I do not really want to make this game because I have not the time, money or technical expertise to do so. I am writing this simply because these ideas have been an obsession of my mind for a long time now and I wish to put them to rest. However I hope that through discussion I can refine these ideas. I have only just started to write these thoughts down, I started with the matrix because it by far the most complicated part and I am finding it hard to put into words. I will appreciate any responses good or bad. I don’t spend much time online so my responses may be erratic. What is the matrix? The matrix is a system of public and private databases, which hold various types of information. There are programs that protect this information and other programs that use or update this information in some way. I want to actually create this system of databases and for it to be the backbone of an automated city set in the shadowrun universe. The Seattle Metroplex is a city controlled by UCAS however it is not situated within UCAS territory; this means that it has to be almost self-sustaining (i.e. making everything it uses) with only basic resources imported into the city. It achieves this by using a complicated computer network called the matrix to control many aspects of the city and therefore create an environment of super-productivity. What does this mean in game terms? For example, every individual in the city that has a SIN (i.e. a citizen) will have their personal information held in their employee’s databases. If a decker hacks into this database they would be able to see information about this individual like their race, address, what time they start and finish work and their type of transportation to name a few. Underneath this and invisible to the player would be information used by the game engine to work out where this individual is at any given time. This information would be worked out by taking the distance between his home and his work place and his method of transportation giving the times (with a degree of randomness) he will be entering each area of the city. If the player happened to be in one of the areas on this individual’s route then the game engine would create a character (using the parameters in his personal file) entering the area at the specified time. Of course this only applies to the individuals working life so there would have to be files recording his recreational activities as well. The same concepts are used for individuals without SIN’s, the same kind of information would be kept on these people but you could never access it through the matrix (some information on criminals would be kept in police databases). You would instead get this info by speaking to npc’s but it would come from the same source. This is the very basic’s of my ideas on the matrix but I think it gives you an idea of what I am getting at. The role-playing and mission opportunities have huge potential. For example some guy has hired a PI and found out his wife is cheating on him, he wants you (the shadow runner) to pay him a visit and scare him off. He gives you the guys name and the fact he is working as a bus driver. You could then hack into the public transport databases, find his personal files and get his address. You could then pay him a visit, however if he lives in a good area of the city gaining access to his home may be difficult so you could instead find out the bus route he drives and at what times, then threaten him while he is driving the bus.

This is to do with character display. When I first started thinking about shadowrun I thought a display similar to the original GTA games would be fine. The screen is centred on your character from a top down view high in the sky and you can see much of the city around you. However the individual characters in the game only have maybe 3 or 4 colours to distinguish them self’s from each other, shadowrun would need far more customisation than this.

I recently played a game called RuneScape , at the start of the game you get to choose the appearance of your character which is a simple 3D model. You get to choose the style and colour of your characters head, torso, arms, legs, feet and you get to choose the colour of your skin with about 6 different options in each category. This ends up with a large number of combinations that is used to make every character in the game.

In shadowrun you would firstly choose the physical appearance of your character with the options of your race, face and a muscular or skinny build, these option would be permanent through out the life span of your character. You would then choose your starting clothes with the options of the style and colour covering your torso, arms, legs and feet. Your clothes can be changed at any point in the game by entering a clothes shop (or by stealing them). You would also choose the style and colour of your hair, which could be changed by going into a hairdresser. Armour can be purchased during the game and would also change the appearance of your character. The total number of combinations that could be made would have to be decided by the techies. There would have to be a good number of casual (jean and t-shirt) and formal (suit) simple clothes, these would give the basic appearance of your character and all the npc’s.

A space for company logo’s and gang markings would be needed on the torso clothes piece (for infiltrating corps or surviving in gang territory). The appearance of your character is a major game play factor, for example if you wanted to stroll around the office blocks of the renraku corp you would need suitable attire (a suit with the renraku logo on it) as well as the appropriate security clearance, other wise you would be approached by security.

Armour also effects game play. There are two types of armour, inner layer armour and outer layer armour. The inner layer fits underneath your basic clothes and does not affect your appearance but does give an armour rating. The outer layer fits over your basic clothes and does affect your appearance; it gives you an armour rating (which adds on to your rating from the inner layer) and a concealment factor (for guns). The inner layer armour comes in the form of different types of armoured vests that are worn by most people on the dangerous streets of Seattle. The outer layer pieces are slightly different; some may give no armour bonus at all but give a high concealment factor and others the opposite. These pieces range from an armoured long coat, a scientists jacket, and a mechanics overalls to full-blown security armour. The long coat would give mid range armour rating with good concealment, the scientists jacket would give no armour rating but good concealment and the security armour would give very good armour protection but no concealment. These outer pieces would also need room for a company logo or gang marking. If you gained access to the renraku labs then to walk around freely (i.e. with out being stealthy) you would need a scientist’s jacket with the renraku logo. These are just some examples but they give you an idea of how your characters appearance affects game play.

The concealment factor is also very important, you cant walk around the streets of Seattle holding an automatic rifle in your hands you would be arrested or (more likely) killed by lone star. The concealment for the items you are carrying on your body depends on the outer layer armour piece you are wearing. To change this you would open your inventory by pressing the inventory button on the screen. This window is split into three parts; on the left would be all the items in an external source (i.e. a dead body you are standing over or some kind of box you have opened). In the middle would be a 2D image of your character with transparent lined shapes around each of your upper and lower legs, four on your torso and two on each of your arms. On the right hand side would be all the items in your backpack or holder.

First I will explain the 2D image in the middle of the window, the boxes around your body parts are where you can put your weapons but first you must place either a quick draw holster or a concealable holster in the box (quick draw ones are generally used on security armour which has no concealment factor, they let your character draw their weapon quicker and concealable ones are used to make full use of your concealment factor), each different class of weapon has a specific size of holster as weapon sizes vary. For example a SMG holster would fit on one side of your upper leg but would take up two boxes on one side of your torso, where as a pistol holster would take up one box on your torso. On this 2D image you can see the simple clothes you are wearing and any logo on them, you can drag and drop these items through the gaps between the weapon boxes into either of the other windows. An outer layer armour piece can be dragged and placed over your character blocking out the simple clothes depending on the pieces coverage (the weapon boxes are still visible). For example a long raincoat would cover all the weapon boxes but a scientists jacket would only cover down to the knees and an armoured bomber jacket would only cover the top half of your body. Once you have placed an outer layer piece over your body and put concealable holsters in the areas that the piece covers, the weapons you put in the weapon boxes will be hidden and only detectable if you are searched (or by metal detectors).

The holder window contains items held in a backpack, this should not be made to complicated so it will simple involve your characters strength attribute depicting how much you can carry as each item will have a weight. Weapons will be amongst the heaviest of objects and it will take much longer to draw them from your backpack than a holster.

[Edited by - Snake_Plisskin717 on August 18, 2004 10:47:27 AM]

o_O ... formatting? Please? <s>(and Matrix is copyrighted sadly)</s> EDIT: oops.. sorry.

Um... anyway. So I'm lost. Is it like GTA or a Sims hacking game. Or both?

From what I got, you get (hit) missions like GTA, but first have to hack into a database (aka Matrix) to get the intel, then perform the task?

Well, it sounds a lot like GTA but with hacking thrown in, which (I think) is pretty cool. As for suggestions, I'm not sure I can give any.

I guess you could have a counter-shadow runner force which, as the game progresses, puts some pressure onto our protagonist. They would attempt to block unauthorized access to the .. databases, and (of course the police) would try to stop you from completing your non-tech crimes. But I think hacking + counterhacking would be an interesting idea. And then you yourself get hacked, and would have to counterhack.

Okay...starting to ramble. Stopping now.

[Edited by - Mushu on August 16, 2004 8:09:55 AM]

Is the "matrix"? Really copyrighted? The works of Gibson and Stephenson and games such as Cyberpunk and Shadowrun had the idea of the matrix long before the movies.

Nicely thought out. Nice to see features being tied into the gameplay. Would the different character builds etc., affect the game (apart from in a visual sense?)

I doubt that there would be any real issues with this game and the film (NB. I'm not a lawyer!) though calling the database the 'grid' instead might be a good idea - also not setting it in a real place (and not naming it after a real place) might have its benefits.

Sounds cool.

"Matrix" is a word. Words can't be copyrighted or trademarked. At least not in Brazil. I made a research about it, I have a gameworld called "Arena", you know. Ahem.

I don' remember the whole rules, but you can use the same work in different products. 'Corse, you can't have two "Matrix" movies, but you can have a Matrix shoes or ISP, even if there's the movie.

I'd still advise to not make the game's name purely Matrix, to avoid issues. Nor Shadowrun, or you'll be pulling a fight with FASA, you know.

In the US or the UK I'm sure you can trademark words.

From memory:

You have made up worlds eg., 'RedHat', 'Linux'. These are pretty much exclusive - you couldn't sell a car called a 'Linux'.

You have compound groupings 'Computer Concepts' or 'Slush Puppy' (a rather disgusting iced drink). These are only protected within the same domain - you could have a car called a 'slush puppy'.

You have trademarks that have become common usage eg., 'Hoover' meaning 'vacuum cleaner'.

You can't trademark 'game' in reference to a 'game' [a game that is called 'game' can't have that name trademarked] (hmm http://www.game.uk.com/ - perhaps because it's a retail store?) but you could trademark it in reference to a restaurant.

They can't be overly descriptive either (James Dyson was refused 'BallBarrow' - a wheelbarrow with a ball as the wheel.)

There's loads of other stuff - given there's a Matrix game, a game referring to a 'computer matrix' might have some issues.

A Company in australia is trying to trademark the word "Linux" even though they have no rights to it.

I also encountered trademark issues with sega's gameworks. Had a domain name of Gameworks98 and got a nice big yellow envolope from sega's law offices.

But ended up getting $500 in free gameplay for a $15 domain name.

But in the end, it doesn't matter what the law says, it's what the judge thinks it says.

sorry I couldn´t read the whole post, you need to use the enter key at least occasionally - but from what I gathered what you posted is more or less a summary of the Shadowrun Pen&Paper RPG.

as for copyright, Matrix won´t be the problem but Shadowrun and everything affiliated with it belong to Wizkids / Fanpro.

Microsoft owns the game rights to Shadowrun, i have heard rumours that they are developing a game with the help of bungie which leads me to belive that it will be very similar to halo 2, in my mind this would be a great disservice to anyone who played and loved the genisis shadowrun game.
The real question is whether or not the idea of using fantasy races and magic in a cyberpunk setting like this would be the intellectual property of wizkids. If not then you could just change names where appropriate, however the most appealing part of using shadowrun is all the backround material found in the pen and paper rulebooks. For example the whole history of the shadowrun world could be found in some corner of the matrix.

Would the different character builds etc., affect the game (apart from in a visual sense?)
I have been thinking that the build of your character would be set when you choose the body attribute of your char. In shadowrun you have 6 stats similar to AD&D, body is equivalent to constitution but is used in a different system.

The idea of using the matrix in this way is to make the player feel like he is in an online world while keeping the game single player.It is a(sort of)solution to the 'dumb' NPC problem. Apart from the matrix being used to determine when and where a NPC is created, it would control the aspects of a dynamic economy like the ones you see in games like X2 or Elite. This wouldnt directly affect the player, instead it would invole the mega corps compeating against each other in the areas of manufacturing and research(the shadowrunner being the tool used by the corps to get the edge on the compitition). A successful shadowrunner who makes alot of money could buy his way into this economy by purchasing for example an automated manufacturing plant and managing the costs of buying materials and paying engineers vs the making of profit. Then you would be subject to the posibility of attacks by shadowrunners hired by your competitors and you would have to think about security for your plant.

Yes this game would be a mix between GTA, the Sims, Sim city and championship manager. Champman because you would play on a real time scale from day to day achiving your goals over months and years. At the start of the game it would be a case of surviving(or managing your life) in the shadows, making enough money to pay for rent(as you will need somewhere to sleep each night)and food.

Sorry if my posts are hard to read, i will try and edit at some point.
Oh and sorry for not quoting you LucidIon i dont use forums that often(can you tell? lol).