Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[eXalted]

I haven't looked into SRR modding. Are the map files in a human readable format? It might be neat to try and create a roguelike.

There was a module - "Shadowrun Unlimited" which created kind of procedurally generated missions. The truth is that the editor is not very robust and something more involved like that is very hard to create.

 

[Severian Silk]

I haven't looked into SRR modding. Are the map files in a human readable format? It might be neat to try and create a roguelike.

There was a module - "Shadowrun Unlimited" which created kind of procedurally generated missions. The truth is that the editor is not very robust and something more involved like that is very hard to create.

Can you bypass the editor and write your own scripts using text?

 

[eXalted]

Can you bypass the editor and write your own scripts using text?

Ah. if only it was like that... I would have started tinkering with the Shadowrun Editor instead of the Aurora Toolset in times when I feel creative.

You have to work with the Triggers and stuff that the editor gives you, you can't create functions and such to reuse (you can do some pseudo-functions). Last time I tried it takes so much time to make something playable.

 

[Falksi]

Just nearing the end of Dragonfall - it's fucking brilliant.

Not sure if I prefer this or Returns yet. Returns definitely had the better woven & more interesting plot, but Dragonfall's more Open Worl esq structure & refined combat gives it the depth Returns was missing.

Both thoroughly brilliant games.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Dragonfall forces you to be an SJW.
Also, story and atmosphere make SRR my favourite here.
But the majority of the Codex seems to think otherwise.

 

[Falksi]

Dragonfall forces you to be an SJW.
Also, story and atmosphere make SRR my favourite here.
But the majority of the Codex seems to think otherwise.

The SJW aspect didn't bother me tbh. As it is I genuinely couldn't pick between them at the mo. Both have their ups & downs, but both are mostly massively enjoyable adventures.

What Dragonfall does do well is evovle the formula nicely and keep things fresh.

Just raised the 50k now, so nearing the end. Can't wait to play Hong Kong.

 

[opium fiend]

Been a while since I played Dragonfall, what SJW content is there apart from orc charity?

 

[Falksi]

Boom, just finished.

Well fuck a cuck duck mi owd mucka, it was absolutely thoroughly fucking brilliant from start to finish. I mean wow, how games like these are over-shadowed (wank pun intended) by the likes of Dragon Age Inquisition in terms of exposure & sales is just sickening.

Overal, I still just prefer how Returns story played out, It was woven amazingly, and the shorter length made it feel more intense too. But Dragonfall did pretty much everything else better, & also did everything what a sequel needs to do by taking the original, freshening various aspects up, deepening the experience for the familiar, and just adding a whole load of brilliance to boot.

Returns & Dragonfall very much feel like Star Wars: New Hope & Empire for me - light & brilliant start, deeper & weightier sequel. Both are flat out the best RPG's I've played this year, and gave me the nearest Badlur's Gate 1 & 2 feeling I've had in years.

I can't wait to play Hong Kong, but like ROTJ I'm braced for a dip in quality. I could post here all night about what a thoroughly enjoyable 90 odd hour experience it's been through both games, but I'm sure that point has already sunk in. Gonna find some Shadowrun cosplay porn and wank myself silly over it now.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I can't wait to play Hong Kong, but like ROTJ I'm braced for a dip in quality. I could post here all night about what a thoroughly enjoyable 90 odd hour experience it's been through both games, but I'm sure that point has already sunk in. Gonna find some Shadowrun cosplay porn and wank myself silly over it now.

Yeah, Drangonfall DC is probably the best we got from this so called time of incline. Hong Kong is not bad at all, in fact it feels like more Dragonfall again, like they knew the formula this time (the hub, the npcs to talk to, the crew, the missions) and were just trying to make another one. It may not have worked as well this time, but it is still a perfectly fine game and way better than Shadowrun Returns.

In fact I am now replaying Hong Kong so I can finally try the bonus content. Apparently it didn't sell as well as no future Shadowrun game is in works at the moment. Damn shame, we could use a couple more games like this.

 

[Ninjerk]

Boom, just finished.

Well fuck a cuck duck mi owd mucka, it was absolutely thoroughly fucking brilliant from start to finish. I mean wow, how games like these are over-shadowed (wank pun intended) by the likes of Dragon Age Inquisition in terms of exposure & sales is just sickening.

Overal, I still just prefer how Returns story played out, It was woven amazingly, and the shorter length made it feel more intense too. But Dragonfall did pretty much everything else better, & also did everything what a sequel needs to do by taking the original, freshening various aspects up, deepening the experience for the familiar, and just adding a whole load of brilliance to boot.

Returns & Dragonfall very much feel like Star Wars: New Hope & Empire for me - light & brilliant start, deeper & weightier sequel. Both are flat out the best RPG's I've played this year, and gave me the nearest Badlur's Gate 1 & 2 feeling I've had in years.

I can't wait to play Hong Kong, but like ROTJ I'm braced for a dip in quality. I could post here all night about what a thoroughly enjoyable 90 odd hour experience it's been through both games, but I'm sure that point has already sunk in. Gonna find some Shadowrun cosplay porn and wank myself silly over it now.

I don't remember a ton about it now, but you might consider finding a working version of Nightmare Harvest. I had a lot of fun with that.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Apparently it didn't sell as well as no future Shadowrun game is in works at the moment. Damn shame, we could use a couple more games like this.

They're just focusing on Battletech right now.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[InD_ImaginE]

They're just focusing on Battletech right now.

Which seems to have Z-level implemented? It would be great if they could use Battletech engine and just create new assets for the next SR games to be used on the engine.

On the other hand, Microsoft seemed to have their eyes set on making new SR games so the license on HBR might not last that long.

 

[Iznaliu]

Apparently it didn't sell as well as no future Shadowrun game is in works at the moment. Damn shame, we could use a couple more games like this.

Even if it did sell well, HBS probably wanted to move on to something else for a while.

 

[hello friend]

Started playing Dragonfall yesterday or thereabouts, missions are fun enough but the dialogue is directly painful. Didn't take long before I was fastforwarding through it all. Everyone's some retarded anarchist and/or has a DARKPAST with evil nazis. Oh Monika was such a good girl everyone will tell you in detail and have a good cry about it. She was really important to the community and did I mention she did a lot of good and was really important to the community? Your first information broker is a childfucking turk. Very Berlin and probably very Shadowrun as well, although I'm nothing close to an expert, so I can't fault them for it.

Decided to take a break from it, try some of these user made modules. There's one called Shadowrun Unlimited, very fun (much more than official campaign) at first but it gets repetitive pretty quick, not a lot of mission variety - very good cyberware/gear/spell selection tho. Then I tried Shadowrun SNES Alpha Remake - unfinished, as the title indicates, and aims to more or less straight up clone the old Shadowrun, and fuck me if this isn't a very fun good rpg experience. I haven't tried Shadowrun: Honk Kong, but this module blows the first two Harebrained Shadowruns out of the water. A little bit buggy, but within reasonable tolerance limits.

Next on the list is A Stitch in Time, Nightmare Harvest, and the Antumbra Saga. Should be interesting. Definitely try the SNES remake, it's good!

 

[the_shadow]

Replayed Dragonfall on the hardest difficulty, and I now think it's a bit better than Shadowrun: HK. It's got better combat encounters and isn't so exposition heavy. Combat is surprisingly enjoyable on harder difficulties, so it's unfortunate that you don't get much of it in SR: Hong Kong.

The one thing I really appreciate on my second play-through with a different play style is that all of the spells are really well balanced, in the sense that the majority of spells are equally good, unlike games like BG2 or NWN where you would only want to use 5% of the spells available to you (hence the solo sorcerer). Sometimes even higher levels of the same spell aren't clearly better than lower level spells due to the increase in AP and cooldown.

In particular, Stunball and Stunbolt are great value for AP/cooldown if you manage to find some leylines, you can easily drain 6AP with a first level Stun Bolt. Blur also doesn't seem great when you first read the description, but it makes a character practically unhittable if they are behind some cover. Strip Armor also breaks cover at higher levels, which isn't mentioned in the spell descriptions. The only bummer is that the barrier spells don't provide cover, although they are still pretty useful to drain AP, especially in the cyberzombie mission.

Of particular interest is that you can buy a minigun, but Eiger can't equip it due to her low strength. Only Glory can make any use of it, but unfortunately her accuracy sucks due to no rifle skill. This can be mitigated somewhat with the Aim spell and by stunning foes. Still, the companions are actually pretty well balanced. Their skill distribution isn't as good as it could be, but they get special abilities and free equipment that help compensate for that.

 

[Falksi]

Replayed Dragonfall on the hardest difficulty, and I now think it's a bit better than Shadowrun: HK. It's got better combat encounters and isn't so exposition heavy. Combat is surprisingly enjoyable on harder difficulties, so it's unfortunate that you don't get much of it in SR: Hong Kong.

The one thing I really appreciate on my second play-through with a different play style is that all of the spells are really well balanced, in the sense that the majority of spells are equally good, unlike games like BG2 or NWN where you would only want to use 5% of the spells available to you (hence the solo sorcerer). Sometimes even higher levels of the same spell aren't clearly better than lower level spells due to the increase in AP and cooldown.

In particular, Stunball and Stunbolt are great value for AP/cooldown if you manage to find some leylines, you can easily drain 6AP with a first level Stun Bolt. Blur also doesn't seem great when you first read the description, but it makes a character practically unhittable if they are behind some cover. Strip Armor also breaks cover at higher levels, which isn't mentioned in the spell descriptions. The only bummer is that the barrier spells don't provide cover, although they are still pretty useful to drain AP, especially in the cyberzombie mission.

Of particular interest is that you can buy a minigun, but Eiger can't equip it due to her low strength. Only Glory can make any use of it, but unfortunately her accuracy sucks due to no rifle skill. This can be mitigated somewhat with the Aim spell and by stunning foes. Still, the companions are actually pretty well balanced. Their skill distribution isn't as good as it could be, but they get special abilities and free equipment that help compensate for that.

Great point about the spells. I played as a mage/conjurer, and it was a constant dilema of which spells to take into battle. All had there own worth, and I felt as if success was very much down to how I built my character, which I liked. None of the spelss seemed to break the game, but few felt useless either, it really was just all about how I chose to play & setup my character.

One thing which I think was a tad poor in Dragonfall was the placement of laylines. Too often would they leave you out in the open & prone to enemy fire. I'd have liked to have seen laylines placed next to cover more, but said cover being compromised by enemies flanking you more often. Minor gripe in what is otherwise a top game though.

 

[the_shadow]

One thing which I think was a tad poor in Dragonfall was the placement of laylines. Too often would they leave you out in the open & prone to enemy fire.

I actually liked this, as you have to make a trade off. Do you choose optimal cover or take advantage of leylines that will boost your spell-power but expose you to additional risk? It's also worth noting that there is a targetable spell to create weak and medium leylines.

 

[Iznaliu]

Gitelman was talking about what he wanted to do with the next one before HK came out. If HK sold like Returns, we'd probably get a sequel.

Could you provide a source for that, both because that runs against my assumptions and because I would be interested to see what could have been.

 

[Lacrymas]

Started playing this and I'm already immeasurably more pleased with it than Hong Kong or Returns, at least from a creativity point of view. The lab mission for Dr. Ezkibel concluded with a skirmish between an army of drones and a megacorp merc squad, it was insanely cool as a concept. And I've already battled more types of enemies than the entirety of Hong Kong. Seriously, that campaign lacked enemy variety.

 

[cvv]

Yeah, Dragonfall's writing and setting is incredible. It's easily in my Top 10 RPGs of all time.

 

[Lacrymas]

Do the bonuses from the outfits actually work? What will I gain, if anything, if I buy this - https://shadowrun.gamepedia.com/Industrious_line_jumpsuit ? Or is it better to just buy more armor and +HP outfits?

 

[RK47]

Do the bonuses from the outfits actually work? What will I gain, if anything, if I buy this - https://shadowrun.gamepedia.com/Industrious_line_jumpsuit ? Or is it better to just buy more armor and +HP outfits?

It's better to buy the business suit during one of the lodge mission for +2 CHA and 5 AR. It lets me pass a lot of checks. Even with a Troll.
And man this game is amazing, at some point I saw even the cybernetic eye laser makes an appearance in dialogue as well as Ki skill. Definitely a game setting that is limited by its engine.

 

[Lacrymas]

What's up with The Trial? I barely managed to beat it, the two companions who are left after the elf betrays us are basically useless and the AI constantly destroyed my drones. I had to scrape the last of my resources to get to the penthouse and then had to reload spree my way to the U-Bahn without fighting anyone. They pit you against armed and armored to the teeth security forces that take forever to die and are also super accurate and spam grenades. Is this intentional or did I go do it at a too low "level"?

 

[OSK]

Possibly. I played as a Decker and I was able to hack my way to an alternative escape route to avoid security forces on my escape.