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

How much HBS is going to get for his Hong Kong campaign ?


  • Total voters
    161
  • Poll closed .

dukeofwhales

Cipher
Joined
Nov 13, 2013
Messages
423
Hell, the whole concept of pay being for work and not living expenses is retarded to begin with. You can't distinguish that unless you flat out say you're working for X dollars an hour, and then you'd need to somehow prove how many hours you're working, which would be insane. If someone gets a pile of money to make a game, what are they supposed to do, only ever buy necessities? Does shampoo count or is that a luxury? How about clothing or a haircut? When they finish the game and have money left over should they just keep programming extra random shit nobody wanted?

Businesses operate with all employees (including stakeholders) being issued a salary (which attracts personal income tax but not company tax) and any money generated on top after costs/bonuses/salaries being considered profits to be reinvested for the future projects (and therefore an additional cost) or taken off the top (and taxed as profit). So of course as part of the Kickstarter you are paying Fargo's salary (whatever that is) which will include some expenses - this is fairly basic stuff so I'm sure people are aware of it. That's different to saying "we're going to spend the extra $80,000 you've given us on a Tesla for Fargo." Though I imagine the extra will inevitably used towards the game anyway when costs inevitably blow out.
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Businesses operate with all employees (including stakeholders) being issued a salary (which attracts personal income tax but not company tax) and any money generated on top after costs/bonuses/salaries being considered profits to be reinvested for the future projects (and therefore an additional cost) or taken off the top (and taxed as profit). So of course as part of the Kickstarter you are paying Fargo's salary (whatever that is) which will include some expenses - this is fairly basic stuff so I'm sure people are aware of it. That's different to saying "we're going to spend the extra $80,000 you've given us on a Tesla for Fargo." Though I imagine the extra will inevitably used towards the game anyway when costs inevitably blow out.
Fargo said at the beginning of the ks he would't be drawing a salary from ks money.

And again, he put his own money into WL2 in addition to it's other funding.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
How is that any different than a million people spending ~100$ on shoes that cost 7$ to make and ship, and some lardass at Nike buying a private jet?
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
It makes sad that such a uninspiring, linear and almost biowarian formula gets such a following.

Wake me up when they manage to approach the Genesis game ingenious gameplay. (bonus if they manage to ditch the ridiculous cartoon gfx in favor of Satellite Reign like realistic ones)
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Wake me up when they manage to approach the Genesis game ingenious gameplay.

What was that exactly?
You know, when they did "open-world" before the term was coined.
When they did a matrix actually interesting.
When they did Contacts an actual interactive web just like the tabletop.
When they did an actual moody and somber tone instead of cartoony.
You know, back in 1994... twenty f****g years ago.

Oh come on, Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Whatever is little more than a glorified RPGMaker game. I can't believe I'm having to articulate all that.
 
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Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Wake me up when they manage to approach the Genesis game ingenious gameplay.

What was that exactly?
You know, when they did "open-world" before the term was coined.
When they did a matrix actually interesting.
When they did Contacts an actual interactive web just like the tabletop.
When they did an actual moody and somber tone instead of cartoony.
You know, back in 1994... twenty f****g years ago.

Oh come on, Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Whatever is little more than a glorified RPGMaker game. I can't believe I'm having to articulate all that.

The main story of the Genesis game was strictly linear, and quite an average "must avenge brother" story at that. Missions went quickly boring routine since there wasn't really much variance and ultimately turned into a generic randomly generated karma farm fest with no personality whatsoever. First runs were pure boring fed ex crap or the retarded "kill x Ghouls in abandoned house" popamole shit which usually ended up you getting overwhelmed and killed. Controls were crappy as hell. There were like 2-3 runners worth recruiting but you could manage on your own since the hardest part of the game was getting the shitty controls to work.

The Matrix was better. I give you that. Otherwise SRR > Genesis in every other aspect.
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
I must also remember that Genesis Shadowrun had stealth in the form of infiltration spells and gadgets. Again, twenty years ago.

Oh man, where is the old Codex? Back in the old times such a RPGMaker game would never get this praise. Bros got too soft playing bioware games.
 
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Lord Andre

Arcane
Joined
Apr 11, 2011
Messages
3,716
Location
Gypsystan
An RPGmaker game with cool combat and superb writing. And the matrix getting fixed was a stretch goal but with nostalgia glasses that thick it's hard to see I suppose.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
The Codex, home to people who think games are good because they sound good on paper, even though they are actually extremely unenjoyable to actually play.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Are you referring to Dragonfall or the genesis game?
Genesis game.
:bro:

I must also remember that Genesis Shadowrun had stealth in the form of infiltration spells and gadgets. Again, twenty years ago.

Oh man, where is the old Codex? Back in the old times such a RPGMaker game would never get this praise. Bros got too soft playing bioware games.

Was hardly needed most of the time. Just avoid the guards -> done. SRR/DF can have stealth parts if the map, dialogue and stealth routes are available, so it's not like you have to blow everything up every damn time.
So more than anything it's a matter of map and misson design more than anything else. Oh and please show me where I could create my own adventures with the Genesis game. I'm waiting.
 
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naossano

Cipher
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
1,232
Location
Marseilles, France
I would enjoy a remastered version of SNES/Genesis Shadowrun games, with custom controls and a reduced speed (old games tend to become too fast on modern computer).
As much as i enjoy SR, i feel bad for not having spent much time on the classics.
 

twincast

Learned
Patron
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 10, 2013
Messages
232
I'd like it if Kickstarters would honestly say stuff like, "This is as much as we want to deliver that needs funding. If you give us more money it is just normal profit we don't feel needs to be invested into hiring more people or working longer hours, but rather on things like replacing the transmission on my daughter's car." Although, I dunno if that is technically allowed on Kickstarter.
That was the norm in the pre-stretchgoal galore days. And as far as I am aware, it still is when it comes to gadgets or building restaurations etc. In fact, KS did a big "please don't do stretchgoals" (or at least something along those lines) post about a year ago.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Wake me up when they manage to approach the Genesis game ingenious gameplay.

What was that exactly?
You know, when they did "open-world" before the term was coined.
When they did a matrix actually interesting.
When they did Contacts an actual interactive web just like the tabletop.
When they did an actual moody and somber tone instead of cartoony.
You know, back in 1994... twenty f****g years ago.

Oh come on, Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Whatever is little more than a glorified RPGMaker game. I can't believe I'm having to articulate all that.
You are comparing apples to oranges, the Genesis game was very open in comparison with Dragonfall but you are making it look like it didn't sacrifice alot for that and it sacrificed ALOT. It suffered from the traditional heavy asset recycling, lack of focus, crappy repetitive gameplay and really only conceptual story that open world games have. It is wonderful on paper but has crappy gameplay. If you are a gamer that likes size first and gameplay second, I can understand you not liking Dragonfall but saying that Dragonfall is a RPGMaker game is just plain wrong.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
Yeah, the fact that it's apples to oranges really wasn't apparent from the TWENTY YEAR GAP between the two games.

As far as gameplay goes, combat was pretty dumb (basically no decisions involved, just spray and pray, spam medkits if needed/available.) but the matrix was great, and the gameworld was awesome. All the runners were viable since they gained karma just like you and you could spend it however you wanted, and they actually had an inventory.

Most of the mistakes in the genesis Shadowrun weren't sacrifices, they were just straight up mistakes. Turn based combat would have been much better, and the main plot was just badly designed, with only 2 actual runs involved.

But still, there's really no excuse for not having a lot of the features it had. Things as simple as contacts would be trivial to add. The atmosphere is all wrong most of the time, swinging between epic and slapstick without spending any time in the gritty zone. A skill as basic and obvious as electronics/security isn't in the game. Items available magically scale with story progression because it'd be so unfair to let the player spend his life savings on an awesome gun or piece of cyberware right away. None of the mercenary runners you can get actually serve any purpose, unless you managed to make one of your main crew leave forever and need to replace them.

Dragonfall was a huge improvement, but it's still riddled with problems that were solved 20 years ago by a game that would fit on 1 and a half floppy disks.
 

Jason Liang

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2014
Messages
8,335
Location
Crait
Genesis Shadowrun was a milestone that directly inspired Rockstar to make the original GTA games. It wasn't repetitive, there was a lot of fun and a lot to discover, and high level corp and matrix runs were the right balance of challenge vs. reward. The main "quest" was really an after thought, the game was meant to be played, not beaten, in true open ended fashion. In fact I think the only "mistake" the game made was combat armor, which made the fights easy and boring. I recommend everyone to try it out and skip getting the combat armors.

SNES Shadowrun -> inspired Shadowrun Returns
Genesis Shadowrun -> inspired GTA
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
SNES shadowrun had a inventory (sorta, you could replace the weapon and armor). The major problem is that most weapons and armor had STR requirements and since you never could increase it on runners 90% of the time you couldn't upgrade anyway durrr. But anyway both of these (genesis and SNES games) are old and archaic, worth playing yes, but plz, just the mouse and TB is a major design upgrade, don't sperg.

I agree the SNES one is more of a inspiration for SRR, but i don't think that a bad thing since random quests can go fuck themselves. The random contacts of the genesis one were sorta minimally interesting, could be a nice framework to story missions if your johnson was random from a predetermined set of possibles (for replays chummer).
 
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DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
The gameplay ideas of the Genesis game consisted on:
1 - You visiting a few Seattle districts, each of the districts being sorta of a hub. (The problem is how you gonna fill all those districts with content and make them relevant?)
2 - You can have runners to go with you on runs. (Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall are much, much, much better at this.)
3 - Tons of random encounters. (Again, how are you going to make those random encounters good instead of repetitive trash?)
4 - You can do Matrix runs and use the Matrix on runs. (The Matrix aesthetics on the Genesis game are great including the P&P green, yellow and red systems but all of this gameplay wise was far from impressive.)
5 - If you use more discreet guns like pistols and SMGs on runs you call less attention from the security, there are places with cameras you can avoid too. There are ways to finish the runs without shooting.
6 - You can do alot of runs for many fixers to get money.

1, 3 and 6 require a different game and HBS already said their games are mission based with one hub at best, on 2, Dragonfall is infinitely superior to the Genesis game with TB, a ton of more spells, alot more equipment options and etc. 4 and 5 are really good ideas even if the execution on the Genesis game was really underwhelming. There are two places where DragonFall can improve, on the Matrix with better aesthetics and combat and an improvement on the level design that allow more than "Let's shoot everyone that is on the way". I see the underwhelming Matrix and lack on stealth options as minor problems and certainly not big enough to look to the Genesis game as if it was a masterpiece and call Dragonfall a piece of crap made on RPGMaker.
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I would like to see hub system like VtMB in a Shadowrun game.
 

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