Idea-pitching thread!

[Sangius]

I'll post a series of ideas now and the postings will be of the TLDR-kind (too long didn't read). So only give them a shot if you have some sparetime at your disposal. That said, here we go:

"Flashback Missions"

This idea was actually raised first by Decivre in the context of a question of mine about time- and storylines in this posting.
I know primetide is already aware of it, but I thought this thread wouldn't be complete without them being mentioned and wanted to offer some additional thoughts about those missions. And one of my other ideas is linked to it.

What we are talking about
For those who are too lazy to check out the original thread, here's the general idea: Although the game is set to play in the current timeline, it would still be ace to be able to replay historical events of the SR-universe

Ingame implementation
I think the logical approach to explain why people are able to play scenarios taking place decades before the 'normal' timeframe they are usually playing in would be to sell it as a sort of sim-sine technology. We wouldn't actually play our characters, but premade historical characters, which should even make the whole feeling even more epic � after all, who wouldn't want to play Carl Combatmage once. There are already runs being provided via sim-sense in the SR-universe (see Carl Combatmage and the likes) and it is surely conceivable that there would be some sort of sim-sense chips about historical events � just like we have documentaries today staring people clothing like a roman emperor, trying to show what ancient rome must have been like. Just a lot more sophisticated.

Reward
Fun. No, quite honestly: if you chip, you won't get paid - you might even have to pay. However, one could think about actually granting a very low amount of karma to everyone playing the whole scenario. For one, it could simply give an achievement, which would make it logical in terms of game-mechanic. Then karma very often is granted in the SR-universe for experiencing something special the first time � for example meeting a dragon. Now, if you meet that dragon via sim-sense, it's not quite the same thing, but on the other hand if you played a million sim-sense chips of snipers, it's likely for you to have gained some very basic understanding on how to use a sniperrifle. Thus, I think it would not be absolutely bogus to claim that the chars actually learn something replaying the origin of the renraku arcology disaster. And last but not least: it would be a bit of a shame to have developers work on these scenarios and then knowing all those progress-driven players won't play them because "it's just lore-stuff". You could link those chips to character progress-tiers as well, preventing to have players abuse them as a safe way to level their char. I think tho that it would already be a reward in itself to be able to play some of the most famous characters in the SR-universe. And there is another neat thing about this: People who just started could be offered a sim-sense in which they play a rather strong character. Seeing what they will be able to do later on in the game might motivate them � and at the same time people could try playing different Archetypes (Mage, Hacker, Sam) which could help them to pick other characters they might want to play. I guess almost everyone who ever played MMORPGs knows what I mean: You do not know how a character will play in the endgame. Thus, you will sometimes find yourself disappointed when you reach the endgame content and see that you made a wrong choice somewhere. It would be truely neat to be able to simply click on a scenario-button and instantly be able to try out different chars on an already developed powerlevel.

Advantages on CP's side

I think, too, one can make a good point to argue that it's reasonable for CP to implement these scenarios � although it's of course their decision and I think they'll know better what to prioritize in the development than an enthusiastic fan .

Anyhow, I think the work that would need to be invested might actually not be that much: you would have to go through the important lore events (we could even have a vote here which events are most demanded for starters), check whether they might be available via sim-sense (and that includes some rogue-underground-sim-sense made by some people around Rhonin fighting the corporate-propaganda and trying to spread the truth about the arcology shutdown � I am just mentioning this to illuminate that it's not like these sim-sense chips would need to be part of the public knowledge or the mass-medias � they could be underground in nature, but most Runners do 'worse' things than downloading unpopular sim-sense chips) and then take the already developed plots and characters, put them ingame and be done with it. Should there ever be some inaccuracies in the scenarios, one could even claim it was a mistake done by the people producing the sim-sense

I think it would add greatly to the motivation of the veteran SR-gamers, as well as offering a decent way to introduce players who are new to the SR-universe to the Lore involved there.

[Sangius]

Some more thoughts about PvP-Content

I have been thinking about PvP too and wondered, what sort of PvP might appear organic to the SR-universe. For one, there are the competitionary scenarios mentioned by primetide (and picked up by Decivre). Those are a good idea and might offer a lot of variety. However, primetide, too, mentioned some sort of arena-like PvP and I think I actually came up with an idea how to present it:

Arena PvP
I am not sure whether this is the right translation, but I think I remember a bloodsport called 'Urban War' described in one of the older SR editions. It was basically about two teams of fighters slaughtering each other for (audience) ratings. This could be a direct and credible way of explaining why two teams should just meet with the sole purpose of killing each other off. You could create some nice Urban-scenario-maps and things would hopefully more or less run by themselves. Now, I have been thinking about two more options for PvP, one being more unlikely than the other:

Desert Wars
Well, I think we all know what I am talking about � there have even been Sourcebooks about this. This could be another possible PvP scenario. Either you would take smaller teams, then it'd be pretty much the same like Arena PvP, just with a different setting which would add variety ... ooooor ... you would take the millions of Euro that SR:O will hopefully earn CP, get crazy mainframes and programers and actually pick up on the big, military dimension of Desert Wars, featuring more than just a dozen characters at once. The idea came to me when I thought about the sim-sense downloads that were offered from Urban Wars fighters and the before-mentioned throwback missions . You could actually use it as a PvE scenario as well and it would be a good way to offer some sort of a PvP/PvE campaign, with the characters picking the con they want to fight for and shifting the course of the Desert Wars season over time. And you would not need to be afraid of dying there either: In both PvP scenarios you could either play via sim-sense (which is a bit lame if you could be playing your characters too) or, which is better, just offer extra easy revives for dead characters � after all, if you taking part in Urban/Desert Wars scenarios, you are likely to be seriously hurt � on the other hand it's very likely there will be a team of medics nearby too which are specifically trained for victims of these kinds of 'sports'.

Combat-biking
Last but not least ... Combat-biking. I know this is even less likely to happen and I am actually not that crazy about it at all, but it might be a nice way to actually use the engine you would have to develop later on to feature vehicles as a means of transportation and I know there is a part of the SR-community that is pretty hyped about that fictitious sport. But I know that this is a feature that will definitely not make it into release. I just thought I'd add it as a possible, cool PvP-Scenario.


Tournaments
Now, since I put a focus on sports activities in this posting (mainly as PvP scenarios, but partly even as PvE ones), I thought I'd suggest one more things: Tournaments / Seasons. The latter could be used to  monitor the progress, for example, in a Desert/Urban Wars campaigns and at the end of the season extra awards could be granted to the player with the most kills, the team with the most wins, the leading team of each con, etc. Same goes for PvP seasons. And, last but not least there could be tournaments: Even MMOs which need a subscription to pay sometimes offer tournaments as special-payment services. So I think it would be a logical choice for SR:O too. People could pay a few euro via micro-transactions, the money would be entered in a pot and in the end, each highranking winning team would earn a few % of the pot, the rest going to CP. Relatively easy money, people could win some money (and that one could even just be uploaded to their micro-transactions account again, meaning they will spend the money on SR:O content) which might give a huge boost to motivation.


PS: I actually don't like PvP, but ... well, the better it gets, the less-bad I will feel about doing it .

[Sangius]

Clan-Support

The last posting for tonight from my side deals with the social aspect of the game. As far as I know it's planned to have something like Clans / Teams / Guilds in the game when it gets published. Now, what I saw in a few games is that those games actually offer some support for these kind of groups of players besides the usual chat: Advertisement tools, some way of representation ingame (an infoboard or something alike) and sometimes even ingame forums. Since I think the ingame-forums idea wasn't turned down yet, it would even be organic to the game: After all, any group of runners could create some sub-forum on Shadowland as far as I remember and use it communicate. It makes things easier for players and doesn't add a lot of trouble for the company � so I think it would be a good thing to do. This is by no means everything that could be done (e.g. there could be a supplied voice-chat), but I wanted to bring up the ingame forums idea first and foremost, feel free to add anything if you come up with it.

[Sangius]

It's a tough call tho: Either you severely limit the character progression, or you risk to reach a point where everyone has maxed out everything and then the motivation might diminish as well.

I got a few ideas that I will post later today, I hope at least one of them might be a good thing to have directly at start.

You are severely underestimating the money market, though. Nuyen is the common motivator for continuing to play, and it probably will be; especially if they actually have lifestyle mechanics in the game. Even in the tabletop game, advancement tends to be very slow in Shadowrun. Chances are that players will be vets of the tabletop game, and will probably keep playing due to the aspects that appeal to Shadowrun players. I just hope they can fulfill those.

I am not sure whether I am severely underestimating the money market and neither can you - only time and balance would tell. I guess it really depends on the powerlevel and nature of the campaign you are playing. We, for example, played a campaign of SWAT-policemen ones. Good relations with our superiors were far more important than money: we were living in barracks, the augmentations would be paid by the department if we were doing a good job, plus we couldn't have afforded them ourselves at all off our wages. I have been playing a Sam too that has been living in the Orc Underground in Seattle and didn't want to move out of there thus being limited as to how much of a standard of living was possible down there. He, too, only used very basic equipment and as the wages rose and our elven mage bought his second sports car, I could actually start to throw money at guards because I found myself without a real thrive to spend it otherwise. In almost all MMOs I have been playing, getting the ingame commodity never was the biggest challenge / goal. I mean there are some grindy games, I assume, but most of the MMOs today let you run for special drops/boss kills since getting ingame money is simply a matter of investing time. That is, of course, if you do not impose limits of some sort.
That is not to say Nuyen won't matter, even in my mind, I am just saying I am not sure whether that itself will keep up a long-term motivation for most.

/edit for typo ... boy it's late ... no wait, it's early again.

[Dimetime]

I think that if order for Nuyen to maintain some serious value there is a need for other than lifestyle maintenance to draw from it. Primetide mentioned Foci degrading in the technmancer thread. That's a good idea and I think that many other items should be evaluated to see if they can have a "degradation effect" applied to them that is plausible and that draw upon Nuyen as their counter.

Nuyen needs needing.

[Sangius]

The SOTA-rules to keep software updated come to mind, again.

[Decivre]

I think that if order for Nuyen to maintain some serious value there is a need for other than lifestyle maintenance to draw from it. Primetide mentioned Foci degrading in the technmancer thread. That's a good idea and I think that many other items should be evaluated to see if they can have a "degradation effect" applied to them that is plausible and that draw upon Nuyen as their counter.

Nuyen needs needing.

If there's one thing that I've learned from Shadowrun, it's that a running group never has enough money. As one of my players once said: "Until I can afford to rain Thor shots on the planet without cutting too deep into my weekly allowance, I haven't made enough money to be satisfied".

[Stahlseele]

The SOTA-rules to keep software updated come to mind, again.

No.
No no no no no!

[Sangius]

The SOTA-rules to keep software updated come to mind, again.

No.
No no no no no!

Hah, that campaign was truely one where I could never run out of [need for] money. Maybe you'd have to modify them, but it's sort of in the spirit of the degrading gear idea. Although I am not sure whether I am crazy about that one in general.

[DarkLloyd]

I think that if order for Nuyen to maintain some serious value there is a need for other than lifestyle maintenance to draw from it. Primetide mentioned Foci degrading in the technmancer thread. That's a good idea and I think that many other items should be evaluated to see if they can have a "degradation effect" applied to them that is plausible and that draw upon Nuyen as their counter.

Nuyen needs needing.

Uhm, NO. Should I ever manage to get the cash (150,000Y) and Karma (48) to buy and bond that lvl 6 Power focus, if it just goes away because items "degrade" there will be problems. I mean violent ones.
Now, so as not to be one of those people that just rail at the system and not add to the discourse, CH could put in the "Critical Glitch" rules. But instead of the "GM" deciding what happens, whatever item you were using is broken and possibly repairable (guns and norm gear) or knocked offline until futzed with (cyber, foci, programs. offline would mean it's unusable for this game session and then needs some maintenance). Both of which would cost nuyen to take care of.

[ghostmode]

I agree with DarkLloyd, Degrading is kinda bunk. If you earned something valuable it should not just go away. Maintenance seems like a better option. Maybe even represented as a bump to the lifestyle charge per item per month(SOTA). Which leads me to something else-

Connecting lifestyle with to the rep/faction/social aspects of the game might be really cool.


Lets say your CH starts doing runs for the Yakuza and after he's earned some rep with them(directly through completed missions, or indirectly by going against the Yaks enemies independently[maybe?]) ...

after a certain Rep Level is achieved the Boss offers you a "made" position which grants you the benefit of a particular hookup(cyber, magic, software, etc.) up to a certain amount for free(sort of)... your position might even get you a sort of salary instead of pay per run for as long as you were affiliated... it would also make their enemies your enemies(- Rep with so and so) and their friends your friends (+ Rep with so and so) ...

now lets say the CH decides to sever this connection via communication or action... this could incur a debt on the CH's lifestyle until paid in full ( and - Rep) or the Yaks take it out of his virtual hide(random encounter with Yak Hit squad, if CH refuses to pay right then, battle ensues and CH is then "hunted").

This would make for some interesting team dynamics(keep getting hit by the Yaks) if you're fellow runners weren't aware of this negative rep(though they could find out through legwork with their contacts).

Another thing I was thinking about PvP is having Bounties (earned by Negative Rep against a particular faction) this idea could be represented by having an on/off option for PvP Challengers. If off, more faction encounters until they capture/kill the CH. Or if on, other players of a similar level can take a bounty hunting run from the faction and engage the bounty.. the challenger appears as a random encounter between runs.

I'd love to see these

[ghostmode]

Also, Flashback missions Via Chip. +1 

[Dimetime]

I agree with DarkLloyd, Degrading is kinda bunk. If you earned something valuable it should not just go away. Maintenance seems like a better option. Maybe even represented as a bump to the lifestyle charge per item per month(SOTA).
...

That's pretty much what I just said. Items can degrade through use which require Nuyen to maintain/repair thus given Nuyen actual value.

[primetide]

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.

[Thomas P.]

In real life weapons degrade and cost money to maintain/fix. For example, if you want to swing your Katana on every run then it will naturally get knicks and knacks on the cutting edge. That doesn't mean the blade is useless but it certainly could lead to a "blunt" edge if you never take care of it and perhaps at one point it will not cut through that Orcs armor next time (critical glitch chance increased?).

The blade has to be maintained (Sharpening of the Blade, Oiling, Powdering, etc) and so do other weapons. As Primetide said, a "small" repair (cost) is probably the way to go in order to keep your weapons working as intended. Additionally, maybe more exotic weapons could require special skill or contacts due to the fact that repairing such an exotic items requires special hard to get parts etc. Just an idea.

Thomas P.