What do you think of Kindly Cheng ?

[11:11]

I just finished SR:HK EE now.The game is overall good but the ending is bad and feels shallow.Why is the old woman keep pulling string over player character ? I mean, Our team can get out of her grip with Inspector Qiu's help and let Duncan get his SIN but we don't get that option.I don't like that old woman's attitude at all,if choosing the team over SIN it means we are her errand muscles forever.How can someone live the entire life as that ? I think other shadow runners are free,they don't answer to no one and they take contracts for money.There should be an option to screw that old woman and remain being as a freelance shadow runner.

[Clockwork]

You should space your text a bit, I had trouble to keep focus x)

To be honest, I kind of hate Kindly Cheng. I never show it to her (I'm used to "respect your mother figure" thingy) until the very end, but sometime I wish she could just drop the attitude, as she says so well.

But my main problem is I preferred Dragonfall's fixer by far. He actually cared for us. Seeing Kindly Cheng was a big change in comparison.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Honestly? I know she's a bit cliche, but I dug the 'respect and traditon' angle.

She had you by the danglies, yes, and you really feel it in your income... but at the same time I never doubted she'd keep her end of the bargain, and that's a rare trait in a fixer.

[Cryptic]

A fixer like Paul Amsel, while very likeable, should really be the exception rather than the rule. Acting as the middleman between paid thieves, killers, kidnappers, extortionists, etc. (and make no mistake, that's what Shadowrunners are) and their clients in the world of organized crime, ruthless MegaCorps, shadowy intelligence agencies, and other even more sinister groups isn't a line of work for compassionate, altruistic people with lots of moral scruples. Kindly's a hardass because if she weren't, the people she deals with would eat her alive.

[climbingeastofwinter]

And Auntie is your lifeline, too. So theres that. :)

It's a crazy-person who burns all of their bridges when they're already down on their luck and out of options.

[Batman]

Originally posted by Clockwork:

To be honest, I kind of hate Kindly Cheng.
But my main problem is I preferred Dragonfall's fixer by far.

The way you're feeling is exactly the whole point of having written the characters that way. And we're supposed to like Paul because he dies and we're supposed to feel sad for that.

Kindly is a more believable/realistic character than Paul even if she's kind of a cliche.

Originally posted by Love You Kyal :3:

There should be an option to screw that old woman and remain being as a freelance shadow runner.

With how the ending as written, I'm under the impression we're more than just muscles. More like an elite team that gets special privilege but still working for Kindly. Which is probably why we're still working for her. Its going to be hard to top whatever she's offering. Plus, we get to go back to seattle. Which is great, we can say hi to Raymmond whenever we like.

Originally posted by Lord Of Dorkness:

but at the same time I never doubted she'd keep her end of the bargain, and that's a rare trait in a fixer.

Its actually more rare for a boss to always betray others and still expects to remain where they are. Betrayals should be kept to a minimum (or extremely well hidden) so that his/her words/deals would have some worth or credibility. How else is he/she going to get things done or keep people in line? If she betrays the player, she would have to do it with the entire community (Heoi) watching.

Remember how Kindly managed to get Bao in line? She had evidence of his misdeeds. Remember how Kindly pulled Josephine Tsang down? Once again, evidence.

[Clockwork]

Originally posted by Batman:

Originally posted by Clockwork:

To be honest, I kind of hate Kindly Cheng.
But my main problem is I preferred Dragonfall's fixer by far.

The way you're feeling is exactly the whole point of having written the characters that way. And we're supposed to like Paul because he dies and we're supposed to feel sad for that.

I was kind of giving the point of view of my characters x) So yeah, the writing was good, which is why I hate her.

[One Old Soldier]

I respected the hell out of Kindly for a number of reasons:

Kindly cheng isn't JUST a fixer, she runs an entire neighborhood free of police oversight because they've seen the field in which she grows her F***s and seen it is barren. She strikes me as the type to flay a cop alive (undercover especially) and leave them out (Screaming and skinless for the short time they're still alive) for all others to see as a warning: Your kind are not welcome here.

On top of this, consider what Kindly is. Shes a criminal boss for the Triad, she isn't JUST a fixer, she has businesses to run and people constantly trying to undermind her authority (including her right hand) because they idiotically see an old woman and think its their time to shine. She may be cold and ruthless, but its because she not only needs to keep good face (Which a charismatic Shadowrunner will point out early on for your first op. with her), she also needs to make sure the cops won't call her on her bluffs the few times she has to make them.

Lastly, realize that Kindly was ruthless as hell, but she respected those who respected her authority or people she deemed as 'valuable'. The last Street Sammy on her payroll (Nightjar, who's brains were scattered early on) was her favorite, simply because he sang for her. A fact that made her so furious when she learned of his death she tortured a man by, I quote: Conducting dentistry on him with power tools.

[One Old Soldier]

Also worth noting, as someone else has, while my over-all knowledge of Shadowrun is nowhere near as indepth as regular table-top players, 'runners tend to be the type to have morals so loose you could lasso a dragon with them just about (Though why the hell you'd want to do this is beyond any sane rationale). A fixer, therefore, is going to have to be perfectly okay trading in murder; kidnapping; blackmail and countless other crimes as well as conducting business w/ the criminal elements that want these jobs done.

Paul Amsel was not the kind of man you'd expect to be a fixer. Kindly Cheng? Not only was she a n ideal fixer, she has the perfect staging ground to conduct business from with a shop to get chromed up; geared/doped and anything else a runner might need in Hong-kong all in one tidy little neighborhood under her watch. The only thing it was missing is a small coastal fort and I'd call it the Nassau of the Orient.

[bunny de fluff]

Like all business in the world, if you live long enough and you will be the next Kindly Chang yourself. Right now, as a young Fixer wannabe, you listen to her and get jobs from her, but nothing is stopping you from becoming as powerful or more powerful than her in the future. You are not going to be under her command FOREVER. The story just ended with you still under her command that is all. If the story continues, maybe one day you will have to kill and replace her who knows.

[Teralitha]

10 or so hours into the story and I get the impression that while she may have done(or rather had someone else do it) some nasty things to people, that she is really just a small time mafia boss. I mean teh story tries to make out to be some major entity in the game, but you dont really see the effects of it. You tend to only "hear" about it. I find her character to be a bit disappointing, and shallow in story. Shes like a character in a movie that has alot of cheezy lines, but almost nothing to actually say. Shes like cheap plastic. She feels like a throwaway character. Many of the characters feel that way. Dragonfall had excellent writing/story and meaningful characters that you actually cared about. In HK it feels like the writing was done by a beginner and nobody with more experience and talent ever proofread and edited their work. In a word, the writing was.. Lame. Its not all Lame, but quite a bit of it so far is.

Maybe HBS used up all their good ideas making dragonfall.. I was happy to replay dragonfall over and over again, but this... Im not even through my first playthrougfh and I am bored to death of it.

[Clockwork]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

I was happy to replay dragonfall over and over again, but this... Im not even through my first playthrougfh and I am bored to death of it.

This was my thought, a bit (though on the first playthrough, what kept me going was the urge to know what the hell was going on).

But I don't think the problem is bad writing. Perhaps the entire purpose of the game is to make people less likable as in Dragonfall.

I mean, practically everyone looked way too great in my opinion. Mostly when you saw their avatar after playing Shadowrun Returns (I was mostly surprised by Eiger and Glory). So they tried to make this one more realistic (especially when you see how the main campaign is ending).

[Teralitha]

Maybe its because your team in dragonfall had interesting backstories to discover. The style of the writing is definitely an issue in my opinion.

[Sam]

Tbh, if one spent time digging the Asian gangster reads, Kindly is... quite a reasonable figure.

Pay attention to the thugs keeping refugees from escaping the slum. Kindly might be a crime lord, but she's also the iron hand you need to keep that region (and her people) stable. And her drug trade at the end of the main campaign as well. Sounds dirty, but efficient, and to the end of the day it benefits the whole market. Better than quite some rl Corps.

Uh~, and most players don't know you can dig more nuyen from her in the last mission as well.

[Unchangeling]

I've only just started this game, but I do like that she's been muttering about finding whoever killed Nightjar and demonstrating her extreme displeasure with them using power tools, just because he used to sing to her.

[Unchangeling]

I'm also a fan of how she veers between being oh-so-polite and a little motherly, then suddenly foul-mouthed and vicious. And she means both.

It's kind of a cliche, but it still works.