The latest episode of Retronauts: Bonus Stage looks at the history of the Shadowrun franchise. They do a fair amount of bashing the Shadowrun FPS as well, not for its gameplay, but for its lack of Shadowrun staples such as “decking” and vampires. I can’t say I agree with all of their statements, but it is an interesting video detailing what a majority of the Shadowrun PnP fans seem to find fault with in the FPS.
Tags: 1UP, Retronauts, ShadowrunSubscribe
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The news
- So long Tarthos
- Shadowrun beta tester Tarthos battling brain cancer. Donate inside.
- Shadowrun for cheap at Amazon: $10 for PC or $25 for XBOX 360
- Microsoft shutting down Shadowrun forums. Handing shadowrun.com off to next Shadowrun product dev.
- Shadowrun rights licensed to Smith & Tinker
- Win $200. Shadowrun montage contest at GamingTV.us
- Shadowrun National Championship in Las Vegas results
- Small update coming to GfW-Live
- Online oddities in Shadowrun after FASA folds
- FASA closes doors. So long.
I simply do not understand the persistence of hardcore Shadowrun fans to bash this game. This game will probably result in giving them their long awaited RPG in the future. Without Shadowrun FPS, the chances for Shadowrun RPG are far less. A little patience is all that is needed.
It’s not because the game is a FPS and not an RPG (even though an RPG makes infinitely more sense, given the source material), it’s because it’s NOT SHADOWRUN. Longtime Shadowrun fans want a game in the actual Shadowrun setting, featuring actual Shadowruns (since it’s where the name comes from, you know). They don’t want some self-indulgent game designer who feels like his views on the source material are more important than the opinions of the large fanbase, who actually care about said source material. Especially when his views amount to “let’s make Counterstrike with magic and elves”. Think of it this way - take some IP out there that you’re a fan of, be it Star Wars, Halo or Harry Potter, or something else entirely. Now, imagine that someone who’s not a fan of the material and in fact has expressed his disdain for large parts of it gains control of the latest iteration of said franchise, and alters it, possibly irrevocably, to the point that it is barely or not at all recognizable (to suit his own whims, no less), and uses the name to try and capitalize on the existing large fanbase. How would you feel about that? Less than pleased, I’d guess. If not, you must like taking it in the ass from large corporations. And considering that the Shadowrun IP was being used, the chances of an RPG could have been 100%, if anyone with a brain had been in charge. As it stands now, even if this mockery does lead to an RPG, it will likely be based on the crap invented for this game rather than the actual, canon Shadowrun universe. The lack of patience isn’t for the genre, it’s for the fact that not only are Shadowrun fans being denied a true Shadowrun game even longer, but that this game actually lessens the chance of seeing a true Shadowrun title emerge.
Large fanbase? I’ve never heard of Shadowrun. I’ve gone online looking for Shadowrun fans and there aren’t many easy-to-find websites out there for the fans.
I’m not a fan of the material. A few months ago, I didn’t even know what Shadowrun was. I still haven’t met anyone that has played the Shadowrun PnP. I just know that FASAMICROSOFT have made a very fun FPS to play.
Now millions of gamers are getting exposed to the Shadowrun backstory. Elves, Trolls, RNA Global, the Lineage, etc.
I would say that a Shadowrun RPG is MORE likely to be made now that the FPS is coming out.
“Now millions of gamers are getting exposed to the Shadowrun backstory. Elves, Trolls, RNA Global, the Lineage, etc”
That’s not the Shadowrun back-story, which is kind of the point. RNA Global? The Lineage? Those things don’t exist in the canon Shadowrun universe. Neither do many other things in this game. It only bears the slightest, most superficial of resemblances on the surface. Think Star Wars, except now instead of the Empire and the Rebels you have the Galactic Pantheon and the Free Separatists, and the Force is now used to make people’s heads explode, and there’s no actual “star wars”; instead of spaceship fights in outer space and lightsaber duels, they have dance competitions to determine the fate of the galaxy. Oh, and there’s no Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Darth Vader, or any other recognizable characters.
And just because you’d never heard of Shadowrun, and apparently have difficulty typing “Shadowrun” into Google to find sites like Dumpshock and such, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a relatively large fanbase out there. An RPG made by the same team based on this drek may be more likely, but it’s no more likely that an actual Shadowrun RPG, based on the actual Shadowrun material, will arrive.
Consider a a group of D&Ders. They have played together for many years, and people have come and gone. Now there group is very small and new blood is hard to come by. A few new people join the group, people who have had no experience with RPing. They seem to really like the hack and slash type of gameplay, so the DM caters to their desires by reducing RP in his adventures (he doesn’t want to turn them off to the game). He even comes up with a new rules system to make combat more realistic and tosses out some of the rules that don’t work well with his adventure (in order to simplify and speed up gameplay so things don’t get bogged down with anything other than combat, since thats what his players enjoy).
Does this mean they aren’t playing D&D? Has he destroyed the game? The answer is no, because PnP games are designed to be flexible. The rules are nothing more than guidelines that can be altered, added to, or removed to suit a particular group’s style.
Say this same DM later decides to change the setting of the game. He thinks his group would like a trip to another plane/alternate dimension/alternate timeline. Because they aren’t adventuring during medieval times in the wilderness or crawling through dungeons, does this mean they aren’t playing D&D? Again, no. Everything is open to interpretation and alteration in order to appeal to a specific group’s wants. Sure, it may not be the classic D&D that you remember, but it is D&D nonetheless. More importantly, it keeps this new group’s interest; thereby expanding the fanbase.
This is essentially the Shadowrun FPS. It caters to a new group of people in order to expand the fanbase. In order to cater to this new group, it has to modify, remove, and add to the rules and lore. I have already heard of several people who have started playing the Shadowrun PnP because of this game. I don’t see how this game is going to hurt the franchise. Besides, if you have played a PnP game, how can you even compare that experience to a video game?
I still believe that this game only increases the chances of a true Shadowrun RPG in the future (one based on the PnP game). The changes made to the FPS were done to make the game fun. Obviously converting a PnP RPG to a FPS is going to require some major changes in order to make it fun. If they go back to an RPG later, I would expect them to stay true to Shadowrun cannon.
O.S. I sympathize that your mad with the fact that it is different than the roots of where the game came from.. but just simply disagree that this game (in it’s current state) will ruin the franchise forever. It is just not true. More money will get flowing around the Shadowrun brand, it will attract some of the best and most talented artists who will be put to work on an RPG version of the game. Who will they want to sell this RPG to? YOU. What do they have to do for you to like it? Stick to the roots of the brand.
I’d actually like to know what disdain you are saying the lead designer of Shadowrun FPS had with the original storyline. I’m questioning the validity of that statement.
Obviously certain elements of the storyline must be changed to create a FPS. Less will need to be changed for an RPG.
EnragedGnome, you miss the point. It’s not about rules changes, it’s about changes to the overall style and mythology of the game. It’s just not Shadowrun. And honestly, the D&D analogy you used? When it gets out of swords and sorcery territory, it stops being D&D. It’s now just a D20 game, like D20 modern. There’s a separate setting for that for a reason. Now if WOTC decided that’s how D&D was going to be, and stopped making sword and sorcery games, but continued to call it D&D, how do you think the people who liked D&D would feel? Now the only company licensed to produce material for the system isn’t producing what they want anymore. That problem is far, far worse with a video game, because unlike PnP, you can’t just change the game to suit the tastes of the players. The thing is, there was no need to make the changes they did to accommodate the gameplay they wanted to provide. The Shadowrun lore would have easily supported what they wanted to do. Why make up “The Lineage” and “RNA Global” when you just could have used Aztechnologies and UCAS, or one of the many other established factions? Why bother to have resurrection when you could just use medkits and stimpatches? I’ll tell you why, because the designers (most notably that jackass John Howard) wanted to capitalize on the IP while still making their own vision of a game, and they didn’t care for Shadowrun much but were likely stuck with the license.
What you just don’t seem to get is that it’s not about “hurting the franchise”, because if this game is a success, Shadowrun as a computer game franchise will be totally altered. Sure, the new people attracted to it will be happy, and the game may be successful in that capacity, but for everyone else who wanted what Shadowrun was and could be, there won’t be a Shadowrun video game franchise anymore. They’ll get more of this junk, branded as Shadowrun, and any chance of a game that actually makes an attempt at a canon recreation of the Shadowrun universe is eliminated. Do you really think if this game sells well, that the developers are going to want to make another Shadowrun game that ignores all the IP they created here to use IP they’ve said they don’t care much for? They could have just used a different name, and let another Microsoft published studio do a game that actually used the original IP. That way, you could still have this game that you seem to love, and all of us that liked the original Shadowrun could have our game too. Now, only one group gets what they wanted. And as a last point, this has nothing to do with PnP versus a computer game. I never said anything to that effect. This is about the PnP players and players of the old console Shadowrun games that wanted to see the same Shadowrun brought to life on a new generation of consoles. The PnP game will go on, as it always does, and since the licenses are seperate, there likely will be little to no effect on it.
As for Oculus, no changes to the storyline were needed to make an FPS. Given the long history and vast depth of Shadowrun lore, there are a million possible combinations they could have used. The simple fact that they’re making a game called Shadowrun that features no actual shadowruns or shadowrunners shows you how much thought they put into that aspect of the design. I don’t have the link for the interview where the designer said he didn’t care for the whole “spandex and mohawks” motif and having to deal with the established SR timeline, so they set it earlier in the future and just made stuff up, but I’m going to go search for it now. I think it may have been on Shacknews.
I was also going to post a link to Mitch Gitelman’s Shadowrun blog, but it no longer seems to be in existence. Wonder why…
Anyway, this is the closest link to that I could find for now. Hopefully I’ll stumble upon that other large interview soon…
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/55800-There-is-no-Shadowrun-game-for-the-XBox-360
Now tell me. What prominent development studio was going to make Shadowrun before FASA? …cricket ….cricket
I think you would be still sitting there on your behind, knowing that the chances a Shadowrun video game would be created would be slim to none if it weren’t for FASA. Bottom line: your chances of having what you want are far better now than it would have ever been.
But you need to be involved.. Participate in the Shadowrun forum, create a website or something, get a following, create a petition, hold FASA’s feet to the fire and make them listen. It’s easy to just sit around and gripe. Make them know how you want another version of the game to be. (should there be one created). They might listen, you know.
FASA as an independent developer doesn’t exist anymore. They’re just one of the many, many Microsoft owned and published studios now. It’s Microsoft that owns the rights to produce the video game version of Shadowrun, they could have given it to any of their studios to do. They chose FASA because of the name tie-in (even though the current FASA has about as much to do with the old FASA and a ham sandwich - see MechAssault), and because they wanted a FPS to showcase their Live service across the XBox and PC. It’s unfortunate Shadowrun has to be the sacrificial lamb for this to happen.
And no, the chances of having what I and other Shadowrun fans want is reduced now, not heightened, just because someone is using the name. With Microsoft owning the license and planning on a game for over 10 years (including the aborted 1998 game), there was a chance. Now, with this game being released, the pseudo-FASA possibly being disbanded after it, and the change to the video game continuity, there’s far, far less chance.
And what you describe doing is… sitting around and griping. Just in a different place. Sorry, MS and FASA are going to do what they want, no matter how many people complain. If that actually worked, this game wouldn’t be in its current state.
Of course, none of this addresses the fact, and none of the posts in these comments thus far have addressed the fact that it wasn’t necessary to do it this way. Gitelman basically said “hey, we had all the source material, we considered what we could do to make the best Shadowrun experience, and you know what we decided? To take the easy way out and reboot the entire thing.” They took the cheap way out to make a buck, instead of doing it the right way. Feel free to continue supporting this sort of tactic, the sort of business that always gets done by the new FASA. Someday you’ll be in my shoes. I’m done with this one now, it’s a lost cause.
It is the nature of the corporate world to do that which will return a profit. No matter what a small group of dedicated fans may consider cannon, nobody is bound by law or morality to pander to the interests of that small group when they believe other decisions would result in a broader audience.
I had never heard of Shadowrun before the FPS. Now I’m interested in the story of Shadowrun, whatever that may be. I am sure many others like me will be exposed to the Shadowrun concept for the first time through the FPS. That generally means bigger and better things for the SR franchise.
If those bigger and better things don’t line up with the creator’s original intent then that is unfortunate. However, what good is a great story if only a handful of people know about it?
I agree that this Shadowrun will hirt the chances of getting a REAL Shadowrun RPG game. But for not quite the same reason that OSS does. I’ve been watching the ratings and news and sorry to tell all you fps fans but this Shadowrun is dieing. The bad press, reviews and tec issues its getting is killing it. It hasnt been on the top 10 sence the week of its release. Now its in the 90’s.
My fear is that its doing so bad no other co will want to touch it. For fear of backing a loosing product. Thies guys are in it to make money. When Shadowrun 2 is concidered they will be looking at sales figures and grafs. Not the fact is this is not the game the real fans wanted.