Game News Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Update #73: Dragonfall Standalone Director's Cut Announced

[Metro]

Well, glad I didn't KS or D1P this iOS game. Apparently I can just buy the Standalone Dragonfall (at 75% off, ofc) which is better than the crappy base game.

 

[jdinatale]

Still a terrible dumbed down Iphone game made by a burned out has been who has turned over to casual gaming and his team of Seattle hipster suburbanites from which nothing good can come. Original Sin wipes the floor with it, it's embarrassing.

 

[StaticSpine]

Well, I like HBS kind of approach, they made some mistakes, listened to the feedback and decided to fix them.

And also I'm pretty sure, they'll make another Expansion, using the revenue from Director's Cut and according to the recent news about them hiring a writer familiar with Shadowrun setting.

 

[Jedi Exile]

I wish they'd do a sequel, not an expansion.

 

[almondblight]

Well, I like HBS kind of approach, they made some mistakes, listened to the feedback and decided to fix them.

Yeah, originally Dragonfall was going to be a short and linear 4-5 hour long series of runs released 3 months after DMS. But though HBS made some stupid choices at the beginning, it seems like they have been working on making the game better and giving the fans what they want. Wish they had done more of that during the Kickstarter, but still, they seem to be making decent decisions now.

 

[Abu Antar]

I wish they'd do a sequel, not an expansion.

I wouldn't be surprised if they announce a sequel in a few months. They have gotten good feedback and I think they are happy with sales of the first two campaigns. A sequel would improve on a lot of things, I think. I don't mind if they use the same engine as long as they can make bigger areas so it makes you feel like you are actually exploring rather than going through corridors.

 

[norolim]

That's good news. I bought Dragonfall on GOG, but dodn't have a chance to play it yet. Will wait for the free standalone version, now.

 

[Alfons]

Dragonfall was vastly superior than the base game but that doesn't mean much.They made some balance changes but most options are still much worse than shooting a gun.Skill checks appeared more often but for some reason I can't tell my decker to hack something ,well I can,but only sometimes.How does the game decides this stuff?Fuck if I know.

The most ridiculous part is the appearance of an issue that was "solved" in fallout 1,I can't initiate or terminate combat.I kill two guys and the next group is in another room about 70 feet away,so I spend 3 minutes just moving my team to that room,even stupider is the fact that you can't be the aggressor,the conversation option says [attack] but when I click it the other guys yells some stupid shit and shoots me in the dome.

I don't have much hope in these devs so I'll pick it up but probably wont play it,for anyone who doesn't have Dragonfall I'd advise to pick it up only if you have nothing better to play,or do.

 

[Minttunator]

Good stuff! To be honest, I think Dragonfall should've been a stand-alone game to begin with - I believe it would've sold better than it did. Still, better late than never - hope they get around to making another campaign as well!

 

[Severian Silk]

I have to sit down and actually play the game sometime soon. I've had it installed on my hard drive for several months now and I keep neglecting it.

 

[DeepOcean]

What I would love them to do on this Director Cut version is they adding a way for selecting and moving individual runners while still on real time mode and adding a turn based mode button on the UI. It is a pain to set up attacks from multiple directions while on turn base mode and this could be solved with a way to deactivate turn based mode outside combat and with you being able to select individual team members while still on real time mode.

 

[Achiman]

I actually just finished this campaign this morning so it's fresh in my mind.
My main irritation with the game was fighting with the inventory and trying to allocate items, shopping etc.
Some more interactivity with the environment wouldn't hurt, if Div:OS has shown anything it's that turn based combat exploiting the environment is terrific fun.
What would really help out as well I think, is if your team had more character, as in they could betray you, get pissed off and abandon you if they didn't like your choices, or as you work with them more get combat bonuses etc.

 

[Junmarko]

Ah...would have preferred an announcement for a new expansion all together, but this is still appreciated nonetheless. By looks of things, if they are making such an effort on a DC version of this campaign, my guess is that they will be building upon this particular group of characters in future iterations.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Seattle hipster suburbanites

What is Seattle a suburb of?

 

[Sensuki]

Unfortunately I'm in the shit tier that was the pre-order backer, who got none of the Kickstarter entitlements, such as Dragonfall for free. Waiting for a $5 bargain.

 

[Decado]

Dragonfall is a pretty sweet game. It's in my top 3 (maybe 5) for RPGs of the last 10 years. And lest anyone shit their pants over that, remember that it is 2014. Which is terribly depressing but there it is, I guess.

 

[norolim]

Unfortunately I'm in the shit tier that was the pre-order backer, who got none of the Kickstarter entitlements, such as Dragonfall for free. Waiting for a $5 bargain.

You should've bought it on GOG. I grabbed it there for $5.99 two weeks ago.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah I pre-ordered it like 5 months after the Kickstarter or something. At that time there was no GOG option.

 

[Loriac]

"Director's cut"? They're not describing a reprise of the director's hampered vision, they're describing a rectification of inadequacies in the director's original vision that have been collated from user feedback.

They could have hitched another line to the crowdfunding climate by calling it a Fan Cut.

This kind of reminds me of something i read about George Lucas. The idea went that the reason that the 2nd trilogy of prequels was so shit was because George Lucas had so much clout by then from all the films he'd made and the success of Star Wars that episodes 1-3 represent his 'vision' untainted by other people telling him that his more outlandish ideas are pure shit. Apparently when the first trilogy was filmed, he was reined in a lot from what he wanted to do by being overruled by other people associated with the films.

I get the same impression from Weisman; the Shadowrun concept is quite cool, blending as it does the dystopian ideas of cyberpunk with elves and dwarves and shit, and he deserves credit for getting the original Shadowrun tabletop RPG out there. But his skills as a game designer for a modern PC RPG are shit (they're adequate however for the mobile market, which has far less competition and is probably a niche waiting to be filled by good developers - although arguably Trese Brothers is stepping up to that with a set of increasingly complex RPG type games developed for android mobiles, and perhaps there are others too) because to be blunt he's clueless about what he's doing.

Still, having said all that Dragonfall was much better than the original campaign, and I am hopeful of another sequel provided Harebrained Schemes takes the lessons they're learning about PC gaming and incorporating them into their next release.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Dragonfall is a pretty sweet game. It's in my top 3 (maybe 5) for RPGs of the last 10 years. And lest anyone shit their pants over that, remember that it is 2014. Which is terribly depressing but there it is, I guess.

bloodlines 2004
knights of the chalice 2009
etrian odyssey 2007
etrian odyssey 2 2008
etrian odyssey 3 2010
etrian odyssey 4 2012
the dark spire 2008
f:nv 2010
motb 2007
dark souls 2011
kotor 2 2004
witcher 2007
witcher 2 2011
alpha protocol 2010
mmx 2014
drakensang 2010
risen 2009
dxhr 2011
m&b: warband 2010
heroine quest 2013
divinity 2 2012
divinity original sin 2014
avernum 6 2010
geneforge 5 2008
dark souls 2 2014
paper sorcerer 2013
legend of grimrock 2012
quest for infamy 2014
frayed knights 2011

yeah, there's been a real rpg drought those last 10 years...

 

[Morality Games]

Dragonfall is a pretty sweet game. It's in my top 3 (maybe 5) for RPGs of the last 10 years. And lest anyone shit their pants over that, remember that it is 2014. Which is terribly depressing but there it is, I guess.

... what are the other four?

 

[Morkar Left]

Dragonfall is a pretty sweet game. It's in my top 3 (maybe 5) for RPGs of the last 10 years. And lest anyone shit their pants over that, remember that it is 2014. Which is terribly depressing but there it is, I guess.

...
f:nv 2010
m&b: warband 2010
heroine quest 2013
frayed knights 2011
...

Thanks for the comprehensive list. Yep, makes it easily in the top 5 for me. Divinity OS and MMX are new and I haven't played them, which means they could be good according to the codex. Warband isn't really a rpg and Blackguards which isn't listed, too. Still haven't played Risen, possibly good, too. The other games are either jrpgs or overrated.

 

[Rake]

Dragonfall is a pretty sweet game. It's in my top 3 (maybe 5) for RPGs of the last 10 years. And lest anyone shit their pants over that, remember that it is 2014. Which is terribly depressing but there it is, I guess.

bloodlines 2004
motb 2007
kotor 2 2004
...

Top 5 for me as well (i don't count 2014 games).

 

[Siobhan]

Also in my Top 5, but thanks to my GPU-crippled Thinkpad I still haven't played MMX, Blackguards, DOS or Expeditions:Conquistador, all of which should be right up my alley. I have no real qualms with Dragonfall's simplistic mechanics, I think the lack of micromanagement, weapon upgrades, limited ammunition or huge build variety actually works to the game's advantage. Just don't think of it as an RPG, it's more like Syndicate meets Incubation with dialog and story.

Things that would greatly improve the game though:

• enter/exit turn-based mode and shared party inventory like in the A Stitch in Time mod
• smarter combat AI that focuses attacks on specific runners and properly uses grenades and spells
  
• two or three new missions at the beginning for storyfags that need an opportunity to connect to Monica
  
• fix all the missed opportunities for C&C (ghouls in the sewer during bomb mission, a mission where you have to defend the civic center which gets easier the more money you've donated)
• add a bad ending where you join the villain and kill your fellow runners just to be attacked by the railgun orc anyways (because why not, you're useless to them); for storyfags: whether your team attacks you depends on whether you've listened to all their whining
  
• class rebalancing (deckers are pointless because Blitz can handle all matrix fights, adepts have very little equipment to choose from, scarcity of repair kits and no healing spell for drones handicaps riggers)
  
• nitpick: allow me to steal the vase in the mansion after I've cleaned out the entire floor

 

[SuicideBunny]

Yep, makes it easily in the top 5 for me.

hm, i find that weird, because a6 was a much better game than dragonfall while very similar, and i wouldn't put it in my top 5 of the last 10 years... but to each his own.