Excellent mod. Not spotless, but nevertheless excellent in many ways.

I'm a little miffed at how the NPC runners had all their flavour dialogue front-loaded, though. They spill all their juicy details at the beginning, getting me really interested in how they will behave and play off each other. But then, for the rest of the game (with one or two exceptions) they behave like cardboard cut-outs.

Maybe Dragonfall spoiled me regarding compainions and character development, but I really wanted to see if I could get Shiver into a better mental state, if I could persuade Blight to play nice with the rest of the team, etc.

Strange though it might sound, I think it would be an improvement if the player was forced to pick a permanent team of three or four runners at the beginning. Being allowed to pick all of them sort of stole the thunder from the fantastic interview scene at the beginning.

That was the original intention. We ended up having a dynamic team for balancing purposes. The interactions, loyalty quests, and character back stories unfortunately had to get scaled way down to beat the HK launch. This mod doesn't play nice with the new HK system, so we're still evaluating wither or not porting it over is feasible.

On the plus side, most of this team... And a few new additions are starting in on another project, taking what we learned here and aiming higher. Couple of us are pulling double duty and evaluation a HK port and being involved in the next project. I spend more hours a week in the ShadowRun editor, than I do at work.... :)

I gave up at the top floor of the Teutzel building because the encounter is a group of overpowered (3 AP? who crit for ~30 damage) Dragon Knights huddled together like penguins in an utterly barren landscape, just waiting for you to walk by before "ambushing" you. I almost cheesed it with grenades but couldn't be bothered to finish the job. Sorry, but basically every aspect of this mod needs work, from the writing and encounter design to the (lack of) balance. I guess the matrix is kind of neat compared to the underwhelming decking in Dragonfall, but otherwise the dialog and encounters just don't work. Not enough cover, too many very cramped or wide open areas, lots of complete strangers giving you random infodumps of useless information you often have to scroll down to finish reading.

Sorry to hear your experiance was sour. Just out of curiosity... What kinda character build / team makeup did you take into Taetzel?

I had an elf mage along with Silver Arrow (who is pretty useless in combat), El Jefe and Gunner. I had $9000 but very little to spend it on. I cleaned out the whole 3S neighbourhood easily - the gangs are pushovers - but had a somewhat tougher time with the second floor of the building, and just gave up with the mob of Dragon Knights on the top floor. Yes, I could have killed them leaving one victim to lure them out and then thrown a bunch of grenades, but that's pretty lame.

I'm a bit surprised at the toughness comment... Most of our feedback was that those dragon knight mobs (knight errant models) were too easy. They are, however, randomly generated... So its possible you accidentally got the 'dream team' of ke guys. That would explain why they're so terrible to face. Normally a party like the one you described wipes them off the map, usually only with a single 'flesh wound.' That could be extremely frustrating... And explain the nitch nature of the problem.

Restarting the scene would re-randomize the mob and eliminate the super squad... Or loading a save that was a floor below. That's something I'll have to take into account in future projects.

Quite enjoying the mod thus far but, as many have noted, the game quickly goes from well written and intriguing walls of text/character development/story to a skimming, piece-together-in-retrospect what's just happened (if, like me, you know nothing of Mercurial from the tabletop). Perhaps getting an independent reviewer would help for story cohesion in this regard, or is that what the community's for?

Would certainly have loved a more spaced character disposition, and the personal touches of banter here and there that help distinguish npcs (dragonage does this wonderfully). I've stuck with Nebel, Blight and Shiver thinking they'd have been the most amusing but i'm guessing from what little i've heard from them after their initial intro i might just as well have picked the girl scout, preacher and the nice old lady in apartment 2b.

In some ways i found a few of the maps needlessly large which kind of detracted from the atmosphere. Take, for example, U93's downstairs where the incredibly open hall makes it appear like she's a local matinee a handful of friends have come out to support that should have booked a smaller venue. Or the incredibly long stretches of street so that even at max zoom you are staring at your destination without seeing where you actually are. By comparison, Dragonfall's Kreuzbazar still gives that open feel but condensed enough to not have you running for a min (perhaps just arranging everything in a circle would help make it feel less like you're bike courier?).

The matrix combat feels rather odd too. As if difficulty has been upped via simply dropping your chance to hit rather than something meaningful - use of cover, use of programs/esps, opponent composition and tactics. It's just frustrating to either win or lose a battle based solely on the flip of a coin (or those 9 40-50% misses in a row to exposed targets.) Speaking of which, in the very first fight, i guessed the login correctly for the ic as *spolier* 'foley', but was then stumped for more than a few hours as to what the password was (did i get suckered into a red herring with the incredibly easy username but nigh impossible p/w..? probably why it's now burned in my memory.) I've tried redoing the conversation with Max, looking for subtle hints (the Max Galaxy painting i have come to realise is a reference to old content) but to no avail - anyone in the community cracked that nut?

Looking forward to the next project your team produces

You are correct. The mercurial storyline is pretty well established in ShadowRun lore, but like you, I had no previous experiance with it. The module is written by two different writters, who often had conflicting view on how something should be handled. Part of Marias' split personality or just 25 year old writing that hasn't aged well... I dunno. I found the story tough to enjoy personally.

Originally, we had intended for more in-depth companions. Time became the major factor in truncating their intractability. In hindsight, maybe not the best of plans. Moving forward, a large portion of this team, as well as a handful of new steam users, have started working on another campaign. Based on a handful of our own writers stories, instead of trying to recreate an existing storyline. That extra breathing room should go a long ways in allowing for better interaction between party members, more creative puzzles and solutions, as well as a few surprises.

Thanks for the comments!

I don't know if anyone will see this here, but we tracked down the username and password for the matrix node in U93.
Username: Foley
Password: mariayum

Gotta say, I LOVED that final boss fight. The dragon's ability to destroy cover was really fun to work around. Personally, I would've preferred major bosses had more HP and were a little easier to hit, but that's just me.

And the Matrix. GOOD GOD, THE MATRIX. PUB.sri felt cozy, and the part where you unlock the freight door via decking to get into the final level? How washed out and dilapidated it was? I made real-life, disgusting mouth-noises of delight. Also, different and varied enemy IC. That was fun.

My one beef plotwise is that Maria is sometimes a competent (and surprisingly tough!) party member, and other times a helpless damsel in distress. The finale is excusable; not much a lone person can do against an Aztechnology hit squad. Idk this isn't much of a complaint tbh, I'd probably have a different experience if I went down a different route.

Glad you were able to enjoy the boss fight. I spent quite a bit of time on that one.

That was really a design concept for Maria. An actual badass, and a damsel in distress, depending on her personality at the moment. It was a hard thing to portray in this setting... we tried using the different pictures for her personas, to try and distinguish which mood she was in. The whole idea is that she's unreliable, and that's why she needed the full-time protection from your team. Plus as an added DEV bonus, she was there as an auto balancer... she would activate whenever the crew was taking too much damage. Early on, shed rarely activate... but as the balancing shifter towards its current state, it became more likely.

Thanks for the comments!

I know this was brought up before, but when exactly was Maria kidnapped? There seems to be a plot hole there...

When you leave for sunnyside... She gets nabbed from the Delta clinic (same time Hernandez disappears).

You can call and talk to her up until that point.

This was an excellent module. I enjoyed it and look forward to the completed work.

Interviewing the runners at the front got tedious. Is there a way to break this up or spread it out across the front of the module?

The plot was uneven, in flow. I would recommend deviating from the source material to create a smoother experience for the players.

One feature I liked was including passwords on the dialog box if you know them. Perhaps it would be better to simply have a choice line to click (as you did with the Azy's password from his wrist).

There's a lot of reading. Create a book or other means to re-read material/summaries. (The mission log got crowded and didn't have half of the exposition.)

Spread (more) karma throughout the module.

The dragon in the Boss fight was "weak" considering the "modern" power of a dragon (even a strong group of running should have simply been lunch). Explain away this weakness with some combination of:
1) how sick he was, or
2) young he was, or
3) wounded he was.

Please complete this project soon. Then start a new project from scratch. You guys is good.
-Desertcat

I just completed this mod and i truly did like the story. I personally didnt have many issues with the hirelings not being up to par in regards to combat. once I found the right fit for my pc we worked quite well together. There were many minor things i came across. I do mean minor. a few typos or incorrectly spelled words. To me its minor. I came across very few bugs. The only thing I was truly sad about was A) the dragon just flying away, B) I felt there were a few holes in the storyline. But then I may have just missed key areas and will be more thorough my next playthrough. And the ending was just a block of text. I still don't completely understand why they wanted maria so badly.
Reading through some of the feedback you have already recieved, I think Deathcall pretty much hits the nail on the head.

All in all, I enjoyed this :) I will play this again :)