Shadowrun Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

[V_K]

You'll waste quite a lot of points into CHA and INT before you get anything combat-wise though, especially as an elf ;p

Yes, but there's no point in maxing those out for dialogs, there are no checks with difficulty above 7 or so. And I think a couple of etiquettes are never used in HK. So you can comfortably stop at 7 INT and 7 or 8 CHA, and not miss a check. And that might even be achievable at character creation (I'm too lazy to check).

 

[GarfunkeL]

The best mods for Dragonfall are:

Antumbra Saga - https://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrundragonfall/mods/3

Venture into a sprawling campaign set on the Pacific Coast. In Antumbra Saga you will rise from a lowly shadowrunner to a pivotal player in the struggle between CalFree and Tir Tairngire. Along the way you’ll nurture alliances, build up a party, and make decisions that will affect your fate and that of the factions you encounter.

Antumbra Saga collects the three parts of Antumbra originally published for Shadowrun Returns, combining them into a single continuous campaign that's been updated to run in Dragonfall: Director's Cut. The content has been tested and rebalanced to take advantage of the new abilities, weapons, and combat systems available in the game engine.

Mercurial - https://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrundragonfall/mods/10

The shadows are deep and dark. The SINners live the high life, and the SINless live in the filth of the Barrens. Sometimes, one gets a view of the other, but not often, and not often with good results.

Mercurial is a campaign for new runners, where you'll have the chance to recruit your own team and work a job. Be careful of who you trust. Nothing is what it seems.

SNES Shadowrun Reboot - https://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrundragonfall/mods/8

Playable end to end beta version of the SNES Shadowrun Reboot Project

You can either play it as Jake like in the SNES game or you can make your own character. Reading the readme/guide is mandatory since the SNES game is so different from HBS SR games.

And the best mods for Hong Kong are:

The Caldecott Caper - https://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrunhongkong/mods/13

The lowest form of life in the Sixth World is that of the corporate rent-a-cop. You are paid a paltry wage for the privilege of defending the megacorps' ostentatious wealth from the desperate gangers of the Orkland Sprawl. Enter a world of turmoil, greed, and violence, as you struggle for survival with the help of a few hand-picked allies.

It's a sequel to Antumbra Saga but with a different protagonist.

CalFree in Chains - https://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrunhongkong/mods/23

The California Free State has fallen. General Saito's tyrannical reign threatens everyone under its authority. Only the People's University and a handful of allies dare to challenge his absolute rule, but how can so few hope to stand against the brutal power of the Protectorate and its megacorp backers?

And as the modder recommends, do get the SR Music Replacer for this one, it makes a huge difference.

Dead Man Switch - Vox Populi - https://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrunhongkong/mods/21

In the urban sprawl of the Seattle metroplex, the search for a mysterious killer sets you on a trail that leads from the darkest slums to the city’s most powerful megacorps. You will need to tread carefully, enlist the aid of other runners, and master powerful forces of technology and magic in order to emerge from the shadows of Seattle unscathed.

Play the original DMS campaign in HK engine with all the new stuff available. Of course, that makes the DMS campaign pretty easy but hey, nobody played it for the challenging difficulty in the first place.

And yeah, it's a crying shame that there isn't more content available.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Nice list. The discussion made me also revisit the old thread we had about SR modules here. Maybe its worth it to collect impressions about SR modules in one thread so people know where to look for information?

I'll have to say that my initial impressions of Antumbra weren't really good (see last pages of above thread), I think its probably alright if you are starved for SR but it wasn't anything to write home about either (even though it got better toward the end). I also ran into more than a couple of bugs in my version. I also tried A Stitch in Time and dropped it as well, due to bugs.

Then I played another module which I kinda liked, I remember defending a brothel against attacks at one point and later being awarded my own safe house in the city. I can't for the life of me remember which mod that was, I think it might have been Mercurial but I'm not sure. Never finished this one due to HDD crash (unrelated to the game).

Caldecott Caper and CalFree in Chains seem like the best bets for SR HK, by the guy who also made Antumbra. I suppose he must have a lot of experience with the editor now. But its also regretable that 50% of the SR module scene is basically this one guy. At least when it comes to halfway decent modules.

Seems interesting to be able to replay DMS in HK, is that mod any good? Might make the whole SRR obsolete.

 

[Sykar]

All in all I was very disappinted with HRBs SR games. So many uneccessary changes like CD on spells instead of a proper drain system, dumbed down skill and attribute system, etiquettes not their own skill but tied to charisma only and like 90% of the checks are flavor anyway, totems for everyone, very basic matrix, boring 2 AP/3 AP system from the nu-XCom games, wonky flanking mechanics, no astral space whatsoever, no initiation, etc. In some ways I still prefer the Genesis game and the SNES game over this version. Before DMS came out I was hoping with the decision to give us a tool to make our own adventures but everything feels so bare bones that is quite a let down.

 

[DalekFlay]

You can absolutely make a dialogue-focused character and complete the game, as long as you don't choose a Tough Guy With Something To Prove difficulty setting. Combat is not optional though.

It's weird that it's so much easier to pump dialogue skills with a mage, because of what Charisma opens. I'm assuming it was like that in the PnP game as well, but I wish they braved the fanboy screams and rebalanced with a totally separate personality stat and more karma points. As it is if you want to maximize combat ability and dialogue skills you'll need to play a mage and leave rat lady behind.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

It's weird that it's so much easier to pump dialogue skills with a mage, because of what Charisma opens. I'm assuming it was like that in the PnP game as well, but I wish they braved the fanboy screams and rebalanced with a totally separate personality stat and more karma points.

I agree, that bothers me too. However, the games are easy enough and don't really require munchkinism even on higher difficulty. So you can dump a couple of karma points into CHA anyway to get another etiquette or two, I usually play pretty charismatic street sams or riggers. Suboptimal workaround but better than forcing yourself to play mage everytime.

 

[DalekFlay]

I agree, that bothers me too. However, the games are easy enough and don't really require munchkinism even on higher difficulty. So you can dump a couple of karma points into CHA anyway to get another etiquette or two, I usually play pretty charismatic street sams or riggers. Suboptimal workaround but better than forcing yourself to play mage everytime.

Yeah, the weapons are pretty universal in how useful they are too, so you can focus on one specialty along with charisma and end up okay. My characters in both Dragonfall and Hong Kong were pistol expert gunslinger types with a lot of charisma. That's a character type I often use, like with Outer Worlds recently. I'm more just saying it's a silly system when magic and dialogue skills are intrinsically tied together, rather than saying it's a hard challenge to overcome.

 

[Lacrymas]

You have a lot of dialogue options with the other main attributes too though.

 

[V_K]

I'm more just saying it's a silly system when magic and dialogue skills are intrinsically tied together

Tell that to D&D's Sorcerers.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

You have a lot of dialogue options with the other main attributes too though.

You want those etiquettes for a talkative character.

 

[Sykar]

What I forgot to add the Shadowrun games are very light on the SHADOW aspect of the game. Like getting in and out of something stealthily and doing your own legwork and scouting before a run. You just get dropped in and everything you need is in place. Seriously thinking a run through and loving it when a plan comes together? Pff who cares...

 

[almondblight]

Then I played another module which I kinda liked, I remember defending a brothel against attacks at one point and later being awarded my own safe house in the city. I can't for the life of me remember which mod that was, I think it might have been Mercurial but I'm not sure. Never finished this one due to HDD crash (unrelated to the game).

That was A Stitch in Time (or at least, that's how the first part of A Stitch in Time goes). I also found it enjoyable, but also had to drop it because of broken elements. By all accounts the editor was always difficult to work with if you wanted to make anything beyond an extremely linear game, and HBS updates kept breaking the modules (a lot of authors seems to have tried to fix them after every update for a while before eventually giving up). Releasing two more game over the next two years splintered what was left of the community.

It's a shame, a lot of the module designers managed to squeeze out more from the engine than HBS did. The Lost Lamb was made by one guy in a few weeks before SRR was released, and it's much more of an open than DMS (there's a city block you can explore as you like, buildings you can go in and out of, random encounters you can come across). Shadowrun Unlimited even created a sandbox module, with a global matrix, different safe houses you could rent, street cred that would allow access to more weapons as it increased, a heat meter that would increase Lone Star spawns, weapons that Lone Star will arrest you for without a permit, etc.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah, SR modding is dead because you have to mod for 3 different games - 4 if you count DF regular and DF director's cut.

But in defence of HBS, all of these problems stem from the fact that they were originally making a shitty and cheap mobile game for tablets and phones because no publisher believed in Shadowrun or them. Which isn't a surprise because the book publisher that owns P&P rights for SR hasn't believed in the system/world and constantly shits on it in favour of BattleTech. Without Germany and their obsession with SR, the whole thing would be dead. Anyway, HBS was looking to get few bucks to make a mobile SR game - a super simplistic one with no team management, no editor, no customization - but then their Kickstarter took off as the planets aligned, or rather the RPG renaissance hit, and suddenly they had a bunch of money but tight deadlines too, yet they were married to a shitty mobile engine with they had done all their previous work. They couldn't ditch it, so they had to work around it. Hence why the games simplify so many things from SR P&P, why the editor is so fucking colossal piece of shit - seriously, even NWN2 editor is better - and why everything is so difficult.

If HBS had known from the start that their Kickstarter would be insanely successful, they would have gone with Unreal Engine 4 and we would all be so much happier. But that's pointless speculation.

 

[V_K]

If HBS had known from the start that their Kickstarter would be insanely successful, they would have gone with Unreal Engine 4

Citation needed on that. They still made BT with Unity after all - even though it had a significant budget from the get go, and they expected it to be more successful than SR.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Unity 3D fucked lot of people over - everyone know that old Unity was dog shit but Unity 3D was supposed to be as fast and as good as UE4. Of course, we now know it wasn't. UE4 is like six years olders, yet does everything better than Unity3D. But U3D had good marketing and, most importantly, better licensing terms than UE4. So a whole lot of indie/small developers went for it, fooled by the snake oil salesmen and the engine fanboys.

A sad story, really.

But you're right about the citation - HBS has never said in public that they would have gone specifically with UE4, that was my own fantasy-hope.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah you have to take the games as what they are. For the engine/budget/etc. they had I think it's amazing they made games as moody, fun and interesting as they did. A lot of people can't lower their bar though, and will compare them to Divinity OS or whatever, and I guess I understand that.

 

[Delterius]

What I forgot to add the Shadowrun games are very light on the SHADOW aspect of the game. Like getting in and out of something stealthily and doing your own legwork and scouting before a run. You just get dropped in and everything you need is in place. Seriously thinking a run through and loving it when a plan comes together? Pff who cares...

shadowrun more like neonsprint am i right

 

[daveyd]

There were a couple pretty good mods for Shadowrun Returns (most of which unfortunately got abandoned). "Jacked Up" is one I remember that was pretty good but left unfinished.

 

[Delterius]

This one got into my mind because of the Mercurial mod, funnily enough.

 

[GarfunkeL]

yeah all the music tracts are fucking awesome

 

[DalekFlay]

So after a long break since finishing the main game I just wrapped up the expansion. The two new sidequests were pretty good with some interesting locations and storylines, but the two main quests were pretty iffy. Tons of enemy spam... and I mean TONS... really grated on my patience. They also just kind of went on too long in general, for the "assault this place" storylines they had. It's weird that the side stuff feels like it had more thought put into it. That said, the story itself had some cool moments and the ending choices were pretty neat. When the choice first came up I thought I would stick around HK, but then as things went on I ended up doing the opposite. I like when the story convinces me to break away from what my character would maybe normally do.

Also I really like that this whole series gives you new dialog choices for some pretty obscure things you might do, like finding a file way out of the main path and such. That's the power of no voice acting I guess.

 

[razvedchiki]

starting drone for a rigger depends on drone control lvl/combat?

 

[Nano]

Christ, last post is from a year ago but it feels like I read it recently. Why is this happening to me.

 

[Lacrymas]

Christ, last post is from a year ago but it feels like I read it recently. Why is this happening to me.

Good/selective memory or early onset Alzheimer's.

 

[Maverick Beyond]

Finished this game last week, along with shadows of hong kong.

When it came out five years ago, I dropped it after fifteen hours, because of the structure of the campaign. It starts off so well, promising and makes you want to keep playing, but then, act two comes, and it's all about side quests. A huge dissapointment, i got bored and left it, until now.

I like the design of quests, even if in practice it is still the same as always in terms of gameplay, but it was a terrible decision not to include missions related to the plot, it feels like you are wasting time because reasons.

Even replaying it after all these years, after several quests in Heoi, i had to drop it for several days, until I resumed it.

It's a shame because the content is good. The npcs are even more interesting than Dragonfall.

The Matrix redesign was awfull.

As for the bonus campaign, I liked it more than the original. It's shorter but to the point, few filler secondary quests, and more focused on conspiracies and dangerous alliances rather than supernatural evil / s ™

And i loved Duncan and his lv 6 cyberarm that throws back grenades. Best skill ever!!!