Seattle, Portland, parts of the SSC. Seattle isn't an island.

...

Well, OK, yes, it is politically an island, but...

...

Where was I going?

Something about you being on a boat.

*Cocks a round into the RPK-HMG's chamber while standing on a customized Morgan Cutlass* I'M ON A BOAT!!!

nice boat . . .
also, we want Hamburg, Germany!

Better yet, find a way to let me (and the community) use some sort of tile based tools for building floor plans and drawing on google map or something to make you extra content, something that can boost sales. Quality control can be a bit of problem but that has sorted itself out in things like NWN1&2 before, giving the good ones your stamp of approval for easy download or something perhaps.

We do plan on several locations - definitely some of the ones already in print in Europe as well as North America.

Regarding tools - this is plannned once the game becomes more of a success, as making the tools secure and manageable is a bit of work. But we do want user input and have begun developing concepts for this.

This does start to sound better and better. Would you mind kicking GreyPawns Butt so he starts to frequent Dumpshock a bit more again?
And have him tell some of the other people from back when it was still SRO to come and join us too, i do miss them folks ^^

And heree I was thinking you could do your own buttkicking...

i can, i am german after all.
but i am lazy and too far away ^^#
And as for you, i don't think many people know who you are yet, go read through the main board and post in interesting threads.
You should have some fun with us too, not only talk about work ^^

Any news from Austria?

No new chancellor yet.

Visited a German Games Industry event and showed some initial tec-prototypes to interested parties...with good feedback.
Also will visit the RPC in Cologne on the weekend, allowing people to discuss about Pen and Paper vs MMO...see here for more info.

Any of you coming to Nerdcon ahem Nordcon in Hamburg?

Nope, sorry - we don't have much to show yet, so we limit our appearances a bit. Perhaps next year...

Nope, sorry - we don't have much to show yet, so we limit our appearances a bit. Perhaps next year...

Not for showing and telling, for mingling and funning ^^

Fun? we are game developers, our life is all work

Anyway, when *might* there be progress reports online?

if one were to judge from MW3015 not very soon <.<

Who publishes that again?

Piranha Games MAKES it . . i don't know who PUBLISHES it . .
Smith and Tinker got it started.
Hell, i don't know if they even HAVE a publisher yet <.<

Great news. Its not exactly the kind of game I was hoping for (I would prefer some GTA-Fallout3-Deus Ex1 action-rpg style hybrid ) but the devs interest in knowing the game and franchise better means theyre in the right direction. Good luck on this quest. Ill be looking forward to it. ;D

By the way, maybe its not productive to try to port the entire game-system as is to the electronic format. An adaptation, as seen in the other games of the series (for the Snes and Genesis consoles) may be a more productive decision.

I can't quite express how much I'm looking forward to this game. Perhaps I don't have to stick so much time and effort into making my own SR browser game.

First off, i'd like to say that so far you guys at Cliffhanger sure sound like you're on the right track and my hats off to you for really trying to do something like this the right way. Well, just a question.

- One of the best descriptions i've heard of shadowrun is fantasy/cyberpunk/noir. Even though action is an important part of the game your planning, since you did say that you're not focusing on the hardcore casual gamer, then I really think the whole "legwork" part of a typical shadowrun could really really be developed in your game and add a whole lot of flavor. It would be great to have a way for each player to go about preparing for a run, such as the "Face" negotiates with the Johnson and goes around on foot gathering info, the Hacker (please stick with SR4, it updates SR to bring it inline with the zeitgeist of today) looks around the matrix for clues, mage does astral reckon and can just fly through walls....etc. This would really add an amazing layer of depth.

Thanks for the kind words -
regarding your question: Yes, we have legwork planned. The level of complexity remains tbd, but we want to have things like this scenario:
The Mission is to infiltrate a nightclub in order to get to the basement, where a suspected informant may be kept imprisoned by a Crime Lord. Due to security waltzing in is out of the question. The Mission has the conditions: No large weapons, Limited Time. The Johnson provides entry passes through the backdoor, but security is tight.
Legwork could get you:
- Bribe an employee to hide a weapon inside (allows to add take weapon of choice with you)
- Hack their local network to delay security calls (extend time)
- Get blueprint for building
- General investigation magically or by hacking, using contacts
- Use Rent-a-Cop contact to mess up security schedule (increases response time for forces in the buidling)

All of those can help in the mission but also carry a certain risk (and cost).

Of course some missions will just drop you into the action at lightspeed, so not all of them include prep time...

"Here's 10k nuyen. Go around that corner, kill the people by the van, take the van, deliver the cargo inside to this location by that time. Run like hell."

Nicely chosen words.



Thats f*cking awesome! I want to play this right now.

And if you make the legwork phase in a different screen, maybe one of your apartment at night where you look through the window the rain washing the city streets outside, while listening to some noir-jazz or somthing, and choosing what to do (pick the vidphone/commlink to call a contact? check the trideo for news ? open your laptop/augmented screen to check the contracted runners )... oh sorry. Im wake draming here. xD

Yep, which is a shame. There have been some really great futuristic MMOs out there (Neocron, Tabula Rasa, etc.).

SW:G probably did alright, as did Anarchy:O, and EVE:O is the most successful one to date, I suppose. But there sure isn't much (esp. compared to fantasy-themed games).

Hopefully Bioware will manage to finally make a truely successful one with SW:TOR.



Sure, who hasn't!?



Cool! That makes the whole thing a lot more viable. "MMO" simply wouldn't have worked. But you know that, of course.

Good luck on your project!

Bye
Thanee

Sounds nice actually. What would "General Investigation" yield?

Interface-wise, I'd even be happy with moody Techno and somewhat well organised chart screens, like the SNES game of old ... of course, Bladerunner-esque Jazz-ish music and moody visuals would be neat too.

General investigation may yield exposed info on the mission map - like guard patrol routines or security levels for the surveillance software, the presence (or absence) of magical protection/personnel etc.

It being a brwoser game, the visuals will likely be simple - dialog/action windows with a few buttons and a nice pic (building levels for each legwork job is just out of scope), but we have devised a mechanic which allows us to a) include skills into the result b) have several "steps" to concluding legwork c)bring in items/contacts/edges to the mix and d) involve some sort of focus vs risk balance. Simply put, you would have a number of actions you can undertake. You may focus them on one or a few of the legwork parts for better chance of success (basically this simulates you putting in time and effort) or you can spread yourself thin but throw more resources (money, contacts, spirits, software etc.) at the job in order to maintain a solid chance of success.

More than a nice action winoundsdow with pretty images and maybe moody music would be too much to ask, indeed (though undoubtedly nice), so that s okay for an action-based game.

Will connections be staples - Bob the Plumber, Betty the Fixer, Harsh Joe the P.I.? Or will every player be able to customize their connections?

How do you plan to handle the Matrix? As in, the VR internet that is a staple of SR through all editions, the labyrinthine sites where you fight IC and are occasionally fried by it, not AR. Will there be Matrix-hack mini-games in Legwork or the run? Or even entire runs taking place entirely in the Matrix? Or do you plan to focus on meatspace action?

Initially we want to focus on meatspace and AR. The reason for this is simply budgetary. We cannot make a good number of Matrix Levels including special rules for them for a limited part of the player community when we can do levels which allow everyone to play instead. If the game is commercially viable we intend to bring out pure Matrix levels.

Regarding contacts - we currently probably will start with staples, but I just thought we may as well allow players to "craft" contacts from "components", which are effectively stats etc.

Initially we want to focus on meatspace and AR. The reason for this is simply budgetary. We cannot make a good number of Matrix Levels including special rules for them for a limited part of the player community when we can do levels which allow everyone to play instead. If the game is commercially viable we intend to bring out pure Matrix levels.

Regarding contacts - we currently probably will start with staples, but I just thought we may as well allow players to "craft" contacts from "components", which are effectively stats etc.

Have you heard of PACKS?
Maybe something like that will work?
And as for Runs . . Remember the Mr.Johnsons Little Blackbook?
There were random runs generated by rolling dice.
There even is a little program called Runcreator II based on this.

The SR4 GM Screen had a random 'Run generator. Runner's Toolkit will have it as well, hopefully.

It does, yep. It's called "Run on the fly generator" and is on p. 23 of the Contacts / Adventures / Sprawl Sites booklet.
It also has Shadowrun Frameworks (p. 16-23), giving the GM a "fillable frame" for several typical run setups.

Bye
Thanee

Question to the video game developers: Any thoughts on your revenue model yet? Will this be a subscription based game? Free to play with microtransactions? Free to play supported by advertising? Some combination there of?

Free to play with Micro Transactions
By the way, we have some new screens for our JAO game, showing the quality and gameplay here JAO Online - this would be what we are looking for in Shadowrun

double post by accident - delete please

News so nice it had to be posted twice!

This shot and this one look promising. Pity there're no more flamboyant lighting effects, but they're well enough. If you take care with graphics design, you could actually get this looking pretty good. That is presuming most of your runs will take at night, of course.

For Shadowrun the ligthing would have to be more extreme in general and more colourful - for JAO we are going with more of a realistic look. So there will be definitely an extra serving of flamboyancy for Shadowrun

Cool. Will there also be half-transparent holo-things and such? I don't really know what this engine can handle.

absolutely - transparency and the neon-style holo look etc. are easy to do. The whole AR layer will be similar to this, with semi-transparent images superimposed over the physical environment.

Sweet. That'll do a lot for the atmosphere.

Will Berlin be among the settings where this game will stray? If so (or alyplace else Germanophone - Vienna maybe?), do you plan to coordinate yourself with Pegasus for cooperative prouct, or with CGL for that matter?

Yes, we are including Berlin and we actually already talked to Pegasus and enlisted one of their Chief Authors - Catalyst we will talk to when the game is further along.

Oh, nice. Curious how this will shape up.

... news?

none so far . .

sorry to have gone silent- we are knee deep in jagged alliance online currently, so the rest of the stuff takes a bit of a backseat