Forum Overview :: Rants :: Shadowrun and Massive Multi

[quote name="Damocles"][quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]That's why Shadowrun did it best. You drew on both internal and external resources- internal for normal stuff, external for spells that are simply too taxing to do without help. (Whether from expendable gimcracks, various magical focii, rituals, or pooling together in magic circles of various types). It also didn't rely on "saving throws" or any bullshit like that... if the spell wasn't travelling through physical space, and most didn't, you couldn't dodge it unless either a)you were a mage that could counter it or b)a mage was covering you. Spells travelling through the astral plane got you <i>from the inside out</i>. (Which made for nicely gruesome magic, as it should be.)[/quote] Likey. When did Shadowrun come out, anyway? I missed it. I like that system, though. I always found the D&D fighter kit, Wizard Slayer silly. "I AM A SLAYER OF WIZARDS!! I HATH SLAIN ME A SCORE IF IT WERE ONE AND SHALL SLAY SCORES MORE ERE I DYE" Sure pal, come swing your fruity sword at me while I cook your goddamn brain in its helmet. Now, if you've got coverage from another wizard, that makes sense. It's what I liked about BG2, what many hated, those high-level wizard battles. <I>One</I> wizard could kill an unprepared party of <I>six</I>; that's how it should be.[/quote] Disclosure: I have never played BG2. Because my computer sucks. One day I will, though. That's the thing about 1st and 2nd edition D&D, though: the relative power of Wizards vs. Fighters is inversely proportional to level. Wizards suck early on, then become unstoppable killing machines as they gain levels. That's the entire point of magical items... to try to make fighters even remotely competitive. It doesn't work. That's also why 3rd edition threw all the feat stuff into it; so that fighters would be competitive, and more fun to play. "I dodge an arrow, jump on a guy, and start whirling around my axes slicing up everybody around me" is a hell of a lot more interesting than "I attack the orc", especially when compared to the laundry list of stuff that a high level mage could pull out. (Personally, I like bards. Mmm mmm FRUITY.) [quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]It sucks, by the way. Neocron, AO, Matrix Online... where the FUCK is the Shadowrun MMORPG that should be owning all of these? Shadowrun is by far the best system I've seen for integrating magic and tech and storytelling and combat and hacking and everyfuckingthingelse, and would make for the best MMORPG ever. Yet MS is sitting on the rights. Morons.[/quote] Ditto. But hey, save some prayer for us whut don't fancy them MMORPGs, will you? A BG2-scale Shadowrun game would r0xor, methinks.[/quote] Sure. Thing is, Shadowrun would make the perfect MMORPG. Seriously. It's set in one city (Seattle) and the surrounding area, there are loads of possible missions, easy ways of pitting groups of runners against each other, lots of opportunity for "clan" building (Runners could build shadow corporations of their own to organize themselves), and such a huge variety of mission structures and types that you could cater to literally any player, whether it's the kid who does nothing but camp the AWP in CS to heavy-duty role players to Rainbow Six-loving tacticians to Thresh to wannabe magicians to drivers (fuck driving the car, Riggers become the car, or plane, or helicopter, or building...). Most importantly, It would be absolute GOLD for those who want a hacking game and aren't satisfied with Uplink's 1993-era graphics. And the best part is that all these people could work together in a way that Everquest could never, ever hope to replicate. I mean, fuck, can you think of another game where you could play as a member of a gang of fun-loving orc bikers? Or a troll bouncer? Or a motherfucking <b><i>elven pimp</i></b>? This needs to happen! Anyway, Get a Genesis emulator, the Genny game was faithful as hell. (SNES game was arguably better, but Matrix running in the Genesis version was a A++++ game in its own right.)[/quote]