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

[Zetor]

While I do have confidence in HBS' ability to deliver a good game, it'd be nice to have some tidbits about the development process, especially wrt the things that are supposed to be improvements from the previous games, as well as the ones from the KS stretch goals. How is the new 'no longer constrained by tablets' UI? What kind of improvements did they make to the matrix? How about examples of awesome new cyberware / magic / shrine spirits? etc etc.

It's certainly possible they HAVE posted about these things somewhere... but if they did, their PR/marketing isn't doing a good job.

 

[Tytus]

If you can already pre-order the game on Steam and GOG, they should give kickstarter backers their keys, so people can activate them with everybody else and not wait for keys when non-backers are already playing.

 

[veevoir]

Wouldn't it have made more marketing sense to name this Shadowrun 2: Hong Kong?

Or if you want to be awful, Shadowrun Returns 2 Hong Kong.

God awful to number it. It is another chapter of SR, so SR:Hongkong makes perfect sense.

Shadowrun Returns 2 - Returning Intensifies

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Any updates on the keys for people who backed the game through the Codex fundraiser?

Also iirc Codex was allowed an interview with HBS? Any news on that? (iirc too Jeasun was in the general area of their HQ)

 

[Doktor Best]

Hmm, description says 15+ hour campaign. The Dragonfall description says 20+ hours (though it took me quite a bit longer than 20 hours for Dragonfall).

Hm. Dragonfall was already quite on the short side. I kinda hoped for a longer game this time...

 

[naossano]

Numbering the new Shadowrun games could cause some backlash from people who consider the pre-KS shadowruns games as the best games of the series.
There is also the current non-HBS shadowrun games that intend to be a series of games too.

If they would start numbering things now, it would be a giant mess...

 

[veevoir]

There is also the current non-HBS shadowrun games that intend to be a series of games too.

Shadowrun Chronicles guys went bankrupt. No other non-HBS planned video games exist (as of now).

 

[roshan]

What's Shadowrun Chronicles about? All the descriptions said it was an online game, so I thought it was some sort of MMO. Seems to be a tactical RPG though?

 

[Infinitron]

What's Shadowrun Chronicles about? All the descriptions said it was an online game, so I thought it was some sort of MMO. Seems to be a tactical RPG though?

See here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ne-devs-go-bankrupt.74343/page-4#post-3780248

 

[naossano]

That SR other series doesn't seem to be totally dead, for now...
But they should really reconsider their pricing. They need to be cheaper than HBS SR if they aren't as good.

 

[Vilos Cohaagen]

Any updates on the keys for people who backed the game through the Codex fundraiser fell for the Codex scam?

I would be interested in this, also.

 

[almondblight]

Hm. Dragonfall was already quite on the short side. I kinda hoped for a longer game this time...

I think DF took me ~40-50 hours, but read everything/talked with everybody, redid a few missions because I messed up my build, had to do some fights several times, etc. Though it's disappointing that this looks like it will be shorter than DF (especially since they were planning 12 hours even if they KS failed), I'd still gladly take that over the copy and pasted encounter bloat some RPGs use to get "Over 60 hours of game time!".

And I think the expansion is supposed to be ~5 hours, so I guess they figure that the two put together will be about the length of DF: DC.

If you can already pre-order the game on Steam and GOG, they should give kickstarter backers their keys, so people can activate them with everybody else and not wait for keys when non-backers are already playing.

I got my SRR key about a week before release, and my DF key two days before release. We're at ~7 weeks before release now. My guess is we'll get our keys shortly before release again.

 

[taxalot]

I think they mentioned later that SR HK was around the same size content wise than Dragonfall.

 

[naossano]

Well it depends on what they do to make the game longer.

One of the main qualities (amongs many other things) of SR is that the game are mostly filler-free.
If they make the game artificially longer by adding many unecessary fillers, it would hurt the game more that it would help it.

 

[eXalted]

Svetlana “Bounce” Jurjewa

Spoiler

Svetting/Sweating
A maneuver usually performed by a female brawler in which the brawler exposes parts of herself (usually showing her breasts, or bending over while half stripped) to catch the attention of a (generally male) opposing player in order to cause a distraction. the maneuver is a trademark of urban brawl star Svetlana “Bounce” Jurjewa and named after her.
-- from Shadowrun: Attitude

This will be in the game or what?

 

[Stompa]

Not unless there's playable Urban Brawl and we all know that's just not happening

 

[Infinitron]

Update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/shadowrun-hong-kong/posts/1296409

 

[eXalted]

• Spell Bouncing is a new effect that can be applied to dragon lines that causes spells cast while standing on them to have special effects. At it's most basic, a spell cast on an enemy will hit a target and bounce to another. This along with the new On Hit Effects can allow for some powerful spell-slinging opportunities.

Some tasty spells I smell.

• The alert system has been overhauled and heat no longer rises for each turn the player is in the matrix or taking actions. This has been changed to a Yellow alert system that is raised when Personas or ESPs are within line of sight of IC or fail to hack Blocker IC.

Matrix stealth.. nice

• With the advent of the new turn director, it is possible to toggle in and out of turn mode within the matrix if there is hostile IC around and it is not yet aware of the player.

• The Turn Director has received a massive overhaul. It is now possible to toggle between turn mode and freemove if the player is not in combat but there are hostiles around.

It was time!

 

[mindx2]

Here's the whole update:

#34
A Peek Behind the Curtain at the New Shadowrun Wiki
Posted by Harebrained Schemes LLC
Greetings Shadowrunners! My name is Aidan. I’m an intern from the Academy of Interactive Entertainment and I’ve been working on a special project for HBS for the last 6 months.

In a continued effort to support User-Generated Content (UGC) and the Shadowrun Community, we’ve been working in partnership with Gamepedia to bring you the new Official Shadowrun Wiki which includes information about all three Shadowrun games.

What’s in the New Wiki?
For each of the games, you’ll see a Game Content section that includes quite a bit of data covering our previous titles, Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut. Most importantly, though, you’ll find expanded content covering the Shadowrun Level Editor. We’ve reorganized and transferred the information about the editor and its capabilities from the original wiki to the new wiki, including a load of raw documentation, tables of data, and tutorials created by studio members and by you, the Shadowrun community. We then added to it, covering all the new editor features the team created for Hong Kong. (Well, almost all, because once again - spoilers!)

Why a New Wiki?
First and foremost, we want to make it easier to find and share information about using the editor so more people can create Shadowrun stories. The new wiki and host allow for a streamlined editing experience and is built on the MediaWiki format which is easily recognizable - it’s the format that Wikipedia runs on. This format also has built-in support for templating and HTML/CSS which can save quite a bit of time when creating many pages with similar content (e.g. Descriptions of all that sweet gear available to your crew). Never touched a wiki before? The basic markdown is easy to pick up and will have you editing pages in no time.

What about the old wiki?
The old wiki will still be available for some time until post launch. We’d like to make the transition as smooth as possible so a notification will be added to the main page directing community members to the new wiki.

Your Turn to Jump In!
While Tagaziel (our man at Gamepedia) and I have been slaving away at the wiki, we are but two men. There's still plenty to work on and with the imminent release of Hong Kong, even more to add! So if you have some knowledge that’s not on the wiki, you’ve found something missing from the old one, or you’ve created some UGC that you want to share, take a shot at creating the appropriate page! Need some help? Hop onto the Community Portal and ask around.

On a final note - I’d like to thank all our community members who have contributed to the Shadowrun Wiki in the past. A lot of you can be seen on the forums pretty regularly helping out newbies to the editor as well and it doesn’t get much better than that. With that it’s back to the wiki for me.

Aidan
-----------------------

And a quick SR:HK development update!
We’re in the home stretch of development and on-track for release! Stay tuned for more screenshots and a release date announcement next week. I have to say, it’s been amazing watching our art team grow and build off their visual successes in each new Shadowrun game. In addition to a great story and some very exciting game play & feature set improvements, Hong Kong is without a doubt our best-looking Shadowrun yet! I can’t wait for all of you to play it.

- Mitch

Good for them to try and keep the modding community going and getting it organized...

 

[V_K]

• The alert system has been overhauled and heat no longer rises for each turn the player is in the matrix or taking actions. This has been changed to a Yellow alert system that is raised when Personas or ESPs are within line of sight of IC or fail to hack Blocker IC.

Matrix stealth.. nice

Makes me hopeful that with the next iteration we'll finally get meatspace stealth too.

 

[eXalted]

Here's the whole update:

Good for them to try and keep the modding community going and getting it organized...

As far as I know doing something with the editor was very time-consuming, so I hope they do some nice improvements in it.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah, it was. I had big plans for making a campaign but I couldn't get it even running. Mind you, that was the old POS laptop. Hopefully my new PC will run it much better. I'll probably have a go with the updated editor after HK launches.

 

[SCO]

• The Turn Director has received a massive overhaul. It is now possible to toggle between turn mode and freemove if the player is not in combat but there are hostiles around.

Hope mods and the old games data files can update for the new engine just because of this...

 

[Zetor]

(snip)
It was time!

Good stuff! I also looked at the new wiki, and these bullet points caught my eye:

• Added the ability to have a conversation persist across scenes. (e.g. Conversation Nodes that are checked as being only available once will not become available upon returning to a scene.)

Yay, a tiny step towards solving my pet issue (zone persistence)! If nothing else, it indicates that they recognize there is a problem.

• There is a new prop available in the Asset Library. These Ambient Audio Nodes allow for some customization of sound throughout your scene. In combination with the new music properties available to the camera regions, your scenes should be pretty lively.

I wonder if this allows the playback of custom audio files (which would solve the 'no custom music without hacking the asset bundles' problem too). Probably not, though.

Also, teleporting via regions is apparently going to be a lot simpler... thank fuck, it was really really annoying to do before (not to mention sometimes the triggers would just fail to fire).

 

[eXalted]

I really hope we get some great UGCs and finally get myself to do something with the editor.