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Kanfy posted:In case someone likes their games non-steamy, you can get the Shadowrun trio for roughly from Gog.com right now. I dont know posted:If anyone is fence sitting, that's an insanely good value for some of the best RPG's (particularly the sequels) of the last few years. What is different about the games on Steam like Boston Lockdown and Infested? I have all three of the above rpgs on GOG, but these seem to be a different type of game that I can't quite put my finger on.
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# ? Jul 19, 2017 18:52 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 07:26 |
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Anything called Shadowrun Chronicles is made by another developer, that's probably the main difference. from what I've heard, the Chronicles series is bad.
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# ? Jul 19, 2017 18:58 |
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Chronicles is garbage, but the first Harebrained SR game (this one) is good and the next two (Dragonfall and Hong Kong) are great.
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# ? Jul 19, 2017 19:09 |
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Part 19 - Puppets and Puppeteers Upon arriving in the basement we quickly learn why the alarm brought in so few guards, they seem to be busy with the violent and abused mental patients presumably released by Silas. In fact this entire section will pretty much be one long gauntlet of fighting off guards and crazies. That being said neither of the aforementioned groups is especially well armed or armored, nor do they possess any magic. The guards are the same 30 HP weaklings armed with handguns as on the main floor. The violent patients have more varied weaponry, but "more varied" doesn't equal "better" as demonstrated by this guy bonking Savoy on the head with a crowbar, slightly messing up his hairdo. A grave offense and one Marchetti repays by one-two punching various bodily fluids out of him. As we start heading deeper, Holmes continues crossing off the squares on the cliché villain bingo by giving us a monologue via the intercom. A little ways into the main hallway, more maniacs attempt to ambush our drones from a small maintenance room. One of them takes a swing at Pascal, but somehow manages to miss the stationary drone. Just like Hello World, Pascal is equipped with a mortar which hits all hostile targets directly adjacent to each other. The Robo-doc teaches the pair an important lesson in positioning and then immediately blows them up to make sure they don't get to tell anyone else about it. Again a little further in, another trio of inmates are loitering in one of the larger patient rooms. There's also a door on the opposite side of the hallway, but it's locked and thus bound to be where we need to go. Some of the unstable patients carry firearms, making them a little more threatening than the ones swinging pieces of wood or metal. We're still not exactly talking LMGs here though. There are also some green sparks floating around what looks like a hazardous waste container nearby, indicating a spirit summoning point. And speaking of hazardous waste, our hazardous drone promptly wastes the armed woman, no signs of remorse about gunning down the mentally damaged visible on its cold sensors. Maybe Amazon's feeling something but she's too far to check. Savoy on the other hand is all about bathing in their blood, putting into question who the crazy one really is here. Meanwhile Shannon has reached the scene and promptly uses the summoning spot to conjure up a spirit. And by "spirit" I mean this godforsaken abomination bearing the name "Apocalypse". Man, I remember when we used to summon cute water and earth spirits, these days it's just one affront to nature after another. Like Pestilence it can spit acid and reduce AP with its normal attacks, it's own trick being the ability to exhume a disease cloud in a large radius around it. The patients' lack of armor makes them pretty vulnerable to critical hits, making Amazon's drones even deadlier than usual. With the room cleared of anything breathing, we can continue down the hallway unmolested. After turning a corner Pascal comes face-to-roboface with a masked fellow who has taken the Shotgun Surgeon perk from Fallout to its logical extreme. Alas he forgot to tag Guns so he whiffs a shot after getting a mortar in the noggin, fleeing to the room behind him afterwards. Pascal chases after him while the rest of the group are still catching up, spotting another patient patiently hiding behind the corner. Whose side is this surgeon guy on anyway? Pascal isn't here to question such things, Pascal is here to With the last immediate threat in the area eliminated, the team gets a chance to catch their breaths for a bit. Which turns out to be a bad idea in this particular room. Explains why the occupant of the place was wearing a mask. Imagine if this key hadn't happened to be here, we might've been stuck forever! Examining the cart a second time also yields us another unlabeled trivid disc. We can only pray these aren't some hosed up snuff tapes. As we backtrack to the locked door from earlier, Mengele Jr. here continues his rambling. I could remake you as well. What wonderfully twisted thoughts must churn in a mind such as yours. But I'm more inclined to use you for parts. There's a big guy with a big gun chilling in a padded room here. If he hadn't gone mad yet, a walking nightmare like Apocalypse suddenly popping up in the doorway probably would've done the job. Despite his size he's not much of a threat with that kind of damage output, though of course that could've just as well been a 24 damage crit with some bad luck. The damage system and armor changes in Dragonfall and Hong Kong stabilize damage numbers a lot, but here in Returns it's anybody's guess whether a hit will blow someone's brains out or lightly tickle their nose. His 50 HP take a bit to whittle down but Apocalypse and Marchetti get the job done together. The door to the northeast leads to the last room of this area, and in here we have one last security guard and a machete-wielding doctor. I'm still not sure what the deal with these violent medical professionals is, but presumably they're in cahoots with the Ripper and are defending him for some reason. This room also has the first Heavy ley line we've been able to make use of, increasing the damage and accuracy of all of Verbena's spells in addition to reducing their cooldown by 1 for as long as she's standing on it. A real nice but also rare treat. In any case, these two aren't any tougher than the dozen other chumps we've already killed here. Machetes might be a real threat in horror movies but here they're just a poor life decision. Before we move on, there is one thing of interest in this room - namely a trivid player which conveniently holds a collection of Silas' personal diaries. Some of them are missing, but we did pick up #1 and #3 on the way here so might as well start from the top. #1 #3 #6 In real life, bunraku refers to a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre. In Shadowrun the term is used for so-called "meatpuppets", prostitutes and sex slaves slotted with a variant form of BTL known as a personafix chip which suppresses their normal personality and replaces it with one that suits the customer's needs. Basically sex robots except they're actual people whose bodies are being controlled by a program. These are often used by specialized bunraku parlors which provide meatpuppets for pretty much any fetish one can come up with, with many of the "workers" further modified with cosmetic surgery to make them look like celebrities and what have you. Whether these people are willing participants or some poor bastards who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time one night is largely a secondary concern. If one were to run a contest to find the most messed up Shadowrun concept, bunraku would be a pretty solid contender. #8 So yeah, in case Silas being a serial killer didn't make him evil enough yet, it turns out he's also been modifying and selling the mentally damaged as mindless sex slaves to rich customers. Incidentally, the paydata we grabbed during our Matrix run on the main floor was a complete list of those customers. Behind this door is where our chase will finally come to its end, hopefully. We get 4 Karma for getting this far. But wait! That means... Having reached 120 total Karma, Amazon has her base AP permanently upgraded from 2 to 3. That's right, she has finally gained the ability to actually move and do things in combat! For 1 AP's worth anyway. Feeling more active than ever, we head through the door. Of course he has an evil lair as well. There are some very morally ambiguous characters in these games. Silas Forsberg is not one of them. How much longer you going to hide, doc? Hide? Nothing of the sort. I'm simply in observation. And what I have next in store should prove most illuminating. (I like Shoot Straight but by now I'm pretty ready to hear some other combat theme for a change) This is it, the very final confrontation ever for certain! We're up against a mage, a surgeon with a baseball bat ( ) and Pitezel, the giant cybered-up troll who apparently likes donuts. One ugly-rear end SOB, Pitezel is by far the toughest enemy in the game thus far, sporting a rather absurd 100 HP and packing a serious punch. Literally as punching is his only method of attack, so the good news is that he has no ways of dealing damage from range. He apparently also has a chance to go berserk similarly to spirits going rogue, but I haven't seen it myself. I don't know what oil Amazon used on Pascal but the little bot has been on absolute fire today. Completely disregarding the mortar's poor accuracy at range and with a little help from Crow, the drone rains hell on the two henchmen accurately and effectively, taking them both out of the fight before they get single a turn. Guess that's one way to support the team. As Pitezel gets closer, Shannon summons our old zombie bird friend Pestilence using a pool of blood on the floor. You know, shaman things. The team focus-fires the monstrous troll, but it's not nearly enough to actually kill him. Make no mistake, this guy can beat the absolute daylights out of anyone he gets his giant metallic hands on. If this had been Amazon instead of her drone she'd now be nothing but a messy pile on the floor. Also I tried to land Blindness on him with Verbena like three times but he somehow always managed to be out of her LOS due to the pillars in the room. I'm bad at video games. In what is quite possibly the dumbest move the man could've made, Silas himself runs into the battlefield after Pitezel has taken sufficient damage. Despite his scrawny appearance he does have a very impressive 70 HP as well, but... ...unfortunately for him, Pestilence's Confusion spell sticks so all he gets to do is flail around like an idiot. Sadly the spell description turns out to be false advertising and we don't get to control him ourselves, probably due to UI limitations. I've never felt so Weak! in my life as trying to bring this jerk down. Considering what a critfest this has been up until now, Pitezel really highlights how big of a difference high Body and armor can make. But no matter how resilient he is, at the end of the day it's still a 1v7 situation and in what is probably the coolest action shot one could feasibly hope for with these graphics, Savoy finally fells the giant with his axe just like in his favorite fantasy novels. To add insult to injury, Pestilence (which makes an absolutely horrifying noise every time it attacks by the way) knocks the hell out of Silas' AP leaving him confused AND stunned. In the end, the Emerald City Ripper's bloody tale is brought to its conclusion by the absolute wimpiest-looking punch the world has ever seen. This is a place of broken things... I remake them... She... she asked me to remake her... Could it possibly be that there is some greater evil at work here and Silas turns out to be merely an insignificant pawn? Good riddance. We get delicious 8 Karma as our reward for ending this menace. Here's the workbench the elf was looking at before croaking, so it's bound to be important. I admit it took me a few seconds to realize "pocsec" referred to a pocket secretary. Let's take a closer look at the workspace first. Charming. What about that leather-bound journal? The Watts name comes up once again. Melinda must be Sam and Jessica's mother, but what would Silas do with a copy of the disinterment order? Was he planning on getting something from her corpse as well? Maybe the pocket secretary can shed light on this. Not much we didn't know already here, though I guess it confirms he was specifically aiming for transplanted organs. While we're here we also pocket 4,500 nuyen from his account. Not like he has use for it now. The rolled sheet of paper is the last remaining thing of interest here. Now hold on, is there some Frankenstein's ladymonster made by this guy traipsing around somewhere? Or is it just some mad plan that never came to fruition? It's definitely looking like we're still missing some major pieces of this puzzle. But first things first, we need to get out of this place. We head through the doorway Silas ran in from earlier. Hello, are we interrupting something? Oh, right, the bunraku. Well, hello there. Did you come to play? Are you okay? How long have you been here? Of course we're okay. We're ready for a little party. You want to have a little play party with me, BUYER NAME? Well that was extremely uncomfortable all around. Ah, but what do we have here? Maybe we can fix things with this. For some reason we can only use the chip on the guy as we can't interact with the woman at all. The hero saves the day once again! Sweet Jesus. What did he do? What am I? Well uh that's We... we're just going to go now good luck bye There's a convenient back door located past a few empty cells in the adjacent room. Good thing Silas didn't think to use this instead of charging to his death like a complete moron. We have removed two vile creatures from this world, and so ended a growing shadow they cast upon the city. Our paths crossed and joined, and we did this thing together. But now here our paths must divide. You saw what I saw. This isn't over yet. I kinda wish there was a "yeah it's been fun now I'm off to get paid and get the hell out of this town" -option, but unfortunately all the dialogue choices here are variations of "still need to see this through". No, it won't be over for some time to come. There is still more work to be done, for both of us. But what must be done differs, for each of us. I came here to find justice for my brother, and that has been done. His spirit can now find rest. But there are other victims of the Ripper, both alive and dead, who still struggle to be at peace. Many of them are here in this place, filling the halls with their torment. I cannot leave them behind. I do appreciate that there's some closure about the whole "facility filled with tortured mental patients" thing. Of course if you didn't bring Shannon then you just end up leaving them to their fate without a second thought like the stone-cold shadowrunner you are. I suppose I can respect that. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Because of you, my brother's killer has met swift justice. And justice of the only sort such a man as Holmes deserved. Death. You're good people Shannon, not something we have in abundance around here. And what about Lone Star? They can't be far behind. Good luck to you, Amazon. I hope you can find the same justice for your friend that I found for my brother. I appreciate that. And good luck to you. Up to this point we've had an obvious goal to aim for which was dealing with the Ripper, but what now? For the time being let's head back to the Union, rest for a bit and see if we can put some of these pieces together. Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Dec 6, 2017 |
# ? Jul 21, 2017 16:26 |
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Kanfy posted:
Well, I have heard that the way spirit summoning works, at least as far as this game is concerned, then what is summoned is more based upon the area of the summoning, rather than the person summoning their actual spirit (which always kinda helps them in the background, provided the shaman is doing things to keep that spirit happy). And this place... does not strike me as being capable of attracting any spirits that are cute. Speaking of which... wow, I had forgotten how completely, unambiguously evil the bad guys get in this game, which kinda murders the whole dichotomy of ambiguity this setting is kinda supposed to be about doesn't it? Don't get me wrong, there's pure evil in the other games too, but it seems more... incidental, I guess? to the story, dancing on the fringes instead of plopping you down with an unabashed monster and his lair of horrors; a good villain should be at least a little bit relatable, and how on earth is Silas/Holmes relatable to anything or anybody, after you find out what he's up to? Come to that, how is Shannon not a pure hero as portrayed; about the only bad thing she did was assist us in breaking and entering in private property, and that's just, pfft, another night for a runner. Thankfully, both DF and HK are much better about moral ambiguity, about setting you in a giant morass of a world where everyone has their own agenda, and the glimmers of goodness and hope you see actually feel like surprises and things worth protecting, instead of par for the course.
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# ? Jul 21, 2017 17:35 |
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Shannon is doing a real good thing. Since the spirit world is a real thing in Shadowrun, all those people in pain and suffering create one heck of a nasty astral area, and attract all sorts of very unwelcome things. It's very ham-fisted how "evil" our villain is here, I'm glad future games took a little more nuance to how they wrote. That, and the fact that you have to "kill the crazies" really bothers me, considering that they aren't in control of their actions. Edit: ^ Everything the chummer above me said as well
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# ? Jul 21, 2017 18:08 |
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Oh, there's plenty of people who are hopelessly loving evil in the setting.The shades of grey are exactly how many hopelessly evil people you're willing to use to try to accomplish your goals, and the odds are good that your friendly local Mr. Johnson looks at you about the same way you look at someone like Holmes. Welcome to Of course, clearly, Holmes was just a crazy person operating on his own, and it is a safe assumption there is no deeper conspiracy behind his murder we have brushed up against. Just sell all that weird poo poo we found in his office to the highest bidder on Shadownet and call it a day, is what I say.
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# ? Jul 21, 2017 18:10 |
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Ze Pollack posted:Oh, there's plenty of people who are hopelessly loving evil in the setting.The shades of grey are exactly how many hopelessly evil people you're willing to use to try to accomplish your goals, and the odds are good that your friendly local Mr. Johnson looks at you about the same way you look at someone like Holmes. Yeah, the shades of grey in Noir/Cyberpunk don't come from a lack of monstrous people, it comes from the way the narrative forces otherwise good or neutral people to rub elbows with them.
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# ? Jul 21, 2017 18:21 |
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To me base Returns is a lot like the original Neverwinter Nights 2 campaign, it certainly has its highlights but mostly plays things pretty safe and clear-cut, ticking all or at least most of the boxes you'd expect from a game that takes place in its given setting. You can see the potential for something deeper, but for the most part it sails in very well-charted waters. Even the location is amongst the safest and most familiar there is. In both cases an expansion comes along in which the developers clearly have more freedom to spread their wings and try something different, resulting in a more interesting story that places far greater focus on exploring its characters and their motivations (not to mention the consequences of their actions), with the setting itself providing the backdrop for them rather than taking the center stage. Kanfy fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 21, 2017 |
# ? Jul 21, 2017 18:28 |
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If i remember right, the whole nasty "bunraku sex slaves" concept is from one of William Gibson's cyberpunk stories. Molly Millions, the female street samurai from the Neuromancer trilogy, was in one such bunraku brothel to pay for her expensive cyberware implants. Things go as horrible as you might expect. OutofSight fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jul 21, 2017 |
# ? Jul 21, 2017 20:21 |
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 04:55 |
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Is there an emote for a deeply begrudging golf clap?
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 05:51 |
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But how can he eat the eggs when he, himself, is an egg?
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 07:07 |
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Actually I wonder if those video disks are from the guy the elf wound up replacing, and those bunraku blanks have just been... sitting there while all this madness went on?
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 15:17 |
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Glazius posted:Actually I wonder if those video disks are from the guy the elf wound up replacing, and those bunraku blanks have just been... sitting there while all this madness went on? but what would they eat?
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 16:33 |
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AriadneThread posted:but what would they eat? Every corpse is a buffet.
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 17:04 |
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I don't think anything's pointing at the real Holmes being a shady character, plus the description about the bunraku man specifically mentions he was operated on recently: On an unrelated note R.I.P. Amazon ???? - 2054 "I don't need 4 points in Body, I've got drones!"
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 21:37 |
Kanfy posted:On an unrelated note Alas, you can't sit in a van a few miles away and operate your murderdrones from there - you still have to get in range of the things that make you get dead as a rigger in these games. Points in Body. They do a body good.
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# ? Jul 22, 2017 21:41 |
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Funnily enough, in tabletop a good rigger absolutely can sit in the van just off site and run their assortment of drones from there. They can even have a teammate plug into the on site intranet to bypass some of the security, and all they have to worry about is jamming, which is not hard to do. But that would be boring gameplay.
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# ? Jul 23, 2017 08:39 |
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Kanfy posted:I don't think anything's pointing at the real Holmes being a shady character, plus the description about the bunraku man specifically mentions he was operated on recently: Ah, fair enough. I just found it a little weird people were thinking they knew exactly who'd made the trid: that guy who stole another guy's face.
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# ? Jul 23, 2017 12:20 |
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wiegieman posted:Funnily enough, in tabletop a good rigger absolutely can sit in the van just off site and run their assortment of drones from there. Until someone manages to trace the signal.
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# ? Jul 23, 2017 12:41 |
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The Lone Badger posted:Until someone manages to trace the signal.
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# ? Jul 23, 2017 13:29 |
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LMG drones are super cheap - put a couple on van protection detail.
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# ? Jul 23, 2017 13:48 |
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Gather around friends, for I have another tale to tell, this one going by the name "The Deep End" by Jason M. Hardy. It is a tale about a certain dwarven coroner, and as with the previous short story I've edited some names to reflect the ones used in the game and divided it into a few parts for the sake of easier readability. I'll also mention that despite them taking place before the events of the game all these stories are technically meant to be read after you've finished it, but dumping them there wouldn't really work in an LP. Nothing here should spoil anything we haven't found out yet or contain anything that'll ever come up in the game itself as a plot point later on. Some story content was also adjusted after these were written, so discrepancies may exist. Shadowrun Returns Anthology posted:
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jul 23, 2017 |
# ? Jul 23, 2017 19:27 |
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Shadowrun Returns Anthology posted:
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# ? Jul 23, 2017 20:48 |
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Shadowrun Returns Anthology posted:
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jul 24, 2017 |
# ? Jul 23, 2017 21:58 |
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Well gently caress you too, Dresden. I know it's not cannon anymore, but that was a good story! Very Shadowrun. Kanfy posted:Something's odd about this one elf, you can tell from the speech bubble above his head. gently caress. You. Dresden.
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# ? Jul 24, 2017 07:03 |
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never trust a shark grin, my friend
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# ? Jul 24, 2017 08:09 |
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Well, that's a thing. I know the Anthology doesn't line up exactly 1:1 due to changes in the game as it was developed, but I wonder if Dresden was one of those changes or if it was totally intentional the whole time and the game just didn't communicate it effectively?
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# ? Jul 24, 2017 17:43 |
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Is it going to turn out that Holmes is actually a bunraku, and that's why he's so nakedly evil?
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# ? Jul 25, 2017 07:39 |
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Psion posted:Well, that's a thing. I know the Anthology doesn't line up exactly 1:1 due to changes in the game as it was developed, but I wonder if Dresden was one of those changes or if it was totally intentional the whole time and the game just didn't communicate it effectively? Alternatively it was never intended to be communicated in the game itself since the story emphasizes that Dresden is never going to acknowledge it and is also good at hiding his emotions, being very deliberate about making his reactions appear natural to others. I get the sense that it was always more of a "bonus" revelation for people who read the Anthology. White Coke posted:Is it going to turn out that Holmes is actually a bunraku, and that's why he's so nakedly evil? Him being slotted with the personality of a cartoon villain would definitely explain a lot of things. Although the term bunraku specifically refers to people used for sexual purposes, so him being one is a mental image I'd really rather keep buried and sealed forever.
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# ? Jul 25, 2017 10:39 |
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White Coke posted:Is it going to turn out that Holmes is actually a bunraku, and that's why he's so nakedly evil? Nah, there already was that psych profile we found of the dude in the Matrix from before he assumed this identity of the Doctor that said that he was a hosed up individual mentally, no need to alter his personality for him to do something like that. GhostStalker fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Jul 25, 2017 |
# ? Jul 25, 2017 12:24 |
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You know, from the start I really expected the true bad guy to be the dwarf coroner. It seemed to fit too well - he was at the crime scenes, and had the surgical know-how to extract organs. I guess this works too, even if the actual villain is just cartoonishly evil.
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# ? Jul 25, 2017 12:54 |
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Podima posted:You know, from the start I really expected the true bad guy to be the dwarf coroner. It seemed to fit too well - he was at the crime scenes, and had the surgical know-how to extract organs. I guess this works too, even if the actual villain is just cartoonishly evil. Same, until I saw a big Shadowrun metaplot related thing I was familiar with a couple chapters in and immediately knew who the big bad was gonna be.
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# ? Jul 25, 2017 14:27 |
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Thinking about it now, it would have been a great entry into the entire series. Shadowrun is just cyber-up'd noir at times, and having been betrayed by someone you thought was a friend is a staple of those stories.
RedMagus fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jul 26, 2017 |
# ? Jul 25, 2017 17:00 |
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RedMagus posted:Thinking about it now, it would of been a great entry into the entire series. Shadowrun is just cyber-up'd noir at times, and having been betrayed by someone you thought was a friend is a staple of those stories. would have* Sorry, I'm super pedantic about that. And yes, I agree. Dresden seemed way too nice and also really mercenary, but I guess him having Armitage there to help you in the beginning is supposed to show that he's genuine. Still, I thought he was kinda shady until I saw that metaplot related thing I mentioned above, at which point I altered my expectations on who the big bad was going to be, and Dresden didn't seem to be involved with them at all.
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# ? Jul 26, 2017 16:31 |
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Look, some guys just really enjoy their jobs, alright? We should all be so lucky.
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# ? Jul 26, 2017 17:00 |
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Part 20 - The Calm Between the Storms The Dead Man's Switch can roughly be divided in two halves, with the Ripper plotline being the primary focus of the first half. This short part (and equally short update) mostly serves to connect it to the second half wherein the bigger picture will come to sight, the real truth will be revealed, the true evil will be discovered, etc. etc. But for the time being we find ourselves at the Union's bar as usual. Some familiar faces and one random background NPC seem to have gathered nearby. There she is! And the Emerald City Ripper. Ironic that you tracked a serial killer to a mental hospital! I'm a little on the fence on whether or not that counts as irony but sure, let's go with that. Johnny Clean told us where you were going, omae. We have been waiting for you to return. I thought you knew better than that, Johnny. This particular line is only available with the Shadowrunner etiquette, and it's one of the few used only for flavor. You've probably noticed by now that one could easily skip etiquettes completely and not miss out on very much. Would you believe me if I told you we're already past 80% of all etiquette-based dialogue choices in the entire game? You should, I looked it up and everything. [Johnny frowns and nods.] You're right. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should know better. It's just that we have a personal stake in the Ripper murders. I admit that the killings have hampered business as well. I am sorry but it is true. It does not help that Sam's body was found down the street from here. Even my regular customers have been loathe to venture out with a killer on the loose. Now tell us, omae. Did you find the person responsible for the Ripper murders? Not exactly. I got the bastard who wielded the scalpel, but whoever's pulling the strings is still out there. Someone's pulling the strings of a serial killer? This sounds more complicated than I suspected. Oh yeah. The whole thing was a Frankenstein job. The Ripper was harvesting body parts to reassemble Sam's mother, Melinda. All the victims had transplanted organs - her organs - and the Ripper was taking them back. Wait, wait, wait, hold on now. We knew that 1. Silas had a copy of Melinda's disinterment order 2. He had a donor program report with a list of the organs and their recipients 3. He also had a blueprint-like diagram depicting the human female form First of all, we were never told where the organs originated from. It makes sense the source would be included in the donor program report, but we as a player never got to see it. Second of all, where did the part about putting them back into Sam and Jessica's mother come from? I can see that as one possible theory based on the disinterment order and the aforementioned diagram combined with the fact that Silas was a total nutjob, but leaping into that one as if it's the obvious conclusion is a little out there, especially as we don't have even the faintest hint of his motivation for doing such a seemingly nonsensical thing. I feel like this part is sorely missing a discussion similar to when we put together the whole Silas-Holmes connection with Johnny Clean, piece by piece. As it stands, this sudden discrepancy in knowledge between the player and the player character is kind of jarring. So... Sam had an organ transplant from his mother? And then... the Ripper killed Sam, and all those other people... just to reassemble Sam's mother?? Looks like it. Does it? Gonna have to take your word on that one. I sense a cause and effect in this. Coyote and Jake Armitage just left here to attend Sam's funeral. I am told that ther will be a reinterment ceremony for his mother as well. His sister invited me to the funeral and the reinterment when I met her here. Think she had something to do with it? It is clear that you must go to the funeral and talk with Jessica Watts, Amazon. That's where I was headed, Mrs. Kubota. I mean we were invited and all, it'd be rude not to pay a visit. One thing that doesn't really come through in this LP is that most Sam-related dialogue choices include one which is very warm and friendly, as if Sam was our best buddy in the world and his death was actually a real blow to us. Here for example we could've said that we were going to go pay our respects to our friend. While it's purely for RP purposes and makes zero actual difference anywhere, having a personal motivation does make the player character's drive to find the "real" culprit feel more natural. Sam never specified the terms for the payment beyond "get the person who killed me" which we've now done, so someone only in this for the money should already be running to his law firm to claim their hundred thousand, the greater truth be damned. Of course you were. Thank you for allowing us to catch up. Well he isn't in heaven. I'm sure of that. [She nods in satisfaction.] Hai. That is good. While that's the end of that particular conversation, there's one more thing we can bring to Kubota's attention. Was there something else, omae? I found this list in a data-store at Mercy Mental. This is of course the buyers list for Silas' bunraku. Oh, my... this is... unspeakable. Murder was not enough for this person? Selling patients as bunraku slaves! Thank you for bringing this to me. I know you are still hot on the trail of your friend Sam's killer, so I will contact some runners to liberate these poor souls from the buyers in this list. You have done much good here, today. The hand of the Ripper was more of a monster than anyone could have known. What, no reward? Pfffft. We do get 2 Karma for our good deed at least. Van Graas is also here, ready to do some fencing as always. Now you might be wondering, didn't we already give the data we found to Mrs. Kubota? I'm enjoying my drink, here. What is it? How much does this Super Brawl championship ring go for on the street? That's right, we still have the ring we snatched from Josie's severed arm at the infirmary. Most people probably hand it over to Lorraine because that's the thing you do in a video game, but you gain absolutely nothing for doing so. No, not even any warm fuzzy feelings as she barely acknowledges the thing. The inset gems alone are worth 800 nuyen or so, but a collector would probably pay more for that year's ring. You want me to get rid of it? 1200 nuyen. No way to drive up the price this time, but it's still not bad at all considering procuring the thing took no extra effort from our part. I'll take it. It's done. I'll transfer the money. Kluwe is at his usual spot in the back room. Good to be back, Mr. Kluwe. What's the latest news? I feel like I should be asking you. Word around here was that you were closing in on the Ripper when you last left. Dare I ask how that went? He's in the ground. Where he belongs. Good. And yet your shoulders are no more relaxed, and you still survey the room like a woman who has yet to return from war. This isn't over, is it? I would hope not, we haven't even gotten Class A drones yet. Not quite. A few loose ends to tie up. [The big guy sighs.] I was hoping this would soon be all behind us. The Barrens has a short memory, but for wounds such as these, it makes an exception. To see this prolonged, I fear for how it may forever change the landscape. It would take an army, Mr. Kluwe. Maybe a couple. Take care, Amazon. Let's go see how the people downstairs are doing before heading out. Still all in one piece, I see. More's the pity for me, but I'll still take your money. Perhaps a full physical is in order? Or we can call it a medical consultation. That's where I roughly determine the odds of your survival based on your professional... proclivities? It comes with a lollipop. So what will it be? Actually, I'm curious how many patients you've lost over the years. Call it professional curiosity. It's that arm on the table, is it the same one every time or do people just happen to lose a lot of left arms here? Then I suppose I should be equally professional and answer without judging you for asking. And I should not let it bias me the next time you fall under my knife. Geez, the question might've been a tad blunt but that's going pretty dark. To give you a hard number is difficult. There are many who I would have considered patients that never made it home. And so I suppose one could say they died while under my care, though not as a result of it. Six who I was unable to save, spread across a thirteen year career. And I remember each and every one, down to the smallest detail, including the moment where I realized I could do nothing more for them. I would argue that four of those six were beyond helping from the moment they passed through my door. The fifth died as a result of complications while installing a stolen piece of experimental cyberware, which I had cautioned against using. And the sixth? Still sounds like a pretty stellar track record, doc. [She picks up her tablet and resumes her work.] Yes, well, will there be anything else? Unfortunately neither Castle nor any other merchant down here has gotten any new wares since last time, so we move on. Fry is around but has seemingly lost interest in the whole Ripper nonsense overnight as he has nothing new to either say or sell. So Gruberman's next. Got some catalogs just come in, if you might be interested in an order. I can get gear shipped overnight from the manufacturer, though I won't lie to you, you'll be paying for the convenience. Otherwise, I got plenty of the usual bang-bangs waiting for a good home. What do you say? What's the new hotness when it comes to dealing damage, Buster? Well, there are two schools of thought on the matter. There are those who swear by their smartguns and such because they make the weapon more accurate, and thus more deadly. Then there are those who subscribe to the bigger boom theory, putting all their money on the biggest and baddest rounds. I enjoy talking with Gruberman, you know pretty much exactly what you're going to get with him. Military life never taught me that. It was dealing to runners like yourself that afforded me this epiphany. You've got to be ready for anything. On that note, might I interest you in some custom mods? Or perhaps some specialty grenades? Really? Military experience never taught you that different weapons might in fact work better in different situations? I'm starting to seriously question whether it's safe to keep this guy in charge of all the hardware. Mersmann is a man of few words as always, so we move on to Aljernon. Ah, Amazon. I was watching you approach from the astral realm. So good of you to visit again. What might I do for you on this fine day? So how are things in the astral? Always a curious place, the astral. Though a mirror world to our own, it is ever changing. I suppose the same can be said of our reality, but things of a transitory nature here on the physical plane can cause long-lasting changes in the astral. Some say the aftereffects of the three-week Grand Taco Fest of '23 still linger there to this day. And just how is the astral textured these days? There is a great deal of fear and distrust. In some places, it is strong enough to impact the working of magic. But enough of my doom-saying, you must have better things to do. Is there any way I can help? We sell some of the extra junk we've picked up to him and, having finished our business at the safe house, return upstairs and head back to the main entrance. Funeral ceremonies tend to be pretty dreary, but all signs are pointing at this one being more interesting than most. Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Dec 6, 2017 |
# ? Jul 26, 2017 19:55 |
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Amazon turned down a lollipop?
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# ? Jul 26, 2017 20:07 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 07:26 |
I think there's a couple of bits and pieces that also point towards the "Sam's liver came from his mother" connection, though it might not be noticeable if you don't know about it already. The one I remember is this one:Kanfy posted:Part 11b - Meeting the Locals Continued
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# ? Jul 26, 2017 20:14 |