What sort of roles or favors do free spirits do in the P&P Shadowrun game? Unless the favors or benefits they give are altered, things like buffs or temporary use of their powers perhalps? Anyway..

Seattle is definitly the city to start with, though being an MMO even with the enormous city of Seattle being its foundation, it would be nice to have different countries like North America and Europe to explore, even linking plots and missions between countries, with area specific gear/factions. Something to be thought of in terms of expansion material. ;D

Information
Guide
Access to the metaplane
Use of Spirit Powers
etc



BTW unlike EQ where you kill the gods.

NO PLAYERS SHOULD BE ABLE TO KILL A GREAT DRAGON!

I've been thinking, mostly about the differences in play from the P&P Shadowrun in relation to an MMO version and i think there are some possible changes that could better illustrate the depth of the Shadowrun Universe.

The idea is for the player to be able to use a Scripting Language built into the game in order to create his own programs/equipment/Implants/Spells. As in the Shadowrun Rules, players are able to create their own equipment and programs, though this is primarily based off of the Characters statistics and a roll of the dice (or so i assume). This would help add alot more interactivity to the game and less random action, so the player wouldn't have to just sit there and mash a button like a good Monkey and hope that he'll hit that ICE program someday like in the SEGA version of Shadowrun. The player would actually have to adapt and learn ways of creating new script and adapting his existing script to circumvent the programs, relying more on the players personal skill rather than a generated number.

As an example of how it would work, lets say the player is a Decker with 3 Programming skill. Now the player can open a Script Editor and create his own programs with built in Script Functions, since the player has only 3 Programming skill, he can only use the first 3 functions in the editor, and is denied the use of the others unless he raises his skill. The player would be able to create any kind of program with those 3 functions he wants, but is also limited by the memory and loaded memory of his cyberdeck, as well as speed and other variables. Because each script may be different, one Level 5 Program may work better than another Level 5 program, leaving room for diversity and open-ended trade.

The same scripting system could be applied to creating cybernetics and equipment, since machines work in a similar fasion to a program, though unlike the Decker Programming example above, the Functions Available would depend on both the Components the player has at the moment and the skill level of the player.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of having a scripting system....(those are sometimes open for exploit) However, I do think that weapons / spells / programs should be customizable.

Weapons are easy...base weapon and available options.

However spells and programs are not so easy. Unless we want to try to let players mix two different types of spells or programs i'm not sure what we can let them do... Its one of the things that unfortunately seems to be very well tied up in the games original rules...even though the game does have spell/program customability in its expanded books.

I'm out to sea right now so connection issues SUCK. Sometimes I hate the navy

Hmm.. Its true that sometimes Scripting languages can be abused in order to give the players unfair advantages, but it would also depend on certain aspects of implementation.

Morrowind allows players to customize their own spells by taking specific Spell Effects and allowing the player to mix them in any way he chooses. This isn't as diverse as you would think, as players can't create their own Effects to mix, so their spells would be limited to combinations such as Sleep/Poison projectile, or Teleportation/Shield, etc. This isn't neccessarily a bad system, and could be used in the creation of spells.

A script seems more veratile(at least in appearance) in allowing the player to customize his own program's, though if you consider that players can only use so many functions while scripting, its essentially the same thing as the morrowind technique. If the player can only create script ingame, the only questions remaining are what possible combinations can the player create with the available functions he has, and what programs he can use based on his current level of skill. It would be more of a matter of balancing the combination of functions to ensure the players don't acquire an unfair advantage for their skill level, while at the same time allowing them to get away with a clever trick in scripting. Any use of a Function above their level would restrict the user from using that program, and players would still have the option of purchasing pre-made scripts or programs from NPC to use in their decks.

I am actually very interested in the Shadowrun Universe. I have an idea for a 3d one that would be live action, have multiple classes, and freeform providing play for multiplayer carnage, a Dungeon Master Controlled and Drivin play, or Story modes. If anyone is interested i'm definatly down, I would drop alot of things to work on that. I could see money in a venture like that. FAFSA I think would be more than willing to publish something like that.

I like the idea, only one problem...FASA No longer exists...and though they gave the rights to the PNP games to companies like whiz kids and so on...FASA interactive was procured by Microsoft...they are the ones with the right to make the video games...good luck with that one.

Really? Microsoft holds the copyright for Video releases? Damn, and there just sitting on it. I think it would be less of a problem making a game if it were a non-profit venture, like only charging overhead to keep a dedicated server up and thinks like that. So long as there's no money in it they might allow it, considering it would be like a free market/implementation test to them.

[Edited by - Gyrthok on January 13, 2005 6:13:43 AM]

yup, they own the rights to any video game release. As to why they are just sitting on the franchise I do not know. I've sent numerous emails to them, and have never gotten a reply...

in case you guys didnt know, i believe there actually IS a Shadowrun title planned for release in the future. supposedly it will be one of the launch titles for the new XBOX. google for "xbox shadowrun" or something like that to see more info..

btw, im actually working on a sort of MMO Shadowrun style game. my game is very influence by Shadowrun and UO. its a persistant online RPG, in 2D (square tiles). ive been working on it for 9 months now and it is coming along good. this thread was interesting for me.

i actually plan on puttin in a skill cap. however, not a karma cap. skills will have a certain cap, ala UO, where you can only have X amount of total skills. however, karma can always increase. therefore, if one day you wanted to change from being a mage to a gunner, you could just start un-learning your old skills and spend karma on the new ones.

im thinking about totally scrapping the idea of the matrix though. however, i really, really dont want to do that. but, it is just very complicated and my project is already over my head [grin].

however, i was thinking i could pull off doing the matrix by making the matrix very similar to the real game - you walk around a map, like in the rela game, except your environment has changed (perhaps it looks like your on top of a circuit board flowing with electricity), and little "ICE" monsters attack you and you can loot them for "data" or something. this way it wouldnt be very hard to code into the game.