Shadowrun deserves better

[MGibster]

The trouble is 2077 was so successful for three hard-to-replicate reasons:

You should change your name to Ruination Explorer after you ruined any hope I had of a Shadowrun game. My wife saw me crying and asked who died. Explaing to her it was only my hopes and dreams was awkward.

 

[500 Toads]

"Outer Worlds" did not impress me in terms of Obsidian's ability to write an internally consistent setting with plausible, complex characters. There's a difference between making an effective parody, and just making almost every character an extreme caricature from the "Too Dumb to Live" category to the extent that it's astonishing that they haven't all died from dehydration, exposure or disease by the time you've awoken.

CDPR can write. They do oversell a bit how reactive and branching their writing is -- Cyberpunk in particular does not give you that many options in a lot of cases -- but at least they can build a pretty well-written world in which to set their stories and populate them with non-flat characters and the occasional non-cartoonish decision to make. However, if Microsoft doesn't want to license out the SR IP on remotely reasonable terms, well, that's that.

 

[neceros]

5e is not good. 3/3.5 was better. 5e leaves out too much.

I like that sr is crunchy. I agree that 3e is great.

 

[aramis erak]

I find myself tempted to to SR 1e setting with Savage Worlds...

 

[Jahydin]

I find myself tempted to to SR 1e setting with Savage Worlds...

Start with Sprawlrunners and Interface Zero! I think that will give you an awesome foundation to build on.

 

[Cergorach]

1) It was intensely hyped for most of a decade. This actually caused problems too, but that's a separate discussion. And this wasn't dev-driven hype really, the was fan-driven (again, which lead to problems).

The announcement was in May 2012. the game released in December 2020. And honestly the hype did more damage to the game then it helped, sure everyone knew C2077 was coming, but that was it imho. Especialy after the 'gameplay' footage from August 2018 that blew most of us away, we all had something like "This is absolutely cool, but the game isn't going to be like this!". The video: And we were right... We knew, but were still disappointed.

Sidenote: I own the game, but still haven't played it (like so many games)...

 

[DarkCrisis]

The announcement was in May 2012. the game released in December 2020. And honestly the hype did more damage to the game then it helped, sure everyone knew C2077 was coming, but that was it imho. Especialy after the 'gameplay' footage from August 2018 that blew most of us away, we all had something like "This is absolutely cool, but the game isn't going to be like this!". The video: And we were right... We knew, but were still disappointed.

Sidenote: I own the game, but still haven't played it (like so many games)...

Play it! It’s amazing! I’m on like my 6th playthrough atm

 

[Thomas Shey]

Start with Sprawlrunners and Interface Zero! I think that will give you an awesome foundation to build on.

Though I'm not sold that the default SW magic system is actually up for the job.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The problem with making a game or movie for Shadowrun is that you don't just need skill, and a love for the setting, and maybe a huge budget, you also need a really good idea of the story (or stories) you want to tell. And I suspect that's a combination that is very hard to find.

Now, with a big enough franchise, only getting 3 of that might still create a huge commercial success, even if critics and die-hard fans of the franchise might dislike it because it's lacking something. But Shadowrun isn't a huge franchise at all.

A shame. It was my first roleplaying game, it will always have a special place in my heart.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And honestly the hype did more damage to the game then it helped

Nah.

13 million copies sold before bad press really hit. If that's "more damage", may god bless us all with "more damage". Over $780m gross come on. That's not real damage. There were some returns on PSN (which was doing full refunds) but it was like, less than a 100k from later reports. Most people just kept it.

What it did do was mean CDPR were locked into a situation where they had to improve 2077 enough to recover their reputation, if they cared about it. So they spend like another I think it was $70-80m on developing 2077 further including Phantom Liberty.

And as of last year, that had paid off, they'd sold 35m copies. Not all of those full-price, but even if they average to half-price, that's another $700m gross (and most of those sale are Steam/PSN/Xbox so 30% cut so we're looking at well over $1bn net on 2077 for maybe $250-300m down, that's a pretty insane profit. Significant opportunity cost, but still.

And we were right... We knew, but were still disappointed.

A lot of "we" here, but I have no idea who you're talking about, because it's certainly not including me, and it's certainly not accurate to the broader 2077 community.

Especialy after the 'gameplay' footage from August 2018 that blew most of us away, we all had something like "This is absolutely cool, but the game isn't going to be like this!".

Nah. Provably wrong. Sorry, but that's how it is. Go the 2077 Reddit and look at posts from the week after release. Loads of people absolutely bought all the hype to insane degrees, and often it wasn't hype from CDPR or even games mags, but hype the community had developed.

For example, CDPR had said several features were not going to be in the game at release (I have a list somewhere, please don't make me dig it up), but there were MULTIPLE, I say MULTIPLE "lists of 2077 features" up on the subreddit which included stuff that had been specifically and repeatedly ruled out by the developers, including stuff ruled out years earlier. And people upvoted them and believed them. I was in a few of the thread going "Errr they already said that isn't happening", and maybe you were like me and understood that, but then why were you disappointed?

Because I wasn't. I had low expectations, and in fact did not pre-order 2077 because I wasn't a huge fan of TW3 either. And 2077, even at release, on PC, was absolutely magical. And it's only got better since then. Phantom Liberty's writing and general storytelling makes most of BG3 look sophomoric by comparison (albeit it is much more constrained, but also it's just less wildly self-indulgent and obsessed with offering gross evil options no-one actually takes).

There are precisely two features it can genuinely be said CDPR "lied about" or mislead people about - the traffic system and the police system. As little as two months before release CDPR were writing cheques their ass wasn't going to be able to cash about both. In fact those weren't fully brought up to the standards they'd been claiming they'd be at, at release, until 2.0 IIRC.