Game News Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Update #85: Hong Kong campaign concept art revealed

[Kem0sabe]

I've been plodding my way through the Div OS tools since release as mostly a novice and have to agree with Zed here. You can't even get a stand alone mod rolling without pasting in tons of files that should be automatically generated. It never would have rivaled the scene of some of the names mentioned in here but a lot of enthusiastic people quit within a few weeks due to this and the middleware issues. A big thing that gets a modding scene rolling is visual changes and that's all but flat out impossible in D:OS. It was basically never going to get off the ground.

Look at how hard it is to mod in some of the best modded games out there, and still we see examples of quality work. The base interest in the game needs to be there.

 

[eXalted]

And Civilization V and it's expansions, great mod community.

Ah, if it only was possible a Kickstarter to be made when someone is creating a mod/UGC..

 

[naossano]

autism.

Relevance ?

 

[Athelas]

Fallout games were made in the late 90s, with not so user-friendly modding tools, and the best mods are still in develloppement.

Don't confuse the efforts of a few dedicated fans with an active modding scene. Obviously, the modding scene of Fallout 1+2 is a fraction of that of Fallout 3/New Vegas.

 

[Zed]

Relevance ?

it was somewhat in jest.

what's important for a mod scene to appear and thrive are first adopters. the first people to create (successful) mods. this inspires others to hop on the bandwagon, and communities are born.
artists need an audience and all that, and these first mods prove that there is one.

thus, somewhat in jest, I propose that the only people that start modding for fallout (small audience today) or other old games or games with smaller audiences are autistic.

 

[Zetor]

They actually held a contest with at least four different categories (single map, short mod, long mod, props and maybe something else), but participation was very light. One of the HBS designers also held live "modding Q/A" webinars, but there were maybe 10 people in them total. They also had some 'modding workshops' in a few cons back in 2013, but I never heard about the outcome (I can guess, though: :tumbleweed:). Oh yeah, they also had a series of let's plays / critiques (~30 min to 1 hour each) of quite a few mods. Of course nobody knows about any of this since the HBS PR machine is nonexistent.

edit: there's also a wiki that's actually semi-regularly updated by the developers. I guess this is what passes for 'documentation', though it's not dissimilar to the bethesda creation wiki in concept -- http://shadowrun-returns.wikispaces.com

FWIW, as someone who's been interested in content creation since the MUD building days, the most important thing is to make sure that you're not wasting too much of the builder's time. Let's say I have an idea and know how it would look in the game. If I'm spending more than 20% of my 'modding' time fiddling with obnoxious shit like having to memorize eleventy billion object names just to make a single room that doesn't look like crap or - worse yet - fine tuning stuff that should work out of the box (hi FNV/skyrim navmeshes!), I'll think of a better use of my time instead. The SRR editor's main flaw in this area is the lack of persistence (as pointed out a few hundred times in these threads), and I don't think it'll get any better with the new release. Actually putting a map together, dropping some enemies on it and making it playable is far easier than doing the same thing in DivOS... even though DivOS has all those fancy features with automated terrain creation, making stairs/houses painlessly, etc.

(aside: I consider the City of Heroes Mission Architect far superior to the Neverwinter Foundry, even though the latter has waaaay more features -- including major stuff like dialog trees and the ability to hand-place every single mob/item on the map. Going from a concept to a finished 'mod' in the MA took maybe a week, and if you worked with the limitations of the toolset, you could still create some awesome stuff. Doing decent content in NW Foundry, in contrast, takes at least a month of work with the same intensity. Yeah, sorry, I'm not a college kid with an infinite amount of free time anymore.)

 

[naossano]

thus, somewhat in jest, I propose that the only people that start modding for fallout (small audience today) or other old games or games with smaller audiences are autistic.

Dunno about your country, but from where i come from, autistic are mentally ill people that can't interact with others. You can't drop it with no reason or relationship with the topic.

I don't have the numbers about the modders, but what i am aware of is that the Fo modding scene evolved a lot, not only by mods made with the Fallout 2 engine, but also with the birth of the Fonline engine in 2009, which exploded the possibilities of Fallout mods, multiplayer & single player. Which lead to great project that weren't possible early one. There is also the addition of 3D model rendered into the engine, which multiplie the number of new "sprites" which weren't so easy to make when you had to create each image one by one.

Once again, i don't know the numbers, but that modding scene is pretty living, especially considering the fact that we can't count on the current IP holders to provide Fallout games using Fallout gameplay. They provide a service that is deeply missing in the market.

 

[Jaesun]

I do wish HBS would take a very serious and focused approach to modding their games. That is the one thing that will keep your games alive. The FRUA community is STILL active, and that is for a TWENTY ONE year old game...l.

 

[Lerk]

Dunno about your country, but from where i come from, autistic are mentally ill people that can't interact with others. You can't drop it with no reason or relationship with the topic.

You best get used to that. "Retard" and "Aspie" are also in common currency here, but none of these terms are (usually) meant to reflect their literal definition.

...Jeebus, did I really just have to explain this on the Codex?

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, I find that those games with a healthy modding scene keep that scene forever.

Thief. Rome and Medieval 2 Total War. Tomb Raider. Neverwinter Nights. They all have very productive modding scenes that have been going at it for 10+ years.

 

[Decado]

The Codex isn't the rest of the world. Shadowrun Returns had 36,000+ backers. What percentage of those people care enough to come back for a "more of the same" Kickstarter? How many of them were disappointed by SRR? How many of them were just hopping on the 2012 Kickstarter fad and no longer care about that stuff? We shall see.

Keep in mind that HBS have consistently failed to hype up their products since the initial launch of the game - Dragonfall was great but it seems few people noticed. Dragonfall DC dropped like a rock. I dunno man, it just seems like the fire isn't there. And that's why they might need to demand more money from those few people who do care.

I've said this before, but what you're describing here (and I agree with you -- it happened) is a classic failure of marketing. It is also one of the easiest things in the whole goddamn world to fix, especially in the world of video games. Marketing is so inexpensive nowadays, and the channels you can use are so expansive, there is no excuse to fall down on this. I really hope they turn their shit around on this.

 

[eXalted]

I'm gonna post a link to this threat on their forums at the end...

The SRR editor's main flaw in this area is the lack of persistence (as pointed out a few hundred times in these threads), and I don't think it'll get any better with the new release.

Yeah I even watched one of those seminars on youtube, there is link on that wiki. I was thinking of crating a UGC but now my desire is slowly diminishing..

 

[mindx2]

I'm gonna post a link to this threat on their forums at the end...

Freudian slip there.

 

[Morality Games]

Modding is FAR from dead. Once the mod scene for a game picks up and starts running, you can't stop it. It feeds itself, by releasing ever more great mods, inspiring new people to try it out too, by creating and releasing new custom content that everyone can use in their own mods, getting more and more competent with the modtools, with scripting, with the game engine itself, even with the game's code. The problem is getting it started. Once the modding scene gets started, it's there to stay. But first, the game needs to have a dedicated enough fanbase, or the mod tools have to be flexible enough to allow for easy module creation, and then the scene will grow by itself as modders grow more competent and offer easy starter guides for beginners.

Nothing you said is wrong, but the American/global economy collapsed in 2008 and is far from dead. WoW's subscriber model is collapsing on itself (resulting in a steep revenue decline Blizzard), but it is still strong relative to other markets and will be for years. Once a modding community takes root it is very persistent (simiar to say an MMO community), but the rate of gamers making such investments to the ratio of content that is being released is smaller than it used to be.

 

[Severian Silk]

Homeworld modding scene is pretty much dead.

 

[eXalted]

Freudian slip there.

Oh, didn't notice that! And as a matter of fact I'm reading his book right now

 

[Dreaad]

Really it does come down to the initial barrier of difficulty and how much you can do with the tools provided. Lot of people throwing around well known games with a large audience etc but that's not really necessary. Smaller almost indie level games often have an insanely large modding community IF the tools are there. Good examples are Mount and Blade, which like my other truly great modding scenes started almost a decade ago, people were creating mods for it while it was still essentially an alpha version. The Dominions series of games which have a very small audience overall also has an almost endless amount of mods, because almost anyone who plays the game also makes mods for it since it's so easy. Sins of a Solar Empire, Star Wars Empire at War, The Stalker games etc. These days there's even been a revival of BG1/2 modding due to the EE versions being released. You could also easily consider emulation/translation as a modding community, which once started never slowed down (though that really is dedicated semi professionals for the most part).

Point is modding is in no way dead or dying, no one starts modding to make money unless they are retarded and companies in no way have to fear the modding community no matter how amazing and expansive the content created is. People continued to buy Elder Scrolls, Total War, Bioware games even if the modders created better content than the endless sequels.

This isn't even including all the games that came about because of modding, a hugely successful genre in and of itself with MOBA games, shit like Day Z and the hundreds of half life 1 mods that were eventually turned into actual games.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Fallout games were made in the late 90s, with not so user-friendly modding tools, and the best mods are still in develloppement.

That's what we call : not user-friendly. A brilliant example.

 

[almondblight]

At the beginning a bunch of people were working on SRR mods. But yeah, everyone wanted to make a persistent open world, and most seemed to get burned out putting the hundreds of hours necessary into doing that in the engine. The mod community itself got split, with the main hub being on Steam which left out the DRM-free people. There were numerous issues with the Steam community page (particularly screwing up updates). Fixes to the engines improved things, but broke a lot of stuff. And it seems most users weren't even aware of the mods that existed (which is a shame, because some are really great).

It seems like there are a number of people hammering away here and there, but they definitely lost momentum. Not sure if HBS will be able to recapture that with the new Kickstarter at all (maybe if they raise enough to include persistence and update the tools), which is a shame, as there was (and maybe still is) a ton of potential there.

 

[Morkar Left]

The mod community itself got split, with the main hub being on Steam which left out the DRM-free people.

Personally I didn't have the patience to keep up with the steam bullshit. Modders started to exclusively use steam workshop which practically meant their mods were dead for me. But I mostly blame the players. They are the people who want to have everything on steam which looks like more consumer friendly at first glance, but ultimately it's more cumbersome and prone to failures than just downloading a mod and putting it into a folder. Using mods was a lot easier back in the day when everybody knew the mystery concept of folders in windows.

 

[eXalted]

Was there a thread or a place where the backers could give suggestions to their old Kickstarter? Were they listening to them?

 

[clemens]

Shadowrun: Hong Kong

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns/posts/1095934

Wallpapers available here :

edit : fixed links :

https://s3.amazonaws.com/www.harebrained-schemes.com/ShadowrunHK-KS/HK_wallpaper.png

https://s3.amazonaws.com/www.harebrained-schemes.com/ShadowrunHK-KS/HK_wallpaperNoText.png

 

[naossano]

What a surprise.

 

[eXalted]

Okay, someone tell them in the comments we need better editor (I wasn't a baker)

 

[JarlFrank]

So, most mods are now on that fucking steam workshop? Wow, that works great with my GoG version...

Fucking steam.

Any mods hosted on the Nexus that you can recommend?