Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong Pre-Release Discussion [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[SarcasticUndertones]

Audio commentary in games can be very interesting.

I imagine it's likely that it will be a post-release thing, since they have to, you know, finish developing the game before they can comment on its development.

I'd have thought that could easily have been done in parallel because when they've finished the game they've finished their commentary, but fair comment.

 

[Infinitron]

Fundraiser's officially live, folks: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ng-codex-fundraiser-is-officially-live.96757/

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Day 01: $267,945
Day 02: $134,007
Day 03: $65,359
Day 04: $34,093
Day 05: $23,049
Day 06: $18,734
Day 07: $18,344
Day 08: $18,841
Day 09: $17,517
Day 10: $27,145
Day 11: $26,747
Day 12: $20,514
Day 13: $13,981
Day 14: $19,099
Day 15: $13,743

 

[GarfunkeL]

Hey drek-head, if you could be bothered to pull your head out of your ass, you would already know the following:

We can only go on the duration THEY tell us... and YOU have no more inside info than we have. So spouting shite like "It'll probably be bigger".. is pie in the sky and more damaging to any conversation than anything else that's been said because you advocate ignoring what THEY have said in favour of made up rubbish that's in your head. So when we agree with you and are disappointed who do we blame?

..and because you don't realise the above, you are probably the least qualified to comment.

Oh right because HBS never shipped any game before SR:HK. Right, I forgot we live in a world where yesterday didn't happen. IIRC, they advertised DMS as being 10-15 hours and DF to be half of that. Guess what? They are both easily longer than that. So perhaps you should STFU and learn about the company you're talking about.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Oh right because HBS never shipped any game before SR:HK. Right, I forgot we live in a world where yesterday didn't happen. IIRC, they advertised DMS as being 10-15 hours and DF to be half of that. Guess what? They are both easily longer than that. So perhaps you should STFU and learn about the company you're talking about.

I'm not sure you can so confidently make that assumption based on one estimate which was probably about right (10-15 hours for DMS) and one which was a considerable low ball (DF).

 

[Nevill]

Why argue about playing time estimates when you have sites dedicated to that sort of thing?

http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=8367
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=17070
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=21118

It coincides with my experience with the games.

Also, it is no secret that DF's scope was increased manyfold, so an estimate made when the core game wasn't even released yet is not very meaningful.

They can decide to do more, of course, but unless they tell us that outright, their words about 4-5 hours are a pretty good indicator of what to expect from the mini-campaign. And I am alright with it.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Not to mention that rescripting/-programming AI is the job of a different dude than the writing of a story or building the actual levels in the editor. Since their programmers will already be quite busy with the gameplay/Matrix upgrades, whereas the main campaign had already been mapped out to some extent, offering a high-level mini-campaign makes more sense than promising even more "under the hood" changes.

 

[Infinitron]

Whoa, they did an update that's longer than a page! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/shadowrun-hong-kong/posts/1119448

Hey, great news!

Andrew, our Lead Writer, and Mitch, our Fearless Leader are going to be LIVE on Twitch tomorrow - January 29 at 8pm EST - with Arvan Eleron talking about Shadowrun: Hong Kong! Andrew and Mitch had a great time the last time they were on his show and we hope you’ll stop by! http://www.twitch.tv/arvaneleron

In the meantime, here are two members of our Environment team to give you another peek backstage about how they go from a piece of concept art to in-game isometric perspective. Check out the cool gif they made, too!

-- HBS

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Day 01: $267,945
Day 02: $134,007
Day 03: $65,359
Day 04: $34,093
Day 05: $23,049
Day 06: $18,734
Day 07: $18,344
Day 08: $18,841
Day 09: $17,517
Day 10: $27,145
Day 11: $26,747
Day 12: $20,514
Day 13: $13,981
Day 14: $19,099
Day 15: $13,743
Day 16: $22,569

Interestingly, someone backed the project for $10k today.

 

[Sykar]

Day 01: $267,945
Day 02: $134,007
Day 03: $65,359
Day 04: $34,093
Day 05: $23,049
Day 06: $18,734
Day 07: $18,344
Day 08: $18,841
Day 09: $17,517
Day 10: $27,145
Day 11: $26,747
Day 12: $20,514
Day 13: $13,981
Day 14: $19,099
Day 15: $13,743
Day 16: $22,569

Interestingly, someone backed the project for $10k today.

Wow. I wonder what these people do for a living if they can afford 10k backing.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Reasonable chance it's a fake bid, and it will be withdrawn right as the Kickstarter ends.

Notch (of Minecraft fame) is known to occasionally make $10k+ bids on Kickstart games though. Steven Dengler (founder of xe.com) also.

 

[veevoir]

That 10k might be a troll, one of those interesting people that pull this kind of pledge out jsut before the end. Unless KS finally did something about this.

Edit: Ninja'd

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Wow. I wonder what these people do for a living if they can afford 10k backing.

Successful video game lawyer?

 

[Haba]

Wow. I wonder what these people do for a living if they can afford 10k backing.

Most probably? Nothing.

At those income levels, any work you do is more of a hobby.

 

[Sykar]

Reasonable chance it's a fake bid, and it will be withdrawn right as the Kickstarter ends.

Notch (of Minecraft fame) is known to occasionally make $10k+ bids on Kickstart games though. Steven Dengler (founder of xe.com) also.

Kinda pointless considering that the game is already funded, or am I missing something?

Wow. I wonder what these people do for a living if they can afford 10k backing.

Most probably? Nothing.

At those income levels, any work you do is more of a hobby.

That's of course possible.

 

[Starwars]

I love the shot on the Night Market, hope they can keep that kinda of visual density up for a lot of locations.

I am a bit worried though as some of Dragonfall's larger locations kinda stutter on my machine.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

(Moving this to the correct thread.. :/)

It would seem I'm on a roll, so while my luck is still in I'll repost a request I have successfully brought to Inxile's attention for T:ToN (not claiming kudos, just glad of a result)

So, HBS, if you read this...

If I can make a request.

Because the game combat is turn based, CAN WE PLEASE NOT HAVE THE CAMERA CONSTANTLY MOVE TO FOCUS ON THE ACTIVE COMBATANT.

99% of players play with a full view of the battle, we don't constantly need the camera shifting about from one character to the next, BECAUSE THAT MEANS WE ARE CONSTANTLY PLAYING WITH THE CAMERA. We can see our characters we are looking at the screen, we don't need the game to constantly tell us where we should be looking.. It's such a simple thing but the games that do this, because of this 'feature' your combat is more of a constant pain in the arse than it has to be.

Please, please, please.. at least give us the option of a static combat camera... then maybe we can all say goodbye to combat motion sickness.



YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING....

 

[Lord Andre]

Wasn't there already a camera option with 3 states one of which was free/player control only ?

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

Wasn't there already a camera option with 3 states one of which was free/player control only ?

Well I've played srr and dfdc a couple of times and I've never noticed an option like that, although I'm certainly not above missing it.

If there is, then my post can be safely ignored.

EDIT: I've just checked and yes, there are 3 options free, locked and auto, but none of them give a static camera in turn mode, in fact I'm not sure what they do, changing the option didn't seem to do anything.

 

[Lord Andre]

I'm pretty sure it's there, but I don't remember if it prevented the behaviour you describe in combat. But it does it when initiating dialog with an NPC. On the subject I don't remember having any annoyance with this in combat but it was a bit distracting when the game reset my zoom level a few times.

 

[krist2]

Yeah, you have 3 camera options
Free - able to pan around map
Locked - Main camera is fixed on the map
Auto - Able to pan around map. Camera snaps back during character events

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

Yeah, you have 3 camera options
Free
Locked
Auto

But as I said, they don't still the camera during turn mode.

I'm pretty sure it's there, but I don't remember if it prevented the behaviour you describe in combat. But it does it when initiating dialog with an NPC. On the subject I don't remember having any annoyance with this in combat but it was a bit distracting when the game reset my zoom level a few times.

Yeah, it's for dialogue and interaction rather than combat.

 

[krist2]

ok, I never thought about the camera going back during turn mode. Will check for this when I play it agian.

 

[dukeofwhales]

Reasonable chance it's a fake bid, and it will be withdrawn right as the Kickstarter ends.

Notch (of Minecraft fame) is known to occasionally make $10k+ bids on Kickstart games though. Steven Dengler (founder of xe.com) also.

Kinda pointless considering that the game is already funded, or am I missing something?

Only that it gets devs excited and they get to be a dick. Plus I imagine they hope that the removal of their bid will drop the final tally below a stretch goal at the last moment.

 

[Infinitron]

Harebrained Schemes On The Future Of Shadowrun
By Alec Meer on January 29th, 2015 at 1:00 pm.

Last week I ran the first half of an interview with three-time Kickstarter winners Harebrained Schemes, in which they fielded my own questions about their upcoming cyberpunk-with-magic RPG sequel Shadowrun: Hong Kong. This time, they’re fielding your questions – including what they’ve got planned for the future of the series, cyberpunk’s Asian influences, how the stories are becoming increasingly less linear, avoiding Eastern stereotypes with the new setting, and improving the game’s pace.

Oh, and at the time writing the Shadowrun Hong Kong Kickstarter has now brought in $750,000. They’d asked for $100,000. They’ve now unlocked 12 stretch goals, and promise an additional mini-campaign if they hit $1 million. There are still 19 days to go. *blinks*.

RPS: draglikepull says “I loved a lot of the improvements in Dragonfall, but the game also had some really long, repetitive combat sequences. Have they given any thought to splitting up some of the longer combat-oriented segments of SR: Hong Kong with some exploration or story in the middle?”

Mitch Gitelman (Harebrained Schemes co-founder): Yes, absolutely. We recognise that some combats had some pacing issues, and we are actively breaking it up into smaller, bite-size chunks.

There’s this interesting thing that we’re doing now, based on feedback from the audience. We’re allowing you to move in and out of turn-based mode at your command, so that you can position yourself before you open a door, for example, to enter combat. So you’re entering combat with your brick in front and your long-range guy in the back, that kind of thing.

RPS: Oh good. There were a few bits in other games where the enemy was two rooms away and you had to wait turn after turn for them to get over to you.

Jordan Weisman (Shadowrun creator): Exactly. So that’ll answer some of the pacing issues by itself.

Mitch: But really it’s just a matter of clean level design, and that’s just a matter of us improving our game.

RPS: Darkheart says “Haven’t had the chance to play Dragonfall, yet, so I don’t know if it changed by now, but what greatly irked me was the lack of a loot system. That’s kinda half of RPG fun missing for me at least. Will this be rethunk in the Hong Kong iteration?”

Mitch: So we’re not just revamping a loot system or something like that, because it’s really not part of the Shadowrun setting. First of all, you don’t get experience points for killing people, you get what we call Karma for completing objectives or doing things cleverly. For example, in Dragonfall, there are more things to find, more things that drop during the game, but one of the things we’re adding in Hong Kong is the ability to when you pick up something that’s been dropped, you can assign it to any one of your team members. The ability to swap inventory items between your team mates, we’re giving you much more control of that as well.

Jordan: In Shadowrun, we don’t think picking random stuff up off the floor is a lot of fun. So everything that drops on the floor is actually useful in some more significant way.

Mitch: There’s stuff to find though in the game. By searching you can find things, which is more of a Shadowrun thing.

RPS: Zallgrin says “How do devs intend to approach the theology of China? Lots of Western devs tend to fetishise and simplify the Chinese culture, and as consequence it becomes a parody of itself. Do the devs have spoken to people living in Hong Kong or do they have by chance any freelancers from China on their team?”

Mitch: We do have gamers in Hong Kong that are Shadowrun Gamers, who are helping us out. We also have someone from the university of Washington Asian Studies department helping us out. We have an employee stationed over there too, for Golem Arcana, who does quality control of our manufacturing too, so we have our own employee boots in the ground.

It’s just like with Dragonfall, because we did the same thing with people in Germany who helped us out, we’re not interested in making a cartoon version of Hong Kong. I think we succeeded in turning Berlin into something really cool in 2054, and we’re looking forwards to making something really cool and authentic-feeling in 2056 Hong Kong.

RPS: This is kind of my question rather than a reader’s, but by moving to an Eastern setting I guess maybe you’re moving closer to more established cyberpunk tropes. It was kind of an open book in Berlin, but there’s much more established fiction and tropes to take from here. How much do you play with or against that?

Jordan: If you’re looking at the Blade Runner interpretation of cyberpunk and the dominance of Asian culture, which was purely an outbreak of the era in which cyberpunk was originally written, right? At that point everybody believed Japan was going to own the world. They were wrong…

Mitch: China’s going to rule the world!

Jordan: Yeah. We’re probably wrong about that too. But I do think that though it was Western-created, it dressed itself in a lot of Asian tropes. In that era, we too had a very strong Asian dominance in the world. You had Japan controlling a fair chunk of California, for similar reasons of the era it was written in. And the currency of the world was called New Yen for the same reason.

I think Shadowrun is always going to have a solid foot in Asian culture. It’s not alien for us to go there with this game and this campaign. It’s kind of woven into the context of Shadowrun all the way through. Even phrases like the Street Samurai [clarification – this is a term for a character type which exists across the Shadowrun universe, rather than something added for Hong Kong]. It really it is a merging of aboriginal cultures from around the world. One of the premises of Shadowrun is that magic empowers aboriginal cultures, and so that’s why we have the Native Americans as such a strong thing, but that’s also true with the Shamanistic nature of Japanese magic as well, as it comes back into the forefront.

Mitch: Also, just like in Berlin, the Hong Kong setting, especially the 2056 setting, has been described and written about, but not in intensive detail. Which is perfect for us, there’s a lot of great stuff for us to trigger our imaginations and inspire us, but not too much that it bogs us down in already-written detail. It’s a great balancing act, just like it was for Berlin in Dragonfall.

RPS: Danarchist says “In Dragonfall I found it very difficult to acquire enough resources for some of the longer missions. Most specifically having enough medkits and summons in my inventory to get through the entire mission. When I hit the lab this became especially troublesome and I had to restart from an earlier save. Basically would it be possible to make inventory items like medkits etc stack, or could alternative/optional income sources be added so we do not have a finite amount of creds available?”

Mitch: That’s a pretty specific question. All I can say is that we’ll look into it. One of the things we pride ourselves on is listening to our audience. Even though we don’t comment on every single suggestion or smaller feature request, the design team is very active in scouring the comments and listening and taking notes. We can’t promise that we’ll do everything, but we are listening.

RPS: I guess you’ve got to strike a balance between stuff a lot of people are asking for and stuff one person is upset by.

Mitch: Well, it’s time and people. Everything’s got to be prioritised.

Jordan: And you’ve got to watch out for something that, as you said, is specific to one player’s case.

Mitch: That request would make the game much easier to other people, for example. That guy could turn down the difficulty and take less damage instead.

RPS: Morlock says “I would just like to know where they see the series going. Are there any plans to at some point switch engines? The stronger dedication to PC opens up new options. I would also like to know whether there are any new plans for the editor and whether they ever considered multiplayer (perhaps with Neverwinter-Nights-type DMing)?”

Mitch: That was seven questions in one. I’ll take the first one. For me personally, interacting with the world Jordan created is the exciting part. In success, what I’d like to do is travel the globe, showing the world of Shadowrun, how magic returning to a cyberpunk world is affected by different cultures, and how it affects different cultures. There have been Shadowrun sourcebooks written in just about every major city over the globe, and showing different aspects of how this is a global thing, that’s what’s exciting to me.

Jordan: To me, I think the locations are great backdrops, but it’s all got to come down to great stories of the characters and for the players. I think so long as we keep coming up with great stories and characters and interesting choices, we’d love to keep making them.

In terms of big things like adding multiplayer or co-op, those are really big feature sets. The current engine wasn’t built to go there that easily, and so that’s going to require either us doing really well and being able to fund it, and believe there’s a big enough audience, or we bring a much bigger opportunity to crowd-funding. We’re a very small studio. We’re kind of bootstrapping the entire thing.

RPS: Lars Westergren says “For such a famous historical port, will they have some waterfront locations, docks, quays, maybe even ship to enter?”

Mitch: Yes. Absolutely we’re into that. In fact, the very first scene in the game is on the waterfront.

RPS: VexingVision says “Please ask them about branching plotlines. Will the new plot be as rail-roady as the other SR Modules?”

Jordan: One of the things we’re extremely focused on is more content. One of the reasons we’re careful about responding to requests for more feature sets is we want more content, and more content means less linearity. With Dragonfall we took that next to step to less linear, and with this one we’ll take that step even further to less linear. It’s not an open world game, it’s never going to be GTA, but in terms of more branches and choices for a player to move down, we are incrementally getting better and better.

RPS: Thanks for your time.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong has another 19 days to go on its Kickstarter. It’s brought in over $750k, but has more stretch goals left to unlock.