Game News Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Update #72: Dragonfall Released

[Excidium]

Well, I'm playing... So far it is better than DMS, you can... prepare yourself: walk with your own feet without being teleported all the time, what a innuvation. The characters with personalities are cool but while the writing is on the same level as DMS so far, decent (enough to make you interested but not good enough to make you impressed) the premise for the story is kinda weak so far.

Spoiler

I hate when games do this thing of somebody you have no idea who she is, dies at the beginning while having a really akward scene while dying and you should really care about it. She said something like: BEWARE WITH THE TERRIBLE EVIL while she was dying and the terrible evil was just maybe another great dragon like all the other 10 or something that already awekened. Right now, I see no reason to not just leave the suckers, a least, DMS took in consideration that people might not care who Sam Watts was and promised a monetary reward. That whole scene with Eiger afterwards had the stench of forced drama all over it.

Motivation is super hard to do well in games and you can go crazy trying to appeal to everyone. At the end of the day you can do your best, but eventually you have to kinda say "this is the story we're telling, take it or leave it."

It's not hard in a setting like that of Shadowrun, it's just that HBS seems to have an inability to keep things low-key

 

[SuicideBunny]

the triggers in this dlc are all messed up big time.

 

[Xeon]

Man, I kinda wish if I was given a third choice of keeping the MK cyborg troll. He has 4 APs and he is a beast with an axe.

Just paid Alice and I think Bloodline is the hardest mission so far.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Just paid Alice and I think Bloodline is the hardest mission so far.

What do you mean? I didn't need to fire a single shot

 

[Xeon]

Nice, I was doing pretty good but couldn't convince the woman in the second or third map I think. Finishing that mission stealthily must have felt great.

I think the Security etiquette is probably the best one to pick if you want to be a smooth stealthy type. I picked Shadowrunner and Steet I think and never saw them used so far or might have missed them.

 

[Excidium]

I remember seeing street but shadowrunner I didn't see once.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Nice, I was doing pretty good but couldn't convince the woman in the second or third map I think. Finishing that mission stealthily must have felt great.

I think the Security etiquette is probably the best one to pick if you want to be a smooth stealthy type. I picked Shadowrunner and Steet I think and never saw them used so far or might have missed them.

It's actually pretty tough to go through it stealthly because powergamed charisma and etiquette are not enough to convince the blood mages at the end, which bites you in the ass horrendously because the fuckhueg mob of guards you left behind join the party as well. Also, you can't get all the side objectives without killing everyone at the main generator.

And yes, shadowrunner doesn't get used a single time. Street I remember seeing once and it was a flavour check iirc.

 

[crawlkill]

I've been alert to shitty German, myself! as a fluent American. I always second-guess myself. I think there was a moment where they said "of mein Vater" where I had a case-related eyetwitch, but I can't remember what the context was. I agree, though, and am super pleased, generally the German doesn't have case/pluralization problems. do you native Deutsche feel like the nouns are good? when I hear "Schattenneste..." like, I understand exactly what it means, but I'm not sure if it -sounds good.-

 

[Morkar Left]

Somehow my installation got completely messed up. I couldn't load my saves (the game couldn't identify to which campaign the saves belong) and the campaign was actually marked as custom. Couldn't even start the campaign again.

I'm a bit pissed if that happens more than once. Was already annoying that it couldn't find my saves from the DMS campaign.


Now reinstalling the whole game...

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

As I've been stating in bits and pieces here and in the GRPG thread, I'm really digging this campaign, much more than the original. That said...

And yes, shadowrunner doesn't get used a single time. Street I remember seeing once and it was a flavour check iirc.

What the fuck. This game could have been so much better if dialogue checks weren't just flavor and skill checks actually made it in the goddamn game. What a blown opportunity.

 

[PosledniKovboj]

Love the environment, the snowy cybertrashpunk Berlin atmosphere is awesome. Writing is OK. Item system is boring as fuck, char progression as well. Gets pretty meh towards the end, couldn't bring myself to finish it.

 

[Lexx]

I can't understand why it is impossible to equip your dudes with other weapons. And why is it impossible to heal them outside of combat and reload the weapons?

 

[clemens]

I can't understand why it is impossible to equip your dudes with other weapons. And why is it impossible to heal them outside of combat and reload the weapons?

You can heal them outside of combat with medkits : choose item -> activate -> select team member. As far as I can tell, weapons are automatically loaded at the start of each combat.

The equipment thing is more annoying, but apprently it's an engine/design issue, cf. the other thread.

 

[PosledniKovboj]

if this had a proper item and equipment system and a few other minor things (i.e. gay romance), it would have been excellent.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The equipment system is the least of this game's problems.

 

[PosledniKovboj]

story's generic bullshit but no one cares, combat is boring as fuck but that goes back to the equipment, what else is wrong with it?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Installing Dragonfall has a big chance of fucking up all your older saves. Not only DMS, but custom campaigns as well. Fucking nice work.

 

[ghostdog]

So to sum it up, dragonfall is basically the same as the original, with slightly better level design and a bit harder combat, but it also introduces some nasty save bugs. I was waiting for df do decide whether to buy the game, wnd frankly what I hear so far doesn't make me very eager to get it.

 

[Darth Roxor]

dragonfall is basically the same as the original, with slightly better level design and a bit harder combat

No, this is not true at all. The level design is LEAGUES above DMS, and combat is slightly harder, but consistently on the same level, unlike DMS which was only hard in 2 instances (cemetery + graveyard), with everything being piss easy.

In fact, just about EVERYTHING in Dragonfall is actually better than in DMS, except perhaps the writing at times. It's uncanny to see something in this day and age actually improve so much upon the original.

story's generic bullshit but no one cares, combat is boring as fuck but that goes back to the equipment, what else is wrong with it?

Story turns out better down the line, combat is not boring, and its problems definitely don't lie in equipment. Dragonfall's biggest problems are:

- Biowarian C&C that presents you supposedly big choices that next to never have ANY repercussions.
- The same retarded AI from DMS.
- Plenty of annoying bugs.

Sure, it would be cool if there were more non-default team runners available or if you could ultimately change Glory's lightning crawz into something else, but that complaint's minor to the point of being skippable compared to the three big and ugly ones listed above.

I was waiting for df do decide whether to buy the game, wnd frankly what I hear so far doesn't make me very eager to get it.

I should be done with a review in up to 2 weeks, so you can wait for that.

 

[PosledniKovboj]

The combat is a giant chore for me. AI doesn't help, true. Haven't seen any c&c really, but that doesn't bother me. Haven't seen a single bug either, and I'm almost at the end (I think).

I agree that it's better than the base game, but for me, it's still kinda...shit

 

[clemens]

- Biowarian C&C that presents you supposedly big choices that next to never have ANY repercussions.

That's a big problem, I killed the Humanis leader on purpose, for example, just to see what would change. The shockwellenreiter guys didn't even give a call about it, though they let you know before the run that you absolutely must not harm the guy.
On the other hand, I tought the discussion with the captive rigger was quite well done, in its trolling way, even if those choices were also mostly cosmetic (they might give you one extra opportunity for combat, but that's it). They still contributed quite nicely to the atmosphere and made the run something a little different than just "save the fellow shadowrunner from the evil corp." So I'm fine with that.
The AI routines are definitely more problematic than the lacking C&C.

 

[twincast]

I've been alert to shitty German, myself! as a fluent American. I always second-guess myself. I think there was a moment where they said "of mein Vater" where I had a case-related eyetwitch, but I can't remember what the context was. I agree, though, and am super pleased, generally the German doesn't have case/pluralization problems. do you native Deutsche feel like the nouns are good? when I hear "Schattenneste..." like, I understand exactly what it means, but I'm not sure if it -sounds good.-

Eh, the proper nouns were fine (if in part a bit fantasy-y, but that's appropriate after all), but that particular case (and I think a couple more) irked the hell out of me. "Of mein Vater" and "of meinem Vater" both sound wrong, so just stick with single words and fixed phrases, i.e. "of my Vater" in this case, if you really want to add that sort of flavor. Although for words with clear and easy translations other than greetings etc. even that sounds like them trying a bit too hard. Especially since in-story they're all clearly supposed to be speaking German all the time, anyway, so common nouns randomly left untranslated for the player come across as gratuitous, truth be told.

Which reminds me on a slightly related note that the last half-year or so I've stumbled across at least half a dozen cases of hypercorrect "whom". By professional writers to boot. Ugh. I love proper use of it, but incorrect use is utterly cringeworthy. (Same with "thou".)

 

[Darth Roxor]

I think what made me rage the most when it came to false C&C was

Spoiler

the bomb defusing action in the sewers. When I entered it, I was thinking "please prove me wrong game and show me that these choices matter and I'll have some sort of ghoul support because I saved them"

NOPE, NO GHOULS FOR YOU BECAUSE FUCK YOU DARTH ROXOR

 

[SuicideBunny]

I think what made me rage the most when it came to false C&C was

Spoiler

the bomb defusing action in the sewers. When I entered it, I was thinking "please prove me wrong game and show me that these choices matter and I'll have some sort of ghoul support because I saved them"

NOPE, NO GHOULS FOR YOU BECAUSE FUCK YOU DARTH ROXOR

yeah, i was like

Spoiler

hahaha, morons don't know what they are messing with! my faithful ghoul buddies will rip them apart.. wait whu...

not sure if it's a fake choice or if the trigger for it is somehow broken, though, because i experienced a lot of those.

Spoiler

making a deal to give those filthy thieves access to the wiretaps, then having a conversation with paul two missions later about how i told them they would get rations from him...
blitz deciding to be an idiot then me getting a mail from his gf about her being proud that he chose not to interfere and then getting the actual consequence
some special party member backstory dialogue choices coming back again and again despite the dialogue about it already being over... and so on

 

[clemens]

Well, at least they nailed the shadowrun setting and atmosphere again, imo, and still improved over the previous game.
With that and Blackguards behind me, I'd say that 2014 is already a better crpgs year than the previous 7-8...