New and a few questions

[Laughing Man]

I must say i'm quite delighted by the perspective of a SR online game, especialy after reading the FAQ and the orientation the devs want to give the game.
I have a few questions that maybe some of you guys/gals around could answer
- 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 ...
- Do you own some rights over part of Earthdawn license in terms of story ?
- 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 ...)
- Will missions be randomly generated ? Will they be replayable ?
- You talked about reputation as a "ressource", it's really great, but what about "street cred" and "notoriety" ? I liked the idea of having "high level" characters being forced to stay low after too many successfull runs ... and people not wanting to work with them because of relation with undesirable entities (never, ever deal with a dragon !)
- 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 ...

Thanks for any answers

[Sangius]

Just wanting to add to the last point: I know a few online games where the forums are bound into ingame. It worked quite well for them and I think it would be great fun to have your char sit down, log in and see shadowland built up.

[Urza]

I like this idea, and with the Matrix an integral part of the game it will certainly fit right in.  However, I only want it if there's not much effort involved for the devs.  Doesn't take much to have a second window open for the forums.

[Laughing Man]

I'm thinking about ingame forums, where your handle is your char's ingame nickname, where what you post can have in game consequences.
The idea is to create a true sense of comunity, like what can be seen in SR's handbooks.
Would be great to have for exemple a guide on a particular area / quest / storyline that is posted on those forums, with comments from both the community and the dev staff ... (for exemple a dev staff posting as a Lone Star officer saying "thanks for those reports, will fix that security leak")
Well, if you've read a few SR pnp handbooks, you'll understand what i mean

[Sangius]

Yep. The question is tho how you keep the OP knowledge of some out (smth like "here, i'll tell you all what is behind the whole universal brotherhood thing" would really have destroyed the story line ) and IRL stuff ("hey, what do you think why i can't hit on girls so well" shouldn't be a legitimate question from an elf decker with 200+ karma ... atleast not in ten threads a day )... so some healthy moderation would be needed, i suppose. Or you just have to live with stuff like that that destroys the roleplay feeling a bit again.

[Laughing Man]

First, you'll never avoid people spoiling secrets about the world.
That's the internet.
But if said secrets could give you an advantage if not a lot of people are in the known, then it would incite people not to spoil too much ...
Regarding dating coments from a random player, well, that would be still ingame : when you read some show posts in the various books, a few are totaly stupid, on purpose.
Also, some coments could appear off subject to most, but actually very interesting (like in a tir book where people talk about Erhan and someone says "i have socks in my drawer older than his" ...)

[shadoes]

The problem with having the same handle in game as on the boards these days is also one of security. I have lost count of the number of games I have seen hacked because forum handles matched. It has become a very good practice to make sure they do not match.

And also if we are allowed multiple characters which one gets the forum handle?

[Sangius]

*bump to be answered*

[primetide]

I must say i'm quite delighted by the perspective of a SR online game, especialy after reading the FAQ and the orientation the devs want to give the game.
I have a few questions that maybe some of you guys/gals around could answer
- 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 ...
- Do you own some rights over part of Earthdawn license in terms of story ?
- 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 ...)
- Will missions be randomly generated ? Will they be replayable ?
- You talked about reputation as a "ressource", it's really great, but what about "street cred" and "notoriety" ? I liked the idea of having "high level" characters being forced to stay low after too many successfull runs ... and people not wanting to work with them because of relation with undesirable entities (never, ever deal with a dragon !)
- 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 ...

Thanks for any answers

have a cast on my hand, so typing is a bit difficult, but here goes:
1) More Punk than SR4, visually, storywise we will have a good mix, I hope.
2) nope
3) 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.)
4) 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
5) we are still working on the different reputations and how they interact...
6) we have mid term plans for this-initally it will very much belimited to our website, but later on we look forsomethuing more permeable...

[Laughing Man]

Thanks for your answers
Pretty sad about 2) and the possible impact on the meta plot 
I'm really looking forward to play your game

[primetide]

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.

[Laughing Man]

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.

Good to know I was really sad to see SR4 forgetting about the whole IE/GD thing in their setting ...
May i suggest a mission to retrieve the oldest pair of socks in the world ?