For this discussion, the Half-Life mod Dystopia is worth mentioning. It actually has the simultaneous Matrix/Physical thing down - decking is an important role on the team, and you need it to capture objectives, flip turrets, and occasionally help out the meat team by opening locked doors and hatches for them.

See, I don't want to go the co-op route that Borderlands had for one very good reason:

I wanted to play that game with friends.

And I could not. One group of friends didn't have a job, so were playing the game ~8 hours a day (to my 2) and so I was never of the right level to play with them. The other group consisted of 5 people (you can see where this went).

This is I believe players should have multiple characters so they can play alone or they could play some characters with different people.

Yeah, I mean, I see people do this for SR Missions, make multiple characters so they can (eventually) have an appropriate karma character for any given table they might play at.



-k

"By multiple characters" do you mean it in the way Borderlands means it, in that I have two characters each of which is their own distance through the story, or do you mean having a group of them you play by yourself?

Because if you're going the Borderlands route, I'm still going to disagree with you, because I still wouldn't get the option to play with other people, which would be the whole point.

More in the 15 to 20 range. If you want to run in single player you could use 8. If you want to run with friends you could use 1,2, or 4 characters. If a mission goes poorly you could still play, while the other characters are recovering. Makes death hurt, but players don't sit around for their guys to come back. Also as shadowrun is skill based the trick to have a specialist who fills a void rather than one who is well rounded if in a large team. Small teams need diversity to handle everything, large teams don't need everyone to be diverse if all roles are covered by a specialist.

Alright, now we're getting into the realm of:

How do you play more than one character at a time?

Double post

See the original ghost recon on how they did it with 6 characters. There has to be some AI, but it is mostly stand and hold for characters not being actively played. Again I am thinking more along an FPS style rather than an isometric view.

Now you're introducing an AI factor into it.

Have you played any games recently with AI controlled Player Characters? Any? At all?

The AI is a retard. In all of them. Especially in environments where there are multiple different solutions.

I think the idea is that your friends make characters that they play with you, and have other characters they play when you're not available.




-k

And how, exactly, is that different than Borderlands?

I assume you never played the original ghost recon. You could jump from character to character effortlessly. You tended to put the rest on overwatch. You could set way points and generally get guys to where you needed. This was 10 years ago. Your skills and weapon narrowed the target reticle when you fired.

Of course multiple players are always better than trying to do everything yourself, but it is doable. I have played games that make it feasible. The problem is most games want graphics for the hardcore gamer with the best hardware rather than a graphically decent game with fantastic gameplay.

The problem I see with that is how runs can end up.

Even if you and one other person are splitting 4 characters, say a Gunbunny, Hacker, Generic Mage (Combat, Healing, some more support, etc), and.. uhh.. I dunno, a Face? What happens when you get into a firefight of some kind, or the Spider starts coming after you with less-than-pleasant security options? Someone has to play the Hacker to stop the Spider/override him, and if there's any magical defenses such as spirits it would be best for the other person to start playing the Mage. Then you have a gunbunny and a face on AI 'roids... and the AI of almost every game tends to be retarded, and that's being generous.

To create an AI that knows how to creatively find new and/or different ways to complete a run is not only time-consuming, but would just be one step closer to making a true AI. Which is hard.

I'm totally against any form of AI for player character teams. I've played Ghost Recon before, and I'll admit it's a handy feature, but I just don't see it as viable for a Shadowrun game, where potentially one minor screw-up is all it takes to wipe the team.

Exactly.

I also don't want to "play with friend when they're available" because they never are when I am, and even when they are, we're of different "power levels."

Then you have not addressed how players are supposed to play with few people or a lot of people. And you are right in some instances you will have to let the AI go on defense. That or you have very small groups. The point is to have people who want to play alone the ability to do so and those who want to play friends do to do so. As the missions can vary in difficulty and scope then you can determine your party.

You cannot control other people's availability. In any game. Ever.

They only thing you CAN control is your power levels in the game.

Now, aside from "having a set of characters you only play when you're together", there is another alternative - if the SR MMO has an auto-leveling function like City of Heroes.

In CoH, in a group you can choose to have everyone auto-level to match the current team leader. Lower level players don't get new powers, but their existing powers will get boosted in strength to be on par with the leader, and their stats (health, endurance, etc) are similarly increased. Higher level characters get pulled down to the stats they were when they were the level of the team leader.

After the team disbands, everyone goes back to their normal power levels.

Now, how to do this in a purely character skill-based game would take some extra thinking, but it should be doable.



-k

Interesting concept Karma, interesting but not sure if I'd like it, personally.

What would be the point for an SR MMO? I can understand that it would possibly allow for lower ''level'' characters to join up on higher ''level'' runs, but then, theoretically, a newly created character could go out and destroy corporate servers with more established runners, since his skills go up in level.. he would have ridiculous stats in, say Hacking, despite being newly created. It would be thoroughly abused, in my opinion, to just go from your high-level hacker, start a mage, team up with your old buddies, and watch ridiculous amounts of nuyen just flow right in.

The best thing about an MMO, in my opinion, is that there's almost always someone to play with. Even if your friends are offline, just hit up your local fixer for ''LFG (LFR?)'' runners and do a run before you go to bed or go to work in the morning. I used to play Planetside all the time (Best FPS evar, in my opinion of course), and even though it has only roughly half of the members it used to.. I have no problem finding a squad or anything, and if I don't feel like grouping up.. shit.. just go solo.



And it is perfectly possible to create scaling missions based on number of runners in the group. One of the MMOs already does this (I think it's either SWG, LOTRO, or WoW, can't remember). The same mission can be modified for a single-runner (barring things such as.. a mission requiring hacking, and you're just a tank/gunbunny), and then be scaled appropriately based on how many other runners are in your ''group''

Very true, but in an MMO setting it is trivial to find other people at the same "level" that you are. They might not be my friends, but they're available.

On the other hand, a game like Borderlands, has no match-making feature. You either play with your friends or you do not.

City of Heroes/Villains/Rogues is the only game I know that deals with this well. The sidekicking mechanism (which was tweaked a while ago) is now awesome. The person who owns the mission you are doing is the primary person. People above him get reduced to his level (but keep quite a lot of their powers and "equipment"). People below him get raised to one level less than him (and their powers and "equipment" are buffed).

Nett effect: as long as your characters are within say 20 levels of each other it just works.

So I've heard. But I haven't played City of Heroes (or City of Villains).

Well, your stats are only boosted for so long as you are with the higher level character. And you don't get ALL the benefits of the higher level - for example, in City of Heroes as you level you gain dozens of powers and abilities. But you start with only one or two. If you sidekick up with a high level character, your one or two powers are indeed boosted to high levels, but you still only have the one or two powers.

Also the rewards system gives you XP and loot based on your real level, not the boosted level.

And in most MMOs, you can have some existing player just GIVE you ridiculous amounts of money, so how is that different? Heck, if you want to, you can go to certain websites and just BUY game money - slot your credit card or PayPal, and in a couple hours you get a guy in the game handing you a fat stack of game currency.

The usual response to "twinking" these days is to level-lock the loot and equipment. So it doesn't matter if you have the gold to buy that +infinity Sword of Uber, it can only be equipped and used by Uber level characters.


-k

Huh, this topic really does keep popping up despite its lack of viability as a Massively Multiplayer Online. Its almost like the term 'MMO' is a bit of a meme, eh?

IMHO, Shadowrun would be just as cheapened if it was turned into a MMO - a WoW / EVE clone with a twist on a smaller budget - as when it was turned into a FPS - a Counter-Strike / Unreal Tournament clone with a twist.

It would really need its own unique solution and the closest things to what IMHO would be satisfactory was (the now classic) Deus Ex, Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights 2: Platinum, Fallout 3: New Vegas, and Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City. All of those are single player games, only a few of them even have the option for multiple players and even then the MP is very much a different experience than one can find in the single player, as varied as all the possible mods to spring forth from the generosity of the talented PC gamer communities. Can't help but notice that for a number of the games that scratch the my SR PC game itch are done by Obsidian Entertainment - so, if there was any developer I would want to touch our fantasy Shadowrun PC Game it would Obsidian, Bioware second, and Rockstar pulling up third place.

But really, I haven't seen or been able to get a response from Smith & Tinker other than a vague dismissal years ago now and we all know the amount of good will Microsoft's go at the Shadowrun setting generated. Add on that PC gamer community start ups have been issued cease & desists and this notion is pretty much dead in the water - the 'water' being the middle of the Atlantic during a "perfect" storm.

Between lack of any movement on in the PC gaming sphere and the direction the print/pdf's have taken, I am rapidly losing interest in what future Shadowrun has other than what the online community fan fiction produces.

Oh well, to lift it up from that sad note and have life go on, I would like to say I found a Indie developed PC game that looks to come out this year that is about a expert team of specialists who form a team to pull off a bunch of runs in the shadows, only no magic or metahumanity. Close enough to what attracts me to Shadowrun for my interests:
http://www.pocketwatchgames.com/Monaco/

Peace.

Meme? MMO means what it says... Massively Multiplayer Online. It doesn't really apply to anything other than an MMO.. I don't quite understand what you mean by that.

As I see it, a Shadowrun MMO in concept is perfectly viable. All the programming stints and what have you exist to make one that would be, virtually a tabletop game with no centralized GM and some graphics. The only thing really not viable about an MMO SR is resources in development, how much money a company is willing to spend on making an idealized Shadowrun MMO that breaks the mould of the conventional MMO clone. On one hand, big companies like to produce things that make a lot of money... hence many ''WoW Clones'' generated off said company jumping on the bandwagon for some extra cash. In contrast, some smaller companies may actually prefer to be as true to the series and as innovative as possible, under the thought process that doing so will generate more money in than long run than simply cloning EQ or WoW.


When I played the SNES/Genesis versions of Shadowrun, I thought they were both great. Now, having books on the tabletop and having dabbled in a small game myself.. I can safely say that I would never like to see a single-player Shadowrun game again. Ever. Everytime I play the console games, I keep thinking to myself ''This would be so much more boss with multiplayer''. To me, it's like trying to play D&D with just myself and a DM. Yeah, I've done it before, and it can get kinda interesting sometimes, but I always prefer more players.

MMOs have tons of players.

A Shadowrun MMO?

EVE Online + Guild Wars/City of Heroes + Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

At the highest levels that governs what a player can do, you have the EVE Online style. Completely open sandbox, not requiring players to just be runners. They could be corp sec, they could be aspiring corp CEOs. Almost everything is possible while leaving certain corps untouched as per canon.

You bring in guild wars for jobs from the Johnson. Players can interact in the cities, but for the job it's instanced. Either within a canon corp's holdings or a player corp environment (all of which are randomly generated).

Bloodlines, has in my opinion done one of the better P&P -> PC Game conversions of the system and to top it off, VtM doesn't have too dissimilar of a mechanics system compared to Shadowrun 4th.

The problem with MMOs is there are so many players that either you get people who kill each other off, players who ruin the entire mission and get everyone screwed up, or the players get so powerful it goes beyond the reasonable pale of the system. Everyone wants to play the central figure and the problem is in MMOs is very few can be a protagonist. The idea should be to allow players to focus on missions to get skills up and to work with other players, but not be forced into playing with people. Now maybe this means a combination of matchmaking similar to diablo/battlenet.

The best part of MMOs is the other players.

The worst part of MMOs is... the other players.







-k

Its pretty simple what I mean by that, not everything should be an MMO anything if it is turned into a PC game.

Especially if you want the game in question to succeed, just consider all the many varied and quite interesting MMOs that have come and gone over the years while first Everquest and then World of Warcraft have reigned supreme. Before that, MUDs chugged along in relative obscurity - bet you didn't even think to go looking for the grand daddy of the MMORPG before this idea was a twinkle in your eye, MUDs with a Shadowrun setting have existed before and even currently with all the problems and solutions minus the headache and glory of the shiny, flashy object aka graphics. As far as I know, the last I played one a few years back, the one I tried out had few players and even fewer GMs putting on custom runs for those players.

Don't brush off the problems so casually that come with this idea, especially it having a critical mass of subscriptions in the first year do to the dominance WoW has in the market and many Publisher's unreasonable expectations to be the next WoW killer app. Being profitable is everything in the MMO market, either you produce cheaply and carve out a dedicated niche or you go up against WoW and most likely lose because they haven't lost their touch yet, especially with Cataclysm and Phasing.

And that even before the reluctance of Smith & Tinker to revisit the Shadowrun setting due to the boondoggle that was the last PC game, I shouldn't have to remind you that was geared towards multiple players (MP) as well. Also, what chances do you think a MMO would be any more respectful to the setting than say how Star Wars or D&D has been treated?

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a Shadowrun PC game that would allow me to get games going over long distances a lot. More settings really do need their own version of Neverwinter Nights with Software Development Kit (SDK) in this day and age IMHO but if it comes with a subscription fee and official servers only? Count me out at the very least, I don't see a future in it.

I did. (well, i played "Neocron 2" i dont know if there ever was a 1, and there was "talk" of 3, but i havent seen anything else on that front either) I would say it was an excellent atmospheric game, but it was certainly incomplete, i had actually picked it up twice, and i think it got buggier the second time around. The hacking portion of it was woefully incomplete, but the game as a whole def. had promise as a shadowrunesque game.

This is all true, CanadianWolverine, and I expressed a little concern in that area regarding developers jumping onto the ''bandwagon'' of a WoW clone. In all honesty, if you want my opinion, WoW is only popular because it's WoW, not because of any sort of innovative gameplay or that it did something no other MMO at the time really had. My opinion is that WoW got popular off being an MMO of Warcraft and it's ''variants'', such as DotA. As someone who used to be into MMOs quite a bit (Not so much anymore, but I was addicted to EQ, DAoC, LOTRO, Guild Wars, and a few others), I see WoW as a dying fad. So long as people make WoW clones.. WoW will still probably be the most popular. Once a developer has enough balls to go outside of the norm (along with a decent sum of resources (cash) and possibly a popular title), WoW will just break apart. I played WoW for a few weeks, and found it extremely lackluster compared to virtually every MMO I've played beforehand. Maybe it's just a matter of personal taste, but my belief is that the majority of players are only on because of their friends.. and afterwards got hooked to it just as you would any other ''standard'' MMO.

I've always wanted to try a Shadowrun MUDs.. but to be quite frank.. I thought all MUDs were pretty dead, was I mistaken?

A Shadowrun MMO wouldn't necessarily have to have a subscription fee. Some of the newer MMOs coming out (Several of which are created just by ''random people'' with some programming and art skills, like AdventureQuest), such as Dragon Ball Online and Mega Man Online, won't be having subscription fees, and instead opt to use the ''cash shop route'', where certain items may be exclusive to those who pay for a subscription or buy some card in a 7-Eleven or whatever. Lord of the Rings Online and Everquest II (And possibly WoW, I haven't checked) are also no longer having a ''required'' subscription fee.. where you can instead opt to have a free account with limited character slots and limits on what expansions you can access. EQII limits you to only a few character slots, but access to all their expansions except the very last one released. LOTRO has ''tiers'' of subscriptions, the free one being the most limiting, the next one granted additional characters/zones, and so forth. This appears to be where MMOs are going.. no more paid subscriptions to play the game.. but to access all the full features (or in some games, bonus features such as items that make leveling up easier) needs to be paid for in some fashion.

The majority of players are only on because of their friends? Its a Massively Multiplayer Online game, so isn't that obviously the case? Whether you go in with friends to start playing or make friends while playing, that is the whole "trick" that keeps players coming back and playing. While I'm not playing WoW or any other MMO now, or for the past year and a half, I know that when my friends were hot and heavy into a game, so was I and when they weren't we all played a lot less.

I don't see WoW as a dying fad, but I see most competitors not getting the same startup time that WoW got in the beginning. A lot of people hung around through a lot of bugs because there wasn't something better. Now, the new games coming in, get compared to a juggernaut that has a lot of polish behind it.

I do agree with you that until a developer does something outside of the norm, and does it well, that all we will get are WoW clones, so to speak. But, even if something does hit and take the market, there are still millions of players out there that have invested a lot of time into their characters and that is going to be hard to just drop...I think that is the other big hook, the investment of time in a game.

What I meant by that was, for example, a few weeks after Everquest came out, me and my dad bought it.. simply because it was a new game that claimed to be ''Massively Multiplayer'', connecting players all across the world. We didn't get it because we had friends who played it, but because at the time, it was a totally new feature for us and we gave it a whirl.

In contrast (and I can say from personal experience with several of my own ''RL'' friends), many people who play WoW started so because one of their buddies who got on to the game came up and said ''Dude, you ever play World of Warcraft? No? Man, you GOT to try it.'' Obviously, a lot of MMOs start that way, but my guess is that the member base from Warcraft 3 moved on to try WoW simply because it was a Warcraft title gone MMO. The Warcraft games are really popular, and I find them quite fun myself, so I don't think that's entirely unreasonable to say that WoW got it's big start that way. After all, a good game comes out with a sequel, and it's eaten up by the populace simply because it's a sequel to a great game.. no matter what the sequel ends up like (Halo 2 to Halo 3).

The reason I see WoW as a dying fad is simply because, compared to all the other MMOs I've played.. WoW doesn't really bring anything new to the table. I always perceived WoW as a clone of Everquest, with a few things that Dark Age of Camelot had twisted in there (Which EQII also started using.. mainly UI things). In all honesty, I think the only thing holding WoW together is the fact that's it's an MMO, coupled with the social relations of those who play it. People stick with it because of the addicting nature of an MMO, and that there's so many friends they have on there (due to the large member base), but not because WoW is some sort of God of an MMO that has all these features and plot that no other MMO has. Basically, I think that WoW doesn't survive off of it's gameplay in comparison to other games. So it is my assumption that once a non-EQ/WoW clone of an MMO is created.. WoW will slowly die off in a similar fashion as to how I perceive it was created.

Granted, I've not played Cataclysm or any of the recent expansions, so maybe Warcraft did indeed change something and become revolutionary amongst other games of it's genre... that I don't know.

As for investment, I agree. It depends on the sort of player though, in my view. For example, my Dad doesn't want to play any other MMOs because he's got high-level, high-geared characters he's spent a lot of time in. Personally, I enjoy the process of ''leveling up'' and the temporary thrill of a new ability, so once I hit a level cap and get decently geared up.. I tend to make a new character. I don't really enjoy having the same skillset and fighting the same raid mobs for one new piece of gear.. I like to start a new character type, maybe in a new zone.. and explore from there.

All you need to know about Cataclysm.

I think your reasoning is wrong: WoW will win because it has won. MMORPG's are a winner take all activity (very similar to social networking in that respect). The more players, the more income, the more you can do good content (and the cataclysm content is very good). The bar to compete is very high. The only real way to have a chance is to have a niche: Eve is doing nicely, so is City of Heroes et al. However if you are basically a fantasy MMORPG, you will lose vs WoW. There are a quite a few good books on this topic. Most of the failed MMORPGs (or nearly failed: LOTRO, Warhammer...) had only a tiny fraction of WoWs numbers, and quote lots of reasons for the failures...the real reason is that WoW is the gorilla in the market, and it stomps on anyone else.

I think you misunderstand the secret to WoW's success.

It is true that WoW has NEVER been innovative or new. That is BY DESIGN.

They take all the successful bits from other MMOs, polish them to a high shine, and insert it into their game.

The secret is, despite claiming otherwise, the vast majority of the playerbase doesn't WANT new or innovative. Most folks won't admit to it, even to themselves, but what people want is more of the same. It needs to be just different in appearance in each later iteration to FEEL new, but still retain all the same base mechanics and comfortable tropes.

They take the concept of Pavlov's Dog to the extreme. The entire game is designed to condition players into wanting that next bit of advancement, so they grind and grind, just so they can feel like they accomplished something. It's the same design philosophy that goes into slot machines. Push the button and you are rewarded with lights and music, and occasionally some payout.

Naysayers to the contrary, WoW's population numbers have only gone up, even in this bad economy. The climb might have slowed a bit the past year or so, but that doesn't mean it's dying.




-k

Excuse me, minor nitpick, it's pronounced Catackalysm

@ Seth: Everquest won too. I'm pretty sure WoW knocked it out of the water though later on, so it's unreasonable to say that WoW will always win because it's won before. Everquest dominated the MMO market... until WoW came along. So we just wait for the next Godzilla to laugh at the little primate and breath atomic flames upon it.

@ KarmaInferno: What you say is true.. and while WoW's numbers have gone up in this economy, the video-game industry as a whole is one of the few which has actually gone up instead of down. Must be that whole ''escape reality'' thing. Like alcohol.

Everquest beat the SNOT out of Ultima Online, Dark Ages of Camelot, and the others around that time.
WOW beat the snot out of EQ, EQ2 and everyone else since then.

Something will eventually come out and beat the snot out of WoW. But not until they manage to shift the paradigm of MMOs in a meaningful way.

You aren't going to beat WoW by making a Wow Clone.

I don't think that time is far off either. Guild Wars did amazingly well since it was ''free'' (not having subscription fees), and since then, I've seen the trend of free-to-play MMOs rising. Granted, that's just a single aspect of an MMO as a whole, but shit changes... that's just the way of life.

You aren't going to beat WoW. It's reached a mass of subs unsustainable without reverting to DNI or subliminal advertising.

Then again, you don't need to. The objective is to make a good, solid game that can run on a wide range of systems and provide a stable connection to its servers. Having a bug-free launch with no crippling gameplay flaws is going to go a long way to making things profitable. Different payment plans, like the 'f2p basic' models that games are offering is going to be a draw for people but may not solve the problem of profitability. Keeping the servers up, that costs money.

And just as addictive too!

On the other Hand, Alcohol can help you get laid, while video gaming pretty much destroys any chance of that . .

I met my two (ex)wives and current girlfriend while videogaming, thank you very much.

Same here (as for the current girlfriend ordeal at least).

Alcohol also has a high chance of getting you killed, MMOs just have a high chance of destroying your life and leaving you alive long enough to suffer or ignore it in virtual bliss.

Take your pick xD

I'd take the computer over the bottle. The computer at least you can hurl out a window when you get angry without anyone yelling about it.

I dunno, I can throw a bottle out the window without much fanfare.

When in doubt:

Dry ice bomb.

Touche. I was more thinking "get angry at the computer" vs. "get angry at your drinking buddy."

The former won't get much fanfare.

Defenestrating your drinking buddy probably will.

And an MMO is a hell of a lot cheaper than alcohol. And it was not that hard to find gamer girls. There were a lot of lonely single women with kids out there.

One thing that I am amazed about is how I've played WoW for something like 3 to 4 years, from right before Burning Crusade, through Wrath of the Lich King and I think I played a total of 3 or 4 races and only 4 different classes. There is so much I haven't played through and there's another expansion, to boot.

I enjoyed questing and leveling. I enjoyed end game. I enjoyed playing with friends when questing or raiding. I enjoyed randomly grouping with someone for a quest or instance. While there may not be a whole lot of new and innovative stuff going on, what is going on is solid, proven, fun and a lot of different aspects to be entertained with.