Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter is UP!

[Orogun01]

They need more donations to make a new campaign for Shadowrun Returns?

 

They ought to at least do a kickstarter for a real cyberpunk RPG without magic or Tolkien races or dragons magically appearing out of the ether at the advent of the supposed Mayan "apocalypse" (as interpreted by Christians, who of course take pagan calendars as legitimate as canon scripture.)

Gibson plz go away.

[Elerond]

 

 

 

Maybe if it goes way overboard and they run out of goals they will do something else.

2.5 million stretch goal - Scrap the game and make a linear first person shooter with massive setpieces and an overabundance of QTEs instead. 

Nah. Action FPS-RPG with TWO branches.

Dating simulator with qte sex scenes and plenty of SJ issues.

 

 

so new game from David Cage

[marelooke]

 

 

 

 

Maybe if it goes way overboard and they run out of goals they will do something else.

2.5 million stretch goal - Scrap the game and make a linear first person shooter with massive setpieces and an overabundance of QTEs instead. 

 

Nah. Action FPS-RPG with TWO branches.

 

Dating simulator with qte sex scenes and plenty of SJ issues.

 

 

so new game from David Cage

 

I think you got your Davids mixed up Trololol

[Elerond]

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe if it goes way overboard and they run out of goals they will do something else.

2.5 million stretch goal - Scrap the game and make a linear first person shooter with massive setpieces and an overabundance of QTEs instead. 

 

Nah. Action FPS-RPG with TWO branches.

 

Dating simulator with qte sex scenes and plenty of SJ issues.

 

 

so new game from David Cage

 

I think you got your Davids mixed up Trololol

 

 

[take all what is said seriously mode on]

David Cage's games are heavily based on QTEs including sex scenes that are controlled with them and their stories have lots of stuff that is classified as Social Justice (woman as central role with high advocacy, talking about problems that minorities face in their lives, rising issues in governmental and corporal control over people and assets, rising environmental issues and spiritualism, etc.), even though issues and representation of sexual minorities don't usually play any role in them, which is probably thing that you have in mistake reduced SJ only to mean. I would guess that your mistake is based on how EA/Bioware has decided to represent sexual minorities in some of their games, basing on that fact that you suggests that I have mixed David Cage to David Garner, who is EA/Bioware's lead writer in their Dragon Age franchise, but who has quite little responsibility in that fact that there are sexual minorities and homosexual romances in DA games, although I guess that people think that he has lot more to do with that because he identifies himself gay and don't hide that fact. 

[take all what is said seriously mode off]

 

 

[rjshae]

They need more donations to make a new campaign for Shadowrun Returns?

 

They ought to at least do a kickstarter for a real cyberpunk RPG without magic or Tolkien races or dragons magically appearing out of the ether at the advent of the supposed Mayan "apocalypse" (as interpreted by Christians, who of course take pagan calendars as legitimate as canon scripture.)

 

Their pitch is that they need more donations to make a better campaign than they would have otherwise. An alternative would be for them to go to a publisher and stop being an indie. Not sure that would be a good thing, either for them or for us.

 

There are real cyberpunk RPGs available, so what you are proposing is nothing novel. CD Project Red is supposed to be working on Cyberpunk 2077. Likewise, we also have the existing Deus Ex series. At least SRR provides a little variety to the mix.

[Hurlshort]

They need more donations to make a new campaign for Shadowrun Returns?

 

They ought to at least do a kickstarter for a real cyberpunk RPG without magic or Tolkien races or dragons magically appearing out of the ether at the advent of the supposed Mayan "apocalypse" (as interpreted by Christians, who of course take pagan calendars as legitimate as canon scripture.)

 

This might just be my inner middle schooler who fell in love with Shadowrun 25 years ago speaking, but go back to the valley, poser!  

[Keyrock]

They ought to at least do a kickstarter for a real cyberpunk RPG without magic or Tolkien races or dragons magically appearing out of the ether at the advent of the supposed Mayan "apocalypse" (as interpreted by Christians, who of course take pagan calendars as legitimate as canon scripture.)

Someone obviously has never played or even heard of Shadowrun.  The mix of magic and near future tech, combined with corporate espionage and tongue in cheek humor, is what makes the setting fun.  If you want Dark and Gritty™ Cyberpunk, that exists (oddly enough, called Cyberpunk), and CDPR is making a game in that setting.  If you're looking for Dark and Gritty™ in Shadowrun, you won't find much of it, that's not what Shadowrun is about, chummer.

[Darkpriest]

None of the higher level rewards look particularly interesting. They seem to be steering away from physical goods; probably for good reason yes, and yet... a t-shirt, laptop sticker, or mouse pad would be nice.

 

because physical goods can take quite an amount of money when you need to produce them, and then deliver on their own cost. Not to mention all the other logistic hurdles.

[daveyd]

I'm so stoked for this!   Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut was my GOTY for 2014.  In fact, it's one of the best CRPGs I've played in a long, long time.   I want to see SR: HK be even bigger / better.      I'm hoping that they are able to add more of the frequently requested features like Stealth and Astral Plane as future stretch goals.     Seriously wish I could spare $10K, because if there's one developer that has proven they deserve it, it's this one.  

[Gfted1]

...because if there's one developer that has proven they deserve it, it's this one.

Agreed. Out of the three KS project that I backed (SRR, PoE, D:OS), SRR was the most fun for me by a huge margin. I purchased Dragonfall but never played it and Ill most likely wait for SR:HK to hit Steam before I buy it.

[rjshae]

 

None of the higher level rewards look particularly interesting. They seem to be steering away from physical goods; probably for good reason yes, and yet... a t-shirt, laptop sticker, or mouse pad would be nice.

 

because physical goods can take quite an amount of money when you need to produce them, and then deliver on their own cost. Not to mention all the other logistic hurdles.

 

Right, but if they do it correctly it will result in a net positive income. But I suppose developers aren't good at that sort of thing; it should really be outsourced.

[daveyd]

 

 

None of the higher level rewards look particularly interesting. They seem to be steering away from physical goods; probably for good reason yes, and yet... a t-shirt, laptop sticker, or mouse pad would be nice.

 

because physical goods can take quite an amount of money when you need to produce them, and then deliver on their own cost. Not to mention all the other logistic hurdles.

 

Right, but if they do it correctly it will result in a net positive income. But I suppose developers aren't good at that sort of thing; it should really be outsourced.

 

 

Part of the problem is it's especially difficult to estimate production costs when you don't know what the final print run will be... Generally the cost per unit will go down the larger the print run, but if HBS opens up a T shirt tier for example, they have no way of knowing how many backers will end up picking it.   So let's say they have to assume worst case scenario. i.e., that only a very small number of backers will pick the tshirt.  Then they have to charge a lot for it to make sure they are still going to end up getting a net positive that they can actually apply towards the game's development... So let's say they have to set the tshirt tier at $50 to be on the safe side... Well, how many people are going to pledge $50 for a t shirt?  Probably not a lot, so they likely won't get many pledges for it...

 

So what's the point?   Making a handful of people "happy" that they can get an overpriced T-shirt, and not really bringing in a significant amount of money to put into the game's development.  

 

Physical rewards are just a huge headache.  Sure, they can hire an outside company to produce and ship each reward, but that also costs money... And then what happens when one of the outside companies screws up?  HBS has to handle it or have a bunch of angry backers... In the first campaign, the company that produced the USB dog tags screwed up and shipped defective USBs.  HBS had to ship out replacement USBs to anyone that reported that they got a defective one.  

 

Then there's the fact that some dishonest people will take advantage of the situation.. Claim they got the wrong size t-shirt or that it was damaged in shipment, etc... But HBS had to appease them by spending more money sending a replacement to avoid looking like greedy jerks who don't care about their customers / supporters.

 

Not to mention, physical rewards mess up the perception people have of the campaign.  For instance, I've heard that roughly 1/3 of the funds raised in the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter ended up going towards fulfillment of the physical rewards...    Which means after KS fees, taxes, and KS rewards, HBS probably had to develop SRR on less than a $1 million budget.  Yet a lot of people look at the Kickstarter and say "Oh they had almost $2 million to develop the game..."  Sure these people are idiots but they influence others so you end up with a distorted expectations of what the game should be like... I saw so many people saying the game was too short "for a $2 million game" or why couldn't feature X have been within their "$2 million budget"., etc.  

In a nutshell, I fully understand and support HBS decision to keep physical rewards to a minimum.   

Edited January 19, 2015 by daveyd

[Gnostic]

Not to mention, physical rewards mess up the perception people have of the campaign.  For instance, I've heard that roughly 1/3 of the funds raised in the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter ended up going towards fulfillment of the physical rewards...    Which means after KS fees, taxes, and KS rewards, HBS probably had to develop SRR on less than a $1 million budget.  Yet a lot of people look at the Kickstarter and say "Oh they had almost $2 million to develop the game..."  Sure these people are idiots but they influence others so you end up with a distorted expectations of what the game should be like... I saw so many people saying the game was too short "for a $2 million game" or why couldn't feature X have been within their "$2 million budget"., etc.  

In a nutshell, I fully understand and support HBS decision to keep physical rewards to a minimum.   

 

 

No, physical rewards do not count for so much because according to Jordan K. Weisman himself

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/197132/QA_Learning_from_Shadowrun_Returns_Kickstarter_success.php

 

35% of their funds is inclusive of kickstarter & amazon fees & microsoft royalty.

 

Kickstarter & Amazon fees should take 10% so that 25% left. I donno what microsoft royalty cost, but a stab in the dark for 5% so maybe 20% left?

 

Well maybe the real premium of physical cost comes from the time taken out of developing games to prepare all the physical rewards and shipment? Then customer service for missing / damaged goods, negotiate with factories, sourcing for cheap alternatives

Edited January 20, 2015 by Gnostic

[rjshae]

The magic goal says a character is able to summoning a powerful elemental, but only from a limited number of locations and only from a short time. Please could somebody explain to me what good this power does if I most likely can't use it when I really need it? I.e. unless a Boss battle occurs at a summoning location, I seem to be out of luck.

[Serrano]

The magic goal says a character is able to summoning a powerful elemental, but only from a limited number of locations and only from a short time. Please could somebody explain to me what good this power does if I most likely can't use it when I really need it? I.e. unless a Boss battle occurs at a summoning location, I seem to be out of luck.

I'd imagine it would be for boss battles and other big moments, ie that's where the locations will be. Makes no sense to waste something like that on a few rats. It would be part of the shaman tree right? So you'd still be getting access to the other shaman abilities putting points into that tree, it's just something else to make that class feel special during big moments.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Serrano

[Oerwinde]

Sadly, I'm incredibly broke and have a giant backlog (SteamLeft says 2700 hours, not counting console games and non-steam games), so I'll have to pass on this. Still haven't finished Dragonfall(by finished, I mean got passed the first battle). Will definitely wishlist it and grab it when my backlog is less. Glad its blasted passed its goal though. Looks like it will definitely get all its stretch goals. Good, because the Matrix was the worst part of the first one.

[daveyd]

The magic goal says a character is able to summoning a powerful elemental, but only from a limited number of locations and only from a short time. Please could somebody explain to me what good this power does if I most likely can't use it when I really need it? I.e. unless a Boss battle occurs at a summoning location, I seem to be out of luck.

 

The way I interpreted it is that this will not in any way replace the abilities Shamans had in Dragonfall / SRR.  SO there will still be normal summoning points in certain places and you can of course always carry some magical fetishes along during missions to summon elementals whenever you want.  This is just in addition to that... ANd like Serrano said these Shrines will more than likely be located near boss battles... 

[Keyrock]

The magic goal says a character is able to summoning a powerful elemental, but only from a limited number of locations and only from a short time. Please could somebody explain to me what good this power does if I most likely can't use it when I really need it? I.e. unless a Boss battle occurs at a summoning location, I seem to be out of luck.

That's where proper level design comes in.

[Gnostic]

Sadly, I'm incredibly broke and have a giant backlog (SteamLeft says 2700 hours, not counting console games and non-steam games), so I'll have to pass on this. Still haven't finished Dragonfall(by finished, I mean got passed the first battle). Will definitely wishlist it and grab it when my backlog is less. Glad its blasted passed its goal though. Looks like it will definitely get all its stretch goals. Good, because the Matrix was the worst part of the first one.

Well just put 1 dollor in so you can get the news, and you would have the chance to upgrade when your gamming budget increase

[ShadySands]

Re: no temping rewards - I gotta say as a big fan of the Shadowrun novels I was on the fence about putting in enough to be a character in the fiction

[daveyd]

They're supposed to be coming out with some more reward tiers soon, so more people may see something they like.  I'm definitely planning to raise my pledge at least a bit.. just not sure to what yet.  

 

But for me, the main reward is the game, and making the game bigger / better with the stretch goals.    Mitch has implied in an interview with RPGamer that Astral space or Stealth could make an appearance as a future stretch goal.  If they could implement either of those, that would add a lot to the game IMO.    

Edited January 21, 2015 by daveyd

[rjshae]

 

The magic goal says a character is able to summoning a powerful elemental, but only from a limited number of locations and only from a short time. Please could somebody explain to me what good this power does if I most likely can't use it when I really need it? I.e. unless a Boss battle occurs at a summoning location, I seem to be out of luck.

That's where proper level design comes in.

 

Is it? I'm not so sure. Do you balance those specific battles with the powerful elemental in mind? In which case you either have that capability or you probably don't win the battle. It seems too asymmetrical for proper design. I suppose you could create two paths to the solution; one that requires the powerful elemental for a brief battle, or the alternative that takes longer and involves more battles.

Edited January 21, 2015 by rjshae

[Tigranes]

Most likely it will turn out to be too powerful, or too gimmicky. I don't think it's a great idea to begin wtih, and even if it worked well, it's not different enough from normal summons (which, by the way, aren't very exciting) to be worthwhile.

[daveyd]

Most likely it will turn out to be too powerful, or too gimmicky. I don't think it's a great idea to begin wtih, and even if it worked well, it's not different enough from normal summons (which, by the way, aren't very exciting) to be worthwhile.

 

Unfortunately, you may be right.  It's probably the only thing I'm really skeptical of in the stretch goals so far.  I think the only reason they're doing it because a lot of players have been complaining on the Shadowrun forums that it's hard playing as a Shaman because fairly often your summoned spirits will break free of your control and become enemies (but this is intentional design, and really what you are supposed to do is use the summoned spirit only for a few rounds and then banish them).  

[ShadySands]

I'm a bit surprised they announced the (one) final stretch goal (to rule them all) so early on when they could have easily done some smaller bait goals to try to get more money