Each and every of our Deckers is a Technomancer

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Isn't that crazy? I mean, what are the odds that every Decker in the Shadowrun games is actually a Technomancer? You know, the guys who are able to view the Matrix as a world with programs manifesting as creatures and other programs acting like spells? You know, since a normal Decker only sees menus, buttons and windows?

FFS, this game is so full of BS.

Every decker has a living persona and E-Spirits. Wow.

[Big Stick Energy]

Maaaaaaaaaaaan.

I'm new to the Shadowrun world and even I know OP's crazy!

[The Other Guy]

And we've all been trolled. Here's a helpful link to the OP's games on steam: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198005500098/games/?tab=all

Anyone else notice the lack of ANY Shadowrun games on steam at all? Rofl, this guy hasn't even played the games he's criticizing. This is officially the biggest waste of time I've seen in a while. PLAY THE GAMES YOU CRITICIZE, OP, OR STFU

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Publicado originalmente por SXY The Other Guy:

And we've all been trolled. Here's a helpful link to the OP's games on steam: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198005500098/games/?tab=all

Anyone else notice the lack of ANY Shadowrun games on steam at all? Rofl, this guy hasn't even played the games he's criticizing. This is officially the biggest waste of time I've seen in a while. PLAY THE GAMES YOU CRITICIZE, OP, OR STFU

Because gameplay videos do not encompass the....what again? Ive played the tabletop for years. Seeing this game in comparison makes me really wish for a remake of the SEGA Shadowrun. Even that had a better representation of magic and matrix.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Publicado originalmente por Apocalypse:

The flling energy is just a metapher for your attack program. Just like you as player just press the attack button, so does the decker, well, technical he thinks to launch the program, but it is the same thing, really. And that has been part of shadowrun for a long-time.

Exactly; it's an abstraction. When the player left-clicks on a piece of IC to launch an attack, the Decker uses a mental impulse through their datajack and into their cyberdeck to launch an attack program. The character is doing all the "cunning, wits and intelligence" stuff automatically. Selecting the other programs to run is much the same, they're just loading up a more complex program to use. The ESPs are semi-autonomous programs that are different to the load-and-'fire' kind.

A true replica of the Matrix 1.0 (the VR-heavy version from 1st through 3rd editions of the tabletop game) would require unique assets for every single network your deckers could jack into, they would have to hand-craft various other assets to represent how a program that does X from one decker might manifest as a bolt of lightning while a program with the same mechanical effect from another decker looks completely different, not to mention a wide variety of options should the player-character be a decker (because what's the point of doing that much with the Matrix if you don't let the players customise their character's icon and programs as well?).

And besides 1.1 million cash is like 12 devs doing their job for 6 months or 24 for 3 months. It is a small budget, though as they have their basic engine done already, I guess it still ok to write a new campaign and expand on that without much trouble.

This is the other thing; everyone always underestimates how much games development costs - I always assume that any Kickstarter-funded title will be working with a relatively-low budget. The only exception to that is going to be Star Citizen for reasons that should be pretty obvious. Seriously; every Kickstarter-funded game I have backed and that has come out on Steam has had at least a half-dozen threads claiming that the game should be far better because "they had X million dollars!" It's always safest to assume that a game's development budget will go nowhere near as far as you think it will.

And if your biggest gripe about a game is that you feel they wasted the budget, either keep it to yourself or be ready to back it up with average salary values for the various employees, a list of how many such employees the company has hired, and possible running costs for such a business (leasing the office, licensing new software, maintenance on the development machines, maintaining data backups, electricity for the building, internet access, water, telephone, keeping a break-room stocked, paying accountants when tax time comes around, tax itself, and probably a million other little things that add up).

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Publicado originalmente por B'oh ShadowFighter88:

Publicado originalmente por Apocalypse:

The flling energy is just a metapher for your attack program. Just like you as player just press the attack button, so does the decker, well, technical he thinks to launch the program, but it is the same thing, really. And that has been part of shadowrun for a long-time.

Exactly; it's an abstraction. When the player left-clicks on a piece of IC to launch an attack, the Decker uses a mental impulse through their datajack and into their cyberdeck to launch an attack program. The character is doing all the "cunning, wits and intelligence" stuff automatically. Selecting the other programs to run is much the same, they're just loading up a more complex program to use. The ESPs are semi-autonomous programs that are different to the load-and-'fire' kind.

A true replica of the Matrix 1.0 (the VR-heavy version from 1st through 3rd editions of the tabletop game) would require unique assets for every single network your deckers could jack into, they would have to hand-craft various other assets to represent how a program that does X from one decker might manifest as a bolt of lightning while a program with the same mechanical effect from another decker looks completely different, not to mention a wide variety of options should the player-character be a decker (because what's the point of doing that much with the Matrix if you don't let the players customise their character's icon and programs as well?).

And besides 1.1 million cash is like 12 devs doing their job for 6 months or 24 for 3 months. It is a small budget, though as they have their basic engine done already, I guess it still ok to write a new campaign and expand on that without much trouble.

This is the other thing; everyone always underestimates how much games development costs - I always assume that any Kickstarter-funded title will be working with a relatively-low budget. The only exception to that is going to be Star Citizen for reasons that should be pretty obvious. Seriously; every Kickstarter-funded game I have backed and that has come out on Steam has had at least a half-dozen threads claiming that the game should be far better because "they had X million dollars!" It's always safest to assume that a game's development budget will go nowhere near as far as you think it will.

And if your biggest gripe about a game is that you feel they wasted the budget, either keep it to yourself or be ready to back it up with average salary values for the various employees, a list of how many such employees the company has hired, and possible running costs for such a business (leasing the office, licensing new software, maintenance on the development machines, maintaining data backups, electricity for the building, internet access, water, telephone, keeping a break-room stocked, paying accountants when tax time comes around, tax itself, and probably a million other little things that add up).

The arguing of people is awesome - basically you are saying that no matter how you represent the matrix, it will be always be perfectly fine, because hey - its a representation and a metapher. Also it means that Deckers and Technomancers see things completely the same way while being in the matrix, because hey - where is the difference?

Hacking in the matrix is about using your brain - be intelligent, highly skilled, resourceful and cunning. Here its about throwing balls of energy and pew-pew-pew. Sorry, but even IF we accept for a split second, that those are ESPs and not E-Spirits - the rest is still BS.

You need more wits to navigate outside than inside the matrix, that's insane.

And the thing about the money is - they asked for 100k. That was how much they needed to complete it. The 1,1m were supposed to add extra stuff or innovate things they didnt do right the first two times.

I mean, the engine is the same, half the assets are the same if not most and its once again pretty pretty short for an RPG. Some additional models in Hong Kong, sure, but even those are very very simplistic. A professional 3D-Designer spits them out 10 pieces a day.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

The abstraction is the same reason you don't have to aim a gun in the combat and the character does it for you. Loading and executing the program is done by the character, not the player. That's where all the intelligence and cunning is; being done by the character instead of the player. As for the cosmetic appearance of those actions, those are due to the limitations of the engine (for which they didn't have the budget to change to a brand new one) and because managing the million-and-six ways things in the Matrix could look would have been far too much work for too little gain.

As for how Technomancers see the Matrix 2.0 - by my understanding it usually appeared much the same to them as it did for normal deckers until they went down into the Deep Resonance. Only real difference beyond that was that Technomancers may have been more aware of sprites and such hovering around whereas a normal decker would pass them off as just either other avatars or background programs, if they even noticed them at all.

But bringing up Technomancers is kind-of irrelevant; these games are set back in the days of the Matrix 1.0, technomancers didn't turn up until the Matrix 2.0. Plenty of novels set in the same era described the VR Matrix 1.0 as either looking clearly digital, in the rough style of what we see in the game, or specially-designed to resemble something in particular.

Actually; you've got me curious now; I'm gonna go see if I can find any artwork from those first few editions of the game that depict the Matrix.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Okay; forget the artwork, half the stuff I'm finding is screenshots from the Genesis or SNES games, screenshots from Returns, Dragonfall or Hong Kong, screenshots from Shadowrun Chronicles, artwork from 4th/5th edition or just non-Matrix artwork from the books. Oh; and one from that multiplayer shooter that claimed to be Shadowrun (even Mitch, one of the head guys at HBS, admits that was a mistake; hell, the video for the original SR:R kickstarter had him holding a sign apologising for it and then getting pelted with fruit).

Only book I own that has artwork of the relevant version of the Matrix is Shadowrun 2050, a sourcebook for 4th edition that was meant so people could use the 4e rules but the classic version of the setting. And the few Matrix pieces in that have terrain that resembles what's in Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong but where the icons are more varied than I can see HBS having the time for - one shows a Red Samurai slicing open a Griffin's chest, but with lines of code flying from the wound instead of blood.

[GunofBrixton]

TL;DR Kass is wrong.

Technomancer and Deckers are identical in function, but differ in form. A Technomancer requires no equipment and innately can view the Matrix. A Decker requires equipment to do it.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Publicado originalmente por GunofBrixton:

TL;DR Kass is wrong.

Technomancer and Deckers are identical in function, but differ in form. A Technomancer requires no equipment and innately can view the Matrix. A Decker requires equipment to do it.

Yeah, outside of Technomancers being able to go into the Resonance Realms, I only ever saw equipment dependency as the main difference between the two. That how they perceived the Matrix 2.0 was always the same (assuming the decker was hot-simming it with VR, which was the only option for deckers on the Matrix 1.0 that we see in HBS's games).

[Mouse of Madness]

Well, this was amusing. If you want to see the matrix, go get an occulus rift and log into Second Life. That's basically as close as you're going to get without direct brain interface.

Wander around a bit, poke under the hood, see how there's code underlying various things which each user can make look however they want... then never log in again because it's a bit crap.

Imagine that, no technomancer magic needed even in today's world.

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Publicado originalmente por B'oh ShadowFighter88:

Publicado originalmente por GunofBrixton:

TL;DR Kass is wrong.

Technomancer and Deckers are identical in function, but differ in form. A Technomancer requires no equipment and innately can view the Matrix. A Decker requires equipment to do it.

Yeah, outside of Technomancers being able to go into the Resonance Realms, I only ever saw equipment dependency as the main difference between the two. That how they perceived the Matrix 2.0 was always the same (assuming the decker was hot-simming it with VR, which was the only option for deckers on the Matrix 1.0 that we see in HBS's games).

Only that they are not. Technomancers have a completely different perception of the matrix. It is more vivid and to them programms, ICs and thelikes are alive. That is why they see them as living creatures. They dont see the represented, but the true nature of those programs.

A decker sees them as icons. Those might looks like a snake, samurai or hello kitty, but they are still just stillimages, gifs at most.

And read the rulebooks - compare the looks of E-Spirits to what programs are supposed to look like. Even if you go for the "it looks the same" in the books the programs are supposed to looks like earthly or mythic creatures. E-Spirits on the other hand are grotesque and illogical - in other words tentacles with shields floating around them. You know, tanks for example. Those we fckn summon.

[Dessabelle]

Publicado originalmente por Mister Bubbles:

Maaaaaaaaaaaan.

I'm new to the Shadowrun world and even I know OP's crazy!

Hes not completely wrong. I've played only 4th and 5th edition pen and paper and deckers/hackers do have icons while technomancers have bodies.

This is before the crash of 2064 and matrix 2.0 however, there are NO technomancers yet, or deckers for that matter (until 5th edition). The deckers are actually called hackers in 4th.

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Publicado originalmente por Nephilim:

Publicado originalmente por Mister Bubbles:

Maaaaaaaaaaaan.

I'm new to the Shadowrun world and even I know OP's crazy!

Hes not completely wrong. I've played only 4th and 5th edition pen and paper and deckers/hackers do have icons while technomancers have bodies.

This is before the crash of 2064 and matrix 2.0 however, there are NO technomancers yet, or deckers for that matter (until 5th edition). The deckers are actually called hackers in 4th.

Ffs, thanks, at least someone who played the tabletop.

[HoroSaga]

Publicado originalmente por Nephilim:

Publicado originalmente por Mister Bubbles:

Maaaaaaaaaaaan.

I'm new to the Shadowrun world and even I know OP's crazy!

Hes not completely wrong. I've played only 4th and 5th edition pen and paper and deckers/hackers do have icons while technomancers have bodies.

This is before the crash of 2064 and matrix 2.0 however, there are NO technomancers yet, or deckers for that matter (until 5th edition). The deckers are actually called hackers in 4th.

The problem is that he's basing his opinion on the later editions of the game, while the Shadowrun Returns franchise is based on the original three editions. Shadowrun Returns was created by the original creator of Shadowrun, Jordan Weisman, and as such he's largely ignoring any information that was introduced by later publishers, including all of the material published by FanPro or Catalyst.

Yes there are some liberties taken with the interpretation of the Matrix shown in these video games. But no, it's not outside the bounds of what was already described in classic Shadowrun materials such as the sourcebooks and novels.

A big part of the problem with this whole discussion is that the OP is selectively arguing only the points he wants to argue, while dismissing any source material that disagrees with him as "archaic" or cherrypicking single sentences out of entire pages so he can try to "refute" them. It's a pointless discussion, because the OP has already made up his mind on the subject, and is either too ignorant or too stubborn to accept other viewpoints.

The only videogame that's actually based on the later editions is Shadowrun Chronicles.

[t4chy]

If the deck is hot enough, it can override the visited system's visualisation and overlay it with the deck's preferences.

It looks as if all our deckers (they all use cyberdecks) went for this option. Strangely enough all of our deckers prefer the same simplistic representation of whatever is out there in the matrix.

They do not even use their usually handmade persona avatars when on a run (or afterwards).

Simple representations reduce the required bandwidth and allow to use more of the deck's power to be used in a useful way.

Kinda sad, but I guess allowing more freedom would have cost quite a bit extra in game development.