I'd wager with the advent of WoW's raid finder, raiding has become more common then ever.

Still, if folks are going to toss terms around, I'm going to cringe when someone refers to 5 other people as 'Massively Multiplayer'. (Sorry for the fingerpoint, Draco.)

And I can't tell you the last time I was even remotely interested in beign on a 20+ member Raid group. BEcause, you know, I've never been interested in that. 6, 8 people, maybe. 20, 25, more? Ugh.

Yet I enjoy MMOs in general.

Go figure.

Not by that much, no. There's been an increase to be sure ... but a lot of folks like me tried, disliked, and walked away again.


All a game requires to be "Massively Multiplayer", is that there be one or more Shards with a few thousand people on each, at once. [i]They don't have to be all on one or five or even ten teams[/b]. They can all be playing SOLO ... and it's still an MMO.

I play WoW in one of two ways: [by myself] or [with my family]. Most of it has been of the [by myself] variety. Yet, being an MMO, I get to take advantage of some thngs that just aren't part of a single-player game, nor even a limited-multiplayer game. For one, a player-driven market. For two, the option to wind down after a couple hours of questing, by standing somewhere in a city and chatting with people (possibly, while Auctioneer grabs me a fresh scan of the AH). For three, occasionally seeing another player wander by "in the world", doing their own thing, in the same general area I'm doing my own thing. And for four, on infrequent occasion a temporary (20 minutes, give or take) team of 2 or 3 people, perhaps to share kill-credit on a Rare Elite, perhaps just to make an obnoxiously-tedious kill-count quest go a little faster, and so on.

You don't have to actually TEAM UP with a massive number of other players all at once, for the game to still be an MMO.

Have you numbers to back your assertion? I avoided speaking in definites as I couldn't find proof to back my claim. I'm interested in seeing the hard numbers, if you've got them.


With the way you stated you play, I can see how you formed your stance. Your example is pretty interesting, too. See, WoW's 'player driven market' is more of a computer driven marketPLACE. Most decent goods can't be sold. From what's left, Most decent goods can't be sold by players to other players. So what's left? A small subsection of gear. Who sells it? Well, many, and likely the majority of full time AH (Auction House) sellers use programs to mark their prices. I've used these same programs in the past. If you're unfamiliar with them, they go over every single item in the AH, find the price, and then automatically set your own goods a small percentage lower.

Amusingly, that the majority of the small subset of a 'player' driven market is computerized.

What does that leave for player interaction?

Seeing other people walk around with gear. Basically, an e-peen measuring contest.

If that's what you want SRO to be, I'll pass.

The same thing the real world offers: communication. Talking. Joking, debating, and generally making word-noises at each other.

...

A game does not need to cater to hardcore Raiders, to be an MMO.

I agree. Raiding isn't the be all end all. It's why I didn't mention it at all in reference to markets and game economies. Personally, all I do on an MMO is raid. I don't get the point of the rest of it. I have all global channels turned off by default, because I can't stand the racism, homo/heterophobia and general douchebaggery of the public. It used to be that MMOs were an escape, now they're what represents what most folks are trying to escape from. But now I'm going *way* off topic, and I apologize.

See, the kind of inter-player interaction I want to see in an SR mmo is the news events. "Unknown attackers assault Renrak's archology, 12 people are reported dead."

And then you can be like "aw yeah, I was there."

Or the surprise at finding that you aren't The Only People Mr. J hired.

Or the surprise at finding that someone else hired someone else to stop you.

Or traveling from point A to point B and end up in the middle of a gang firefight, with both sides (other players) thinking you were hired by (the other side) to come to your aid. You don't give a damn one way or the other, buy you're pinned down behind a garbage dumpster and you've got 28 minutes to reach the other side of the city.

I want Life in my games. Maybe it'd be frustrating, but it'd be dynamic and evolving. I don't mind obstacles in my way that give me something to do. Hell, I was playing Skyrim the other day and went "fuck, none of these quests are at locations any where NEAR where I am, uh...pick one at random that sounds like a neat place...and walk." So I did. I ended up stumbling into a dragon's territory (and the one dragon I'd fought previously ah la Plot Dragon #1) managed to kill me four times (which wasn't a big deal, I re-spawned a minute away from said event), this time though I was a 45 minute journey from my last save point, and there was no way in HELL I was going to walk that again.

So I ran like hell and tried to find a place to hide while constantly casting Lesser Ward (to block the dragon's ice breath) or Minor Heal (to fix my HP deficit). Fortunately the dragon was following some kind of attack pattern and I was able to stay ahead of it long enough to come across a bridge, which I promptly hid under.

That's when I noticed that the dragon's HP was slowly going down over time, roughly 5-10% every time it stopped to breath at...trees or wildcats...or something.

Turns out that an NPC had attracted it's attention, and she ended up slaying it (I got all the loot, of course).

But my point is, that was the only remotely interesting thing that happened in three hours of playing the game (I also "discovered" a dozen locations, encountered and died to a pair of giants, and did a minor quest at my destination, for virtually no reward).

If it had been an MMO, I'd have run across no less than eight people all fighting Something during that time, which I could have gotten involved in (if I wanted to) in order to give them a hand (throw a heal on them, hit their chosen critter with a flame burst, smacked it and attracted it's agro so they could recover and flank, etc.).

People aren't usually upset by this when you do it, because 99% of the time, they get what they needed anyway ("kill X amount of Y") even if you get the killing blow. They generally still get the loot and the exp. Provided you aren't an ass and try to ninja the kill and take the loot (and even then, the game itself can do things to prevent this, such as generating separate loot for each participant, scaled by how involved they were).

I did that in Terra and The Secret World pretty frequently. Had other people do it to me, too.

all of these things were the reason I played infantry RPG on sony's old station-pass.

At it's prime those were 100's population zones for each instance with 5-10 man forced teams, or you could swap out to your own private team.

PVP was norm though PVE stuff existed. PVE rewards included random chance for their equipment to drop, bounties, cash, and EXP.

I felt like if that system ever evolved and had a full developer team it could of been amazing.

After playing EVE Online for six years my view on "Massively Multiplayer" has been kinda damaged - especially when you have two fleets on the same screen with a total of 1600+ people shooting each other.

I used to play that WAAAAY back when, when EQ servers were down for a day or two, Sony had a series of 3 games that were free, that the changed over to pay. Infantry was one of them. Loved that game.

Have you read and watched the latest update? Early build gameplay, chummers.

I saw the update, I didn't watch the vids. I should.

You totally should, Primetide has some noble, passionate design and proof of concept on display there.

He's also a Nice Fun Guy

The latest update for this, the gameplay video and commentary is really good stuff, especially for such an early build.

Indeed. I'm pretty happy with the way it's looking.

Not so sure about turn based stuff in an MMO, but I have a feeling that it'll work (i.e. only in-mission). My other worry has to do with game mechanics not matching the table-top game (not in the "but the table top game doesn't have facing" as that's an abstraction you don't deal with in PnP, but works great in a computerized setting, but more...ephemeral things, like teleportation; that is, it's easy in a computerized setting to justify guards showing up "out of nowhere" by justifying it with teleporters (see Global Agenda), but it gets more difficult when Shadowrun deliberately doesn't have teleportation).

In the end I have to set aside my preconceived notions and realize that it's due to the medium of the presentation (afterall, you don't question the hellhound that shows up in the singular square you can't see into, despite knowing that it's a dead end in Decent: Journeys in the Dark, you accept that "dead end" is relative and a limitation on the system representation and move on).

I didn't watch the Kickstarter vid until now (decided to donate anyway) and was _slightly_ surprised at the announcement starting at 2:50...how the hell did that not spawn Megapulses of discussion already?

How actions in SRO will shape the Pen and Paper game?

Well, we can look forward to an exciting new game that will never get patched!

actually probably not because only half of the funding goal has been met in the last month or so and there are only 9 days left Unless something drastic happens the kickstarter will fail....

Doesn't matter.
The game was fully funded BEFORE they started the kickstarter mess . .
Which most people knew about. Which is part of why it will fail on kickstarter.
Because asking for 500k up front for a game that will be made anyway is a bit high.
200k, 250k, maybe 300k, that would have been a bit more reasonable, and, as you can see, would have worked out too . .

How one of the Big 10 will go down. Permanently and canonically.

*cough* Fuchi *cough*

...

Seriously, it's not like that hasn't happened before.

Sure it has happened, but it also left a somewhat lasting impression

(And I hope that this time the corp will really be gone and not just have its most significant assets moved into a new entity. I want the Big 9)

Taking down Lofwyr, and thus also his corporation (since he's the only one with enough information to run it properly) would be pretty epic. The social ramifications of taking down Ares or Aztechnology would be the strongest ones, I think.

IMO those three are the least likely..."The corp that is ran by a dragon" is too iconic, Aztech is a fixture as monster as the week, and Ares will already have lots of trouble in the new Boardroom Backstabs, making them the focus of another big event soon afterwards would be a bit uninspired

Would be the most interesting precisely because it's so unlikely

Horizon.
Just because they are new, nobody knows too much about them yet and they need to learn their place the hard way . .

Well I backed them. Then posted it to face book so that some other people might help.

*thumbs up*

I'm looking forward to it, and I'm hoping the finances fall into place for 'em. It looks like a cool game, and I want my swag!

I am very excited about this game. Let's hope they reach the finish successfully in the last week now.

*points at sangius*
after prime, that one is the most official guy you will find online regarding SRO right now . .

By the Way, Sangius?
Sorry for me falsely telling people that SRO had been fully fundet even before kickstarter already . .

And questions:

seeing how there was the paypal donation possibility before kickstarter, will people still be able to donate money after the kickstarter deadline via paypal for example, for massive swag?

also: what will happen to the game if it does not make the kickstarter goal? dead in the waters?

Just to clarify: I am only trying my best to support Shadowrun Online as a fan, I am not being paid or anything

I am not quite sure what the PayPal situation will be like after the Kickstarter ended. If you want to, I can poke primetide about that question but I think they are putting all their energy into finishing this last week.

As to the Kickstarter goal not being reached: let's just hope for now that it'll get funded. Of course the good people at Cliffhanger Productions wouldn't abandon the project just like that after investing so much of their own money and effort. But still, I think it would be beneficial to all if we do not need to see their answer to this question

We will do this!

Let there be success so we NEVER EVER have to deal with a dragon(AAA-Game-Corp like EA ).

So... how about this guy? Is his word worth a bit of crowd support?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DLO94Zy9c0

Tom Dowd?
Yes he is.
Unfortunately there is still the problem with kickstarter needing a credit card which many people don't use.

They accepted my DEBIT card just fine.

Here in the U.S., you almost can't get an ATM card that doesn't have a VISA or MasterCard logo (and number) on it.

Kickstarter, for germans, only works via credit card . . .
Amazon, itself, can do simple bank account deductions.
But THAT somehow doesn't work for Kickstarter . .

Hey Stahlseele, sorry that it took some time to get back to you. The devs are terribly busy at the moment and it took me quite some poking to get through to them.

About PayPal: It'll be opened up again after the KS finished or reached the 500k goal

About the future of the game should the Kickstarter fail, I shall quote primetide: 'I think we have clearly shown our dedication to the project and we will continue to try and make it happen. Obviously not getting funded on kickstarter isn’t going to help. We are looking into alternative ways of funding and we will open up paypal donations after the KS either way. The great community behind the current KS clearly shows there is an interest in the game – so we want to continue to involve the community in making it become real.'

I hope this helped

I wasn't going to kick in for this, since I already backed Shadowrun Returns, but this project looks different enough and fun enough to really be worthwhile. If it had already met its goal, I'd probably leave well enough alone, but I've kicked in now just to help it come to pass.

Dig in your pockets and pull out those credsticks, chummers!

no stress, i know i WILL get an answer some time, and that's soon enough for me . .

Well i was more curious about being a backer and what not. I want my shiny swag also i would love to support the game in whatever capacity i can and id hate to see all the funds that are available from kickstarter just poof if we don't reach the 500k goal.

Thanks for all the support. You guys rock.

And thanks, specifically, for your patience, Stahlseele.

How to Kickstart without a credit card.

ukash is, for me, unacceptable . .
they demand money for that service and they don't seem to have problems with working with criminals either . .


@Sangius:
I told this Prime before and i will tell you again:
You talk to us. We like people who talk to us.

It's nice to hear that it's appreciated. If you have any further question, don't hesitate to ask

I really hope they get there. They've done everything 'right' as far as I'm concerned (unlike many kickstarters), and I want to see this succeed.

So now I'm a backer.

Can you migrate your part of the forums to dumpshock so we don't have to deal with that . . THING called a forum over there? ^^

I have to agree. Ugh, such a pain in the ass to use >..x

I've used a lot of crappy forums in the past, but that one I think takes the cake.