Shadowrun Shadowrun Returns Pre-Release Thread

[Jaesun]

Not a big deal. Because the combat looks sweet.

 

[Roguey]

Can we have the ability to turn that off?

No

Suckerrrrrrrrrrrrr

More possibly upsetting things:

Corpse looting involves a loot system and associated systems that interact with it. As much as we wanted one and designed one, we don't have the funding to implement it in this version of the game. If we'd done like the SNES and Sega games and gave you one PC/character class and no race choices to play, we might have had time for it. We invested in giving you ownership of your character, knowing that we could add things like that down the road if the game were successful.

Yes, there will be stores but equipment is not a major part of the game. As you can see, we put our time elsewhere.

's'what happens when you make a RPG in little more than a year with ~1.8 million.

 

[Jaesun]

Meh. Still not a big deal.

They can finally add that in Shadowrun Returns II.

 

[evdk]

's'what happens when you make a RPG in little more than a year with ~1.8 million.

What happens is that it's still better then multimillion AAA titles. The mind boggles.

 

[Roguey]

What happens is that it's still better then multimillion AAA titles. The mind boggles.

Pure fanboyism. It's not out yet, you haven't played it.

AAA titles have loot systems and quest compasses you can turn off sometimes.

 

[Cromwell]

's'what happens when you make a RPG in little more than a year with ~1.8 million.

What happens is that it's still better then multimillion AAA titles. The mind boggles.

I would pay for the editor alone

 

[evdk]

What happens is that it's still better then multimillion AAA titles. The mind boggles.

Pure fanboyism. It's not out yet, you haven't played it.

I can have a few select moments of optimism, it's in my union contract.

AAA titles have loot systems and quest compasses you can turn off sometimes.

While being boring and playing like shit. Odds are, SRR is going to wipe the floor with them

 

[Jaesun]

It's still better than the fucking shitty action romance simulators or hiking simulators.

 

[Lancehead]

's'what happens when you make a RPG in little more than a year with ~1.8 million.

I wonder if 4 million and around 2 years is the critical point.

 

[Roguey]

Even Jeff freaking Vogel and Pierre freaking Begue were able to implement loot systems in their RPGs all by their lonesome, though those were made in different circumstances and they didn't have such high quality art. I still think it's a fair trade, yes, I will sacrifice depth for those graphix and the ability to play as different races.

 

[evdk]

's'what happens when you make a RPG in little more than a year with ~1.8 million.

I wonder if 4 million and around 2 years is the critical point.

Sawyer could knock it out of the park in under two weeks on a shoe string budget, surely.

 

[Jaesun]

Harebrained Schemes ‏@WeBeHarebrained
After you watch the #SRReturns gameplay video, come ask JW and MG all your questions at #SXSW http://bit.ly/16cy66X

 

[Blaine]

Pure fanboyism. It's not out yet, you haven't played it.

You're the absolute last person on the Codex who ought to be lecturing anyone else on this subject.

 

[Roguey]

Lawlz. Sawyer's ideas are rock solid. Don't need to play it to know that.

The wheat from tonight's forum Q&A:
On dumbing down

Quickly, we're not dumbing the game down for iOS audiences. If we were, we'd make LOTS of different choices and the game would be far different and much easier to make than the one we're making.

Shadows

It doesn't sound nitpicky (at least to me) but realistic shadows won't be in the game. We're spending our art and coding time on what we consider to be the highest impact visuals and not on others like this one.

Weapon carry limit and concealment

I think Lady Z is cheating a bit and number of weapons you can carry is based upon your rank in your specialty but I'll get back to you.
We would LOVE a concealment system (and did some preliminary design work to vet the feature) but with the budget we have, we can't simulate everything and have to leave some features for the future (assuming success).

OVERWATCH

Oh, you're totally right! It is absolutely planned AND implemented. It just wasn't shown in the video because there was a bug in the system and it didn't work right.
PCs also have the option to "overwatch" on their turn too!

Those odd NPC animations

We plan for more stances and our animators are chomping at the bit to create more! We just prioritized other things higher.

Slow animations

Everything is subject to tweaking, XPLO. I'll pass your feedback on to the art team but it may be difficult to change at this point. I'll look into it though.

Game length

I can't say right now, Korron. It takes 20 mintues to play through that side mission and several of our main-story missions will be several times that size.

On cover applied to doors/corners/walls

Unlike those other games, you can't shoot through walls in SRR, so cover using walls is either on or off. You're either behind a wall and in cover or not.

Fixing zig-zagging running animations

We're baked, Veav. Oh, so baked. In the time remaining we feel there are lots of higher priority things to do.

He hasn't replied in over 15 minutes and there's only two unanswered questions so I'm assuming he's done for the night. I would have liked to know about how enemies determine THREAT but oh well, another time.

 

[winterraptor]

Sawyer could knock it out of the park in under two weeks on a shoe string budget, surely.

And cure cancer by accident while doing so.

 

[winterraptor]

Fixed.

 

[Jaesun]

Fixed and enhanced.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Honestly I'm pretty much alright without loot systems. In fact it (Arguably) gives them an advantage at balancing the game and making it challenging since characters will be relatively uniform in their abilities, and it should make lower level characters still viable and dangerous compared to higher level characters. An example would be a high level character is more accurate and has a better chance to crit than a lowbie, but they're using the same assault rifle that does the same damage. Less D&D-esque "I HAVE MORE LEVELS THAN YOU SO I CAN KILL 50 VILLAGERS ATTACKING ME AT ONCE AND BE IN NO DANGER" nonsense which is sort of nice. The opposite of the HP/damage bloat I was bitching about in the Diablo 3 thread.
A decent example of a recent game that kinda did well that was the new Xcom. Higher level characters were definitely more powerful but they were still using the same equipment and lower level characters weren't entirely worthless because of level differences.

'course if it has a shitty story and no C&C and bad encounter design and massively unbalanced classes/characters then it's fucked, but I can live without loot being a major aspect.

 

[Excidium]

Shadowrun doesn't have loot whoring, it has...shop whoring.

 

[Gozma]

Does no loot mean no Savage Ares Predator of the Whale or does it mean every class gets one gun model with two same-model upgrades in the store?

 

[uaciaut]

Even Jeff freaking Vogel and Pierre freaking Begue were able to implement loot systems in their RPGs all by their lonesome, though those were made in different circumstances and they didn't have such high quality art. I still think it's a fair trade, yes, I will sacrifice depth for those graphix and the ability to play as different races.

Loot systems = depth? WoW must be a pretty deep game.

Seriously though this has plenty of room to have a shitton of flaws, you'd expect the gameplay video to focus the best features in the game to spark up more interest. I just had really low expectations to this, especially relative to the P:E and even, to a lesser extent, the W2 kickstarters. This is mostly because 1. I hadn't heard of the shadowrun games/universe to that point. 2. The kickstarted video didn't really up my confidence in what a small time studio like HBS that was doing some mobile flash games (i think they touched on one in one of their videos) could do with such a project. And the guy starting the video with a "pretend" phone call with Tim smelled of so much lame and desperation i just thought this thing would be pretty bad.
And then they pot that video and make me eat all my unvoiced bad thoughts about it, especially with how little attention it got compared to the other titles and i feel that another potential great title coming soon is pretty darn great.

 

[LeJosh]

I just finished watching the gameplay video, it's... beautiful.

Shot in the dark here, are there any other games like this from yesteryear that I can play to tide me on over?

Is the SNES version worth a blast?

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Every one who is bitching about loot sound like some ignorant plebeians that don't know shit about the Shadowrun universe.

Now you could maybe pick up some guns and some magical ingredients that was rare here and there, but most of the time the money and numbers that where dealt with as a Shadow runner are so high that looting 5 cred of a dead troll is not worth it. Not only that guns are not only guns.
We are talking smg's linked directly into you through wiring interfacing that goes directly into your brain and nervous system. It will in return give you better control. ALL that needs to be calibrated and maintained so picking up a bigger gun you will lose the pin point accuracy and the ability to use the gun to it's fullest. Not only that. If the gun you pick up is not clean and unknown then lonestar can start to put 2 and 2 together and start to find out who you are. IF that happens then no Johnson will work with you. You want to stay sinless and unknown to most.

Then there is magic. It all works on a individual level and it is very different from person to person. Like take a fetish in the universe from different magicians that might cast the same kind of spells.

The 3 spells are Mana bolt, Force push/lift and the last one is a heal. The 2 mages are different in how they see there magic. One is a devout Christian that belief his power comes from god and he uses a Cross with sacred wood of the cross (or at least he believes that) in it's as a fetish and and the other mage is a street kid that grew up fending for him self. His fetish is from a ghoul he killed in self defense and he took it's ear as a trophy.

Both Fetishes have the same ability on paper and they have the same powers, but it is not about the item it self and if they where to switch items they would not get the effects of them. It is all about the connection it has with the person that maters. Like say both have bleeding as a way to put more power into a spell they can see it as different. For the Christian it is stigmata and part of felling the suffering of Jesus and for the Street kid it is his survival instinct and his will to survive that kicks in.

Even the spells that might do the same thing will have different representations depending on the person who uses it. For the Christian the Mana bolt is god smiting people the push is the hand of god and the healing is the spirit of Christ. For the street kid it is the pure power he has to crush and help those he like. The Mana bolt is nothing more then him crushing his enemy's, the push is him moving things through force of will and healing is so he can survive no matter what. Even how they look when used will be different like the push for the Christian might look like a big ethereal hand and for the street kid it is a pure dark angry energy bolts.

So yeah loot is not needed outside of special items here and there like 2 litters of dragons blood.

 

[General Maxson]

Well this looks awesome to me, and I'm glad I backed it. Too bad they didn't get more funding and/or time. But with the editor, and if this sells well (and it should), I'm certain they will try expanding and upgrading this game for sure. Maybe even make Shadowrun 2. Just hoping they stick with old school and not go popamole if money starts raining on them. That's actually my only concern. They don't seem receptive of Codexian interview though, and that's bad.

 

[Diablo169]

This is looking great, I really wish i'd backed it.