Shadowrun Online passed its Kickstarter Goal of half a million dollars way back in August 2012, and while the game won’t be hitting its original May 2013 anticipated launch, the team over at Cliffhanger Productions is working hard and keeping the community informed. In an update released today, the team is blogging about how the story will work in Shadowrun Online.
The way the story will play out in Shadowrun Online is in phases, rather than the normal RPG storytelling mechanic of main quest and branching side-quests. Each player has their own story which forward the meta-plot for everyone. The example that they give is that players are tasked with taking down psychotic gangsters who are using a new drug. Once you personally take down enough of their hideouts, your personal plot advances and you move on to the next stage. Once enough players have raided these hideouts, the meta-plot will advance for all players and the global mission will be striking against the drug distributors. As players assist a group, that organization sees their influence rise, eventually leading to more missions given to other organizations to try and take them down.
Cliffhanger hopes that the dynamic systems in place will work fluidly and be fun to play for the community. One side effect of this process is that players need to be locked down to certain areas of the city that Shadowrun Online takes place in for the meta plot to make sense and work. So Cliffhanger is doing just that, even going as far as giving Shadowrun Online the subtitle: “Lockdown.”
(Source: Cliffhanger Productions)
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