Why no import character from the original?

[The.Spaz.]

Havent really played it yet but I was delving into the character creation screen before my exhasut fan started sounding like a jet engine. From what I could tell the tree is not different than ShadowRun Returns, so why can't we just port our original character and start from there? It would be nice to have a uber hard mode that adjusts to your orgiinal characters levels and you can continue polishing up.

[horrid74]

I'm not sure if the game scales challenge by karma level so it could end up being too easy to be rewarding. From a story perspective DMS and DF are happening at the same time (allusions to the other campaign are mentioned on the shadowlands BBS) so your DMS character couldn't be in both locations at the same time.

[Drain]

This isn't an expansion. It's its own game and campaign. They aren't really connected in any way. Even if it was an expansion, there's nothing wrong with them making you roll a new character for its story. They have good design reasons for not importing here. The talent line system and computer partners just weren't designed for it. Porting an already powered up character would totally wreck the game and fixing it to support this needless feature is more trouble than its worth. Just roll a new character...

When you play a new Zelda game, you don't get to import anything there. A game doesn't have to do this for you.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

There are also some narrative issues; Dragonfall is happening at roughly the same time as DMS - there's a post on the Shadowland BBS early in Dragonfall talking about the Emerald City Ripper; the one who killed Sam and kicked off DMS' storyline. And the way they're talking in that thread implies that he's active and on-the-loose, which puts the start of Dragonfall to sometime before the DMS player-character takes him down.

[St0rmFury]

Hmm, then this makes Aljernon highly suspect...

[The.Spaz.]

I am hereing some disjointed opinons here. Some are claiming the stories are not connected at all which means importing a previous character shouldn't take away from the narrative. Then there are others placing it as a connected event happening about the same time as the original. Dammit! I really liked Free Jack too...

[horrid74]

If the mention of Algernon is causing some confusion concerning events happening at the same time. I'd hypothesize that his shop could be a nexus/gateway that actually allows it to to be in both places simultaneously; or doorways to it to be in both locations. Watch out for magicians; They are sketchy folk :).

[FelixSylvaris]

From some reason character creation screen is heavy demanding from cooling, it blocks sometimes fraps and stuff. Try lowering resolution, and change it back high after game starts.

Character progression is part of the game. Player makes quest to get karma nad better loot. You cant just give everything for free.

Even in games which have character import you still level up from 0 (like Mass Effect), and DMS is unrelated with Dragonfall.

So very little reason for that.

At this point it would be better if they just focus on HongKong.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by abs.ghosh:

I am hereing some disjointed opinons here. Some are claiming the stories are not connected at all which means importing a previous character shouldn't take away from the narrative. Then there are others placing it as a connected event happening about the same time as the original. Dammit! I really liked Free Jack too...

They aren't directly connected, but there are enough hints that Dragonfall's happening at the same time as DMS. Personally I'd find it jarring if I imported my DMS character into Dragonfall and then saw that Shadowland thread I mentioned talking about the Emerald City Ripper being alive and active when I'd personally blasted him to pieces in the first game.

[Syrris]

Algernon is in many places at once; he implies if not outright states that at some point in the various conversations you can have with him. I'm not familiar with the pen-and-paper or novel version of the setting but I have a feeling he's a canon chracter from there somewhere.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

No, I think I read somewhere that he was made especially for Shadowrun Returns. And one thing to remember about Shadowrun is that there's always more supernatural weirdness going on than the rules will ever talk about.

I remember one short story - I think it was in Spells & Chrome - that had a dwarf walking into a poker game between a bunch of Humanis bigwigs and told them a story about why people nicknamed him "Lucky". Depending on your point of view; his luck was either supernaturally good or bad, or both. He was present for numerous horrific disasters and, despite everyone around him dying, he always survived. So he decided to try and weaponise it against some Humanis drekheads by sitting in on their poker game.

Having a guy somehow able to be in multiple places at once isn't completely out of left-field for Shadowrun. There's been weirder.