Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[negator2vc]

To be perfectly honest, at first I wanted to argue that the writing is the only subpar element of this game, it's one of my favourite all-around games. In most RPGs it's hard to pick the writing apart, as the stories tend to be quite simple. Even in Planescape: Torment most of the quests and dialogues were mundane; it's the oddity of the world that was the point of the game. There, most of the stories are not so banal - and so I would expect an editor to point out the problems and correct them, yet I saw no polish to the writing; everywhere I looked, there were some more-or-less subtle problems, including several runs that didn't make sense (Trial Run and Lockdown).

Ιt's easy to find "problems" even in the best stories. Αfter all, no writer/creator is perfect.
The important thing about these games was that their creators were still mentally sane when they were making them.
Can you say the same thing about them (their creators) these days?

 

[behold_a_man]

Can you say the same thing about them (their creators) these days?

What are you implying? I probably didn't play a single game released past 2018 (and now I pick games to play based on rpgcodex polls and the top 101), so I'm out of the loop. The only games with totally botched writing I remember playing are Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect 3.

Ιt's easy to find "problems" even in the best stories. Αfter all, no writer/creator is perfect.

Good luck finding severe problems with the writing in Deus Ex or Kenshi. Minimalistic presentation without unnecessary explanations allows to create a story without easily visible problems. And the story of Kenshi was not so trivial:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kenshi/com..._lore_of_kenshi_1_the_first_empire/?rdt=50099
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kenshi/comments/b81qra/the_definitive_lore_of_kenshi_2_the_second_empire/
All I expected was to have someone carefully read the text of the game, find glaring problems, and correct them.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

SRR DF and HK don't have great writing, but they provide a decent vanilla experience for the Shadowrun setting. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What are you implying? I probably didn't play a single game released past 2018 (and now I pick games to play based on rpgcodex polls and the top 101), so I'm out of the loop.

Battletech was very meh storywise. Gameplay wasn't gonna make it in the letter home either.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What are you implying? I probably didn't play a single game released past 2018 (and now I pick games to play based on rpgcodex polls and the top 101), so I'm out of the loop.

Battletech was very meh storywise. Gameplay wasn't gonna make it in the letter home either.

And it was lousy with the wokesauce

 

[ArchAngel]

SRR DF and HK don't have great writing, but they provide a decent vanilla experience for the Shadowrun setting. Nothing more, nothing less.

They had good writing for the time they were released which says more about that time and quality of games that were released.

 

[negator2vc]

Can you say the same thing about them (their creators) these days?

What are you implying? I probably didn't play a single game released past 2018 (and now I pick games to play based on rpgcodex polls and the top 101), so I'm out of the loop. The only games with totally botched writing I remember playing are Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect 3.

I wasn't talking in general here. I was talking about the games that the same studio made after the Shadowrun Trilogy
A good example and probably - for good reason - the last game of the studio will ever made is The Lamplighters League.

 

[Tavar]

I'm with behold_a_man here. The writing in DF is bad and I've already said so in the past. No idea why so many people like this drivel.

 

[behold_a_man]

I wasn't talking in general here. I was talking about the games that the same studio made after the Shadowrun Trilogy
A good example and probably - for good reason - the last game of the studio will ever made is The Lamplighters League.

I didn't touch it, so my wild guess is that you are going to enlighten us and tell us about all the wonders of that game and its writing - especially given the fact that its thread is conspicuously absent of any discussion about it.
At some point, I was wondering whether the dialogues in Dragonfall are so pretentious on purpose - to caricature certain people, showing how they value syntax over semantics (hence multiple ways of saying the same thing) and are unable to analyze a sentence without judging the person behind it. But the main character didn't need to be an anarchist; he was merely known as Monica's friend.

No idea why so many people like this drivel.

From my perspective, it had some sparks of brilliance. For example, Green Winters' diary:
-> it was logical for him to store it in a manner that made it inaccessible to APEX.
-> It allowed the main story to progress without forcing the player to do a "main quest mission" - some people remarked in the Shadowrun: Hong Kong thread that the pacing of the story was broken, as nothing really happened between all the optional runs - and I won't disagree.
-> The things he stored there were clearly prepared for someone in case he was going to die; they described Adrian Vauclair and everything he learned in necessary detail.

For me the problem was, like, 50% of the writing; but they had a frame of the story to make something much better, and they didn't even need to do a lot to change it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

so my wild guess is that you are going to enlighten us and tell us about all the wonders of that game and its writing -

Lack thereof

 

[Lacrymas]

The writing in Dragonfall is overrated, I noted that the first time I played it -

"Impressed" is a strong word, I'm more pleasantly surprised that they could incorporate as much as they could, including multiple solutions, stat checks and game-wide activities that affect the ending, like the Green Winters DVDs and the research into the Yama Kings. That's not to say they are incredible games or that I'm blown away by them, nevermind the order in which I played them. I think it was the correct order, however, Hong Kong is indeed worse than Dragonfall, so I managed to squeeze as much enjoyment out of this series as I could, as opposed to constantly comparing HK to Dragonfall. My opinion wouldn't be different had I played Dragonfall first. The writing in Dragonfall isn't as strong as people make it out to be, though I couldn't predict the twist at the end, which is good. They also managed to keep up the mystery of what is going on until the end. I'd say Eiger was technically the best written of them all, she had a mini-arc she goes through that is logical and is all based on her as a person. Dietrich's character ends at the Humanis compound and he's simply an extension of his idol after that. Glory starts out great and mesmerizing, but "the Devil made me do it" thing ruined it. Blitz is ...Blitz, I guess, he's almost a non-entity, but he's fun to have around on runs. All of them are plagued by the "Bioware syndrome" where you peel layers of their past, that is the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned. The characters need to do stuff NOW, their past needs to affect the PRESENT, their missions aren't enough, they are too passive. Glory should still be in that cult, Dietrich should still front a punk band, etc.

The Kreuzbasar's denizens did their job well, making the hub feel alive, especially Kim/Simmy, she also goes through an arc that makes sense. There really isn't all that much to say about Dragonfall now that I think about it, the combat is the same so I won't go into that. DF is competent and it does its job well, but nobody is going to lose sleep over it and I think it's overrated here. This is not because I played HK first, I wasn't comparing the two at all and I said it's better than HK, so there's that. All the nu-Shadowruns are popcorn games, something light to fill the time, but won't start cults around them. It needs more, they feel limited and don't really use the setting as much as they could. They are still good for what they are, the best mobile games I've played ever and I think they are must-plays if you are into RPGs at all, I'm even going to recommend them to a friend of mine who is still in the shallow end of the pool of gaming as a baby's first turn-based RPG. That's more praise than I can give the other AA RPGs recently, as they aren't must-plays at all, so yeah. I don't regret playing them and I will play them again in the future.

 

[fantadomat]

The writing in Dragonfall is overrated, I noted that the first time I played it -

"Impressed" is a strong word, I'm more pleasantly surprised that they could incorporate as much as they could, including multiple solutions, stat checks and game-wide activities that affect the ending, like the Green Winters DVDs and the research into the Yama Kings. That's not to say they are incredible games or that I'm blown away by them, nevermind the order in which I played them. I think it was the correct order, however, Hong Kong is indeed worse than Dragonfall, so I managed to squeeze as much enjoyment out of this series as I could, as opposed to constantly comparing HK to Dragonfall. My opinion wouldn't be different had I played Dragonfall first. The writing in Dragonfall isn't as strong as people make it out to be, though I couldn't predict the twist at the end, which is good. They also managed to keep up the mystery of what is going on until the end. I'd say Eiger was technically the best written of them all, she had a mini-arc she goes through that is logical and is all based on her as a person. Dietrich's character ends at the Humanis compound and he's simply an extension of his idol after that. Glory starts out great and mesmerizing, but "the Devil made me do it" thing ruined it. Blitz is ...Blitz, I guess, he's almost a non-entity, but he's fun to have around on runs. All of them are plagued by the "Bioware syndrome" where you peel layers of their past, that is the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned. The characters need to do stuff NOW, their past needs to affect the PRESENT, their missions aren't enough, they are too passive. Glory should still be in that cult, Dietrich should still front a punk band, etc.

The Kreuzbasar's denizens did their job well, making the hub feel alive, especially Kim/Simmy, she also goes through an arc that makes sense. There really isn't all that much to say about Dragonfall now that I think about it, the combat is the same so I won't go into that. DF is competent and it does its job well, but nobody is going to lose sleep over it and I think it's overrated here. This is not because I played HK first, I wasn't comparing the two at all and I said it's better than HK, so there's that. All the nu-Shadowruns are popcorn games, something light to fill the time, but won't start cults around them. It needs more, they feel limited and don't really use the setting as much as they could. They are still good for what they are, the best mobile games I've played ever and I think they are must-plays if you are into RPGs at all, I'm even going to recommend them to a friend of mine who is still in the shallow end of the pool of gaming as a baby's first turn-based RPG. That's more praise than I can give the other AA RPGs recently, as they aren't must-plays at all, so yeah. I don't regret playing them and I will play them again in the future.

hong kong is better

 

[Lacrymas]

HK is Dragonfall but overwritten.

 

[fantadomat]

HK is Dragonfall but overwritten.

you can't have overwriting if the writing is good,all three games have decent writing,liked the setting the most in hk

 

[adddeed]

Too bad graphically they are not much to look at. Also gameplay isnt very deep at all, so to me they kind of look and play like a mobile game. They're fun lite RPGs though. Problem is when played on Andoird the fonts are too damn small and have to constantly use magnifier.

 

[fantadomat]

Too bad graphically they are not much to look at. Also gameplay isnt very deep at all, so to me they kind of look and play like a mobile game. They're fun lite RPGs though. Problem is when played on Andoird the fonts are too damn small and have to constantly use magnifier.

 

[almondblight]

I can either say his work is 'helpful', 'filling a vital need', or call him out for his questionable approach to humans; I can't be indifferent; I can't even tell him "Don't worry, I'm a racist too", just some cringe nonsense.

The very first response is calling him out for his questionable approach to humans ("Your use of exclusionary language is telling. 'Even' humans are allowed?").

Whether or not you think there's enough C&C or the combat is good, I think it's pretty clear that the C&C is better than at least 80% of the stuff on the Codex top favorites list, and the combat is better than 80% of the stuff there. And you'll notice something about the Codex top RPG's - the ones with good C&C tend to have bad combat, the ones with good combat tend to have little to no C&C. Being better than the majority of the games there at both should give bring it a good amount of praise.

 

[behold_a_man]

I can either say his work is 'helpful', 'filling a vital need', or call him out for his questionable approach to humans; I can't be indifferent; I can't even tell him "Don't worry, I'm a racist too", just some cringe nonsense.

The very first response is calling him out for his questionable approach to humans ("Your use of exclusionary language is telling. 'Even' humans are allowed?").

Well, yes, that's exactly what I wrote.

Whether or not you think there's enough C&C or the combat is good, I think it's pretty clear that the C&C is better than at least 80% of the stuff on the Codex top favorites list, and the combat is better than 80% of the stuff there. And you'll notice something about the Codex top RPG's - the ones with good C&C tend to have bad combat, the ones with good combat tend to have little to no C&C. Being better than the majority of the games there at both should give bring it a good amount of praise.

I would go much further: most RPGs before the Age of Incline that are here in high regard excelled at one thing. Since the Age of Incline, I have seen two games that were excellent at more than one thing:
1) Pathfinder: Kingmaker with its combat, choices and consequences, and a very good main story.
2) Underrail had remarkable combat, exploration, and crafting with short and sweet writing.
There were also RPGs that were polished at almost everything:
1) Dragonfall - everything except the writing was great.
2) Dragon Age: Origins - I never saw any other RPG with better than passable combat in real time with pause (except for FTL), furthermore, everything bar itemization was good enough.
And several games somewhere in between (Original Sin and Kingdom Come: Deliverance, among others). I think most old games are not up to the standards of those examples - but they were pioneers, and so it is understandable for me that people respect them more than Dragonfall.

It doesn't change anything about the writing - it was not good enough for me. I liked some choices and their consequences, but I would like the runs to make sense, dialogues to be interesting, or playing the game to be enjoyable. I don't want to cringe every time I read something.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Man joins in 2022, says Dragonfall writing is not good, then proceeds to praise main story in Cuckfinder.

IE:
1. Bunch of nobles give a piece of land to some wandering hobo.
2. The ugliest nymph in history proceeds to send consecutive waves of attacks against said hobo.
3. This frames the entire story, as each subsequent chapter corresponds verbatim to next attack wave: trolls, mushrooms, chickenshits, gonorrhea, whatever.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

When writers present their work as political, it's not nitpicking to judge it on its own terms. "At least it's not Baldur's Gay 3!" isn't much of an argument. Baldur's Gay is probably less politically charged anyway--from what I've seen it's just one big Belgian swinger party for middle aged dorks who attend Renaissance fairs. Here you are fighting nazis in fantasy Berlin. Of course, that is only the most obvious part of it, not the most aggravating. behold_a_man already did a good job of providing examples of how the game continually forces an agenda while giving the player an illusion of choice.

This kind of writing is not merely "woke". That's just a dumb polemical term that explains very little. In political terms, "woke" just means communist. The writers are obviously some kind of communist. But that's not enough to characterize their writing, either. Their writing, and most professional writing you see nowadays, displays what I can only call "redditization". What I mean by this is that situations are always framed in the typical fashion of a Reddit thread. One is cajoled by the OP into an emotional response, a public demonstration of EMPATHY and concern is expected. Answers which best demonstrate these exemplary feelings are pushed to the top, giving body to a narrative. The OP's situation is, by itself, not important, what's important is to reach a moral consensus on something. Contrarianism can appear only as scolding, open indifference to the emotional content of the message and natural human reactions such as humor are frowned upon. Humor itself must be consensual.

"Why do these writers write like they never had a real conversation?" I suppose many spend all their free time on Reddit or similar sites. Reddit discourse is not exclusive to Reddit. In essence, it's a kind of emoting, an emoting with words, so to speak. Many forums and other spaces are infected with the same spirit. The mainstream press, for starters, which precedes Reddit and is itself a model for it, is also in a process of redditization.

 

[behold_a_man]

Man joins in 2022, says Dragonfall writing is not good, then proceeds to praise main story in Cuckfinder.

IE:
1. Bunch of nobles give a piece of land to some wandering hobo.
2. The ugliest nymph in history proceeds to send consecutive waves of attacks against said hobo.
3. This frames the entire story, as each subsequent chapter corresponds verbatim to next attack wave: trolls, mushrooms, chickenshits, gonorrhea, whatever.

Everything in this game was centered around the question "How to rule the kingdom?". Every chapter had some set of choices to be made and their consequences - whether you killed your enemies or spared them, what relations you had with your neighbors, how you acted when someone backstabbed you, whether you permitted controversial religious practices... The exact enemies you faced were not exactly important for the plot, only for the combat - and the combat was glorious. Overall, the writing was enjoyable for me. I didn't feel constrained by the dialogue options, for example.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Dragonfall was pretty good, never finished Hong Kong. Felt like they tried to overdo their "fix" of the matrix.

 

[Crichton]

Overall, the writing was enjoyable for me. I didn't feel constrained by the dialogue options, for example.

Hellknight quest amnesia. Sad. Many such cases.


I thought the overall plot with the Nymph and fey lord was pretty decent in Kingmaker but most of the companion writing (Regognar/Octavia are standouts) was the worst kind of garbage and the initial set-up was almost as bad, just cringeworthy stuff; caller #9 in a radio contest wins a duchy.

 

[behold_a_man]

initial set-up was almost as bad, just cringeworthy stuff; caller #9 in a radio contest wins a duchy.

Well, the life expectancy of the Stolen Lands rulers was not very high; they effectively needed to find someone inept enough to take the opportunity.

Hellknight quest amnesia. Sad. Many such cases.

There is a worse offender: Season of Bloom ending and the inability to order Kesten Garres to go back to the city. I barely saw that problem in Kingmaker, however.