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Shadowrun Chronicles (formerly Shadowrun Online)

Morkar Left

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August 2012. Codex users still sitting in their victorian chairs with gaslamps, shitting on a (promising) browser (and client!) game just because.
have you played jao? browser game limitations are very much noticeable there in the form of smallish maps with shitty (linear corridor or at best three separate corridors) map design right out of the realm of portable consoles (maps are even smaller than on regular consoles, that is). it's made by the same people and serves as the basis for sro, so this being a browser game has very much bearing on gameplay.
the only difference between the browser and the client version will be loading times, not map design.

oh, and anyone claiming this is promising should really really try the jao open beta first.

Can you give some more impressions, please? The small maps were something I already suspected given the shooting ranges from the video. How small exactly? Does one mission consists of different small maps or just one?
 

thesheeep

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August 2012. Codex users still sitting in their victorian chairs with gaslamps, shitting on a (promising) browser (and client!) game just because.
have you played jao? browser game limitations are very much noticeable there in the form of smallish maps with shitty (linear corridor or at best three separate corridors) map design right out of the realm of portable consoles (maps are even smaller than on regular consoles, that is). it's made by the same people and serves as the basis for sro, so this being a browser game has very much bearing on gameplay.
the only difference between the browser and the client version will be loading times, not map design.

oh, and anyone claiming this is promising should really really try the jao open beta first.

Probably I should put this straight: The vast majority of browser and MMO games suck. But they do not suck because they are browser or MMO games. They suck because they have bad design/technology/whatever reason.
That's like saying SC2 sucks because it's a strategy game. Or all NDS games suck...

There are a lot of Unity games running in the browser with large maps, so this is not a browser restriction.
I was never a huge fan of the JA games, so this one naturally didn't get my interest, but I'll try out for sure.
Tbh, I think JAO is serving for them more of a testing case for SRO. Now they know much better what they can do, also, afaik, that is their first game. Most first games are not... optimal.

Grunker said:
Just because? Fuck you. That payment scheme looks like shit.
Oh, wow, okay. That sounds convincing.
Does their payment scheme look especially shit to you or do you simply not like f2p payment schemes in general? Because theirs surely looks as most others out there.
 

kaizoku

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This bares the question: why hasn't any codexer made a JAO preview?

Raising the map level size issue in JAO would be a nice question to ask them for someone who played the game.
 

thesheeep

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Only 12 days to go and they haven't even reached half of the target.
Yes, but everything from the last 5 days to now is not representative any more.
People see that it is extremely unlikely that the game will reach its goal, and therefore don't bother with backing it. Even if they normally would.
I think in a second attempt, they could gather 300k or 400k, if they make their payment models clearer right from the start instead of changing them during the process :)
And also if they show their gameplay video on their front page instead of inside one of the updates.
 

SuicideBunny

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Can you give some more impressions, please? The small maps were something I already suspected given the shooting ranges from the video. How small exactly? Does one mission consists of different small maps or just one?
i really think it would be better if you tried it yourself, especially since my experience is very tainted by me playing 1.13 just before trying jao and therefore being majorly pissed at how much of a fucking decline it is and unable to endure it for more than 8 missions or so.

Probably I should put this straight: The vast majority of browser and MMO games suck. But they do not suck because they are browser or MMO games. They suck because they have bad design/technology/whatever reason.
That's like saying SC2 sucks because it's a strategy game. Or all NDS games suck...
jao sucks because it has small limited maps (also because of shitty cth causing ridiculously stupid situations).
->
it has small limited maps because the game streams all the content while at the same time trying to reduce bandwidth caused by non-paying players.
->
it streams all the content because it's a browser game + it has non-paying players because it's f2p.
=>
jao sucks because it's a f2p browser game.
 

Morkar Left

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i really think it would be better if you tried it yourself, especially since my experience is very tainted by me playing 1.13 just before trying jao and therefore being majorly pissed at how much of a fucking decline it is and unable to endure it for more than 8 missions or so.

I'm restricted to a HDSAP connection till next year besides workplace. Btw I'm playing 1.13 atm, too.

I don't think the ruleset they use is exemplary for SR:O. For SR:O they have to use a different one anyway. The small maps sounds discouraging so far. How are the missions handled? Singleplayer where you can make your own team or just one merc? Do you have to cooperate with others? Can other mercs become your enemy in the missions? That would be the things I'm curious to know.
 

thesheeep

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it has small limited maps because the game streams all the content while at the same time trying to reduce bandwidth caused by non-paying players.
And where does it say that they could not stream big maps? Streaming maps is something that has to be done once for every player (+ eventual updates). It's no big deal.
So they made the decision to let new players wait as short as possible. Given, not the best idea for such a game, IMHO. They should have made small maps for the first few missions for any player, to get those started faster. And while they play those small maps, stream the big ones in background. I think DDO or some other MMO once worked like that, where the initial download was the starting village only, and while playing, everything else was downloaded.
But there is no rule that says "Browser games are not allowed to download GB worth of data".
Maybe for casual games, but I'd say this is not the case for JAO ;)
 

SuicideBunny

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How are the missions handled? Singleplayer where you can make your own team or just one merc? Do you have to cooperate with others? Can other mercs become your enemy in the missions? That would be the things I'm curious to know.
singleplayer+pvp arena (no idea how pvp is, haven't tried), with coop being planned sometime in the future. so far it is not an mmo at all, other than design philosophy.

you get a starter custom merc (custom = you choose its class, which i think only affects starter gear and point distribution, name and portrait) and two free slots (more slots cost real world money) that you can fill up with mercs hired from your pool either temporarily for ingame money or permanently for real world money. mercs have a reputation level requirement. reputation is effectively the player level.

the missions themselves also have no random element in regards to enemy composition/distribution, your starting point or objectives. there is a a time resources called fuel used in increasingly bigger quantities to play/replay missions, upgrade your facilities or spent in variable quantities to heal mercs/repair equipment to increase success chance or magnitude of the action (possibly the same in crafting, but haven't unlocked crafting yet and no intention to play it anymore) which regenerates at a certain rate (1 per 5 minutes, starter tutorial missions cost 3 fuel to play, the ones directly after them 5 and so on).

facilities (hospital, storage, workshop) are upgradeable, with the upgrades costing fuel and an increasing number of stuff that drops randomly as mission rewards.

the equipment progression is typical mmorpg tiered shit with increasingly more powerful versions becoming available and having higher stat, merc level and reputation requirements.
 

Kz3r0

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Now they even brought in an actor. Hmm, only 7 days to go and they just reached ~$256k.

What is if a kickstarter fails? Can they start a new one with the same product?
Wouldn't be the first time, I have no idea of what kind of limitations there are tho, even if I never saw a Kockstarter for the same project repeated more than twice.
 

kaizoku

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They replied to me on KS and said the fact the game will require you to be online is due to contractual reasons.

They also had an AMA but I missed it (in any case I don't have reddit anyway). But it would have been a nice chance to ask them about level maps

what ctrl+f gave me:
Q: Will the game be accessible by both those who have 40+ hours per week available, as well as those who only have a few hours per week?

A: Yes. The game is split into missions often spread across several maps - so each part of the mission can play in 15 to 20 minutes. The ideas is to allow people who want to spend more time (and probably also PvP) to do so in a meaningful and fun way but NOT force this on others. Part of the concept came from our own frustration with current day MMOs and their demand on time.
 

kaizoku

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Impressive...
$423,401 pledged of $500,000 goal
21 hours to go

Will they make it?


when asked about map size:
The map size of one map will be about the same as in JAO, but one mission / run wil consist of many of these maps. We have to go with about that size so all the people who want to play on tablets can do that as well. But one whole run will be longer than a mission in JAO.
 

thesheeep

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480k with 7 hours to go for the final 20.000.

So, if you hesitated because you thought it wouldn't make it, these are the hours to put your money in :)
The push it made in the last two days is astonishing. Like, 50% in 2 days o_O

Closest Kickstarter campaign ever. Nomen est omen with Cliffhanger Productions, I guess :cool:
 

SuicideBunny

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and they got funded. i just hope it turns out better than jao.
 

Minttunator

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:necro:

The time has come to resurrect this thread, as Early Access is nearly upon us:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1964352341/shadowrun-online/posts/782211

The update explains why the game has been delayed for so long (they've had to switch engines and find new funding). They are releasing a preview of the game to backers on Monday - apparently this will just be an intro for the main campaign (which they are still working on), but it'll have the core gameplay systems in place.
 

Minttunator

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Anyone played the Alpha yet?

It's a pretty basic tech demo. It's got some PVP (which I haven't tried) and 4 very short missions (literally around 5 minutes each) of which I almost completed the first two - I couldn't progress past the second due to a bug.

The core gameplay seems to be solid enough, but it's still rather simplistic - items haven't been implemented yet, you don't get to customize characters so there are only a few skills, etc. The graphics are 2004-era 3D - nothing too horrible, but Shadowrun Returns looks much better. On the plus side, the soundtrack is very good and the voice acting is sufficiently cheesy. :P

Overall, I think the game has potential, but it's so early in development that there's not much to be excited about yet. To be honest, I'm not sure making the game available to the public this early was a good idea, as a lot of people on various forums seem to be pretty disappointed.

Here's a video of some gameplay for anyone who's interested - it's some dude completing the first mission and a part of the second:
 

Junmarko

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Wow...after watching that video it looks like the devs have done sweet F.A for the last year and a half. Well...let's hope it doesn't suffer from the early access virus - now that the devs are getting even more money early they may start losing motivation.
 

Infinitron

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Impressions: Shadowrun Online Early Access
By Rich Stanton on April 16th, 2014 at 9:00 pm.

sroheader.jpg


The honeymoon period for Kickstarter is long over. There are a number of reasons why but perhaps the most impactful is the failure of several high-profile campaigns to deliver what was promised, or going full Darth Vader: ‘We are altering the deal, pray we don’t alter it any further.’ Such drek leads us to Shadowrun Online – a game that was due for release in May 2013, but on March 31 2014 crept onto Steam Early Access, available for sale to non-backers at the princely sum of £25. So what’s going on?


We’ll come to the tortuous twists and turns of Shadowrun Online’s development soon enough, but for ponying up the dough this is what you get: Early Access to what is currently four singleplayer missions and a miniscule multiplayer map, along with the full campaign on release. Worth noting is that this purchase does not include future expansions (i.e. they’re already thinking about DLC), and when the game is eventually released there will also be a free-to-play version of it.

In fact there are some pretty big claims for Shadowrun Online, so I’m just going to quote the developer before coming back to reality: “Every character perceives the game world differently […] the collective actions of players will not only determine the fate of the online game world [but will] also cross over into the pen and paper storyline […] accessible through Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux and on Ouya […] it is fully cross-platform, meaning you can play it on your tablet [then] sit down at your PC to continue with the same character.”

sro1.jpg


Hoo boy. The kickstarter promised co-op gameplay and faction wars, with hubs where players could mingle and pick missions to undertake – as well as all the Shadowrun bobbins you’d expect, from computer hacking to magic to gritty combat. The current build of the game has none of this, but it is of course Early Access.

The good news is that the backgrounds look pretty great. More than anything else in Shadowrun Online, the look and atmosphere of these few environments is bang-on. The missions are short ‘kill all the dudes’ affairs, and showcase a relatively slick but simple turn-based combat system. ThinkXCOM but without the dynamic combat camera.

But that comparison is a problem in itself. I think XCOM’s amazing but Shadowrun Online really shouldn’t play like a poor man’s XCOM – yet it does. You have two guys who each have two weapons: a bulky SMG-toting Orc with a machete, and a mage that can shoot fireballs or whip out a shotgun. The big problem is that combat doesn’t live up to the interface: the battles don’t seem enormously dependent on tactics, more on the random chance of shots landing and who gets the first good hit in.

sro2.jpg


All that’s on offer here is combat, which is fine, but being a shadowrunner isn’t just about killing people. Interaction beyond combat is limited to shooting at door panels. There’s no hacking to speak of, though in one mission you guard an NPC who’s doing this. You can see everything happening in the level (no fog of war). Cover is interchangeable – a pot plant’s as effective as a big hunk of steel.

The most disappointing thing is the magic system. Currently magic is simply fire-and-forget with certain spells having a cooldown of a few turns. Core Shadowrun concepts like drain and overcasting are not present, which means that spells are basically fireball guns. This isn’t even to mention that the mage character indicates his magicalness by wearing a pink hat and carrying a giant skull around, which is so far away from the basic concept of being a shadow runner – you know, disguising true power from the enemy and surprising them – it’s hard to believe it got past the concept stage.

sro3.jpg


The PvP element on offer is so insignificant it doesn’t even deserve to be called a taster. It’s a tiny map for 2 vs 2 battles where both players move forwards into cover, then take pot-shots at one another. There’s no room in this environment for any kind of interesting approach to the combat, beyond chancing your arm by running the Orc forward and slashing away.

The ‘this is Alpha’ excuse is, just under a year after the original deadline, pretty astonishing – that is, that the £25 version being sold now is merely a functionality test and that content will come later. The projected launch is by the end of this year. The developers still aren’t sure about absolutely fundamental aspects of the game like team size and the inclusion of overwatch.

When Cliffhanger announced the first delay, they did so by saying that the game could not be built on the existing codebase for Jagged Alliance – it ‘compromised’ too much. This is all well and good in theory, but in practice it is very hard to see what Shadowrun Online has gained from such a delay. Game development is not this linear process whereby a team can, having perfected a single mechanic, produce an entire semi-MMOG worth of content within six months or even a year. It’s not going to happen.

sro4.jpg


And here’s the real killer: if Shadowrun Online is about showing off a core gameplay loop, then it doesn’t. It shows off a visually slick but generic isometric strategy game that lacks any kind of tactical options whatsoever. The strategy here comes down to the random number generator. The core gameplay loop isn’t here.

The problem with Shadowrun Online is that there are a tonne of games doing what it does already – but better. For solo players, there’s even Shadowrun Returns. But very few games have captured that intoxicating blend that makes Shadowrun such a great universe: biotechnology, magical fantasy and raw danger everywhere. The multitude of approaches for any given situation. Taking up such a mantle requires much more than a logo, and a by-the-numbers isometric strategy game.

Be wary. So far Shadowrun Online has swallowed over half a million dollars in Kickstarter money, claims to have had an angel investor that walked away at the last minute, has another background investor, is sharing its codebase with another game, and is now selling on Steam Early Access to people who didn’t back the original. What has been released is more like a tech demo than an alpha version of the game, and frankly the chances of a 2014 release don’t look realistic.

sro5.jpg


It could be that Cliffhanger are straight-shootin’ types and will deliver by the end of the year, in which case I’ll happily eat my cyberware. But one thing in particular stood out from the video released to announce Steam Early Access. Almost the whole six minutes is shots of the beautiful Vienna office of the developer, and Jan Wagner talking. There’s plenty of merchandise around, big posters on the walls, smiling employees looking busy, and tutting about the various issues and how they’re solving them. There’s barely any footage of the game.

Shadowrun Online has been funded and in development for years now. For me the warning klaxons are blazing. Plenty of us want a great Shadowrun game, something Cliffhanger has taken advantage of to fund the development of Shadowrun Online. Perhaps they’ll deliver. But for now, I’d advise you keep your wallet shut, and watch this project from a very safe distance.
 

SuicideBunny

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meh.
 

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