A City Dreams of Gold and Neon - Let's Play Shadowrun: Hong Kong

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > A City Dreams of Gold and Neon - Let's Play Shadowrun: Hong Kong

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

KataraniSword posted:

Much like Dragonfall was an amazing showcase for the mage, and Returns was a good romping ground for a Decker/Rigger, I feel like Hong Kong is the home turf of the Physical Adept. Whether or not you dip into other archetypes is up to you, of course.

Let's go with a female Troll adept, of any given real name you wish, but with a street name of Taz, because things are about to get Looney Tunes in here.

Sounds good. EDIT: Changed to Female Troll for reasons on next page.

Not only is this the best game to show off Adepts, I'm going to add that yet again there's not a crew NPC of the archetype, so this is the only way we're getting to really see Chi Casting.

MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Dec 9, 2020

# ¿ Dec 8, 2020 18:57

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 01:26

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Kanfy posted:

I'm excited to see if she can actually survive through the opening without our first game over. I don't think we literally ever had one in Dragonfall, but a late-bloomer Adept with paper starting armor in a world of AP-unshackled enemies where even a guy with the crappiest shotgun in the game can pump out 20+ damage a turn her way is gonna have a fun time before she starts having much hope of living up to her street name.

I never had a Game Over in Dragonfall or Shadowrun, but managed to get one in the very first fight of Hong Kong (IIRC, there's even an achievement for it). This game does not give you kid gloves.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2020 17:29

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

raverrn posted:

Will we be seeing any of the director's commentary stuff?

KataraniSword posted:

I assume not until the end of the game if at all; there�s some pretty heavy spoilers throughout it.

Yeah, but there's some super interesting world-building in there too, so I'd guess that maybe Kanfy will take the screenshots as the game goes along, then dump them all in a few posts at the end when they're no longer hugely spoilers.

If you're playing along at home, I'd recommend avoiding it if you're concerned about spoilers...but I'd absolutely read the director's commentary your second time through because it's definitely worth it.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2020 17:59

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

FH_Meta posted:

What we did was help a friend.

Apparently in a very unsuccessful manner, but this is what we tried to do.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2020 12:48

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

By popular demand posted:

I imagine that every once in a while some well off failson tries to get in for the action, probably leaving the 6th world within the first hour or so.

I dont know posted:

This was pretty much the background for "The Rookie" in Eiger's story. One gormless dumbass in over their head can bring a whole lot of poo poo down on the people around them.

Yeah, but that was in an army unit where there's all sorts of politics and bureaucracy that keeps you from straight up dumping his rear end.

I feel like an actual shadowrunning crew would identify this sort of idiot wannabe in about 90 seconds, then deal with the situation before he becomes a liability.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2021 06:19

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Is it possible to piss of Kindly enough that she doesn't help you and you get a Game Over after she (presumably) buries your rear end at the bottom of the harbor?

I would guess not because it would end the game...but then again, we just saw the tutorial mission pulled no punches either so maybe.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2021 11:54

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Voting for Gobbet since I used Is0bel when I played this.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2021 20:43

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

One incredible thing I found on the Internet: Apparently, at one point, the postal service assigned mailmen by "land area" rather than "number of residents", resulting in one overworked guy being responsible for all mail delivery in the entire city.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2021 16:06

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Space Kablooey posted:

I think it was like some favelas in Rio where they are/were.. relatively safe because the gang that controls the favela wont steal from their own neighbors, and rival gangs wouldn't just randomly mug people in there without setting off a huge turf war.

All bets are off if you are a stranger to the favela, though.

Don't know about Rio, but this was definitely a thing the mafia and the drug gangs used to do a few decades ago in America. Divvy up various parts of the city and then try to keep violence to a minimum within your turf. And (to the extent possible) make agreements with rivals about borders and rules, because it's not really in your interest to get into big turf wars - scares off customers, makes it harder to recruit personnel, plus the risk that it might draw the attention of mainstream politicians/media and thereby draw a major police response. And in terms of lesser crimes, since most of the recruiting of members was local, the people who lived on your turf were often friends/family so you're not going to rob them obviously.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2021 16:37

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

wiegieman posted:

There's plenty for each archetype to spend money on.

The couple times I played through, it felt like the game gave me exactly enough cash to keep the PC up-to-date in armor and weapons, but not a penny more.

In Dragonfall, it was viable to buy stuff specifically to 'loan' to crew members, it was viable to buy drugs and consumables and use them regularly, if you were playing a caster it was viable to spend money on some situation-specific spells. But in HK, I always felt like I was money starved enough that I couldn't afford to waste money on these sorts of "nice to have but not strictly required" purchases while still keeping up to date on the truly critical stuff.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2021 13:26

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

habeasdorkus posted:

It should be noted given the earlier conversation that SRHK does try from the jump to explain why Kowloon Walled City is so bad, which at least heads off a few problems with exoticizing a poor area.

btw, if Manhattan had the same population density of peak Kowloon Walled City, it'd have 74m residents. Really gives you an indication of how off sci-fi writers are when talking about world-spanning cities. Asimov biffed this hardest, he had Trantor's peak population at 40 billion. Star Wars apparently has Coruscant at 1 trillion, which is much closer but even at just Manhattan density Earth would have 13 trillion (covering oceans) or 4 trillion (just land area).

Yeah, Trantor's numbers are laughably off. If you use the land area (200 million square km, very similar to Earth) and the population, the density works out to around 200 people per square km. For something that's described as a "world-spanning continuous city", that's significantly less dense than your average suburb.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2021 16:47

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

This mission is just fantastic at establishing Kindly Cheng's power. Most stories would just tell you "hey this person is a total badass, don't mess with her" and leave it at that, but here the game lets you clearly see it. A hardened gang lord criminal who lives in the roughest slum on the planet is sent one taped message and immediately turns into a rabbit who can't even meet your eyes while saying he's sprinting to pay homage.

It just clearly sends the message that holy hell, we might be miles over our head in dealing with Cheng.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 14:23

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Cythereal posted:

I think those two are relatively safe. At the end of the day, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and Chen doesn't seem like the kind of person who kills over that. The PC and Duncan on the other hand...

Probably so, as long as they stay under the radar.

If the HKPF followed up on their previous bulletin on Is0bel and Gobbit and got close to Heoi, Chen also doesn't seem like the person who'd blink for a second at putting bodies at the bottom of the harbor if it became necessary.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 22:34

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Josef bugman posted:

If I remember correctly another reason, besides household grifting, for the decline in Shadowrun is that the actual rules set for 6e is almost comically broken.

Mind explaining how it's broken? Horribly unbalanced, too much boring parts, just awkward to play?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 19:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

By popular demand posted:

Have this comprehensive review archived from these very forums: https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/hyphz/shadowrun-sixth-world/

Interesting, thanks.

And also :wtf:

at basically everything in there.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 16:09

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

quote:

Poetry slams have been out of bounds on this BBS since the Laughing Man debacle of '55.

I appreciate that even in the future, wildly over the top shitposts are still a thing.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2021 19:42

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

KataraniSword posted:

The most recent things they did were Battletech and Necropolis; they've been radio silent since wrapping up their roadmap for Battletech, though they've been constantly advertising for jobs so they're not dead yet.

As far as I can tell, they haven't officially announced anything since then, except a vague mention of working on "two non-Battletech games". Could be Shadowrun 4, could be some other totally different property, nobody really knows.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2021 12:53

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Leave out Duncan; he's just whatever.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2021 21:41

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

bewilderment posted:

I've played, but Kanfy's commitment to detail and optional dialogue means I'm seeing/remembering stuff I didn't pay much attention to before or didn't properly get.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2021 15:29

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Do they still recognize friend from foe? Or is it basically just like tossing a grenade into an opposing force and just stay clear of the explosion?

# ¿ Apr 29, 2021 18:08

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

How is the disease that makes people ghouls transmitted? Is it airborne so Taz and the crew are at risk from our new ghoul bro? Or is it something like you get it from being bitten by a ghoul which hopefully Gaichu is going to stay well fed enough to avoid?

# ¿ Jun 1, 2021 03:16

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Cythereal posted:

Nah. In all seriousness it's actually working fine as a plane now. Yes, it was a huge and very successful grift project. But as a plane it's also been basically successful and is now operational, it just hasn't seen much use yet.

Part of the reason it hasn't seen much use yet is that the reliability of the F-35 is still way below par - the plane itself may run fine when it's running, but the Pentagon's own reliability numbers for the F-35 aren't what they need to be for it to achieve the intended goal of finally phasing out the decades-old A-10's and F-18's.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2021 16:34

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

GimmickMan posted:

I don't remember ever seeing that teleport punch in action so I'm forced to conclude that in both of my playthroughs I either killed those mummies before they ever got to use the ability or it was so inconsequential that it might as well not have happened.

I don't remember it either, but I played a Mage and didn't use Gaichu much, so the Mummies probably just decided to get into a ranged sniping battle rather than running up to dimension-punch me.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2021 23:35

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Glad to see this back.

Also, that newscast was interesting. Never really thought of the concept of awakened weather phenomena, but it does make sense in SR's world. Has the lore actually clarified whether the newscaster's "scientists say they don't have any animosity towards people" is true? Do other more forms of weather have awakened forms as well - rain or thunderstorms or blizzards or etc?

# ¿ Nov 13, 2022 02:25

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Stroth posted:

Look closer, that was newspeak. The anchor didn't say scientists say the don't have animosity to metahumans, she said scientists have never found proof they have animosity to metahumans. Now, two questions: How the gently caress would you check that in the first place? And who the gently caress is going to fly into the middle of an intelligent category five hurricane with magical powers that may or may not be actively trying to kill you to do the checking? And you do have to fly into it. Awakened typhoons don't make landfall. They're fully aware that kills storms and are normally quite happy to hang around just offshore where they can feed from the ocean and storm on the ground dwellers.

Which is why most shadowrunners love the things. Days or even weeks of horrific unbroken storm weather means every big system grinds to a halt and breaks down. You know what's easier than hitting a secure office? Hitting a secure office where the power's out, all communications are down, everyone's starving, and the security team has been on shift for ninety loving hours straight because their next shift can't get to the building. This is right about the point in the cycle where suppliers triple their prices, runners stockpile supplies, and fixers line up every job they can get. The folks on shadowlands were not joking at all when they mentioned "high operational tempo" and "running season"

That makes sense, really appreciate the lore information!

# ¿ Nov 14, 2022 03:32

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

"gently caress it, let's see if this shiny object actually does anything" is certainly one way to improvise an escape plan I guess. Worked out so you can't complain too hard, but I'd assume the odds were way more on the side of it being something that's either not helpful and/or actively screws you.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2022 03:32

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

As someone who's not at all deep on Shadowrun lore outside of playing the games, I really liked Gaichu as a character because he's a window into a bunch of stuff we hadn't seen before - ghouls, what it's like to be a 'monster' in the world, being an insider in corporate culture, and the Red Samurai.

# ¿ May 1, 2023 00:08

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

BisbyWorl posted:

He somehow managed to get on every dragon's shitlist, but every time they try to have him killed their own plots end up accidentally foiling each other's while Blitz is none the wiser.

I assume he�s on every dragon�s shitlist, but all of them see him as a useful agent of chaos to point at someone else so they don�t bother actually sniffing him out. Not sure exactly what�s going to happen to the enemy I�m throwing him at, but I�m sure it�ll wreak havoc over there.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2023 13:24

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 01:26

MagusofStars: Mar 31, 2012

Dance Officer posted:

He never says he didn't kill innocent bystanders, just that the amount of wanton destruction employed by his former team against him caught him by surprise.

That was my interpretation too. When the team was together, Gaichu mostly cared about getting the job done. If some innocents died along the way, well, Gaichu himself says that Red Samurai are judged only on success in their missions...but they weren't going to start unleashing widespread preemptive destruction either.

So he assumed staying in a massive crowd would provide some safety since they didn't ever go *that* far, but now they did.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 13:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > A City Dreams of Gold and Neon - Let's Play Shadowrun: Hong Kong