Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Release Day

So what is the diff between Mechforce and otherwise?

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Mechforce was a tactical RPG - focusing on elaborate mech customization and battles. It was a very faithful adaption of the FASA ruleset, and I spent countless hours playing against my friends.

However, it didn't have a story, so it likely wouldn't appeal to that many people.

But I was hoping for a similar implementation of the combat rules and multiplayer options, and I don't think that's what they're going for.

Sounds more like a tradtional story-oriented RPG set in the Battletech universe.

DArtagnan said:

Mechforce was a tactical RPG - focusing on elaborate mech customization and battles. It was a very faithful adaption of the FASA ruleset, and I spent countless hours playing against my friends.

However, it didn't have a story, so it likely wouldn't appeal to that many people.

But I was hoping for a similar implementation of the combat rules and multiplayer options, and I don't think that's what they're going for.

Sounds more like a tradtional story-oriented RPG set in the Battletech universe.

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Mechforce sounds like it would be perfect as a roguelike or as a traditional dungeon crawl type rpg which is mostly about combat. That would be cool. The Banner Saga developers released a multiplayer combat only portion of there game so it can be done. Maybe HBS could do this as a stretch goal?

*Assuming the combat rules are involved and interesting.

Silver said:

Mechforce sounds like it would be perfect as a roguelike or as a traditional dungeon crawl type rpg which is mostly about combat. That would be cool. The Banner Saga developers released a multiplayer combat only portion of there game so it can be done. Maybe HBS could do this as a stretch goal?

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It was actually more like a pure cooperative/competitive arena combat game with XP and progression. These days, I'd probably need some kind of story campaign or something on top to make it worthwhile.

Ideally, I'd love a cooperative story campaign with tactical battles

DArtagnan said:

It was actually more like a pure cooperative/competitive arena combat game with XP and progression. These days, I'd probably need some kind of story campaign or something on top to make it worthwhile.

Ideally, I'd love a cooperative story campaign with tactical battles

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That sounds right up Larians alley. The co-op rpg part anyways. Honestly I think HBS need to get a hold of Larians engine and do all there Shadowrun and Battletech through it. HBS's artists would make it feel very different from what Larian has done and we'd have co-op.

Silver said:

That sounds right up Larians alley. The co-op rpg part anyways. Honestly I think HBS need to get a hold of Larians engine and do all there Shadowrun and Battletech through it. HBS's artists would make it feel very different from what Larian has done and we'd have co-op.

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That would also mean a lot more environment interaction and potential for exploration

Still, I doubt that's going to happen.

Release is at 7 pm here. I know what I'm going to to tonight.
If it's at least as good as Dragonfall, I'll have a lot of fun.

you said:

Hum. Any backers managed to get a gog key yet?

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When I went to BackerKit it explicitly said '10AM PST'. So for me that is 1PM EST.

My backerkit contains all rewards I backed except for the Mini-Campaign Steam Key. When will it be available ?

Ripper said:

Really looking forward to this one. If they can open it up, make it a bit less linear, they could have a really great game.

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While making an RPG less linear sounds great to me in theory, in practice it often doesn't result in a game I enjoy more. D:OS for instance, seemed to have issues because it allows you to go almost anywhere. (I recall bugs and odd things that didn't make sense if you did them in a certain order). And while you can go anywhere, the fact that enemies have fixed levels means you're very likely going to more or less follow a certain path anyway, so you don't end up getting into fights you can't handle (Not that I'm saying I would have preferred enemy scaling because that is even a worse alternative). And I think I actually enjoyed Witcher 2 a lot more than The Witcher 3: sure the world is not as open but the story seems tighter and more engaging than when I can just wander around doing pointless sidequests… There's a lot of generic filler content in TW3.

So IMO I'm not sure being more open / less linear than Dragonfall would necessarily make for a better game. I'd prefer a few more alternate paths / endings (i.e., choice and consequence) and some more more optional sidequests / missions would be nice as long as they're still interesting (i.e., not fetch quests or kill x number of y enemy) , but I don't really care whether I have a choice between 2 missions or 5 at any given time.

One of the things I love about HBS' Shadowrun games is there's very little filler content; the side missions are often as interesting and nuanced as the mandatory story quests. I know a lot of people have been asking for "endless random missions" like in the Sega Genesis Shadowrun game (which I think would be a terrible mistake). I'd hate for HBS to start adding in lots of filler crap in their games in response to demand for a bigger / more open world style game.

henriquejr said:

My backerkit contains all rewards I backed except for the Mini-Campaign Steam Key. When will it be available ?

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Probably not until the mini-campaign is closer to release. The current ETA for the "Shadows of Hong Kong" expansion is early 2016.

I can enjoy both linear and non-linear games greatly. To me, the problem with these Shadowrun games is the absolutely barren playfield when it comes to exploration and interaction.

I also think the engine is slow and clunky. Even on PC, I miss-click NPCs and hotspots around a third of the time, which is inexcusably bad.

They have a decent place to build from, but I think they're playing it way too safe for my tastes.

While I appreciate the amount of classes and available, I think they're all too straightforward when it comes to builds and tactics. Some are better than others, true, but, to me, almost all combat feels the same - and that makes the rather large amount of filler combat a bit painful, as battles are slow and samey.

I do appreciate that you can avoid combat in certain situations, but I don't like how Etiquette skills are tied into Charisma - as that leaves out a lot of classes if you want to be truly efficient at fighting. This means you have to give up being efficient in combat if you want to talk your way out of things, and you have absolutely no way of knowing what Etiquettes will be helpful. I'd much rather have a general "diplomacy" skill available to all classes that you had to invest in.

All in all, I love the setting and I think the writing is strong - but these games represent a big missed opportunity for the most part.

To each his own, though.

Thx Mr Potato, been meaning to ask if anyone had any opinions on good user made SR mods.

Looking forward to this one too.

My one wish would be that the runs could be structured more like NWN modules in that you could take your team of runners from one adventure to the next instead of starting fresh each time. Although I spose that doesn't always fit with the stories being told.


-kaos

I would say Shadowrun Dragonfall is pretty close to how pen and paper works. You got a main story and often can choose the side missions. Outside the missions you interact with fixers and others and roleplay a bit.
Would it work better as a Fallout 1/2 experience? Yes. But that would require 5+ million $ and a new engine.

Would it work better as a Skyrim/Fallout 3 experience? Absolutely not but it would sell to more casuals.

I'd like to see more exploration and interaction, but I just don't want them to add a lot of meaningless interactions. For instance, HBS had initially planned having a full fledged loot system in SRR, but ultimately decided to cut it, as it would consume too much of their budget. While I was initially disappointed by this news, I think it ended up being a blessing in disguise. Far too many RPGs have you picking up so much random junk in every crate and barrel you see that you end up selling (or maybe using in crafting). This gets tedious very quickly IMO. It also makes the actual reward you get for completing quests seem less rewarding, as you end up getting more from the loot than from the payment which was supposed to be your main incentive. In Shadowrun, most of your money comes from the payment and you use that to buy the gear you want. I like that. I love things like secret passages and well done puzzles in RPGs, but I don't want to sift through garbage, which is what exploration amounts to in a lot of RPGs. Nor do I want to have to hold down the tab key the entire time I play.

I agree that the SRR engine is clunkier than it should be. I'm sure this is an unfortunate side effect of planning to port the game to tablets. Now that HBS has sworn off tablets and plans to focus solely on PC/ Mac / Linux, I hope this results in a better interface and less mis-clicking.

I think Dragonfall Director's Cut was a big step in the right direction and found the combat much better in that than in SRR. Melee is a lot more viable. I hope they'll have a few more such improvements in Hong Kong.

DFDC is one of my favorite RPGs to come out in many years, but I don't deny there's still lots of room for improvement in the mechanics. At least HBS has stated that they realize pretty soon it won't be worth trying to improve the SRR engine anymore and they're going to have to start from scratch with a new engine with future SR games. Of course, doing so will take a lot more money so I really hope SRHK does well.

Archangel said:

I would say Shadowrun Dragonfall is pretty close to how pen and paper works. You got a main story and often can choose the side missions. Outside the missions you interact with fixers and others and roleplay a bit.
Would it work better as a Fallout 1/2 experience? Yes. But that would require 5+ million $ and a new engine..

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Ehm, what? How did you arrive at that number? I don't see why the existing engine couldn't work like Fallout.

That said, it would probably be even more slow and clunky

It's jarring to realize that the SNES and Genesis game were made on an even smaller budget than this and had a full open world and much better gameplay systems. I find it disturbing that people are hailing this as a "rebirth" of RPGs when it's so limited, there is no exploration, the combat is even simpler than Jeff Vogel's games, etc. It's almost like an iPad game and yet people are praising its RPG genius, it doesn't make sense.

@daveyd

Yes, I take your point about the sins of many a game that tries to be too 'open'. I also wouldn't want SR going too far down that road. I would like a bit more of a sense of exploration though - a sense of being able to poke around a bit, even if things are ultimately quite structured to lead you down a certain path.

Humanity has risen! said:

It's jarring to realize that the SNES and Genesis game were made on an even smaller budget than this and had a full open world and much better gameplay systems. I find it disturbing that people are hailing this as a "rebirth" of RPGs when it's so limited, there is no exploration, the combat is even simpler than Jeff Vogel's games, etc. It's almost like an iPad game and yet people are praising its RPG genius, it doesn't make sense.

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I don't know why you are continuously disturbed and baffled that other people have different opinions than you. People have different preferences which result in them having a different subjective experience. The HBS SR games have IMHO some of the best writing I've ever seen in a game and well designed missions. The combat may be simple, but I find it enjoyable enough and being more complex does not necessarily make mechanics better.

Also where did you get the idea that the SNES / Genesis Shadowrun were made with less money? Those games were funded by large publishers and while I have never seen any exact figures for the budget, I expect they were significantly larger, especially when you factor almost 25 years of inflation. Not to mention Kickstarter fees, taxes, SR licensing fees, and producing / shipping physical rewards ate up a lot of SRR's budget.

Moreover, The SNES Shadowrun was not open world at all, it was extremely linear and the combat was absolutely atrocious (i.e., button mashing). While the Genesis game was a semi open world game, they only achieved this by having endlessly repeating boring "random" quests and required a ridiculous amount of grinding. I replayed part of the Genesis game recently and was amazed that I actually tolerated such a repetitive, grindy game enough to complete it. The only thing it really gets right is the SR atmosphere / setting..

It makes perfect sense why I enjoy SRDF-DC. I am not you (And I thank my lucky stars for that).

I'm not sure if the writing is that good honestly. It's not like videogames are a particularly high caliber anyway.

And these games in these times were made by a tiny handful of people so there is no way they cost anywhere close to the modern ones even with inflation.

The problem with the modern Shadowrun "games" is that your hand is held CONSTANTLY. There is always a narrative that is rubbed in your face and you are continuously forced to go into the same direction and there are tons of NPCs who tell you what to do at every step of the way.

With the older games you are thrust into cyberpunk Seattle and must discover very slowly by yourself through clues where you need to go and yes you have a lot of freedom. The Genesis game had more skills, whereas the SNES one had the Ultima-like keyword system.

How could I take seriously the atmosphere where some NPCs even have clownesque attitudes and there are memes? I mean they turned Jake Armitage into a total retard whereas he was supposed to be a though Scharzenegger clone. I knew the second I was introduced to him that it would be painful.

DArtagnan said:

This means you have to give up being efficient in combat if you want to talk your way out of things, and you have absolutely no way of knowing what Etiquettes will be helpful.

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Personally, I had no problem at all in Shadowrun Returns with the combat playing a Street Samurai and found it easy to invest in Charisma for additional etiquettes. Instead of trying to power-game through via some kind of "optimal path", I simply role-play by selecting skills which make sense for my character. In this case, I took corporate and security etiquette and found them quite useful.

Hopefully the developers continue to offer more ways to use skills in dialogue with Shadowrun: Hong Kong as I not only enjoy this, but find it enriches the role-playing potential greatly.

I should be able to find a few hours to put into Dragonfall this weekend. Looking forward to it! Naturally, I'm also keen to read more Watcher impressions of this game too. (Watch the spoilers though chaps! hehe)

just bought it