The first M in MMO stands for "massive", although it is sort of cloudy how many players/subscribers a game takes before it is considered "massive". I'm not arguing that NWN was an MMO. It clearly wasn't. What it was, was an excellent toolkit for running visual MUDs. That was a great idea! I've seen several groups running "persistent" modules across multiple connected computers for months at a time. All of that said... There simply isn't a large enough market to make a visual MUD toolkit for Shadowrun a viable product.

I agree that an MMO takes a ton of investment and money to pay for staff, service, and hardware. The geek in me wants to say the individual servers most likely to do run crazy big RAID arrays. The individual servers are likely multiprocessor monsters in their own right but the bulk of the data is likely on network appliance RAID units. I'd estimated the servers at or around $10k each and the RAIDs at $100k and up. But I digress..

Will we get a Shadowrun MMO? No, probably not. But a single player or Co-op game would be nice. Would a Shadowrun MMO be successful? Maybe. It's no worse a concept for a game than others that are on the market and it comes with a small but dedicated fanbase and a certain level of name recognition among role players in general. Sure, it could work. So long as it's good.

The MMO market isn't stopping. More are released every year, and with so many fantasy games on the market already the publishers are starting to look at other assets. The players are itching to get away from swords and elves. That was a key selling point for City of Heroes, and I'm sure it will lend to the success of Matrix Online (which bored me to tears in beta).

All IMHO, of course.

I personaly do not hope for a MMORPG. But the people who say graphics and sound would be worse on a console than their PC´s should know that the next Xbox is said to be equiped with 3 parallell 3 GHz processors and a graphics card of the 500 Mb variaty. I doubt many PC´s will have those specs in a year or so even. Microsoft are flexing their muscles. If it´s true that a Shadowrun game will be among the launch titles like the rumor says, the game will have an insane budget no matter what genre it is. Forget any thoughts about Shadowrun not being strong enough a brand for a top of the line CRPG. If that´s what Microsoft is planning, they can make it successful with marketing. Not every computer game has a well known name you know. In fact the ones who do are often not very successful (unless the name is from the previous game in a series). Most games licensed from movies suck, for example. There has been a lot of requests for a Shadowrun game. Mechwarrior is a popular series of games. There is a hole to fill in the CRPG market for a present-time or future-time game. I think it would be good buisness.

3 parallel processors? For some reason, can't quite put my finger on it, I'm skeptical.

And, unless X-Box 2 is a terrifying leap in technological capability (or a terrifying loss in hardware costs for Microsoft), it'll probably be equalled or outclassed by the average well-designed gaming PC within four to six months. Of course, it could be. I heard talk that it employs a new Power PC architecture, and Power PC can be mean for tasks that aren't x86-specialized.

Because I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread yet, any attempt at a Shadowrun MMORPG would be in close competition with the new "Matrix Online" MMORPG that's starting up.

And the fact that it's inane, dated before it was loaded, and has a bad history, regardless of what the current form may or may not be.

Also, Microsoft is no stranger to the MMO world. They brought us Ascheron's Call and AC 2 I believe. So, unlike Blizzard who jumped into the world of real DB tweaking (more than a million rows and a few thousand concurrent connections and multiple updates per connection) without the benefit of real world experience, they already have experienced DBA's who should know what to not do. I think, if they went with a MMO game for SR, they could have a much smoother launch, but the content would be shallow for some time.
Like many folks have said, SR doesn't lend itself to spawn camping. And let's face it, high body count, while fun but unrealistic in many cases in pen and paper SR, doing what many believe to be a proper shadow run (almost nil body count) you'd never have any karma to advance with.
Also, few MMO's work with a [pseudo]-classless system (SR 1~3 had 2 classes, awakened and everyone else, as if you didn't have the magic attribute fromt eh start, you never would. SR 4 might change that, but who knows). SWG has a very fluid class system, allowing you to change many, many, many aspects over time, but it stunk as far as immersion into the star wars 'universe' I mean come on, Storm troopers are commonly found walking around the Rebel recruiting officer and not harrassing them or those that sign up.

I don't think an MMO would be best for SR, however a system like NWN/KOTOR would be awesome. Multiple headed mission objectives, with new missions unlocked based on your performance in the mission, putting together groups on the fly, a GM console, etc. would be freaking cool for the game. Though, they do need to make it a truly 3D environment, unlike NWN (no climbing, incredibly limited ranged combat, etc.) though luckily, they shouldn't have to remove too much from the mechanics like Bioware had to.

The Matrix Online is Craptacular!, and thankfully not the only cyberpunkish MMO there, there is also Neocron 1 and 2, Face of Mankind and a few others. As far as console games or PC titles go there has been Deus Ex 1 and 2 and One for the PS1 among others. So there is a small ever growing genre and what better game to bring it to the forefront than Shadowrun. As for the rumors, who knows, it could happen. I'll keep my fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's some links to a few of the many rumors.

Shadowrun Coming?
Microsoft Renews Shadowrun Trademark
Vendetta Studios rumor
Project Phoenix

Edit: I just found another link today that I thought I should add.
Xdome

Was Deus X ever ported to the PC?

IIRC, the PS3 is using cell technology as well (I know a guy who works at IBM, he's been keeping up with some of the stuff they're working on for the PS3). As a result, cooling shouldn't be a big issue.

WireKnight: I´m sceptical too, but I read those specs in a game magazine anyway. It may be bogus, but I also read about PS3 and it´s specs were even more frightening. Who knows, maybe we are witnessing a great leap in computer technology. If the rumors are true, there must be some kind of inovation going on, making these monsters a lot more cost effective and making them require less cooling. I don´t know very much about these things, but I do know enough to be a bit dumbstruck by these reports.

I had missed your post DarusGrey. I beleive you, I just wanted to cover my ass because all I had was unsubstantiated rumors.

It does truely seem like PC´s will have a hard time catching up. You seem to know a bit about this. Can you reveal anything about how this "sick" thing is possible? These things will shove gaming computers out of the market if the price of said computers isn´t reduced to a fraction. It all seems like a wet dream for the gaming consumer. Almost to good to be true.

The final amount of video ram actually hasn't been determined yet, though we've been told to expect certain figures.The Video ram/unit is seperate from system ram (no surprise..just like a regular PC).

Heres a minor public spec sheet.

There is manufacturing, and then there is manufacturing at a price that people are willing to pay.

P.S. Some Hertz are more equal than others. It's been a while since i looked at the PowerPC, but wasn't it tilted towards RISC, and even with pipelining generally needed the extra cycles to accomplish the same computations?

The rumor/prospect of a Shadowrun video game over the last year or so has really started picking up some steam. If you do any kind of search you will find forums everywhere discussing the possiblity and people because of it are finding out about the 4th edition. As previously stated by Kagetenshi in the Decking versus Hacking Thread, its terms like Rigger, Decker and drek that seem to be familarities between the fans. Muzer Fuzin Mizo Branzin Hacker term. Anyway, with the heightened awareness of Shadowrun properties, and with any luck, there is a fair chance a video game could be done.

Just a few of the many, many Links

D&D Online Forums
G4 Forums
Petition
RPG Codex
Gamedev.net
MMPlay.de

Perhaps there is some coordination in the vid game developement and the pen and paper.

Now, someone correct me if I'm wrong, or if it's just one the aforementioned "minor conspiracy theories", but didn't Microsoft essentially sell X-Boxes at a loss just to successfully grab a large share of the market?

They might very well be doing the same thing again, God knows they can afford to.

Min-spec limits the technology. Optional hard drive means that the vast majority of the games must support no hard drive. Same thing with the resolution. xbox2 and ps3 games must be playable on a regular tv.


Heh, that xbox spec sheet is funny. Haven't looked at the public spec's before.

"Keep in mind that this number should not be equated to typical PC RAM."
Translation, "please don't pay attention to how much this part of the spec sucks, we have to save a buck someplace".
It isn't embarassing now that it is up to 512 though.

" "
Translation, "ok we really really don't want to talk about video ram, so just move along".
Video ram itself isn't nearly as important as on a pc, but it makes the total ram comparison significantly worse. When I said 'half' before its because the video ram on a pc pretty much wipes out the operating system overhead advantage of the console.

"Optical Drive - As many have speculated, Xenon will not use Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Games will come on dual-layer DVD-9 discs. While the media is the same as that of the current Xbox, the usable space on each disc is up to 7 GB. The drive is slated to run at 12X. "
Twice as much data on one disk and 2-3x faster. That's no quantum leap. Actually it's going to be really irritating with no hard disk, many more pixels to draw, and lots more processors to keep busy with only a little more data. Multi-disk games on the way? PS3 is better here with blue-ray but there are even more processors to feed!

If the Cell is half as good as the hype it will be in gaming pc's in a few years. If it is as good as claimed it will be in every electronic device smarter than a calculator.

It isn't suprising that consoles come up with new architectures more often than pc's. They are monolithic. Most PC hardware manufacturers are really component manufacturers. They have to fit into the existing tech or spend a lot of money switching people over. Really I think the xbox is decidedly the oddball in not coming up with its own wierd architecture instead being a stripped down pc with a really nice GPU.

It's going to be an interesting time.

Microsoft will be first to market with a significantly less powerfull unit, but probably better tools. Sony comes out of last gen with a big lead and the heavy hardware some months later but nobody knows how much of a pain it will be to use it. Nintendo lurks in the bushes with some kind of a suprise.

PS Intel & AMD are supposedly starting to sell dual core CPU's for PC's this week.

a setup like MxO would work. trying to level by spawn camping in MxO is a waste of time--it's usually too difficult to be worth it, and always gives too little XP to be worth it. the way to grind is to do missions, which you get from contacts that you find.

that said, i don't want an SR MMO.

I would love a MMO that didn't focus on racking up kills for xp. WoW and MxO both have pretty unique takes on gaining xp to lvl or raise skills. Plus, for being a departure on standard MMO settings, WoW has a pretty big player base.

IMHO, a MMO based on SR that awards karma for run completion would be far more fun than a SR MMO that awards xp for kills. Just like WoW it could be easy for both casual and power gamers to "level" and would cut down on farmers.

Well, that's the thing with SR. There should really be little to no farming.
It's not like there are really rare pistols out there.
Instead of picking up a "rare uber gun" your chances of getting can use the already established gear aquisition rules. Etiquette tests, contacts, etc. All available on the street gear is listed (based on what the contact can sell) and then you make a test to see if one is available. They could even code in the paying more to get it rules.

I hated that aspect of SWG. The Heavy Blaster pistol (Like Han used) was one of the most dangerous weapons, both in the movies and in the pen and paper versions of the Starwars universe, yet it was a low end POS in SWG.

A SR MMO would probly work alot better then most would think, the problem is most people tend to take MMO and think about the crap put forth by WoW, EQ etc, and then try to fit SR into *those* mechanics..and surprise..isn't gonna work.

"Farming" your right, wouldn't work, the "reward" for a shadowrun should take the form of contacts mainly, or maybe to get something "rare" you have to actually steal it if you can't buy it.

At least in the version I have in my mind.. SR would fit great into an MMO, or just a good RPG.

The only issue is with the advancement system, the karma system (as stands in SR3) is just not compatible.

Alot of the "balance factor" in it is fact that it can take several years of RL playing to get to the saturation point where you have so much karma it just starts getting silly.

A game on otherhand tends to accelerate that, I imagine if an MMO had current advancement mechanics..the best characters would all be Samurai/adepts who have 0.1 essence millons of cyber..and spent 1000 karma on initation/power points, because the acceleration allows that kinda thing to happen alot faster then it would in tabletop game.

But since this is in SR4 section..maybe alot of these issues are corrected.

Actually, I would think it would work great as an MMO.

You could eliminate farming and use the Availabilty scores as hard and fast rules for item rarity.

As far as scripting goes, all the devs have to do is compile a very vast set of runs. Most runs fit into a set few types anyway...very repetetive stuff. Teams could go on short quests Phantasy Star Online style and it would work extremely well...

And if anyone wants to "borg" they can go Ghoul-hunting in abandoned buildings just like in the Shadowrun game for Genesis....


SR would be EXTREMELY easy to make into an MMO and the best part is that it wouldn't be the same as all the other games and could still retain almost all of Shadowrun's flavor.

People would sit in bars and stuff and wait for runs to drop on them (or they can obtain them in other ways) and there can be scripted random events dropped on the whole bar. Great stuff for everyone...It would take a lot of work on the developers parts BUT...they don't have to keep adding and tweaking content because the system and items are already there. They would only need to do periodic updates to the system as a whole and could focus the rest of their time on adding content (runs, runs and more runs).

The only tricky part really is finding ways to allow players to expand their influence in game and actually apply that in ways that every other player can use.

The biggest hurdle I see to it is that the initiative system.