Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

[Decado]

This game is pretty fucking awesome. DMS was not bad, this one is fucking lightyears ahead in terms of writing and characterization. Well done, HBS.

 

[Vibalist]

Did you notice I wrote "largely down to character skill" instead of "entirely"? I know perfectly well that any game requires the player to have at least some degree of skill, but what seperates an RPG from an action game or a FPS is that in an RPG success is also dependent on the skill level of your character. If you want to hit a wooden ledge with a rope arrow in Thief it's purely down to your own aim whether you succeed. In Dragonfall there'd be a skill check.

I think it's one of those discussions we've had approximately 1 billion times on this forum.

Success in role playing games that use real-time action for combat resolution is also modified by character skill. Regardless of the model used, people who are good can succeed with poorly built characters and people who are bad will struggle even with optimal builds.

Yes. But I was thinking of RPG's more in the vein of Fallout and Baldurs Gate, though.

 

[circ]

Anyone tried the Tablet version? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it a lot different?

Spoiler

?

NOpe, have not tried. However, I heard it's optimized for tablets, explaining the unresponsive mouse clicking. Maybe it's a smoother experience, and maybe the UI isn't so horrible.

 

[Galdred]

Anyone tried the Tablet version? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it a lot different?

Spoiler

?

NOpe, have not tried. However, I heard it's optimized for tablets, explaining the unresponsive mouse clicking. Maybe it's a smoother experience, and maybe the UI isn't so horrible.

I think user created modules don't work on tablets. That would be a major reason not to play this on a tablet.

 

[Infinitron]

Finished this. Good RPG.

There are lots of things I could say, but for now I'll just remark that I appreciated how overall weak your companions were. Eiger just did not do a lot of damage with her shotgun, Dietrich was only good for buffing and not much else, Blitz's bot was lame, and for Glory to do serious damage you really had to commit her to spending an entire turn slashing at somebody. I also noticed that, unless you were a mage or some other class that has that type of stuff, your default party was basically without AoEs - Dietrich only has that one spell that he'll almost never get to use because he's too busy buffing. This encourages you to use grenades, which is a good thing.

Compared to DMS it seemed a lot harder to hit enemies in Dragonfall. Your to-hit chances just seemed lower across the board. You'd think this is a crude way of generating difficulty, but it gets the job done. Fights are longer, you get hurt more. The game was still pretty easy, but not "broken easy" like DMS.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Eiger

Shotgun

 

[Infinitron]

Eiger

Shotgun

I figured you'd say that, but you don't always get to pick your position on the battlefield in the game, and some of the levels are pretty cramped. The sniper rifle isn't a superweapon either - like Glory's blades it requires a full turn of commitment, which you can't always provide. It becomes much more useful once you've gotten the 3 AP, certainly.

 

[Infinitron]

Mitch Gitelman on the sales of Dragonfall and possibilities for another campaign: http://www.shadowrun.com/forums/discussion/38355/so-how-is-it-doing-sr-dragonfall

As you can see from the quote, I didn't say that the sales do not justify another expansion. I said that sales need to be strong enough to justify another. We didn't expect the sales of Dragonfall to be amazing out of the gate. It's an expansion to a game that was good but wasn't a hit (although SRR did all right, thank you very much).

IMO, DF is a strong improvement on SRR and we hope that when word gets out, its sales will eventually justify all the hard work that went into it. Reviews are very strong and the people who talk about it on FB, Twitter, info@, say nice things. We have a clear idea of what we want in another expansion campaign (and no, I'm not gonna talk about it yet) but we have to be smart about our time and people investments.

To be crystal clear: We loved making Dragonfall and would love to make another expansion. We spent a lot of time, effort and money on DF and before we commit to another of similar scope and quality, we want to know that it's a smart use of our time.

Passion, we've got plenty of. Smarts...

Anyway, if the community wants another professionally told Shadowrun story, please help by spreading the word about Dragonfall and about HBS. Send the Steam store link to friends you think will like it. Support us in forums after reviews come out. Tweet and retweet. All that 21st Century stuff.

We're doing our best to promote the game but we're a small team of indies and can use all the support we can get.

Believe me, if we CAN make another Shadowrun campaign, we WILL.

Hey all,

Thanks for the responses. I LOVE the idea of a fan-funded campaign because of the heavy interaction with the audience. We've considered another Kickstarter but I'm not convinced we should do one. It is a ton of work to plan and manage one and I am loathe to allow stretch goals to dramatically increase the scope/complexity/time commitment of another expansion.

Also, fan-funded means covering the operating budget. That doesn't necessarily translate into a viable, sustainable business. For that, you need a lot more people purchasing the game. Dragonfall has been very well received by the audience and the reviewers and we're appreciative that our hard work shows. Over time, we hope and expect sales to justify another. I hate to leave it vague for now because a producer's mortal enemy is ambiguity. If you're like me, and want to know sooner rather than later, let's get creative about surfacing Dragonfall. CYNICALP: SRR had about 40k backers, not 70k.

And yes, Total Biscuit was one of the first people to receive a review code.

 

[Infinitron]

And here's the GameBanshee review (by WUE, not Steven Carter!): http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/113327-shadowrun-dragonfall-review/all-pages.html

 

[Jaedar]

It is a shame dragonfall hasn't sold better, but I feel a lot of it is their own fault for failing to market it properly. They really should have sold it as a (standalone) expansion, not DLC.

I do hope they wind up making another campaign though.

 

[WhiteGuts]

Err...Shadowrun MMO

 

[DeepOcean]

Err...Shadowrun MMO

That is old news, it is made by another company with other kickstarter.

 

[Decado]

Err...Shadowrun MMO

Ugh. That looks like complete shit.

 

[Infinitron]

Err...Shadowrun MMO

That is old news, it is made by another company with other kickstarter.

Yup: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/shadowrun-online-goes-kickstarter.74343/

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So will they release another Shadowrun game?

 

[DeepOcean]

So will they release another Shadowrun game?

Reading between the lines on what Mitch Gitelman said on the Shadowrun site, no. Dragonfall didn't sold as well as Shadowrun returns. They think that as it is an expansion and expansions usualy sell way less than the original game, it means that another expansion would just sell even less. He let open the possibility of a kickstarted campaign after dragonfall but he didn't seemed all that enthusiastic with the idea. Well, we will know in the next months if shadowrun returns is dead for good because if it depends of the modding community is already dead.

 

[Gord]

Thinking positively they might do another one if the sales pick up or at least don't go down too fast.
The marketing campaign could have been done better, it certainly deserves more sales.

 

[clemens]

So will they release another Shadowrun game?

no. Dragonfall didn't sold as well as Shadowrun returns.

If true, that's a pity. Dragonfall was a nice improvement over DMS and it certainly doesn't look like Shadowrun Online will be the next great Shadowrun game...
Another great setting goes down the toilet while everybody plays the next generic fantasy crap Dragon Age/Witcher/whatever.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Truly upsetting.

 

[Infinitron]

Man, they screwed the pooch with the marketing of this game, didn't they? I did a web search for the names of the companions, expecting to find like, Biodrones talking about whether Eiger or Glory is the better waifu or something, but it seems barely anybody is talking about the game. What a shame.

 

[circ]

There's a decent amount of talk on official Shadowrun forums and Gamefaqs.

There's always cdp's upcoming Cyberpunk thing. But it's probably heading for retardville.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Bad marketing. That's just poor leadership and poor management right there.

 

[Gord]

Wasn't there some talk about a combi version that contained both DMS and DF?
Because that doesn't seem to have materialized so far.

Now, butthurt from some people aside over potentially having payed 5 bucks more for getting both seperately, this would be a much better incentive of buying SRR for someone who hasn't done so before.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Man, they screwed the pooch with the marketing of this game, didn't they?

should have released dragonfall as standalone or just packed dms for free with it... and sent us more mountain dew...

 

[Crooked Bee]

I finished Dragonfall a few days ago and I thought it was pretty average; the combat, for one, is just extremely dull, and so is the exploration -- which is basically non-existent; the hub is a joke. I wouldn't even call it a hub. Dunno about the companion characterization - I didn't pay any attention to that, really.

My overall impression is that S:R is just plain mediocre and forgettable. But maybe I just missed out on the appeal.

Dragonfall is better than OC tho', that much I can agree with.