This.



Also, I had a spirit break free once. After using him at 4 AP for 4 rounds. And by then he was taking on 4-5 bug spirits so he was a goner anyway. Maybe you guys aren't raising Spirit Control or using max force spirits every time?

The one complaint I've got about the ending is that it doesn't give you any chance to go back to the Union afterwards. I was playing around with someone's scenario and the character import left my guy with the FAB gun and whatever else he happened to be carrying. It seems to me that going back to the Union would be a natural jump point to any further scenarios.

That sounds pretty awesome.

Decking alongside everything else is great in SRR, I'd have loved to see it featured more. Probably because I mostly like to make Combat Deckers and I'd have loved more stuff to hack. I'll have to play with the editor, but its probable you can even get an offsite hacker to "join" an infiltration and run overwatch, be neat to design something like that.

Also, I've run through most of it a second time with a combat mage and summons worked pretty OK for me. I kept my spirit control up and usually didn't end up losing them until a few rounds in, and by that time I'd usually have them pretty stuck in combat and them going loose wasn't much of an issue. Took down the ripper with some corruption/blood/whatever thing from the ground, found that fitting.

Ok, I fully admit I need to play the game more.

But after playing for ~ 2 hours, here are my initial impressions:

1. As someone else mentioned, this feels like a tablet game that got ported to PC. Pretty underwhelming in terms of usability, graphics, interactions with the environment and so on. Only auto-saves...ugh.
1a. Killing the Halloweeners, there are all those motorcycles JUST SITTING THERE! LET ME TAKE ONE goshdarnit! And the bodies just melting away into nothing, no looting or anything? C'mon.
1b. a teenaged kid was sitting next to me as I made my character, and he immediately asked "how old is this game? the graphics look really bad"
2. Railroading is bad, plus the actual "quests" are kinda weak. Market's in trouble? The location is like 5 seconds away, and the whole "quest" is resolved inside of 5 minutes. Searching a room or an alley or whatever is also underwhelming, it's spoon-feeding you everything you need.

Maybe decking will give me something to do that's interesting? Although now I'm going to fire up System Shock 2 and compare (Steam sale!)

Ultimately, I feel like I played this game more than 10 years ago, when it was called Baldur's Gate(1,2), except BG was D&D and much more open and more fun. Compared to games like BG or Fallout(even F1), it doesn't stack up well.

Well... Yeah. Usability isn't great, I admit.
Graphics, well, it was made from the start on a shoestring compared to modern AAA titles. We weren't getting Draco Ex: Elven Revolution, and we knew it.
Interactions with the environment could be improved with more TLC spent on the campaign, adding more thingies to fiddle with and more dialog branches, etcetra. That's just a questbuilding issue.



Yeah, I agree. That was pretty bad, quite honesty. I'm not sure, but it might have something to do with SRR's "level" system. If it's not like NWN where you can go back to a preexisting zone, they'd need to plan a new "mission" for every possible state you left a zone in when you leave to do a side quest and come back. But you should definitely be able to loot a bike, and the bodies.

The words I live by as a GM, and which I tell any new GM: If you're not prepared for the players to kill it, fall in love with it, have sex with it, befriend it, eat it, or claim it for their own, don't put it in the same place as them, period.





Yeah, well, what the frag do teenagers know, anyway? Honestly, the graphics were never so bad that I ever really "noticed" them, which is saying something since I mixed SRR with Defiance and other AAA titles.



Yes, yes it is. This is a big and good complaint with the Dead Man's Switch campaign, which is less like a Tactics RPG than a Shadowrun novel with a Tactics RPG bolted on. Allegedly, the Berlin campaign will be better.

I wish it had been explained to me that when Jacked into the Matrix, you could perform a basic Attack against foes by just clicking on them. I went through almost the entire game relying entirely on activatable abilities. *facepalm*

~Umi

+1. How many times in the past I've given an NPC some cool toy, and then kicked myself as the players acquire said toy and exploit it...

Yeah, I wasn't ascribing much meaning to it, just more kinda funny that this was how the "youth" immediately viewed the game. Honestly graphics don't have to be great for me either (I don't have a top-end computer, so lower graphics reqs are a good thing), but the graphics were just one more checkmark in the Meh category, along with so many others...

Well I hope this Berlin campaign is free, cuz I'm not sure how generous I'm feeling after what I've seen so far...

If there is a helicopter involved in the run at any point, rest assured that our group will move heaven and earth to acquire it. Most of the time, we liberate them from NeoNET spec-ops teams. dunno why.

Both times they showed up in games I was in, we actually had More Important Things to do.

The first was "not dying as it shot armor piercing rounds at our escaping van" (it totally punctured the sleepy-time chamber of the cyberzombie we stole, which meant the run went less than ideally, but we still got paid). We took a detour through a mall. It was safer (for us at least). Totally haunted (mmm, watcher spirits) the memorial for the dozen innocent victims of vehicular manslaughter a week later (we happened through on our way to kidnap some corporate middle-manager). We figured forcing the place to keep the obviously temporary memorial around a wee longer was the least we could do.

The second time was defending some eco forest retreat while we re-re-rekidnapped an NPC to take back to the guy paying us, and the helicopter was In The Way. In the "it is spraying lead at us" kind of way. It totally exploded shortly thereafter from a bout of briefcase rocket-itis.

Our team once stole a helicopter full of military special forces who were specifically coming to get us while it was still in mid-air. I was away that session so I still have absolutely no idea how they pulled a crazy stunt like that off (I was convinced that capturing it was impossible and suggested we just try and shoot it down when we were told about it at the end of the last session. Yeah, shows how much I know. One thing I learned from this: NEVER EVER EVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR PLAYERS ABILITY TO STEAL STUFF WHICH CANNOT BE STOLEN!).
So yeah, merely being in the way and shooting you with big guns is no excuse for failing to steal it. C-.

#2

Also no way of spending the money earned

I think next time I run a Shadowrun game, I'm going to go out of my way to give the players some nice shiny toys from the get-go. Or better yet; some important contacts who understand the meaning of the words 'gratitude' and 'honor'. It's very, very easy to steal something when the company you're "borrowing" it from has arranged for you to steal it and leave it dumped somewhere they can recover it with it not significantly the worse for the wear.

we stole a vector thrust VTOL once on our way out of a corp lab . .
the gm had planned to hunt down our escape vehicle with it it seems.
he was very surprised when we opted not to go out the free inviting way to our conveniently parked van.
we took the way up the building. shot everybody we encounter on sight. one of them was the rigger of that VTOL.
much cursing of the GM followed, we thought we had shot a mage who was supposed to track us or something.
then we came to the roof. and the GM told us that there was an idling VTOL parked there. $_$ < = went our faces.
our rigger declared:"dibs! mine! i'll allow you to eat in there, but this thing belongs to me now!"
we took some hits of anti air artillery, but we made it to a hideout in the barrens. well, we made one in the barrens.
we basically crashed it into an old building that had a subterrain parking lot.
then we threw up everything we had to make it look as if it had gone boom.

I guess my group never thinks that way.
I mean, we're the kind of people who go "Loot the bodies? In Shadowrun? What?" because we did it so rarely (more along the lines of "shit, my gun jammed, uh, I'll grab that one off the dead guy.")

I read somewhere else about talking to everyone after the final mission, so I'm confused as to which statements are accurate.

I haven't actually finished the last fight yet - TWICE I forgot to stockpile medkits. They really need to patch a vendor in at the estate.

You get to talk to people afterwards, just not at the Union.

I didn't think the last fight was all that bad. The fight that really kicked my butt was the graveyard fight.

So what is the backer ability? I didn't see anything that looked too special. The only thing I can really think of is all the free DocWagon Platinum freebies.

I think the Ghost of a Grizzled Veteran and the bunny-ganger armor fall under Easter eggs. As well as that Holmes was the name of the first US serial killer, and he also claimed to be a doctor.

Oooh: per Wiki, "During the period of building construction in 1889, Holmes met Benjamin Pitezel, a carpenter with a past of lawbreaking, whom Holmes exploited as a stooge for his criminal schemes. A district attorney later described Pitezel as Holmes' "tool... his creature."

Backers got two things...

1) A stack of Docwagon Platinums. Like, 6 total, I think?

2) Access to the Ghost of a Grizzled veteren, aka Jordan Weisman. And while that's also a bit of an Easter Egg, he does give you 3-4 objects through the course of the game (Mostly low end stuff, grenade or two, medkit, basic docwagon). Plus it's cool to read about the story of how he came up with Shadowrun.

Yep, I had just seen something on Holmes on like Mystery at the Museum or something and managed to get that refrence. Just like I solved a investigation mission in The Secret World because it was refrenced on whatever I was watching on the History channel as I was trying to solve it. I guess I'm lucky like that.

Good catch.

Just beat it tonight, gamed over a 2-3 day period. Ran through as a straight PhysAd.

I really liked the game to be honest. Certainly it's one of the better cyberpunk games to be released overall over the last couple of years.

Gameplay was generally solid. Combat reminds me of Jagged Alliance, esp. with overwatch acting as an "interrupt". Actually in that vein it's probably one of best JA-style games that have come out since JA2 for that matter. Cover system is solid and intuitive. Have some more observations about gameplay below.

The story is excellent and is one of the best primers of the setting that have been released. Granted some things are not exactly 1:1 (FAB-III = FABS-III, Shadowland = Shadowlands, LTG/PLTG = LAN) which is a bit annoying, but other than that as an introduction to the setting practically EVERYTHING IMPORTANT is covered; the core concept of shadowrunning, getting screwed at the end of a run, gangs, BTLs, decking, riggers, magic, Immortal Elves, free spirits, mana cycle and even the deep metaplanes plus the Ghost Dance spike and its related complications. Only thing sort of missing are dragons (though Lofwyr is mentioned in passing), but with the impending Berlin DLC, well...

Music was a bit of a mixed bag. The remixed SNES stuff was excellent. The more original stuff was hit or miss. Other than that the non-musical audio was professionally handled and while it doesn't stand out it never annoys.

Liked the art, very cohesive across the board. But it felt sort of...out of place for the era (2054). It felt more like the SR4+ style (esp. the UI). Any Laubenstein/Bradstreet/et al. influences were in broad strokes. Also the font should have been Friz Quadrata.

Pure adept track is quite playable, I did not max out my character in Willpower/Chi as I spread out over to Ranged Combat (Pistol/SMG) and to a lesser extent Close Combat. I didn't really use my powers all that much though, except double/triple slash which are excellent and Killing Hands early on. The defense powers are mainly applicable for magic attacks but outside of...er, spirit attacks later in the game mages are pretty squishy (except for one...people who have gotten to that point in the game know who I am talking about) unless they are pumped up so mystical protection isn't a big deal, unlike the PnP game where a combat mage is quite dangerous. Area effect spells are handy though, but the cooldown is pretty high.

That said, support mages with Haste and Heal are excellent and can really give your team an edge. Conversely the most dangerous thing a hostile mage can do is pump out a heal after you do some big damage.

Pistols if maxed out could be fairly dangerous with all the trick shot options, but SMG and Rifles can put out a lot of damage as well. As noted earlier, Shotguns + close range = fight over. Someone focusing on ranged combat, if they want an easy first game should max out in Rifle/SMG (whatever your poison) and Shotgun.

Drones are actually pretty handy as meat shields. They generally have good accuracy over range as well, plus you can glitch out the AI if you shoot a hostile and then duck back into a vent. I took out a LOT of Telestrian guards that way. Steel Lynx have overwatch, which is handy if you take it slow.

Didn't play with spirits. Of course I haven't in the PnP realm much either. For shamantic magic summoning seems to be about right, although I don't recall materials being consumed in summoning. Hermetic Mage insta summoning though is a no-no from what I remember in the SR1-3 days, unless you pre-summoned a spirit and have it tag along later. I also didn't really investigate if you can banish spirits in SRR of course (outside of the faithful "Manaball" method of course).

One thing I didn't like was, later in the game when dealing with certain dual natured critters, that Killing Hands or spells didn't work on them. Granted it was for dramatic purposes, but even if you geeked the spirits you could have had more come out and attack.



Anyway, to wrap it up I am looking forward to Berlin. Might even make a campaign of my own at some point. Have a lot of old material filed away that could be put to good use. Will probably do another playthrough as a Street Sam or a mage at some point.

LordHaHa

A few questions:

- "This will give you access to the SPECIAL ABILITY only available to Backers" - what's the special ability? I'm blanking here, did I see it on my character and just forgot?

- Do they have weapon foci in the game?

- I've played about 5 hours. How far into the game am I?

The Backer Ability is Jordan Weismans Ghost/Spirit appearing, telling you about how he came up with Shadowrun. And giving you some minor gifts.

They don't have any foci at all in this game.

About half way in.

Thanks for the answers!

A: Ohhhhhhhh...ok.

B:

C: really, after only 5 hours (and a slow 5 hours at that, I feel) ?!?!

Yeah, the campaign is a bit short and pretty linear i am afraid.
But seeing how people like the editor, we'll hopefully get some nice fan works soonish.

I wanted to do a Food Fight run, but the art assets to model the inside of a Stuffer Shack just aren't there.

I'm working on putting up old modules. Started with DNA/DOA and I'm almost done with the meeting.
It's a bit of a learning curve, but the editor is fun, not only to make your P&P runner's cribs but also as a tool to create adventures from scratch.

The only thing I had to give up so far was to check if the runner had a weapon on him, taking it off him in that case and giving it back after the meeting. But hey, that's details, and I can railroad players into not being able to shoot the Johnson anyways

The editor scares me.

You're a writer. Editors are supposed to scare you.

No, 13 year old fanfic writers are supposed to scare you.

Or do I need to break out Charlie Brown's front yard orgy and murder scene again?

I had planned to write a Netcat/Toaster Shipping Fanfic written in-universe by Slamm-0!, but decided that Jason and Bull have enough reason to beat me as is.

Haha!

Find a way to sneak it into an official book, and I promise I will buy that book.

Can Ray, get 100 or more people who will buy this, and you can put it in a Mission.

Sales trump me wanting to beat you

Get 200 and you have yourself a Kickstarter.

I would buy this.

I'm surprised the threshold's that low. I guess not a big market for most missions.

PDF supplements sell quite poorly, even for a game like Shadowrun. And the more niche a product is, the less it sells. It's PDF (And I'd guess at best 25% of our player base buys PDF, judging by what little I know of teh sales data), Missions are a Gamemaster only product (Which means one out of every 4-6 players buys it), they're an adventure (Not all GMs buy adventures), AND they're part of a Living Campaig (Not all GMs who buy and/or run adventures is interested in the Missions Living Campaign).

100 is lowballing it a bit, but 100 sales does represent a decent chunk of our PDF sales for Missions.

Bull

If Slamm-O writes that fanfic and Netcat finds out, would she beat him, or throw him to the floor to ride him like a cowgirl?

I guess it depends. Is "Toaster" actually someone's handle, or is he Cargo Shipping her with their toaster's node?

Or perhaps "Toaster" is a sprite that lives in their toaster?

Back me and find out!

Well, it would be only a matter of time before a TM would try to experiment and see if they could get more..."intimate" with their sprites...

Machine sprite in a Nadeshiko?

... Fuck, how much is a Missions PDF? Like, five bucks?


Chrome on the crutch. I'll back it. *grumble.* But it better be GOOD.



Well, magicians (and others) can do that with spirits, so why not?

Didn't Dodger shag that AI from Renraku?

Not every TM can compile a machine sprite, so they might also want to have options for the ones that are on the Resonance.

And, well, every TM does have what's essentially a hot-sim module as part of their Living Persona, soooo.....

it's true: the matrix IS for pr0n!

Shagging Deus?

Good grief.

Coitus Ex Machina?

</incrediblylamepun>

Hahahahaaaaah. Hell, why not.