The big Shadowrun Online Question/Answer Thread

[Sangius]

Welcome to the big Shadowrun: Online Questions and Answers thread. This thread can serve as a decent starting point to browse the forums and inform yourself about Shadowrun: Online. Before you go ahead and post your questions on the forums, you might want to read through this thread first. I tried to organise it so that you should be able to find relativelly quickly the section you are most interested in, however some questions touch multiple topics, so it might be worth your while to read through the other topics too (e.g. some questions on how a specific spell works during a mission might be found under Mission Design, as well as General Combat or the Magic section, maybe even in the Hard- and Software realisation section).

I will try to keep the thread updated best possible. If I missed anything, please inform me via PM or post in this Feedback-Thread. Feel free to give me feedback on this thread over there too.
I tried to add the source-url whenever possible. As an extra feature for our non-german speaking friends, I took the liberty to do an on-the-fly translation of some german content.

If there were repeated questions, I picked one at random, or paraphrased, hopefully without destroying the general spirit of the questions, and added the general answer to all of these questions. Sometimes I even rephrased what was originally a request or a statement into a question in order not to loose any sip of precious informations. If anyone thinks I went too far and would like to see my posting modified, just contact me and I shall do it as soon as possible. I didn't bother to correct original mistakes, although I hope I didn't add any new. Most of the questions are listed in the order they were answered.

Please keep in mind that this is merely a collection of interesting statements. Nothing that is stated here has to happen in the end like it was posted, or, to let the man himself speak:

all this is still not final, just what we intend to do, we can say more definitely after pre-production is finished.

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For the sake of comfort, here's a list of all the Q/A Topics there are right now in this thread:

1. Setting (including players influence on the game-world)
2. Plot
3. Social-life (including Crafting, Housing & PvP)
4. Character Creation (including Qualities, Meta-Races and non-combat Skills)
5. Character Progression (including Karma and Reputation)
6. Mission Design
7. Legwork & Contacts
8. General Combat
9. Magic, Matrix, Rigging & Warez
10. Graphics & Interface
11. Hard- and Software Realisation
12. Possible Future Developments & Participation of the Community (including the Music, Beta & some important dates)
13. Payment
14. Questions that didn't fit anywhere else

[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Setting (including players influence on the game-world):


Question: Is there any guarantee that you guys won't go havoc on our beloved RPG-setting?

We have began to talk with Shadowrun writers regarding plots and missions and want to stay as close to the game's plot as possible and keep the essence of the setting very much in the foreground. Many of us have been fans for over a decade and we have made our fair share of runs, so we want to stay true to the game we love. 

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We have also secretly launched SHE � the Shadowrun High-Council of Elders, a group of current and previous editions writers and artists and Shadowrun alumni who have worked on the pen and paper game or had their hands in Shadowrun Mods or community work. They will make sure we don�t stray from the path of righteousness and continuity in adapting Shadowrun to the world of online games.

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Question: can you officially confirm that Joe "GreyPawn" Pishgar is working with you guys?

Greypawn isn't part of our team of course, but a member of our advisory board, the elusive SHE...and we talk as well as listen to him

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Question: Any news on the SHE?

we have been gathering more of the creative talent behind Shadowrun such as Jason Hardy and a number of other current Catalyst writers as well Tobias Hamelmann from the German side and we are especially proud to count Tom Dowd - one of the original creators of Shadowrun - amongst the SHE (The Shadowrun High-Council of Elders, as we call our board of advisors). With them helping us to develop ideas and honing the design, we are now set to dig deeper into the 6th world and emerge with a number of plot nuggets that will define the backstories to our game.

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Question: About S.H.E.: [I wondered] if you can find anyone from the 16 bit days also. Shadowrun Genesis, and Shadowrun SNES. Also maybe even the guys that helped make Syndicate for Genesis.

ah...I am actually happy to have the PnP people in. The game we do will bear little resemblance to the 16bit stuff in many ways - but if anyone wants to volunteer we are happy to talk

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Question: How do you recruit for the S.H.E. anyway?

We have contacted Catalyst--all the rest including Tom Dowd approached us. As thius is a purely volunatyr, purely unpaid position, I think it is best if people who are interested approach us, as we have little to offer in terms of recruitment incentives
But we are happy to be recommended

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Question: is the game set in Seattle? if so, any chance for missions that take you out of Seattle? Denver, Chicago and NYC could all make for fun games. is it crazy to hope for different servers hosting different in-game cities?

The game does not feature a complete consistent gameworld, as with a Client MMO. So in fact we do have at least 5 locations planned for launch, but haven't decided on where exactly. Seattle plus another American City, Berlin or Hamburg plus another European one and one more.

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Seattle, Berlin, Londomn, Paris and perhaps Chicago may be a good mix to start with...

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Question: Will Berlin be among the settings where this game will stray?

Yes, we are including Berlin and we actually already talked to Pegasus and enlisted one of their Chief Authors

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Question: Since Berlin was mentioned several times as a possible setting, will you have a 'political dimension' to that scenario? After all, the Berlin described in the sourcebooks is characterized by a clash of alternative and corporate life. I would hope you would for example feature plots regarding one or even several forms of sprawl guerrilla (and introduce them as reputation factions). Will you probably do that?

not promising Berlin over any other city, but certainly we will have locally relevant factions - so if the dimension is political, then yes we want that reflected. If it is about rival gang turfs - the same. I think Cities need to be more than just a pot to put random missions in

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Question: since we'll be in Seattle, will we see the Arcology?

seattle and the arcology- we really haven't got detailed plans as of yet. Be aware though, that we do not feature the full city in 3D - this would be too much for the browser. The city will be a 2D map with locations to travel to-and missions will be in 3D. .

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Question: We already learned that there will be different scenario-hubs. Let's take, as an example, Berlin and Seattle:
If I usually run the Shadows in Berlin, will I be able to switch to Seattle just like that?

We are thinking about ways to integrate travel and cost without making it too much of a simple "pay to get there" scheme. We will cdertainly have plots that span different cities/regions, but how we will handle travel remains to be seen.

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Question: Are there any updates on the hub situation?

we already have identified four hub cities we want to use: Seattle, Chicago, Berlin and St. Petersburg.

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Question: Chicago?!

yeah. our requirements were: we need a place where players can really let go and still have a chance to get a decent weapon upgrade. and bugs aren't the only challenge either

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Question: Is there anything new on whether we have to take care how we behave in the outside world? (for example can we carry our weapons anywhere, what happens if we trigger alarm inside the missions, etc.)

As we do not have a persistent world, you won't be strolling down street usually to just get from a to b. You will use sort of a map with certain locations you "travel" to. Some of those will be hubs - this ios where you meet other players and Johnsons. We assume that it is a cop-free zone - but we do not have the full city recreated like in games such as WoW or GuildWars
Then you have got your mission locations - here, you can safely assume that if you are discovered by lonestar or other guards, they will try and take you out and backup can be on the way. For this, mission have alarm levels and NPCs have certain responses to those. If you raise the alarm to a certain point, you have a maximum time left to exit the level, or you are just going to be caught and mission is over (and you will have to bribe your way out or use contacts to get back on the street).

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Question: One thing I see alot of in the MMO genre are games in which players aren't held accountable for senseless actions. I would be very disappointed to see talk of "Hey, let's run X mission" real fast so I can get Y item". In my view the idea of literally running from start through to finish of a mission should be met with only one thing: failure. Thought and tactical planning should be at the forefront of every mission, or?

I can get on board with the latter part - we will penalize mission failure and death and we will actually require certain thingsto be present for some mission. So for example: the dark toxix sewer mission will require you to a)bring light soruces or have augmentations and b) bring gas masks or similar equipment. Otherwise, you won't even be allowed to start.
This is a bit more primitive, but I don't beleive in alowing players to start a mission simply because they may have been unclear about what it requires and them let them die without a chance. Sometimes it may have been the player being stupid but sometimes we may have made a mistake and the text was perhaps ambigous. Andf as you cannot "scout" the mission map beforehand, it is safe to assume that, wile the player may be stupid- his character probably isn't dumb enough to walk into a toxic waste without protective equipment.
I think we won't go full old school, hard-ass, but we do want to step away from "there is no consequence to you actions other than lost time"

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Question: I know it's been asked before, but what will Shadowrun: Online be about? SR3 oder SR4?

Well, while I personally have a lot of lovfe for the less...modern times of SR4, we are going to base our setting on the current timeline - heck, we are evn going to crossover stuff from ongoing PnP plots.
That being said, the 'feeling' we are going for is a bit less polished, more gritty, which was more what the SR3 edition was about, in my view.
Regarding rules - the conversion of many rules will sort of blur the rules distinction anyway and some things are just plain parctical. Take comlinks for example: Players will have the ability to chat in the game (indeed they could use any other chat program outside the game for that matter), so assuming everyone has a comlink pretty much emulates that part well. Same thing goes for AR - a wondeful way to overlay matrix info over the actual map layer, as opposed to jacking in somewhere and then being "alone" in the game from that point on as a decker/hacker.
I know rules are VERY important for the PnP - they will be slightly less so for our game, since we pretty much run it under different conditions anyway.

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Question:Ok, so i just had a look at this
http://cliffhanger-productions.com/files/gallery/56.jpg
And i can't help but notice flying vehicles in there . . will they be in the game?!

the problem here is, that even if they were there...we don't have vehicle combat in initially...or we wouldn need biiig ass maps to play in.

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Question: what about the mag-lev/hover-Cars/Busses/trains from the old syndicate games though? O.o
That's an idea for making the world a bit more dynamic and dangerous/usefull . .

fast moving large objects in turn based are actually really hard - if everybody else moves at a slower pace. Imagine you can move 10 squares and the approaching train moves say 100...you didn't even see it when you climbed on the tracks, now it is the train's turn...whoops...

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Plot:


Question: Do you plan on designing the game around one-offs or would there be an overarching story arch?

We are planning several story arcs for various locations in the world- each location will have its own arc and some may be sharing story elements.
We are talking about a number of ideas...but we cannot reveal more at the current point.

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Question: Will you feature SR�s metaplot: the Enemy at all? Or run it as cyberpunk mmorpg with fantasy elements?

we have SR authors doing the plots and meta plots so don't be afraid ...or in fact, be very very afraid:)

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Question: which edition are you basing the game on - I'm assuming 4th, but 3rd doesn't seem impossible. you wouldn't go all the way back to 2....would you?

The setting will be 4th edition to remain consistent with storyline (and allow crossovers from and into printed products), but we will try and conserve the more punky and rougher feeling of previous editions.

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Question: will there be a persistent storyline?

We will have a persistent storyline (in fact several) which also will evolve further after launch and may cross over into printed material.

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Question: Any news on the plot development?

plot hatching has proven to be fruitful... [...] some nice plot tiwsts [incoming]

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Question: If the interface provides you ingame with a date, it would be great to have the same for all players (everyone who knows the books then could even eagerly await ingame events who happen on a certain time which correlates to the ingame date and the timeline given in the printmedia publications), or?

we will progress time in the game, but not linearly like that

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Question: What can you tell us about possible crossovers of the pnp and Shadowrun Online?

The intention is to have a shared plot. Missions from Shadowrun Online might even be published as pdfs to be played in the classical pnp game.

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Question: Is the game going to be set in current Shadowrun or are you going to go back and start from the beginning?

Timeline is current date SR...

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Question: [If] you are looking at tying both these universes together, would this mean that the Artefacts series, in the game at some point in the game?

The whole core setting, Atrtefact etc. issues I cannot answers, we are juts working on our meta plots and will work with Catalyst and Pegasus on the setting and how tomapproach that best.

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Question: what [is] Primetide thinking for some starter missions?

I second that - we haven't fixed early plot (or any other for that matter), so who knows - if the idea is solid we might pick it up

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Question: As Shadowrun is of a more mature setting, that is one for adults, will you have content restrictions in place and what process would you have to remove them?

we don't have content restrictions. As long as we don't sell through retail I don't even see the need for adapting to certain age ratings. But due to the isometric style view our visuals will have a hard time actually reaching a mature rating anyway. And it is a dystopian world with people gettingkilled for money regularly - a healthy dose of "fuck you" can't be morally more despicable than shooting people for gain. I personally never cared much for the bigotry of killing dozens of human beings in a  film but not being allowed to swear.

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Question: Can we be SINless? Can we buy fake ones? Will they be integrated into the gameplay, with certain mission approaches perhaps either requiring a SIN or a really good fake?

Really not clear on that yet. SINs play a pivotal role in many roleplaying situations, but in the end you have one or you don't and that can quickly become boring: people will always tend to get one and then it's not an interesting choice really or we have to split the game and do many things twice- with or without SIN. Again, just guessing, but perhaps we will start everyone SINless asnd just some missions requiring fake ones.

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Question: Will the game be more Punk or Cyber ? Stupid question i know, but basicaly will the universe will be seen as a future from a 2011 perspective or a future with a 1980 perspective, in terms of society, control over masses, consumerism etc ...

More Punk than SR4, visually, storywise we will have a good mix, I hope.

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Question: Do you own some rights over part of Earthdawn license in terms of story ?

nope

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Question: Pretty sad about the possible impact on the meta plot  [follow up of the ED-question]

The impact should be minimal- we can use anything SR uses from Earthdawn meta plots and "plot" is generally not soemthing that can be trademarked or licensed, this is more about names, visuals etc.

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Social-life (including Crafting, Housing & PvP):


Question: [Will there be] a "lounge" area for interaction?

We are looking at having a sort of homebase for runners, where they can modify weapons and equipment, create custom made software etc.

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Question: You know what would be complete insanity?
If the game was set in LA and every character had a Persona 2.0 page. Imagine posting screenshots from runs IN CHARACTER. Mind = blown.

That IS a cool idea. We haven't been tackling the whole "self representation in the world" part yet at all. But we do have some plans for a game-related website that is semi-permeable with the game...hmmm....

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Question: Any news on that social aspect of the game?

Reagrding the social agmeplay- it is actaully easy to host it on our site and allow people to log in using their FB account and then cross post stuff, we just don't want to limit ourselves to facebook for the obvious reasons.

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Question: I like to help people out. Will there be any incentives to do so in SRO?

Be sure to stick around- we need all the helping hands we can get, I am sure. True social gameplay is about exactly that...hmm...we should have positive street rep for helpful players...back to the design doc...

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Question: How will ingame trade work by the way? Are you planning to make certain items bound to characters (other than foci, etc.) or will it be possible to trade anything, including micro-transaction items? Or are there no plans at all for trade between players?

Ingame trade - not sure if we will have it out of the box. Plans are to allow an auction house for people to sell their crafted items, software, talismans etc., but initially we may notn have a direct trade at all.

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Question: How many player will propably run in a mission?

we don't expect more than four players max in one mission 

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Question: Does that mean you don't plan to allow teams greater than four, or you just don't think people will choose teams greater than four?

Team sizes - we have no technical limit, just maps size and waiting time sort of limit the reasonable number of people. We think total team size will probably be 6 (less on smaller maps) and thought of allowing 3 player with 2 chars each. but technically we may also have 6 players with one char each

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Question: Will someone who prefers to play a solo role be able to advance as far and as well as players who continually rely on groups?

I know there is talk about being able to hire mercenaries, but to me that is just another form of group play that I would prefer to avoid.

Well, our avg. group size is more like 4 characters maxing at 6, initially you will have one or two. So any soloplayer would have to hire help (or borrow from friends) most likely, who you then control directly. Kinda like Baldur's Gate or Jagged Alliance.
The amount of talents required alone (hacker, mage, street sam) merits a mixed group. But technically you can usually try solo...it will be much more challenging in some missions, but we don't force group play.

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Question: For me, controlling more than 2-3 characters in a turn-based game is a chore. What do you think?

Well, as we go more for co-op really, we currently expect 2-3 chars being the max you control directly in SRO.

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Question: So is the size of the group of runners basically independent of the size of group of human players?

Put another way, do the human players share control of the runners depending on the run, or do each of us bring two or three of our own characters into the party?

each brings his own (likely 1 or 2) runners

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Question: I want to do a run but it's 3am and none of my usual buddies are online. What gives?

Not only will you be able to take in NPC-Runners, but there might be a way, even, to draw help of the people on your friendslist when they are offline. However, their chars can't die while performing actions to support you.

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Question: How big are your plans with Shadowrun Online? Speaking player base: are we talking about a few thousand players, hundreds of thousands, or millions?

To be worthwhile, an amibitoned browsergame needs to have a playerbase somewhere between 150.000 and 200.000 players.

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Question: how will you handle PvP in your Shadowrun game?

Multiplayer does not always mean PvP, although we will of course want that, since no one is as good and adaptable as a human player. But always voluntary, arena style PvP.

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Question: Are there any more infos on PvP?

You won't be forced to PvP. There might be special PvP missions  such as gang/faction wars. The reputation acquired in those might be used to get access to special items and/or missions. At a higher risk.

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Question: Will PvP possibly involve 'neutral' NPCs such as guards?

Yes, those might be involved especially at data/secret stealing PvP missions.

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Question: Isn't there a risk to have runners go against each other in prebuild PvE style missions that one team will specialize in what specific mission very much, getting virtually unbeatable?

any party can max out on certain PvP strategies - but it cannot majorize a mission once there are say four parties playing it, the mentioned killer gang will only be able to play one. I am sure people will find ways to combine a crazy long range sniper char with a invisible front-scout to effectively makeing it death from nowhere..that is until the counter mage troll comes and crushed the invisble scout, then sends in his super fast drones to engage the sniper while the group closes range...'tis the way of PvP...

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Question: Will Shadowrun Online feature a crafting system?

It might add to the motivation of players � and why shouldn't a Streetsam want to mod his beloved Ares Predator. However, the crafting system should not work similar to other MMOs in which you have to grind different materials. Rather, there might be a mission in which you have to steal the latest prototype of an aiming software plus a spcial connector, which then can be combined with your current weapon.

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Question: I would like to see to be able to really do a character that spends most of his time crafting stuff. Only go on runs to get information/ressources for building more stuff. Or be hired as a "run" to repair / upgrade or build stuff for other people. Any chance for that?

I think we will want to have a healthy build system (or software creation or foci enchantment system), but the essence of progress will still remain missions - however we are thinking of ways to make in-action and meta-game skills progress more indepnedently..

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Question: For starters, I just want to play by myself. Is this possible?

Yes, you will be able to hire soldiers of fortune if you don't want to play with others players. It might be a bit harder, but you can definatelly do it.

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Question: Could you have a �daily news feed� sent to the players outlining the violence that goes on in the city?

we do have a limited budgets to build the world, so this may just have to be toned down with regards to complexity and the amount of stuff we do at first. newsfeeds are a great idea, but sustaining them is a load of work...especially if you want to localize in several languages...we will see.

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Question: one could automatize it and make it incorporate mainly the biggest runs of the community in the week, or?

we are lloking into a quick and workable way to have some sort of automated feedback loop from game events into the game...but I guess this is one of the things taking a bit of a backseat versus actual gameplay and stuff

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Question: Would the homebase be a shared space amongst many players or is the plan for this to be a "personally owned" space, kind of like an instanced apartment where we go to rearm, recoup and recon(via contacts, matrix, etc.).

not sure yet-ultimately the former...on launch maybe just the latter until we got guilds/clans/whatstheirnames

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Question: if this is a "Shared" space; will Stealing other peoples gear Shenanigans be allowed? [based on the point that we are not sure that we'll have direct player to player trading at launch I doubt there will be direct player to player stealing]

pretty much correctly deduced

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Question: for personal space, I would assume that it will be fully customisable, in terms of making this easier would districts in which you have many lofts as per Burn Notice, or builings as per The Punisher movies. Also for spaces such as these, could a one time transaction be used to support the technical requirements? In addition, could a person invite another player, similar to the feature in Star Trek Online?

we can't say yet. we are working on different ideas, but "housing" will perhaps not be too big a part of the initial launch

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Question: Player crafting zones, named NPC's or simple benches? Furthermore actual crafting skills or applications of skills modified to allow crafting, ie removal of the Armourer skill and integration of that into Long Arms, for example.

Player trading of loot and items, will be present however with items like signature pieces will they bound to the player, or will they be able to change the state of the item?

Can't say yet. We want crafting (and creation of your own softs and talsimans and tec) at some point, but unclear as to launch

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Question: On Lifestyles: Will these be implemented into the game eventually (I know you guys don't know about during launch)? Will our characters lose nuyen every month to maintain it? Can I pump buttloads of money into it to get a permanent settlement, like I can in the tabletop? Can me and other players share my lifestyle to pay a slightly reduced cost per-player, again like the game? Lastly, will we be able to upgrade over time, so that the tiny apartment I start with can eventually become the pimptastic ho-filled mansion of my runner's dreams?

Will these be implemented into the game eventually? Absolutely! we want you to have you base of operations, we want you to be able to upgrade that and it also will play a part in  crafting, creating softs etc. - so you may need certain upgrades and equipment to build your killer worm software. Lifestyle may also work as a cap to certain improvements and unlock missions/contacts. How much we can allow for actual "housing" with individual spaces remains to be seen after launch

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Question: What about guilds? I assume there will be a party system for missions, but will there be guild support?

We will have a aprty system and will try to have guilds (crews) at launch, but this is tbd.

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Question: Will you include something like shadowland or flashpoint ingame ? Of course, off-game forums will provide spoilers and all, but why not try to make them ingame ? wouldnt it be great for players to "deal" informations instead of just spoiling intel for everyone ... after all information is the most valuable ressource in SR ...

we have mid term plans for this-initally it will very much belimited to our website, but later on we look forsomethuing more permeable...

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Character Creation (including Qualities, Meta-Races and non-combat Skills):


Question: Are there plans to introduce all the classes/races at the start? Will they be true to the pen and paper game in terms of benefits and downsides?

Races - yes, though some of the downsides (like size or lifespan) won't be as relevant for parts of the action the game focuses on, so we may have to find some other way to balance races.

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Question: Do you already plan plans regarding possible character creation race ( e.g. Human, Troll, Orc, ... ) and sub-races ( e.g. Orc-oni, Orc-hobgoblin, ... ) ?

we plan to have the majorn races but no sub-races for launch. being online means we can always add more later...

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Question: How far will character customization go?

you will have a full character creation for the game (with adapted rules of course). Regarding the visuals this is purely a budget question, we will see how much we can do there, though in the end, many chars look different based on what they wear mainly and we will have plenty of equipment to wear

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Question: are you planning to have a class based system, or a more free-form character generator? will I have to pick either a mage or a sam, or can I make a mage with wired reflexes and cybereyes if I really want to?

We will feature a free system (like SR4, so there are no restrictive classes per se), but obviously chroming up will wreak havoc with your Essence. We will feature drone riggers, but no vehicles initially (no fun being mowed down by a Lone Star ATV during a mission) and as adepts go- we aren't sure yet.

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Question: are there any plans yet how qualities/flaws will be implemented?

We plan to have qualities and flaws - but limited to the ones we can really easily make stick as a modifier and which make sense...a lot of them, like addictions or in debt etc. could theoretically be qauntified (like you pay n amount of money each month etc.), but they really are mainly annoying and half the fun if they cannot be played out. So let's call it a quality system light, perhaps.

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Question: Any update on the Adept / Technomancer issue? Couldn't you just let us create Adepts as 'magical Sams'? At least for starters?

we have been talking about that with the SHE for while and I think Adepts are quite doable. I don't want technomancers to just be "magical hackers", but we may be able to think of ways to make them feel different within the game context.

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Question: Is the Shadowrun in game Character Sheet going to resemble the P&P Version?

well we intend to follow the basic format and rules (other than the fact we may have stats/skills like 5.2 and 4.7), but I can honestly see a bunch of issues:
- we will be biased towards combat/communication skills, so certain skill groups won't be featured much in the game (such as knowledge)
- we will probably rack up more contacts than your usual runner, but less stuff otherwise
- magic and hacking will work differently (as they need to be on equal footing in the action map), so not sure about the corresponding numbers etc.
- we may start from a lower base of initial points to make up for the low power level progression in SR

So I would say you can probably build a similar P&P character from an SRO character, but especially once progression kicks in, it won't be copy paste.
And honestly, your P&P character will have much more color I would assume

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Question: Isn't character conversion practically a prerequisite if you really want to cater to the tabletop RPG fanbase? Not doing so would be like trying to have a charity bluegrass concert for fans of metal.

great metal-bluegrasss crossover bands out there

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Question: How will you adapt magic and matrix to SR:O and match them at least somewhat to the playstyle of the characters in the tabletop game? The two tend to be dramatically separate in gameplay; hacking is a more subtle affair, while magic is very... artillery-esque?

hackers and mages on same footing means timewise and UI wise - the resulst differ dramatically as do the targets, but the sequence should always be: pick skill, pick target (camera (hacker) or chimera (mage)), "skill check", results (killed camera, killed chimear).
some may take more time to do (expressed in Action Points most likely, as the current init system really makes little sense in an MMO) but they are essentially handled the same way.

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Question: What about Spirits and AIs?

The game will run on micro-transaction- In that sense: if you bring enough dough, we can talk spirits and Ais

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Question: how many options will people have to create their chars: will there be Infected? AIs? Technomancer? SURGE?

we will have to start with a limited number of choices - mostly those that are useful in action situations - hackers, combat mages, street samurai, combat riggers etc. and can actually be seen by other players (a bit of an issue with AI). we haven't decided on the possible range of careers thogh...

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Question: I'd love to see Drakes as an option for players. Will they be in?

let's tackle that when we got the base races

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Question: How configurable will the avatars be?

I can't answer that reliably yet. You will be able to equip them fully and see that, chrome up etc., but probably not much in the way of faces etc.- it simply does not show much inside the game and costs a lot of time I would rather spend creating cool features

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Question: Alright, how about custom faces for the character box (like the faces in the JA-O shots)? Of course, this game des not necessarily have to provide a de facto free character portrait generator, but it'd be ... nice to have this 

Faces to choose from: yes. Custom built: maybe - since you need to do this for multiple races it means multiple generators, so it is a quite a lot of work...

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Question: Are there any examples for portraits yet?

First portraits of the SR:O roster have been published:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=223071071113710&set=a.179435638810587.46999.170199826400835&type=1
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=223071894446961&set=a.179435638810587.46999.170199826400835&type=1

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Question: I heard there are more coming and coming, is there a compilation?
Answer: Yep, check here. Or check this thread to keep yourself posted.


Question: [Can I send] in a portrait and you guys nod it through to be used, or something like this?

we were thinking about allowing you to upload your own (though with potentially 500.000 users, nodding each of it through will be next to impossible. We will see how we can balance individualization and budget constraints here.

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Question: Free character creation sounds awesome. But what about the players which are new to SR? Will they be able to pick Archetypes?

Yep.

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Question: my question is whether technomancers will be there

sitting on the fence on that - technomancers are supposed to be rare...and can also be slightly imbalancing versus hackers. Where hackers can craft their softs and mages at least will want their talismans and conjuringn ingredients, Technomacers don't need anything, so part of the gameplay that is collecting items, crafting, trading etc. will not be relevant for them. My current guess would be: not on launch, since we are looking for the more "timeless" archetypes.

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Question: will there even Be Technos in the game?

as mentioned we aren't sure about them and will deiced once we have the basic types running.

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Question: Ones more on technomancers: While I agree that they have less use for equipment, they have a much higher need for karma overall, right?

while this is true it is a balancing issue for us - as we will limit the use of soft to a degree based on skill and accessibility (it is either difficult to create or expensive to buy), once you have invested the karma you are very independent of the rest. The sole existence of technomancers in the game as a "endangered species" is hard to do in the mmo, so this "limitation" is not a good counterbalance. And eating up karma means they initially are weaker, later on stronger (and more independent of other progression mechanics)....as I said, we needto get our bases covered first and then see.

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Question: I seen you been very hesitant to post about physads Prime, please tell me they will be in from launch?

The reason I am hesitant is fairly simple - physads are interesting but we need to make sure we can actually pul them off - new animations, effects, balancing - that all needs to be thought of. Physads can be very powerful for a beginning character or very narrow, so we need to puick the right abilties to prevent them just being superhero type chars.
It is really just too early to say - but your votes are duly noted

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Question: Avatar creation, are we able to elect both Running and character names?

yes to running and char names

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Character Progression (including Karma and Reputation):


Question: will there be a chance to get Initiated as a magic user?

don't know yet. we may have people play through their initial career choices or we may allow them to set off as one...again, too soon to tell.

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Question: I know in SR 1&2 your karma rewards were directly related to your actions, how you played things out, creative solutions to problems, finding things to do other than "run and gun".  Might be something hard to work into a computer game though, or?

Yep- this is why we probably will give Karma for "solving" the mission and achievements for certain ways to do it. We do not want to give incentives for  just killing, but tracking how clever you are is hard...

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Question: will there be a third ressource in the game besides karma / nuyen?

we intend to use influence/reputation as rewards and constraints (as in: you won't get in here unless you are important).

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Question: Reputation has been mentioned several times on these forums but usually in connection with factions you can earn reputation with. I was wondering how/whether you are planing to implement something like streetcred. I would suggest to have that reputation linked to the karma earned by the characters in runs, modified by a few multipliers. It could be used to unlock non-faction related missions on a higher level. A similar rating could be utilized for the matchmaking in PvP too. So, to make things short: are you planning to feature something like this second sort of reputation?

absolutely. we haven't yet clarified what kinds of reputation score will make it into the game and how they will interact - we also need to be weary of just too many of those.
basically there are two types of rep (and some rep may actually be of both types):
progresison based - unlocks items, missions, stuff
affects skill checks - with contacts, legwork-missions

street cred could be both, faction rep as well, but more limited to certain groups and could affect some negatively (corp rep won't go well with anarchists)

PvP "score" will be more like an ELO ranking, so your matches are counted based on how your opponent was ranked.

but as mentioned - we haven't really touched all that yet and just keep collecting ideas currently.

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Question: is [it] possible to earn names through runs, similar to the Accolades and Titles of the previously mentioned client based MMO's

yes, probably through achievements (which aren't easy to get)

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Question: will we see characterlevels?

we don't need a level system, rep. as well as skill minimums and a stats based absolute health value are an easy replacement - the PnP abstraction of level is useful as a general guideline on abilities, but there are enough other means to do that.

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Question: A common element of nearly all MMOs is the level cap. Shadowrun doesn't really have an inherent one in the tabletop game, so I'm wondering whether it will be present in the MMO. Will there be a karma cap, or will we be able to cap off every single skill and stat, and perhaps grow our mage and technomancer powers into infinity?

We are just discussing that one - I personally prefer a level cap free game, but we need to find other ways make sure there is a progression in, which doesn't break the content. So while theoretically you could go and max out all stats and skills, there are dminishing returns for grinding lower level missions and other requirements (like specific items) for high level missions. We need an average expected level range to balance our content to - which should not be easy to break out of. But I may be optimistic about that and there are reasons to end up with a Karma cap...

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Question: There are some great reasons you SHOULDN'T have a karma cap, right? [some characters need a constant supply of karma to bound foci, upgrade programs, etc.; since there is a cap to all skills, very experienced chars get very versatile, yet not undefeatable in SR; it adds some original flavor to the game and might cool down some of those copy-cat-paranoids]

as mentioned- I agree there is no need currently for the same reasons you mention here. but I reserve my judgement until we have the whole system worked out.

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Question: I saw you said Initiation won't be in the game from start. Will it be added in later? If not, is there another path you are planning for power progression for casters?

Initiation/power progression...again we haven't really pinned that down yet

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Question: I'd really like to see Initiation for adepts,mages and mysticadepts. Will I?

we are discussing about a good way to do it, open to suggestions

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Question: I'd really like to see Metamagic. Spell anchoring and perm spells. Will I?

Ritual Group Spells perhaps the rest...probably not, we don't have that much persisted content unfortunately.

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Question: I heard that you are think that Foci could well be degrading...the bound power in it could be consumed with use and finally be "drained". Then foci could be bought with nuyen or crafted by magi with materials and time.

So, instead of allowing karma to be bought we would simply move some things bought with karma into being consumable/degradable - which in my mind fits with the way summoning and conjuring work anyway. This would put the classes on more even footing.

Now, if the degradation and failures are put into the game, I suggest that there be a scaling put in. Will you have that? E.g.: Don't let new players fail. And, when it is introduced that failure is possible, make absolutely certain in excruciating detail that they know its a possibility with a link/story hook to options to reduce that failure chance being very very visible. Can you do that?

Of course they would scale and of course you can increase chances to succeed at a cost in Action Points or nuyen - I am not at all propagating simply randomizing results. Also, items should be repaired/recharged/re-enchanted, nit just "lost". And always ALWAYS the odds will be visibly displayed and can be influenced - it should simply be risk/reward (invest less time/money, take the risk of failing)

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Question: How could this degradation work? Will there be different qualities of items?

I think the solutiuon to this is basically that degradation to "destroy" and degradation to "recharge/repair" are not oppositions but ends of a scale.
First, you introduce quality as a means to gauge degradation speed or as a "stat" similar to "health".
The you define groups of "resistance/health" based on invest:

Cyberwear for example could degrade slowly, being a major invest. A used gun from the junkyard could degrade quickly.
Then cost for repairs also scale - the used up gun may not be worth repairing, your cyberware would be. The Ares Predator II would be a constantly and lovingly cared for gun, in essence receiving many "repair-like" attentions with a "repair-like" item called: Gun oil and polishing pad. It may also be "mastercraft" quality and have heaps of "health".

Then some things can malfunction upon reaching certain "health" levels, influencing your interest in repairing them. Here some quality stat could define the chances of malfunctioning - a cheaply made cybewrare may still degrade slowly, but malfunction much earlier, making constant reconfigurations/repairs advisable if you don't want to be stuck with a locked up cyberarm in mid-combat.
Magic failure can go the same way for foci etc.

Then lastly crafting (which is not that developed in SR) comes in for rigger and hacker characters - they can program their own soft and invest time (and buy top equipment to improve their chances of succeeding) and perhaps resources, which are again a mission goal in itself (there is this new hot algorythm in town, you may wanna get your hands on).

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Question: If you earned something valuable it should not just go away. Maintenance seems like a better option, or?

Degrading doesn't mean they go away - degrade would be with use and usually increase the malfunction chance (or critical glitch). This can be countered by maintenance (in essence a "small" repair) to prevent it. It won't degrade over time without use usually, so it is up to the player to decide what he wants to invest in keeping his items clean and working. You may throw away a junk gun you found on a dead ganger, but your carefully built drone/focus/soft may warrant a bit more time and money invested in it.

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Question: I hope that certain things in the game won't have a true "success or failure" mechanic, but rather a "success/keep trying" mechanic. Lots of things in the game utilize extended rolls, where the player continues to invest time until he succeeds at something. In these cases failure is relatively rare (you have to roll terribly, which generally requires that your character be inept at whatever he happens to be trying). I think that training and crafting should both utilize these sorts of things, where the so-called time units you guys plan to use in the game decide how much time a player has to invest in order to achieve his goals. Will you have these extended rolls too?

failure for me simply means lack of a positive result as oppsoed to a drastic negative effect- so yes, failure means: try again until you have collected enough success

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Question: What are your thoughts on the range of equipment power and character power in the game?

As it stands now, MMOs have a much higher necessity for rewarding players with progress/wealth, since the less tangible rewards of a PnP game are much harder to get across. We will have to incorporate that to adegree, so players will start weaker than in an average SR game and grow incerementally (not WoW Lvl 1 to Lvl 80, though). Example: Instead of basically using numbers from one to six, we will use them (current working hypothesis, at least) like Essence is used, with a decimal point- 1.2, 3.4 etc. This means we can give away smaller rewards more often and we can also use a less drastic modifier system with finer tuning possible. This does not alter the final power of a maxed out char, but it makes getting there filled with little advancement steps...

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Question: That said: what are your ideas about item scaling?

I think there is a lot of room for rewarding items in the same way - especially since we have a much broader number of factors than in non-tactical turn based MMOs (remember, we have aiming, reload, stance, recoil, speed to ready, cost to fire, bullets per burst and a bunch of other weapon stats which can be affected and the same goes for magic , software, drones etc.). So while I agree that we will probably also have to slightly expand the power range an item can have, there is little need for epic items to find ways to reward players continously.

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Question: Last but not least: When we talk about the long term motivation to play and develop your character - what do you think drives the game?

well I would hope three things:
- our plots which are somehow related to factions - especially given the players identify slightly with their chars and certain factions over others - hands up for who likes the Azzies?
- greed (get more stuff, get stronger). always a great motivator
- the chance to affect the storyline and actually see oneself as part of a concerted effort to push the plots into certain directions

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Question: That said: what are your ideas about item scaling?

I think there is a lot of room for rewarding items in the same way - especially since we have a much broader number of factors than in non-tactical turn based MMOs (remember, we have aiming, reload, stance, recoil, speed to ready, cost to fire, bullets per burst and a bunch of other weapon stats which can be affected and the same goes for magic , software, drones etc.). So while I agree that we will probably also have to slightly expand the power range an item can have, there is little need for epic items to find ways to reward players continously.

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Question: In the video we saw recently there have been xp-numbers popping up on kills. Does that mean we won't see Karma and you will feature an xp-system?

no, karma is karma, as mentioned this is just our underlying Jagged Alliance System working

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Mission Design:


Question: Will 'Face'-Gamestyle be supported?

the problem is, if the face takes forever to talk, the others may lose a lot of eagerness...anyways, we don't have a full 3D world, so this may be a problem. But "legwork" should involve a number of actions and talking

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Question: will maps also involve talking(which is often needed in "non-corp" runs), or come down to "stealth or kill"?

we are really not sure yet - but honestly it is not too likely. too many complicatons, expensive to localize and lots of more work.

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Question: [How will] the inevitable versus stuff [be structured]: [will you have] runs/missions where you basically go somewhere and shoot everything, and where you hire a team for?

Yes, runs will be instanced missions, but they will also be about sneaking, freeing a hostage or stealing a weapon prototype. [...] You can "rent" runners to add to your team for the run or play with other players live.

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Question: how long do you expect standard missions to be? how long do you think legwork missions will be?

We expect standard missions to take from 15 to 60 minutes roughly, depending on complexity and level.

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Question: will there be "difficulty" ratings for missions? if so, are we talking about differences in how complicated the missions are to complete, or just combat difficulty (more enemies with more health, etc)

Difficulty will increase both by enemy strength (and intelligence, we have a scaled AI system) and complexity of levels.
Some missions have conditions (bring a certain item (example: Access Pass to Lab) and all of them have a max party size for balancing reasons - min size is always one, if you have the balls for it

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Question: will missions have specific solutions, or will there be a few different paths through them?

We try to offer alternate routes to success (like sneaking by guards, distracting them or making big holes in them) where we can as well as sub-goals for missions, whch may result from previous legwork ("Bring me the relic and I can get you into Saeder-Krupps HQ") or be a sort of bonus goals.

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Question: Stealth and infiltration is a core of the setting, and has been answered previously, however to expand on that would you value certain levels of success. Ie would a single guard knocked out and using a disguise be rated as higher in comparison to every guard knocked out or killed?

no, a mission is a success or it isn't. If you manage to walk through walls and magically put everyone to sleep or just barely sneaked past a guard and got lucky: The end is what counts. I don't want people farming XP through maximizing gains from different XP rewards. It should be hard enough to make it without worrying how.

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Question: how do you want to incorporate missions? Like in Jagged alliance, where you have to secure/cleanse/investigate someplace and then make it out?

Jep, close to that, but much more "stealth" missions, where you must not raise alarms, because the place will be crawling with rent-a-cops quickly. Also AR will play a major role as will hacking. Missions will be instanced and gained from a mission hub/world map type of place.

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Question: Will there be 'quests'?

Definatelly. And we even plan to add a NPC faction system. The factions will be fighting over controll over certain things. If you work again and again for one faction, that faction will be strengthened, leading to new missions (against this faction). We hope this will add a dynamic dimension to the gameworld.

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Question: Can you tell us a bit more about possible mission designs?

You could split it up in three: combat missions, stealth missions and legwork. Even combat missions of course will feature the use of tactics, rigging, decking and clever use of magic.
Stealth mission might require you to complete a certain task without being discoverd. You'd have a "Alarm Level" which you need to avoid: if you get discovered, the level turns red and you lost. If the guards can hear but not see you, the level might go up to yellow. If you mess with a camera, guards will investigate, and soon. If you hit the alarm trashhold, there will either be a lot of trouble, or the mission fails as a whole. You won't die, but your reputation will get hurt. There will propably, however, be a bit more fighting overall than most SR players are used to.

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Question: By the way are shops like that gunstore that we see in missions...can we enter those and do they function like real stores?

unclear, but it may be too convenient to allow for shopping inside missions...takes the edge of having to plan the equipment

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Question: Will missions be randomly generated ? Will they be replayable ?

noand yes- we usually take some pains to balance mission maps. a random generated mission simply doesn't allow for that. random encounter on pre-generted maps however are perfectly possible

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Question: What sort of missions can we expect?

there will be a big variety of scenarios, from gangfights to SOTA-police state settings.

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding Legwork & Contacts:


Question: Will connections be staples - Bob the Plumber, Betty the Fixer, Harsh Joe the P.I.? Or will every player be able to customize their connections?

we currently probably will start with staples, but I just thought we may as well allow players to "craft" contacts from "components", which are effectively stats etc.

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Question: can you tell us a little more about how legwork will work? will it be available for every mission, or just specific missions? how far in advance of the run will you be able to do legwork? will the legwork missions be specifically tied to individual runs, or will it be more free form? will you be able to do more than one bit of legwork for runs?

legwork: you will basically have the city map with locations, some of them always available (your fixer, contacts you have gained) some of them tied to missions (your informant for that specific mission). You can visit them and apply a mixc of skills, items (blackmail photo you gained in a previous side-mission) and other resources (influence, street cred) to achieve a defined goal there. You have a limited number of action points to do that in a 24h period and missions have a clock until when you need to do them. You can apply action point to increase your chances (at the cost of not being able to do as much legwork).
At least that is what we currently think would work well...but we will have to try and see if it's fun

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&

We may have some Mafia Wars style "legwork" jobs, where other players can support you asynchronously - just so you do have some short session gameplay as well, if you don't care for a longer session at that moment.

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we want to have things like this scenario:
The Mission is to infiltrate a nightclub in order to get to the basement, where a suspected informant may be kept imprisoned by a Crime Lord. Due to security waltzing in is out of the question. The Mission has the conditions: No large weapons, Limited Time. The Johnson provides entry passes through the backdoor, but security is tight.
Legwork could get you:
- Bribe an employee to hide a weapon inside (allows to add take weapon of choice with you)
- Hack their local network to delay security calls (extend time)
- Get blueprint for building
- General investigation magically or by hacking, using contacts
- Use Rent-a-Cop contact to mess up security schedule (increases response time for forces in the buidling)

All of those can help in the mission but also carry a certain risk (and cost).

Of course some missions will just drop you into the action at lightspeed, so not all of them include prep time...

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we have devised a mechanic which allows us to a) include skills into the result b) have several "steps" to concluding legwork c)bring in items/contacts/edges to the mix and d) involve some sort of focus vs risk balance. Simply put, you would have a number of actions you can undertake. You may focus them on one or a few of the legwork parts for better chance of success (basically this simulates you putting in time and effort) or you can spread yourself thin but throw more resources (money, contacts, spirits, software etc.) at the job in order to maintain a solid chance of success.

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Question: How similar do you see SRO being to JAO?

In the JAO beta I can see how you've got the base there, and you can click through and buy a bunch of stuff. There is a sort of restriction based on clout and hero level, but there's not much in the way of something being forbidden or extremely hard to come by. In SR PnP the book suggests things could be way more expensive due to availability, and sometimes you may need to wait weeks for that Assault Cannon to make its way over on the slow boat from Shanghai.

I'm assuming the initial plan is just to have a click+buy system with Nuyen and a real currency system like JAO, but has there been any thought about differentiating the two systems down the road?

I don't think in this day and age of instant gratification waiting for ANY item for nomatter how little time will be much appreciated.
For SRO we are fiddling around with the legwork issue currently- we want to make it smoother than the jao HQ heal/repair and still allow for soem use of skills/contacts...
item pricing and availabilty will play a role- basically items won't always be available, so if explosive ammo is on offer you better stock up on it while it lasts - or be prepared to pay extra
and getting some items may actually require a certain rep level for example...you don't sell a Panther XL to just any noob

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Question: What would "General Investigation" yield?

General investigation may yield exposed info on the mission map - like guard patrol routines or security levels for the surveillance software, the presence (or absence) of magical protection/personnel etc.

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Question: I'm wondering if some system akin to this focus on conversations [like in the SNES-game] will be in your game to increase the "story" feeling and depth of gameplay? I feel like even in the high budget RPGs [...] are missing something immersive from their conversation systems because you still just pick canned options off a menu.

[it]is a localization nightmare. There are RPGs out there where just on language translation costs more than our entire game...I guess we will have to tone down the expectations here, I am afraid.

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Question: Talking about the legwork map: Will we encounter hours of running from spot A to spot B?

Nop (since the citys aren't fully animated in the first place and you use the legwork map to navigate, without really running back and forth).

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Question: Any additional news on legwork?

Yes, legwork might be used to unlock extra missions as well.

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Question: So we know that there will be the opportunity to conduct legwork before missions which will aid in completing the mission. Some things I would like to see with legwork are:

• Able to contact multiple Contacts
• The Contacts' background or archetype dictates how relevant the information they can give or if they have any information to give at all
• Varying levels of information that can be gained
• The chance for special events, encounters or items associated with the run to be unmasked or hints about them thrown in so that runners think to look for them
• A chance for the legwork to offer up solo runs as well as solo and/or group runs to increase standing with a given Contact
• Mundane, Matrix and Astral legwork options

Will those things be there?

I'd say we got you about 66% covered there

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the General Combat:


Question: What happens if a character dies?

Death means your character willn not be functional until revived by either a Doc-Wagon contact or healing in a facility. As this may deadlock a character (no money to buy treatment), we are toying with a number of ideas, but generally we do want you to feel death as more than a minor inconvenience while not simply applying permadeath.

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Question: will character death be permanent? If so, Edge would be the best way to have a Shadowrun-style surviving death mechanic in the game (your character doesn't perma-die unless he/she has no edge to burn).

Permadeath? Shudder...as much as I like the idea, when peoplespent real money on their chars the kinda get cranky with them killed by some PvP overachiever...

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Question: It feels wrong if the death of a character appears to make no difference at all. What are you going to do about that?

we certainly have "inactive" status for dead chars. so you can't just reload or re-spawn. dead means you lost the mission and without a good doc wagon contract you will have a hard time getting back in the saddle. we won't kill them off, but we will ground them

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Question: What about death through essence lost? How would you heal up lost essence? And why not have perma-death anyway?

perma death is something that just sits very hard with people, especially as you cannot save a game and may run into situations that kill you by just plain bad luck...and the machine cannot differentiate between stupidity and bad luck.
However given the world of SR with the immense magical and technical capabilities, I don't think being healed again from any fatal loss of health or essence is such a stretch to imagine. If they can clone pretty much anything and AIs can become conscious, why not heal up your essence?
Of course it is a bow towards playability, but honestly: would you like to do a new char, everytime you lose in PvP?
I think what would be equired in your exmaple is to heal the essence loss cause first, then revive, the heal actual essence loss - which can be quite expensive...

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Question: Will the game be turn based?

not sure yet- we may want to mix it JA2 style-so real time until combat starts...

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Question: SR is real time, and only combat is turn based . . this will be, i think, a bit harder to get translated into a browser game, or?

Translating the turn based vs real time is actually quite easy: You move in real time as long as no combat happens, then we switch to turnbased.

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Question: Why not let the players choose real time or turn-based with APs?

The problem with having both is, that we have an AI Server who either understands one ruleset or the other. Making him understand both is again much more effort (read: costly). And in co-op multiplayer you would always have to agree on a system, which isn't ideal.

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Question: Do you consider a planning phase, in which everyone submits the turn they'd like to take, followed by a resolution phase, in which everyone's actions actually happen? (In order to speed things up)

that would not save time- the problem is mostly in people thinking about their turns- if everyone executes his turn quickly, this helps much more- we tested that actually.

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Question: How will you ensure that a turn-based playstyle wouldn't drive people mad?

We will use a "timer" to make sure people don't dawdle too long. And palyers can use the other guys turn for planning their own.

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we are using a timer as well as an incentive (get extra Action Points) for people finishing their turn earlier. But we will see how that works out ...

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Question: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shadowrun-Online/170199826400835#!/media/set/?set=a.179435638810587.46999.170199826400835&type=3

So I just remembered the pic at the SRO FB page, the screenshot with the troll firing the gun and another character running. That suggests simultaneous character action, so I guess my question now goes to Primetide ... what are we looking at here, turn-based, near-real-time, or is it an engineered situation just to show off the game?

The answer is: All three!
We have soort-of real time until any opposed action takes place (hacking, casting, combat etc.) that sets off any sort of opposition reaction. Then we go turnbased.
The screnshot was indeed built from the engine, so not representative of the game rules, juts the game visuals.

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Question: Is it going to be like the old Fallout 1 and 2 Parts, where everything was real time until combat started and you saw everything and everyone was limited in movement in terms of his AP?

Like Fallout 1-2 or Jagged Alliance 2 - you can see the whole field and everyone on it and take turns with actions limited by AP

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Question: you answered to some question that you think it might be a good scenario that a mission for six characters would be played by three players, playing two chars at once. That got me wondering: This surely only would work really within a turn-based environment. Do you agree?

No this can work in real time as well, if real time actions take a certain amount, of time, but we do look to turn  based for combat, so it ins't an issue.

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Question: how many hostiles do you plan to put into the conflicts?

hostiles we don't have clear numbers yet - does 'a lot' help?

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Question: are paranormal creatures being used (both for enemies and background eye candy.)?

we will have paranormal creatures in. Not yet settled on paranormal backgrounds (apart from obviously magic being available)

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Question: Will there be target zones (head, chest, legs, ...)?

We will have aiming and target zones, not sure how detailed, though.

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Question: Edge: Now you already said that Karma pool-like mechanics are probably not going to be in the game, but that doesn't necessarily rule out the edge stat. I love making characters that rely heavily on edge (I call them "Luck Adepts"). Perhaps you could simply make edge a triggered stat-boost that you could use a limited number of times, but not one that necessarily works the same as the tabletop game?

We will definitely have Edge in some form...however as you suggested sometimes in form of a boost or "insurance versus damage/death". The problem lies more in applying it after the fact of a roll, as in the PnP. But for legwork, this will also be an option perhaps.

Source.


Question: Is there any tactical dimension you think is pretty rarely used in onlinegames and will be featured in Shadowrun Online?

Yes. Players will be able to utilize the surrounding (taking cover etc.) and they will be able to coordinate and combine different spheres, such as hacking and fighting, etc.

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Question: I kind of get the feel that the intended gameplay while on a run will be akin to Silent Storm. Is this a fair guess?

Yes, this would be accurate - let's say we will end up somewhere between Jagged Alliance/Silents Storm and Baldur's Gate with regards to gameplay. Just with more oomph and a whole layer of legwork missions 

Source.

[Sangius]

Questions regarding Magic, Matrix, Rigging & Warez:


Magic


Question: are there currently plans to have shamans with a selection of their totems? Or will it be a toned down selection with only a few available?

Shamans - Totems variety isn't much of an issue, both only take time to create effects for, but some Totems have advantages that feature strong in our game and disadvantages which are weaker, so again- we need to look at the balance in context of the game.

Source.


Question: are you thinking of putting in astral space into the game?

Regarding Astral Space - no- as with Matrix, we will start with areas everyone can access, as opposed to only a few players. However as the game progresses (if we are lucky enough to have it accepted by the audience) we have plans to add both pure Matrix and pure Astral Plane runs.

Source.


Question: Mechanically how will spells be handled?

As in other games you will have your spells in a menu to activate them, aim them at someone or something and cast them, taking a certain amount of time. You will see mages casting if you can see them doing it. Otherwise if you are able to see into the astral, you will get ideas about who is geared up in magic trinkets or has magical abilities.

Source.


Question: Will Drain be used? And if so how? How will we get rid of Drain?

YSes and not sure to the last two

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Question: How much variety will we have in the spell lists? All the spells in the books? Just SR4A? Street Magic?

we haven't begun to sort through spells with an eye to "can be done" and "can't be done" yet.

Source.


Question: I know you couldn't possibly put it in from the start but maybe later, a tool to make custom spells?

VERY complex issues, but noted.

Source.


Question: Will there be a difference mechanically in Mages and Shamans like in the past versions of the game?

not sure. perhaps more a question of differenmt arsenal and casting times etc.

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Question: I'm looking for more differences between arcane mages and shamans, and hoping that there will be different abilities based on which totem the player picks for their character. My suggestion would be to have shamans able to cast healing spells and buffs/debuffs for less mana drain and hermetics able to cast offensive and defensive spells for less mana drain. That way the shaman fits into a healer class and the hermetic mage is more of a dps class. What do you think?

We haven't really got down to deciding on the differences for arcane characters in SRO. I tend to fall on the side of giving them slightly different abilities, but not too different (so not dps vs heal) for the simple reason that it limits character development and group selection (gotta have the healer, gotta have the dps mage, gotta have the hacker, gotta have the fighter -presto: D&D group). We tend to give our characters broader scopes in some regards, so as to not force roles so heavily. Especially since combat isn't your typical WOW affair, there are really no "first rows" when everyone is wielding guns that can shoot longer distances...

Source.


Question: Will you use a "Tier Tree" of magic specialization ala WoW talent tree or that type? [please don't]

we will stick pretty much to the way spells are gained in SR, though again, we haven't tackled that yet

Source.


Question: Spirits. Will they Be in the game? From the start? That's a sizable portion of a casters arsenal there. Are they going to be like the hireable "Mercs"? or will they be separate from the party size limit?

honestly and not to put spirits down, they kinda handle like drones- you summon them, bind them and use them (and perhaps upgrade them?). so yes, they should be in in some way

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Matrix


Question: Will we see AR?

definitely: if you can "see" AR, you will actually be able to see a whole new layer of the game (same for spirit world) you can interact with.

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Question: How do you plan to handle the Matrix? As in, the VR internet that is a staple of SR through all editions, the labyrinthine sites where you fight IC and are occasionally fried by it, not AR. Will there be Matrix-hack mini-games in Legwork or the run? Or even entire runs taking place entirely in the Matrix? Or do you plan to focus on meatspace action?

Initially we want to focus on meatspace and AR. The reason for this is simply budgetary. We cannot make a good number of Matrix Levels including special rules for them for a limited part of the player community when we can do levels which allow everyone to play instead. If the game is commercially viable we intend to bring out pure Matrix levels.

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Question: Is that still the case?

This is indeed still the case - we have an AR overlay. Moving into the Matrix can be simulated by allowing you to interact with nodes physically distant from you, but visible on the AR overlay. That would probably be affected by Matrix Perception and governed by some other rules. But we cannot create a parallel map of malleable matrix geography for each mission I am afraid. Since each mission has different cameras and nodes and other functionalities, this would be too much work for now.

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Question: Can't you just wrap something up along the lines of Tron?

you want sille neon helmets and bike races?

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Question: Wouldn't it possible to give console jocks a oll to play in physical encounters - using closeby jackpoints - hacking into camera systems, or gaining other info for mission planning, over-riding security measures, and of course walking away with data as a mission objective, or as a commodity to sell later.  The really high end jocks are the ones that would go up against the big-corporate counter-hackers, in the fully sculpted-systems, so np introducing that later, as advanced play.

this is actually exactly what we are planning- we want to parallel their actions to shooting, so unlocking doors, live-hacking enemy aiming systems and other ware they may have as well as preventing alarms from being raised is all part of the job description...

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Question: Are there plans for the npc hackers to be able to do the same level of hacking back against us?

do guards shoot back?
we will probably feature less "able" hackers, but of course the corps have their guys too

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Rigging


Question: Do you have some more rigger infos for us?

we don't want a pure "crafter" class which only runs drones in combat, so we are looking into some changes there.

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Question: Do you plan on implementing systems similar to the P&P game, so that (for lack of a better term) non-combat characters can compete? How many Drones will Riggers be able to control at once? Will we have Pilotsoft Programs to run drones for us? (essentially making drones like Pets from WoW) Will hackers be able to viably target things like an enemies cyberware? Will Smart-link play a role? Will we be able to hack them, and turn peoples weapons against them?

There are two answers to this:
a) we plan for groups, so initially you can always balance your group to have a damage dealer or a tank type in it
b) we actually do plan to have riggers with drones (how many is tbd) which can be upgraded and which can run independently of the char (so yes, like pets with big guns) and hackers hack into smartlinks etc. In fact, a lot of status information about enemies will be accessible through AR displays for hackers, so they can directly interact with enemy augmentation. We actually treat hackers the same way we treat combat roles- they need to be able to function in combat like adpets and shamans will have to: cause effects on enemies, either directly (block their smartlink) or indirectly (use the wall-mounted auto-turret) and quickly. Why not short-circuit enemy augmentations and make their head explode?

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Question: Any plans for vehicle combat later down the line?

we discussed smaller vehicles, but there movement speed makes it hard to fit them in. Otherwise you have a VERY slow car, which also does not make sense...however we are having ideas for further down the line...though a good bit further...

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Warez

Question: A pen and paper game doesnt bother with game balance, it bothers about world balance. But a video game do matter with such affairs :-/ will you try to balance ware vs magic ? even if it's against the spirit of the game world ? a 10 bilion street sam can destroy allmost anything, but is leagues away from a rank 20 initiate in terms of influence and power. How woudl you handle this ? (of course these are stupid exemples ...)

we will balance to a degree, although generally we will try and allow for differnt tactical roles and solutions (so smas may excel in speed and firepower but mages can do stuff sams can't etc.)

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Question: I've been reading through the Anniversal edition and noticed these. Alphaware (/Beta/Delta) costs less Essence than normal cyber/bio but has a higher cost, Bioware tends to require less Essence than Cyberware (1.5 for L3 'Wired' instead of 5) but is much more expensive (240k vs 100k). Will these be in the game, making players pick between long term and short term, or will it simply be 1 type?

I think this will be in, but players will need to earn the dough (and may initially not require low essence cost, as they haven't geared up too much)

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Graphics & Interface:


Question: I realise this is a very, very early phase and possible quite the unfair question, but what kind of visuals can we expect?

We are using Unity for a sort of isometric/perspective 3D look. If you look at screenshots of or current Jagged Alliance project, add a bit of glamour and a slightly closer camera you should get a good idea.

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Unity [...] is a full 3D Engine - the polygon count for webbrowser compatibility is limited and we won't have a lot of the fancy bumpmaps etc., but otherwise it is a normal 3D game

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If you visit Cliffhanger and go to our JAO section, this is early screens of the game.

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we have some new screens for our JAO game, showing the quality and gameplay here JAO Online - this would be what we are looking for in Shadowrun

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For Shadowrun the ligthing would have to be more extreme in general and more colourful - for JAO we are going with more of a realistic look. So there will be definitely an extra serving of flamboyancy for Shadowrun

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Question: Wasn't there recently some new Screenshot released?

The screen is part ofn the secret Shadowrun level inside our Jagged Alliance Online game - is it a shameless promotional plot? Maybe, but it also gives fans a chance to at least experience parts of SRO inside a free to play game...
anyway: go to our site at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shadowrun-Online/170199826400835
and like it, while you're at it

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Question: Wait, I heard rumors about another screenshot being released, are they true?

kotaku released another one:
http://kotaku.com/5852623/three-more-screenshots-of-the-new-shadowrun-game/gallery/1

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Question: It must be Christmas: I heard something about an interview with actual video footage in the background. Is that correct?
Yes. Click here.


Question: Cool. Will there also be half-transparent holo-things and such?

absolutely - transparency and the neon-style holo look etc. are easy to do. The whole AR layer will be similar to this, with semi-transparent images superimposed over the physical environment.

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Question: What about the interface?

It being a brwoser game, the visuals will likely be simple - dialog/action windows with a few buttons and a nice pic (building levels for each legwork job is just out of scope)

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Question: What did the first newsletter say about visuals again?

Well, it will have a perspective camera in a 3D setting, much like our Jagged Alliance Online game, which we are currently developing. (for a peak at that one, you can go to http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/jagged-alliance-online-preview-a-classic-reborn-for-the-browser/ , who have the latest info from our gamescom version.) So, it will be a decent quality, but it won�t be what some call AAA. The reason for that is simple: We are doing a browser based game. This means anyone can access it at any time from their PC, no downloading, no hassle. But that also means we need to limit visuals. I hope you agree that gameplay is king, so we think the visuals are decent enough. [a very early prototype (with even less visual quality) can be found here

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Question: Looking at the latest screenshots released, especially the latest one it looks like the intent is to have separate art assets for the  various kinds of gear.

I'm curious as to how detailed we might see. Ideally I'd love to see each piece of gear from all the gear books/lists represented! Will we?

of course we have full models for all gear in 3D, displayed at your char (and augmentations as well, we will go in for a bit of chrome). Now the sheer mass of items existing may make it hard to come up with all - and some may not be applicable (jet planes spring to mind). But yes, we go for wysiwig

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Question: Could it be true? Another screenshot?

and another one at ...this is less...ah...serene...
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=174822972605187&set=pu.170199826400835&type=1&theater

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Question: Looking at those screenshots made me come up with a few questions: On the right ride it looks like falling water. Rain effects? Does this mean a weather system to some degree?

yes

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Question: I like the light levels. They seem to create just enough shadow such that something or someone could crouch in a shadowed spot and the less observant person would miss them. Will see more of that?

lighting- will get better even with more dynamic ligthing and stronger contrasts

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Question: I heard something about an official desktop wallpaper. What's up?

For those that haven�t got the Shadowrun timeline in mind: 2011 was the Year of Chaos (we can vouch for that) culminating in the Awakening of the great Dragons. Commemorating that, what better Christmas present than a cool picture of a freshly awakened dragon? This will actually become the background picture for our upcoming SRO webpage.  From the looks of it he/she doesn�t seem to be too happy about being awakened... As a special Christmas present you can find this ready to use for your new desktop wallpaper in our gallery.

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[Sangius]

Question regarding the Hard- and Software Realisation:


Question: What can you tell us about the AI of our opponents?

oh, be assured- our enemies are all about fighting back and using skills. we have a dedicated AI server for the game for that reason

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Question: are you going by the SR3 or SR4 Rule-System?

As far as our game goes, the differences aren' that much of an issue, as they mostly touch areas that do not affect us (for example the game would not have a Karma pool of dice anyway, we would need to "translate" that in some way).

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Question: What is your general opinion on multiboxing?

It lessens the atachment to your character a bit, but then it allows you to experience different game aspects and gameplay routes. Anyway, people can always create another account to create chars, then co-op with themselves in a turn-based game, so one may as well offer the options from the start.

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Question: You did talk about running multiple clients, but I have to ask if you guys are going to allow for multiple characters on a single account. Also, is there any possible way that we can utilize multiple characters from the same account at a time to go on missions, in case we don't have any friends online? Would be an interesting way to integrate multi-client play into the game and embrace it, no?

Multiple characters: not at all decided yet. Our philosphy is: no one can stop you from having multiple emails, thus multiple accounts. We may as well make it easier on all of us and allow that. Having your own chars as "NPC hirelings" may be an interesting choice. Our current Jagged Alliance Online works on the premise of running a whole company of mercanaries...

Source.


Question: Do you have any more details for us on how the repair system will work?

Items will see wear and tear, repairs can be made by you (based on skill) or for in-game cash.

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Question: Will Shadowrun Online work with smartphones, specifically those running android?

android  (by now 40% of the market is android, in a yera, I guess 50% at least) is very dear to us. The problem is the graphics and the map size, but we think maybe some legwork could be done on the mobile to complemnet the main game.

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Question: Is a Steam version a possibility?

we are talking to a number of people for release and distribution. though it being a browser game we don't exactly need steam unless we want to puhs a client versioon- which is entirely possible, depending on what the future brings [...] Steam is the most interesting platform for us to create visibility

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Question: Will there be not only the freedom of movement but the ability to do free running stunts, especially for adepts? Nothing cooler than specing an adept to be able to do free running (while carrying dual pistols of course).

[The request is] duly noted. however as we are not a Client based MMO but run in the browser, I am not sure if we can do the free running stunts easily (messes ub our movement grid somewhat). But they sure would look very cool....

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Question: Have you guys given any thought as to how time will be handled in regard to the characters we play?

Idon't think we can sync the time to RL - simply put: firefights would require you to have super-human reflexes to do them and healing would have you walk away for a few weeks from the game.
However we do intend to use time as a factor. Such as: Game time isn't limbo, it runs close to RL. Meaning if you have "24h to pull off that mission", you actually DO have 24h. Which isn't much of an issue with regards to healing etc., but we will simulate time use with Action Points. So healing may take you 5 action points (even though it is really opnly a few seconds of player action in the interface) and if you then do legwork, you only have say 10 more AP left. And AP regenerate over 24h, so now you need to think: do you want to try the mission now or wait...but not for too long...to regenerate AP

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Question: Will SR:O support Linux? [it appears that Unity doesn't support Linux]

sorry then   - we are limited to what Unity can do

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Question: how are you going to handle size differences? Trolls are huge, they won't easily fit through every door and air duct ...

We haven't agreed on this yet, though we are leaning towards not offering air ducts and making Trolls duck through doors, so you choice of character does not prevent you from accessing any missions. But Trolls also won't be able to use just any tiny pistol etc., so we will limit certain items probably. 

Source.


Question: As a fan of the PnP game, I would like to know how close you are considering the to core D6 mechanics

We will not emulate the d6 system per se - it is used to simluate actions in the world some of which we don't need emulation for, some of which just work differently (like Actions/turn). We will stick close to it with regards to values, skills etc. but all things will be weighed versus the demands of an online game. Example: The PnP has realtively little progression for characters - they start relatively strong and they don't massivle advance (depends on your play style of course). For an online game, this would either mean little char progression or maxed out chars quickly. Both not a good choice. We think we will takle the base of the d6 system, but use it like Essence with things going 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 - so essentially we have values from 1 to 60, which are much better for us, since we can easily calculate incremental increases of chances as opposed to the PnP, where this would be a drag.

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Question: I won't install Unity. A plugin that 'phones home' without asking is a no no for me. What do you think about that?

Well, java and flash 'phone home' as well, so does your mobile, google, etc. In so far, I don't consider Unity extraordinary critical � especially since as a webplayer it doesn't send much more data than those linked to the systemperformance.

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Question: There's a new Unity version. Do you need to go back to the drawing board now? Or can the old engine be updated without problems for you guys?

nah, we have seen that one coming for a awhile...and it does also not currently work too well...so we will take some time to switch. doesn't mean much for our features, though

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Question: What will be the hardware requirements?

At minimum a 5 years old netbook should suffice.

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Question: [Will we see] destructible environments through gameplay?

partially

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Question: What will prevent people from powergaming and min-maxing?

Since Shadowrun Online is going to be a browsergame, balance adjustments can easily be made after launch. However, noone can stop min-maxers from min-maxing in general.

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Question: Isn't there a high risk of breaking the game if major content is added later on, making adjustments necessary (e.g. implementing Technomancers later on) - what are you planing to do about that?

any complex system is initially based on certain assumptions which may turn out to be false and balancing needs to be reworked. I wish we could say it won't happen, but that is going to be nigh impossible. I can say that we do try to anticipate new archetypes, but only time will tell how well we did.

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Question: I have been wondering how you are going to handle the servers: Will there be different servers for players to choose from? Will there be regional servers? Will Charnames be unique?

our servers will run globally - and names need to be unique, so first sangius to the mark wins. of course sangi_us, san giius and sngs all may have something to say about that

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Question: Will the enemies in SR:O actually be lootable?

our servers will run globally - and names need to be unique, so first sangius to the mark wins. of course sangi_us, san giius and sngs all may have something to say about that

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Question: Will we be able to carry objects around to use them as coverage? Will we able to move heavy objects around? Or throw little objects such as amu-clips at the enemy?

nice idea, but it would require a fully physics engine layer and play havok with our system. I rarely say that, but in this case: I don't see it happening anytime soon, I am afraid.

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Question: Will we be able to switch between over the head view and first person view? Play either one or play a little of both? Or will that wrack the gameplay?

It isn't so much a question of gameplay, but of graphics and performance - 1st person means MUCH more textures, which need to look great on close up. we cannot afford this in the browser, or maps would be much smaller...

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding Possible Future Developments & Participation of the Community (including the Music, Beta & some important dates):


Question: How flexible is the development environment? Is it likely that you will be able to easily expand or drastically change some aspects of the game after it has gone live?

We expect to constantly expand and hopefully improve the game throughout going live. That being said, we are very wary of drastic changes unless they are really necessary.

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Question: In terms of future expansions and goals would a client based MMO be a possibility?

I don't think client is a realistic choice. Competitive client games in this day and age cost upwards of 50 Million USD. Our game will be roughly 2% of that. And even that is ambitious (some may say crazy) to expect to gain up-front from fans.

Source.


Question: Will there be bigger expansions?

expansions will be permanently created- we do have an ongoing plot...

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Question: any chance we'll be able to write our own missions and play them with friends?

We will offer our players the chance to submit missions in contests which are then made into in-game missions, but we do not offer an editor (as all our stuff runs from a server, there are a lot of problems with user created content...).

Source.


Question: Why not make the mission-making tool/process free?

The problem is [mostly] with associated AI scripts and the way we can technically check for "valid" level maps. That isn't easy to automate and make accessible for a client. Not saying we don't like the idea, but we would probably wait with such an endeavor until we have a solid game and a good stream of income to warrant the amounts fo work it would take us.

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Question: Once more: Development tools for the players, please?!?!

Regarding tools - this is plannned once the game becomes more of a success, as making the tools secure and manageable is a bit of work. But we do want user input and have begun developing concepts for this.

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Question: you have the opportunity to use and incoporate the shadowrun fan base on to the game by giving them the chance to do something to improve the feeling of beeing in the sixth world...it would be an error not to use it...plus it will be free for you - right?

believe me we do really actually think about a peer reviewed system fro content cfreation of that kind. It is one of the more ambitious parts of our project. Will we find a solution? No telling yet...

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Question: is there any way to work together with you guys?

We will of course have a need for beta tester down the road as well ass forum mods we will select from our active members [...]. We actually plan for a lot of real community interaction down the line, but more on that when we are closer to making it reality.

Source.


Question: Is there any other way?

Cliffhanger is hiring! We're especially looking for C# programmers who will work on Shadowrun and other game projects in our development studio in Vienna/Austria. So if you're interested apply at [email protected].

http://www.cliffhanger-productions.com/jobs

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Question: What would be the best way for us Shadowrun fans to support the devs with this project? 

currently really spreading the word is the best we can get - this helps with leveraging money later as well as convincing investors...the more...the merrier

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Question: Is there any new call to arms yet?

For now we invite you to visit our Facebook page, where we regularly post small updates on the project (please make sure you �like� and share it with all your friends out there!) We are gearing up for a few surprises trying to self-publish SRO and working as close as we can with the backbone of the Shadowrun universe- namely you, the fans.  So do share the news with everyone as we can always use more support in our way forward.

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Question: I want a Closed Beta invite, pretty please?

CB is a bit of a way off still

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Question: Enough of this already. I want to play. When will the Beta start?

The Beta should start somewhen in 2012.

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Question: When can we expect to see the game in action? Are you launching it via a beta?

Well, we have just started pre-production, so beta is probably a year away, but we actually have sneaked in a Shadowrun mission map into the Jagged Alliance Online beta, which is starting soonish. Of course it won�t have the SRO gameplay, but at least it helps people imagine what the game would visually be like. The screens we have published are taken from that map. We are also thinking about crowdfunding a part of the game, so some people may get an earlier look if they support us in creating the game.

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Question: Can you tell us a bit about the feedback and input you are getting from the Shadowrun community? What sort of stuff have they been able to help with?

Currently we are very happy with people giving us suggestions and discussing the game at our forums. The fans we have so far have been excited about us trying and we are very open about the limitations of the game. Of course we would love to spend a hundred million on a big-ass game, but with our budget we need to make up what we lack in sheer manpower by good ideas and concepts. This seems to be something the fans can get behind � obviously everyone wants their favorite character or location in the game, but some stuff needs to be put off until after launch. Again, we are open about that and so far fans have been very understanding. Even the thorny subject of monetization has been approached with an open mind from both sides We also have created the Shadowrun High-Council of Elders (SHE), manned by writers, editor, artists and fan-project and community stalwarts to make sure we stick to the spirit of the setting and fit into the current storyline.

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Question: My question is about the audio. What direction are you taking? Will there be nods to old sound effects used like that scream I mentioned [from the old SNES game]? If I designed music that I felt captured the feel of Shadowrun could I submit it to you to use in the game if you saw fit?

we honestly haven't given too much thought to music yet - though we looked at the old SNES games, it isn't really a viable option with regards to audio quality (apart from copyright infringement issues). Do submit your suggestions, we don't have a composer in the team, so we are open for ideas.

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Question: There were musical suggestions now. You can find them in this thread. Is there any final decision yet?

We are very happy to hear more suggestions - we haven't got a sound artist on the team, so perhaps we can incorporate several of your suggestions.

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Question: What's the planned release date of SR:O?

the game is planned to be released somewhere between january and march 2013.

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[Sangius]

Questions regarding the Payment:


Question: Will the game be free-to-play?

The game will run on micro-transaction- so it is a free to play and lives by people paying for extra stuff.

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&

I still think it is the fairest model out there: You don't pay 50 bucks for a game that turns out be crap or only 4 hours long, you don't pay for months when you are not playing anymore (as in subscription based models) to keep your account. Of course many are designed in a way that you have to pay eventually to get full benefit of the game, but at that stage you have invested considerable time into a game - so apparently you liked it in some way.

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Question: i want hamburg in, and i could probably get about 50k togetheer . . what will that get me?

for that money we can get you in as a major NPC on top

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Question: I'm certain I'll be supporting the game through microtransactions, but please don't make the items expire, I avoid that on general principle.

We haven't made up our mind on item decay yet - malfunction chances and wear are part of the Shadowrun setting, so we will incorporate that to a degree.

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Question: What will microtransactions be used for?

monetization is more from accelerators and stuff that either makes youlife easier or you more pretty and shiny.)

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Question: any updates on the 'F2P vs Subscription based' discussion?

Regarding F2P vs Subscription based...we do look at various ideas how this could work out, but I remain convinced that a fair and good f2p system is possible .

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Question: Speaking about micro-transactions: How much will it propably cost us, if we want to be able to compete at the top?

On average, 20% of the players pay roughly 15 Euro per month in browsergames, which get money via micro-transitions.

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Question: Won't micro-transaction give an advantage to paying players?

Obviously. But Shadowrun Online will demand certain personal skills of the players as well and it is not about PvP only. PvE plays a big role too and there the whole group profits off the investment of the paying players � that way, even non-paying players can profit by the investment of others.

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Question: Still � the players who won't pay will have a disadvantage.

True. But on the other hand somebody who plays a lot and invest money deserves a certain advantage. I think it is important that the game offers other goals then just 'being the best'. For instance, there will be factions (e.g. Megacons and others) handing out missions. If those factions grow in influence, the scenarios change. I think the key is to give the individual players a goal to strieve for and link those personal achievements to bigger developments within the world of the game.

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Question: regarding the Free to Play model: In the "Item mall" you will undoubtedly utilize - will you be selling items that have game altering stats (such as weapons, armor, etc...), or will you be selling vanity items only?  Basically; will you be promoting the parasitic business model of "pay to win" that has infected so many other games on the market or do you plan on keeping the playing field even by rewarding players based on actual gameplay?

This question has been aslked a few times already and we had lengthy discussions about it. My stance is that: Of course we sell stuff you can get for in-game money. Why would a Shadowrunner NOT buy his equipment - and if he can get his hands at it, why wouldn't he by better equipment than anybody else.
As you have to earn money though missions this is not an issue I beleive.
Now some items you also need contacts, reputation etc. for and some you can buy but need skills to use (magic equipment, softs, drones spring to mind).
Now, if we allow people to downward exchange real money for in-game money, they can afford those items easier than a player who does not pay. The trick in my mind is to make sure they don't just power buy their way into winning. Thus many items require reputation to even get your hands on - and this has to be earned. Other require skills - and they have to be gained. Both happens by playing.
Also "better" items do not mean the super-duper weapon, but just: better than average for THAT power level. They could also mean: Higher durability, less chance of misfire etc. not automatically more damage.

So all in all: This is not a black and white question: We want to motivate players to pay- in essence they will be allowed to exchange a limited amount of money for a limited amount of time they do not need to invest. The trick is to make it easier for people to reach a similar level of power, not to outbuy others
Why is thisn fair in my mind? Because some people can afford to put in work and time (stundents may have more than a fully employed single father with three kids), some can afford to put in money and less time - and both should have equal chances.

And lastly we are also thinking about offering freemium as well - so you pay for content progression instead of items, essentiually buying into continued play.

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Question: it really is a black and white question once you cut through all of the conjecture and I appreciate you taking the time to answer it.  It's just a question not easily answered due to the balance of trying to maintain the product, net a profit, and satisfy players with a rich enough environment that they gloss over some of the shortcomings that invariably always manifests within perpetual gaming products.  It's a tough order to meet, [isn't it?]

Thank you for the well worded and thoughtful reply - we are in fact not totally immune to arguments, which is why I mentioned freemium as anotheroption to monetize - especially for those who are willing to pay, but do want equal footing for all based on merit.
I think it is indeed a question of balancing, but it of course it is also a question of preferences- some poeple mind more than others. Let's finish the discourse for now, as we are indeed far from the point where either position can be argued in relation to the game and just say, that we are acutely aware of the position which seems to be strong among SR fans (and has also been strong amongts JAO fans) and as long as we are making enough money another way  I have little emotional attachment to F2P

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Question: I think: those who have the willingness to put forth the effort should be capable of everything that people with money can do. Do you agree?

Well,
from a developers point the questions is easily answered: We need to make enough money to sustain oursleves and a team creating new content. And pay back whatever investor we may find.
How we do that I really have no particualr prefernce for, so we are going with: What works best for the target group.
Many here and in other discussion have expressed their feelings toward "item selling". In my mind there are a few simple roads to go:
- pay to play - so subscriptioon or download. This reduces the number of initial plasers by something like 70% to 80% and make sit very hard to get anyone outside the core group of players. It could be an option for a seperate server perhaps, though-
- freemium - play until you run into a block. This may be contentwise (cannot get to Berlin unless you pay to unlock) or as in WoT with regards to functionality (limited team size, limited tanks types etc.)
- virtual items- this can be anything from only vanity items to power selling.

The latter is the one you can have the most widespread of consequences from. If you only sell time vs money (so you sell stuff anyone can get, but you need to grind for or you sell accelerators like Karma Bonus or Qucik Heal etc.) I still believe it is the fairest model and it does fit wel with the Shadowrun paradigm.

Let me say one thing- we really wouldn't want to alienate our potential fan base - but the bottom line needs to work as well. So any middle ground we can find, will be where we want to stay

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Question: The idea of competing against others who can just spend real cash to go from "power" below or ahead of me in just a few minutes is not very appealing. I'd like to have the option of not being in that environment. Will that be possible?

if we have several payment models we have several servers.

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Question: I'd be fine if the advantages that one could pay for don't benefit you in a PvP environment. I have no problem with some guy buying the Golden Gun for his character, so long as he can't use it against mine. What do you think about that?

PvP should always be voluntary and we could easily offer "No premium item" PvP matches, so the pumped up guys can dish it out in their own arena

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Question: Why don't you just go pay to play or play to start?

pay to play or even pay to start kills the vast majority of potential users from the get go. It does put the remaining people on equal footing, but it isn't really a good model if you are looking for a good number of players unless you have tons of marketing pushing people into buying the game.
F2P done well is still the best option in my mind - how to do it well is an entirely different kettle of mutated three eyed fish

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[Sangius]

Questions that didn't fit anywhere else:


Question: What can you tell us to scare away the evil spirit of the recent xbox 'shadowrun' game?

it is nothing like the xbox game.

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Question: I played WoW for a few years, and I recently started EVE Online. I reckon an approach somewhere between the two would be nothing short of monumental. Can we except something of that sort?

well, we are considerably more modest in our approach. both EVE and WoW are monumental games with millions of dollars spent from day one.
No matter how much we would love to go big on this, we have not even 2% of what these games cost. But we still aim to capture the spirit of the game and give you some good challenging gameplay. [...] We want to [...] make up in gameplay what we can't have in graphics and sheer size 

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&

We are not doing a full fledged client based MMO, I am afraid, as this would be beyond our meagre means and also almost all big client based futuristic RPGs have failed commercially, so it is a BIG risk. So it means our game will not be huge, shiny and it will not aim to build the 6th world brick by brick for you to experience. That being said, if anyone has 60 to 70 million dollars lying around unused looking for an investment opportunity, we are happy to reconsider.

Instead we intend to focus on the more tactical parts of the game and we will do a browser based game with small team gameplay (either alone or with others), more in the tradition of Baldur's Gate crossed with Jagged Alliance - with more firepower.

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Question: you say you want to do a "game with small team gameplay (either alone or with others), more in the tradition of Baldur's Gate crossed with Jagged Alliance - with more firepower. ". This sounds a tad like that little sidegame for Dragonage. Is that a workable assumption of what you have planned?

We actually want to have a more tactical approach - since we are currently doing a Jagged Alliance Online game, we thought Shadowrun could be a natural extension. We plan on social mechanics to allow you to play with and support friends directly and indirectly, but by and large it will be a coregamer kind of game.

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Question: What did the first Shadowrun Online newsletter say about the game itself?

The game will feature two major parts � the action map, where you (and your friends) do missions from stealthily infiltrating a secret Renraku research facility to punching the lights out of a major Aztechnology outpost with guns blazing. Hacking, magic and gunfights are all part of that and will be done simultaneously (so nobody needs to go for pizza while your hacker battles Black ICE for two hours).
The second part will be the legwork and mission preparation. This will happen on a city overview map, where you can try and use your contacts, skills or resources to gain info on the mission goal, acquire blueprints, bribe guards or prepare the right soft or spell for your endeavor. This will be closer to rolling the dice on an action and getting a short narrated outcome. Each of those actions will cost action points (and if you want to get better odds you may want to spend more action points on a specific objective).
So if you don�t have the time for an extended session, you may just want to spend a couple of AP to prepare and make sure you get the most out of your mission when you actually want to tackle it.

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Question: why not do a non-online game with a real story and such, in the vein of the old Genesis and Super Nintendo games (if you do not know them, give them a try, they're free for download someplaces)? I'm not judging (well, trying to), and a "the revenue from online games is far better and we don't have the ressources to fund a more traditional game" answer is okay too.

pretty much what you said - plus who says we don't want story?

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Question: Will it be like mafia wars(get erritory, get ressource, upgrade, get more territory, upgrade, lose it to somebody else), or something more in the direction of RPG?

No, Mafia Wars is basically - for all its inherent cleverness and the healthy professional respect I have for a game plaid and paid for by milions - a "click button to move bar" game. We actually intend to do a 'real' game.

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Question: What can we expect when it comes to single-player PvE?

we will have a large single player PvE part - for Jagged Alliance we plan for 150 missions at launch, which can be played singleplayer or co-op.

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Question: Will there be nerps in the game?

no telling...nerps are an elusive thing 

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Question: An official Facebook page for Cliffhanger Productions or/and Shadowrun Online would be awesome !! Have you guys ever though about it?

we are working on it

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Question: What about an official SR:O homepage?

[There's a] upcoming SRO webpage.

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Question: What's the exact deal on the licence?

we licesend from Smith and Tinker, they licensed from Microsoft. We have limited rights for our game only.

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Question: Did Cliffhanger give permission to continue development [of http://awakenedmmo.org/] since Microsoft said it was okay earlier?

No, we haven't given explicit permission, but we don't beleve in killing fan projects as a principle. They have been on that for long enough, who are we to say they should stop?

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Question: Aren't browsergames lame and repitive?

Todays browsergames aren't necessarily extremly linear and repitive anymore. The good ones might be rare, but those look similar to the PC games five to ten years ago � and there were some damn good ones amongst those.

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Question: Who develops Shadowrun Online?

We got our own private team of developers which is currently working on Jagged Alliance Online.

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Question: How does the financing look?

We are still in the process of acquaring capital, however we are talking to some very interested parties.

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Question: Any news on the publishing front?

We are [...] trying to self-publish SRO

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Question: How did you come to be developing a Shadowrun game? What was the motivation for picking the licence?

Actually many of us are long time pen and paper players and when we thought about the future for our company and which games we would like to do, we decided to try and become the top address for high quality rpg and strategy browsergames (and no, to us that is not a contradiction in terms) and reached out to a number of companies. Shadowrun and Deadlands were available and we are still in talk with others. It took as almost a year to get the license signed and paid for, but here we are now. We think the Shadowrun setting lends itself so well to a computer game that we had to do it. And also, I wanted my Troll character to be able blast away some of those pointy eared posers in 3D.

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Question: Can you tell us a bit about how it�s going to work? You�ve said it�s a browser-based game, but can we have a bit more detail about how that will work?

The game will be a tactical action RPG in isometric 3D, with emphasis on the RPG part. The game will feature two major parts � the action map, where a runner group executes missions and the meta game, with a city map where the legwork mission take place and the hubs are and your own upgradable hideout, where mission preparations, crafting of software and character management takes place .

Actions map mission can range from infiltration -where raising the alarm usually means you are swarmed by guards- to all out shootouts, taking out a supernatural critter or defusing a bomb. There are several of the classic Shadowrun archetypes available of course.

City maps will feature legwork mission locations, where you basically apply your skills or contacts and sort of roll the dice to see whether you succeed � this is more of a text-window narration that may unlock new action missions, provide necessary items like the code cards for a corporate facility or allow you to smuggle in rifles to an action mission, which usually only allows small, concealable weapons.

The plot will actually evolve over time based on player actions � so for example, a mission may be about getting an item for one of two corporations. If more people win this mission for Corp A, then the next time we update the storyline, this corp will have that item and new plot developments follow from this. We are looking very much forward to using mechanics like this, which is where the strength of a browser game comes in � we can update anytime without forcing people to do huge downloads and we can produce new content much quicker than the big client based games.

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Question: How much is what you are doing with the game based on the engine you�ve made for Jagged Alliance Online? Will they play similarly?

Well, the technical base is similar as will be some of the core mechanics for the turn based game � but while JAO is all about running a group of mercs and tactically overcoming the opposition, SRO will focus on one character per player, more roleplaying and have a lot more interaction with the environment, hacking, magic and infiltration. We will have smaller groups but more fireworks!

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