#sronline

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Shadowrun Online: #DiscussionOfTheWeek

#DiscussionOfTheWeek is returning! Out of the seven runs currently in #Shadowrun Online, which one is your favorite - and why?

— Shadowrun Online (@ShadowrunOnline) January 12, 2015

[shadowrun]

Shadowrun Online - 05.12.2014 2:47PM

Up to now you were playing mission after mission in Shadowrun Online, but never got a firm sense of where in Boston the action took place. Yes, there were some texts describing where we were heading in the mission descriptions, but these weren’t adequate to give you the feeling of the action taking place in various parts of a city. With the next update however you won’t have to rely on text alone anymore: A city map representing Boston will show you where you will be heading next. We asked our technical artist Riccardo to share a bit more about the creation of this map.

Click the link for more, including the full-sized version of this and another map:

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During the last weeks we’ve been mostly showing you new features coming to Shadowrun Online soon. This time however we’d like to give you another glimpse behind the curtain, showing you how we create the things you get to play. Please welcome Chris, a veteran programmer at Cliffhanger Productions who recently joined the Shadowrun Online Team.

I switched to the SRO team only some days ago, so we had to find something that will introduce me to how things in SRO work without binding too many other precious resources. As I always like to help the other developers to be more productive we finally settled on improving our tools for creating levels. After all, getting missions out quicker and in better quality will always help with the overall product!

So what takes a map from being a pretty sight to a fully playable level inside SRO?

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The last two issues of our blog series about the development of Shadowrun Online were filled with graphical updates. This time however we want to show you more than just new character models, but rather give you an answer to a question we have been asked alot lately: How will the skill system change? Our lead game designer Tom has the answer to that question.

In the version currently live we have a rudimentary system of proficiencies – actually they are SR5 skills, but we renamed them as not to confuse them with the skills that you use within a mission. At the moment they have an influence on how effective you are with a weapon, with an internal mechanic very similar to the precision rating of weapons in SR5.

However, just adding numbers is a bit boring so the new system will be extended to include active skills.

In the new skill trees you can learn new active skills with karma, and have some actual choices while doing it. This means that you’ll be able to spend karma on new skills, or enhanced versions of skills you already have.

[shadowrun]

Hoi Chummers!

It’s getting cold outside and here at Cliffhanger Productions we’re staying inside warming our hands on our red-hot keyboards working diligently to complete Shadowrun Online!

These past few weeks took a good look at the game Shadowrun Online has become. So we went through the feedback you provided during the last months and also had lots of discussions with all members of the team, trying to answer two very important questions: “Is this game going to be fun to play?” and “How can we make Shadowrun Online a game that our fans can truly enjoy?” In doing so we reached the following conclusion: While we currently have a lot of good stuff in the game, some things aren’t working out the way they should and we are missing features that would add much to the gameplay. So we did a lot of brainstorming, evaluating and redesigning – and came up with a new roadmap that will incorporate several changes on our road to release.

[shadowrun]

As we already announced, all our departments are currently working on a lot of improvements and changes to Shadowrun Online. Expect more news about the changes within the upcoming weeks. For this issue of our dev diary series however we’re going to follow up to last week’s blog entry that presented our improved human player model. Ever since we posted it, people have been asking “Are you touching up the other races too?” Here’s the answer, written again by our lead designer Tom.

In addition to the last “pretty people” update, of course we also tried to give our male models a bit of extra attention. Stefan, our concept and texture artists turned out to be a veritable maestro when it comes to creating well-defined male bottoms and aesthetically pleasing clusters of chest, leg and back hair.

Here’s how our dwarfes are a lot more dwarfy, the orcs a bit more orcy and the trolls… well, we finally think they’re worthy of the name

[shadowrun]

Hoi Chummers!

It’s getting cold outside and here at Cliffhanger Productions we’re staying inside warming our hands on our red-hot keyboards working diligently to complete Shadowrun Online!

These past few weeks took a good look at the game Shadowrun Online has become. So we went through the feedback you provided during the last months and also had lots of discussions with all members of the team, trying to answer two very important questions: “Is this game going to be fun to play?” and “How can we make Shadowrun Online a game that our fans can truly enjoy?” In doing so we reached the following conclusion: While we currently have a lot of good stuff in the game, some things aren’t working out the way they should and we are missing features that would add much to the gameplay. So we did a lot of brainstorming, evaluating and redesigning – and came up with a new roadmap that will incorporate several changes on our road to release.

To be continued in the link.

[shadowrun]