects then 3rd and if I was a developer I would pick the more streamlined version so I hade a easier jumping the gap between PnP RPG and videogame yet still make the game viable for a wide audience.

thats my thought.

Only because most "PC" games these days are crippled by having to be console games first and foremost. This is also why DX:IW, the Shadowrun FPS and many more titles have ended up so terrible. There's a lot of money in console games and it turns out that most console gamers don't know or care about what "dynamic lighting" means -- let alone have the attention span for a proper RPG/FPS hybrid full of big ideas and words and other stuff that only nerds care about.

Watching this video made me depressed about the Shadowrun FPS all over again. I always kind of hoped that Shadowrun only ended up the way it did (in a general sense) because that's all FASA Studio "knew how to do": Multiplayer twitch games with relatively low budgets and little depth.

Now today I find out that FASA Studio was gearing up for a real Shadowrun game, however Microsoft (speculation, but seriously: Who else?) killed it in its crib:

"After shipping Crimson Skies HRTR, the FASA Management team asked me to art direct their next title, Shadowrun. They wanted a new Shadowrun, one that was real in the way Peter Jackson made the 'Lord of the Rings' universe real. They wanted an IP that would satisfy the hard core Shadowrun fans but appeal to a new and younger audience."

Breaks my cold, dead cyberheart all over again.


Yeah, that was me. Nice to see someone was paying attention.

I also wrote: "every day that Shadowrun isn't an MMORPG is a good day"

Tempted to sig that second one, but I don't even want to give the idea of a SR MMORPG that much credit. It's so bad...so very bad... I just wish people would let it die.

That's why I focus on the fact that the developer is completely independent, though—they've got no reason to bother focusing on jumping gaps, the game can stand on its own and doesn't need to draw fans to a separate product.

The "streamlined" claim has been debunked elsewhere barring massive changes in SR4.5 (see 2006-era discussions, it's all been said before), but that's neither here nor there—if the computer's rolling the dice for you, any amount that's even vaguely acceptable on the tabletop is effectively instant. Even that is assuming they directly adapt the system instead of trying to "capture the feel", which is more likely.

~J

Seems like Borderlands has demonstrated how well a pseudo-RPG multiplayer FPS can do. I wouldn't mind something along those lines, except it wouldn't allow the kind of flexibility of a Behtesda/Bioware-style pause-and-play RPG.

consider how unique IP Shadowrun is as long as a dev isn´t caught in the WOW swamp and make it closer to say Fallen Earth or (if we stretch things) borderlands gameplay wise I see nothing against a Shadowrun MMO, in fact it would be sweet :3

I would just rather not have the fifth world internet and their collective behaviour anywhere near and certainly not in my sixth world.

I'd never heard of this game, so I did a little research. Watched the trailer from the web site and saw nothing special. Not a single interaction where the various player/enemy models look like they actually acknowledge eachother -- just the standard MMO interaction-substitute where the models do some brief, exaggerated animation and you're supposed to imagine what it would be like if they could make any kind of contact (even eye).

Then there was this:

"I saw a video of somebody playing on youtube and the monster AI looked really dumb. The monsters stood there and took it until they fell down. No sign of retreats, regrouping, going for cover, healing, or anything."

Yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for in a Shadowrun game.



Isn't this just Diablo with FPS elements and a post-apocalyptic paint job? I mean sure, they've made the stats affect your aim and stuff, but it's the same "grab the loot and watch the numbers go up" gameplay as always.



This.

no offence but now it seams like your pulled out stuff to validate your no MMO opinion and putting blankets over anything else, I don´t see how Fallen Earth AI problems has to do with the fact that a similar gameplay mechanics shows lot of promise to work with a Shadowrun MMO.

Big (BIG) issues with a shadowrun mmo:

1) how will you simultaneously satisfy the desire of all players to be shadowrunners, while at the same handling a game premise where a vast minority of players actually are shadowrunners? (see: star wars post NGE)

2) how will you handle corp defense in a way that isn't scripted without breaking verisimilitude or making players play them by sitting there bored for hours (see: eve online sov. defense tactics... )

3) how do you make stealth worthwhile in a world with lag while still allowing for dynamic AI? (see: thief but imagine it with dropped packets and rubberbanding... )

4) how do you differentiate it from wow with guns / Global Agenda with magic in the 15 second commercial spot?

5) how do you avoid association with a currently toxic pvp IP? how do you handle the fanbases expectation of real permanent death with the game realities that no one really likes mandatory hardcore modes? for that matter, how do you handle the get up and go experience with the reliance on teammates in a way that doesn't make pugs the worst idea ever and kill the game for players who can't join as a set group of friends?*


I'm not going to claim that these ideas are insurmountable, but I'm a Mr. Man loyalist on this one (along with NERPS™ ads apparently!) - a shadowrun mmo is not something we should *really* want to see, at best it'd be mainstream and terrible and eventually forgotten, at worst it'd be a loyal but ultimately niche cash sink and crash the IP's value in the larger market even further.


*who would be better served by a coop-multiplayer title ala Left4Dead than any mmo anyway..

Anything by Fasa Interactive is dead in the water. Weismann bought the Shadowrun IP, not FASA interactive so he doesn't have access to their codes.

Shadowrun is one of Jordan Weismann's babies, as he helped conceptualize it. This to me means he wouldn't do anything like what happened with the other PC Shadowrun game. Smith & Tinker also hired Mike Mulvihill as a Game Designer which gives me a lot of confidence that they can turn out something very good.

Player death is an easy issue to deal with to make it non-permanent, look at the Shadowrun Genesis game, when you died you were brought back by Docwagon in the clinic. So have something similar happen.

But yeah, the idea of how to incorporate everything and please everyone is a problem, even in a single player game, like I mentioned in my post about how to incorporate everything. You'll either skimp on some things or ignore them completely. Like stealth in a run if it were an MMO would likely be along the lines of 'This gives you a plus twenty to your stealth, countered by an enemy's perception check', so it would basically be 'Do they see you? No. Ok, do they see you now? No.'.

The way of the players being Shadowrunners but so few actual game world people being runners is easy. Look at any adventure game, there's always a ton of background opponents there, so there's always a large supply of runners. D&D type fantasy games have all sorts of adventurers, Shadowrun and cyberpunk games have a lot of people working beyond the law. Just look at the various cyberpunk movies, there's always a second or third team to hire.

A translation of the Mega-CD game would be nice too.

All good points. I hadn't put much thought into the implications of a SR MMO, but I think that the idea appealed to me on the basis of "wouldn't it be cool if the world could come alive with other real people comprising rival shadowrunner teams in the scene." Except that's not what would happen. You would have the same distressingly high percentage of mouth-breathing savages as any other MMO, who knew and cared nothing for the SR world and were there only to get phat lewtz or grief other players. Not to mention the absolute nightmare of balancing SR PvP without the table-top social contract method of keeping balance from getting out of hand.

What I'd really want would be impossible to implement in the existing video game market. That is, a not-so-massively multiplayer game where you had, at most, fifty players in a given iteration of "the world." A small enough number of people to make some sort of Street Rep and Notoriety system work to police bad behavior. Sort of the co-op you mention in Left4Dead, but expanded out to a dozen or so co-op teams operating in the same instance of the world. Yeah, I know, I'd like a pony and a red wagon with that.

could be a sweet DS title.

Easy way to fix the problems inherent in translating Shadowrun to an mmo, make it Shadowrun!

It's stated in game that there is an MMO based of the life of runners, letting wageslaves act out their dark hero fantasies, so why not base an MMO off that idealized vision of shadowrun instead of the real thing?


Whoever does the dev on it could even take it a step further and do a little RP on the games website. Write news posts as if it were the 2070s, have banner ads for the corps alongside the real ones, blame outages on rogue AIs, announce employee changes as successful extractions.

Can't remember the title but wasn't there a D&D port that allowed you to customize the rules, and play a campaign online with a party with your friends? a similar mechanism for a Fallout 3 style SR game could be pretty sweet.

sounds close to the dungeon maker for Neverwinter Nights.

They pretty much made this game, it's called Neverwinter Nights. Thinking about a game like NwN but designed from the ground up for running tabletop Shadowrun with a select group of people over the internet makes my pants feel funny. So much so that I bought NwN on release solely to support the concept of a game that attempts what it did. This despite having no interest in D&D or CRPGs.

<facepalm>

Look, just because setting the game "in world" would have been a good way to save the Shadowrun FPS from utter doom does not mean that it's a good way to crank out every bad idea you can slap the name "Shadowrun" on.

"HEY GUYS! They have furries in Shadowrun too, right??? So why not a whole game based on the furries of Shadowrun?!?! Some of them could be Immortal Elves, too!!!"

Even if the Shadowrun FPS had been posed as a "Matrix game" it would still have been a mediocre FPS. It just would have been a mediocre FPS that happened to be compatible with Shadowrun canon.

*smiles and gets a idea for the next art commission I´ll order*

I'd like something more along the lines of the STALKER games for Shadowrun. Change the faction to corps/gangs, move the setting to an urban wasteland and so on. Now, let's add on to that. Forget the MMO, that's a waste of time. Take this FPS platform, add co-op for optional group runs. Next, add an optional DM/Admin position that determines which mission is provided, the payout, spawns and such, akin to the L4D mission director.

If you had a GM/Admin spot, you'd need online co-op, on the console. You'd also need to devote a large amount of time to building characters.

I'd say that having a single, pre-built campaign that you can run a runner through is good. (Alternately, the same campaign, from the viewpoints of someone who fills differing niches? Basically, you'd pick an archetype, and the game would put that archetype into one of the roles of the runner team. Then, you'd further customize that character.) After that, multiplayer like described above, if you could find your own runner group again, would be ideal.

Maybe add some modding tools so that others can build campaigns. Also, maybe periodically release new company generated campaigns, added to new cyberware and bioware and guns, etc, etc, etc.

I'd think that if they can do it, it'd be awesome. However, making campaigns that differ (for instance, Mages being able to astrally perceive. If you chose the gun-bunny route, it'd never be needed.) in extreme ways like this is really like having at least 3, probably more different campaigns. Especially for deckers (hackers...)

It's an obvious fit, so I'd like it. Heck, the basic deus ex story line is cyberpunk.

There was a dude well on his way to making a shadowrun mod for the original NwN. I remember he got deployed and the project stalled.

They should just get in Touch with the People who were in on Shadowrun: Online the MMORPG and now with Sixth World Gaming.
They had a running pre alpha before Microsucks shut them down <.<