Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Shadowrun | Harebrained Schemes Will Cut All Corners, Release Beautifully Polished Sphere
Posts
Yeah, I figure they had to choose between supporting one of two charlie foxtrots to develop & support for: Either Android or Linux.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU!
Not to mention the fact that Android systems already have market system built in that allows for easy purchasing and download instead of the devs having to work something out for Linux, even if it's just a page to pay and download the code from.
There's more variety than that. Some examples of different runs I've seen:
Corporate:
Extraction: Delivering personnel from one corporation to another. Not always voluntarily.
Larceny: break in and steal a maguffin (prototype, matrix data, etc.)
Sabotage: Break in and break something
Distraction: Break in, be obvious about it to compromise security, but don't get caught.
Secret Security: This one was a favorite! An Ares exec found out about a Renraku project that was nearing completion and Ares products were being manufactured that needed the Renraku product to make it to market (Like an app for the iPhone, for example). But the Ares exec didn't want Renraku to know about the spy he had. Meanwhile another entity hired Shadowrunners to sabotage the project, so our job was to stop the other Shadowrunners, but on someone else's property and to not alert Renraku in the process.
There's also the street, where criminals and poor people live. There's a lot of jobs that can take place there.
Ghoul/vampire hunt. Or a bug hunt (giant magical insects). Or [insert paracritter] hunt.
Find someone's kidnapped friend. Or kidnap somebody's friend.
Triad members seem to be being targeted by a strange paracritter. They clearly can't go to the police, so they look for outside help.
Smuggle something somewhere, like weapons into Japan-occupied California, or porn-that-plugs-into-your-brain out of Japan-occupied California.
Acting as security for a fixer meet.
Technophillic gangs of children have discovered there are bigger fish to fry on the Matrix. But someone needs to scare the local orc gang from using their muscle advantage against them.
Your rigger lost his chopper saving your life. It cost 400,000 nuyen. Time to steal a new one.
A runner/fixer/johnson betrayed a team of runners and made the mistake of letting one of them survive. He's saved up enough nuyen to pay you to extract his revenge.
Sometimes you need to travel to exotic locales
Because a gulf pirate stole something an Ares researcher needs, and though he's happy to sell it off, pirates are intentionally difficult to find.
Perhaps you need to convince locals in Central America to raise up and support the Yucatan rebels and fight the encroaching megacorps.
There's a magical reagent a Seattle magical cartel needs supplied from Hong Kong, but they need someone to negotiate the transfer.
There's a facility in the middle of radioactive bug city Chicago with some very useful data just get in there and don't get killed!
An elf hates another elf and wants you to steal something of his in an elaborate face-slapping ritual.
And wouldn't you know it, magic often rears it's ugly head.
People are goblinizing in the streets! Massive riots! Are you a bad enough dude to protect the goblinization victims.
or use the chaos to your advantage?
Of course there's a chance that you broke down in a fairly standard smuggling operation but a trickster spirit who embodies the will of the forest and had befriended a madman tribal leader impedes your progress.
Spirits have taken a liking to haunting a a certain old house in the barrens. This wouldn't normally be a problem, except they also took a liking to the kid who ran inside. A kid who is now awakening to magical power while under the tutelage of cruel twisted spirits. Her mom just wants her daughter back!
An elf (who is kind of a dick) spikes your drinks with Astral MDMA and you go on a magical quest to delay a cyclical extraplanar invasion that may or may not have ruined ancient civilizations.
Of course, there's others I'm forgetting, but there's a lot of different possible Shadowrun jobs. Any Guy Ritchie movie is just a Shadowrun without trolls.
Edit: Once there was a mission where for some contrived reason we had to pose as doc wagon employees and primarily did several extractions. That was fun.
"You've done lots of jobs for me lately, runners. Here, have a two-week vacation at Renraku Arcology, all expenses paid, on me."
Have you read what 4th edition has done with the Arcology? It might even be WORSE.
It's called the Arcology Housing and <C-Something> Enclosure, or the ACHE. It's basically HUD/Projects on steroids, where all the homeless and SINLess in downtown seattle were stuck in the lowest 30-40 floors. Military guards the upper floors, that they are still cleaning out of Deus's mindless drones, and the basement, where the fusion plant is.
Seattle 2072 doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the situation.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
I thankfully missed the first attempt at that run which resulted in a near total party kill, so we were hired to infiltrate the already locked down arcology. We used to have big groups of runners, because it was a popular game at the local comic book shop and we never said no to new runners. We went in with 12 on this second try--two groups of six. Three of us and two runners from the original group that we went in to rescue made it back out. Climactic.
Edit: you're welcome OP
Then just get a copy when it comes out. The sequel will need support too.
I think I will do just that. Now I just need to send a reminder on my phone for 18 months from now.
I was wondering who would pick up on that
But yeah, there's a few published adventures in there! Some of them I said we, even though I was the GM for them, although I haven't ran very many published adventures, I've played in quite a few. When they put out the level editor, the first run I'm making is "You and your buds get hungry, so you go to the convenience store. Violence ensues."
I also wanted to include Imago, but now that I think about it, I have no idea what happened during that run.
Just another reason to kill all elves.
See, that's what I get for not reading through the whole thing and just shouting "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!"
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
I really don't think those indie bundles are a good indicator of the relative size of those markets. There are more iPads sold out there than Linux users. Android devices are are around the 200 million mark. Those Humble Indie bundles are great deals, but they're great deals for small-time devs and small-time games in sales that are themselves pretty small-time. Less than 110k bundles sold (from the last indie bundle) isn't exactly setting records. Any of those devs is looking at about 35 grand from a given game for Linux sales; not bad at all when you've got a few people building a game on a small budget, but the Shadowrun game is already running with a bigger team and budget than probably the combined devs and project cash from the entire last indie bundle.
Not to mention that it's a lot easier to port a small, simple game to Linux than it would be to code something Harebrained is already proposing for Shadowrun Returns.
I'm not saying Linux users shouldn't ask for a port of the game or want one, but I just don't think the profitability is there, especially since there are already ways Linux users could buy and play the game without having to make a Linux-specific version.
[edit] End of the day though, their tools, the developers know better than us how much time and money would be spent on it. I doubt they're flipping coins about this, so I guess we'll see.
They're doing PC and MAC computer versions, and iOS and Android tablet versions
That bit reminded me of my favorite bit of Shadowrun.
So we have a pretty typical group set up:
The Dwarf Rigger
Troll heavy weapons guy ("Krunch")
The Face/Street Sam ("Black")
and our pocket Native American Shaman ("two dogs fucking" - he had a serious name, that's just what we called him)
So Krunch the Troll and Black the move-by-wire twitch-a-thon walk into an expensive mafia bar in Seattle and settle into a booth seat and meal to scope out our target. When the target leaves, Black excuses himself from the booth and sneaks out the front door...leaving the penniless Krunch with the check. Krunch, being fairly unoriginal, grabs the guy in the booth next to him, gives him an almost lethal punch, places the guy next to him, and gets up telling the waiter "He'll get the check". The workers at the bar, not being idiots, tell the manager who comes out with a shotgun, just as Krunch is walking out the building, shouting and screaming. Krunch feels a shove as he's leaving and gives whoever was behind him the finger.
Well, the two finally make it back to the meet up at their ride, the only Winnebago that could take down a small country. Krunch, having discovered that the "shove" was the feeling of 12ga buckshot being fired through an armored trenchcoat, armored clothing and dermal plating, gets into an argument with Black that quickly turns into a brawl in the back of the van. Black is firing flechettes into Krunch (who shrugs it off) and Krunch is throwing those just-less-than-lethal punches at Black (who dodges them). The Shaman, thinking he'll end the fight somehow, throws a low level ice sheet in the van to make it harder for them to fight. Both combatants stop, stare at the shaman, Black fires a flechette round in his leg and they go back to fighting.
That one just sticks with me more than the awesome runs we did.
Oh, and the recurring joke of trying to find a Pacifist Mage Convention to rob.
Most games that have tried to support "linux" (but which distro?) have found it to take up the overwhelming majority of their support costs in exchange for a tiny percentage of their revenue.
For those who have never played Shadowrun, the game is typically not Three Stooges'esque. Think more William Gibson with Elves than Abbot & Costello with Trolls.
Also, telling stories about your own game, no matter how cool it sounds to you, typically sounds dumb to pretty much everyone else. Each group has their own dynamic, and it's hard to convey this dynamic in a manner that is appealing and entertaining.
Which is a lot like any experience with a group of friends that you try to explain to somebody else, really. If they don't know the background, they won't really get it. And in PnP stuff, that background can easily be dozens of hours of time spent in a given gameworld with given group of players and characters. Pretty much impossible to convey all of that because people would really just have had to be there to understand.
They threw in Berlin as one of the preliminary options. I'm not too familiar with the actual shadowrun fluff on Berlin(detailed german version). Apparently the city was split into an anarchist walled east and a corporate west.
But I happen to have visited Berlin just this weekend and it was amazing. It's like an irresistibly charming hipster disneyland right now and I'd like to see the shadowrun version of a city where an urban, very cultured anarchist distopia and a highly engineered, gruendlich corporate distopia collide. And they could tap one of the best music scenes on the planet for some video game music.
Like so many others, the SNES and Genesis games (in that order) were my introduction to Shadowrun. Love them both, for different reasons, but it was years later that I actually dug into the source material and saw how crazy complicated it was. Never could round up enough dudes for a PnP session, but I couldn't get enough of the lore and backstory; it was unique then and it's still unique now. Needless to say, quite stoked for this.
2013 is going to be very interesting.
I write for these people. Just reviewed: Drox Operative
German... hipsters? I just can't seem to reconcile those two things. You are clearly making this up.
They were into Sprockets before it was a thing; now they just like it ironically.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
For a runner, breaking into or out of east Berlin would be about as difficult as breaking into a corp, considering that they have the anarchist area completely walled off and secured by corp security.
Crowded.
I was more referring to the mood created by the designers and the writers and put forth in the source material.
The art also reflects both ends of the continuum. Look at the cover art for Cyberpirates (Pink Mohawk):
Or Cannon Companion (also Pink Mohawk style):
Compared to, say, the cover of Street Magic (more Black Trenchcoat style):
And none of that reflects anything that was being described in the "adventure" that I commented on. There is silliness, sure, but not to the level that was put forth. Not quite sure what you're trying to convince me of. The actions described by that player would have had those characters killed faster than they could blink even in a "pink mohawk" campaign. Besides, I don't think they generally let giant, uncouth, trolls and street same just saunter into nice restaurants like that and get tables. Also, if you can afford Move By Wire (and Deltaed to the point of not destroying all your essence), you can certainly afford a meal.
I was just trying to point out that it's VERY atypical of the game in general to people who are new to it and might be wondering what the general and more pervasive atmosphere play is like. From all the supplements and novels that I've read (and granted, it's been about 12 years) I don't remember anything like what was described above. I mean, I can pull out a copy of Castle Greyhawk, but that doesn't mean much.
Did they ever perfect Move By Wire in game? Didn't it have terrible long term effects? I remember it being pretty munchkiny.
In 4th edition, the side effects are minor. The deleterious effects were rolled into more generic "cyber psychosis"-type syndromes. The implication is that at the time of "Man and Machine" in 3rd edition, it was state of the art technology (with many "bugs"), but by 2070, it's one of many reflex enhancements available (a very efficient one, at that, since in 4th edition you get a free set of skillwires with it). In 3rd edition, the side effects were pretty manageable anyway. The main problem I had with Move By Wire was that it was so expensive that any reasonable shadowrunner would take that money and retire instead. Or start their own small business. Or buy a controlling interest in a corporation.
Then again, I've been looking through my growing collection of 1st/2nd ed books, and comparing them to now.. and it's insane how much the game has changed/matured.
NNID and many other services: Athenor or Myridiam // 3DS: 3883-5283-0471
It's atypical of the designers general mood for the game. Yes, they inject humor, but by the canon universe, that kinda stuff doesn't happen. Yes, a lot of people play it that way, but that's not how this game is going to be presented (and if it is, I want my money back). That's all I'm saying.
Silly discussion. ; )
Night's Pawn: The main character was a former Bodyguard for Richard Villiers. He just happens to know a rigger with a T-bird, and just happens to know how to use the weaponry on the T-bird (despite not having a vehicle control rig and having out-of-date cyberware). At the end, he takes down Alamais (a Great Dragon) with an orbital laser and survives the blast.
Dragonheart Trilogy: The main character was personally tutored by Dunkelzahn. He is fucking Nadja Daviar. He gets mindwiped to become the fleshpawn of a guy who is essentially a Jabba-the-Hutt-like blob of goo in a jar. He has a dwarf mercenary who has a third mechanical arm sticking out of his chest, and NO ONE notices. A cyberzombie chases him around, which then gets possessed by a free spirit named Lethe, who just happens to be the reincarnation of Dunkelzahn, and stands forever at the threshold between the Horrors and the Sixth World until the end of time.
The various adventures of Kane (throughout the Sourcebooks) are also pretty typical of Pink Mohawk. As is anything involving Harlequin. Anything involving Immortal Elves. The Orxploitation era. Almost anything involving the mage Talon. Most of the stuff involving the Year of the Comet metagenetics (people turn into literal cat-people and centaurs and shit).
There's a lot of silliness in Shadowrun. It's likely that the actual game that they are Kickstarting is going to be more serious than that, but I wouldn't put Saint's Row or Just Cause 2-style mayhem beyond the developers. After all, many folks are going to want to just mess around and shoot things with Panther Cannons.