From the Steam store page:Shadowrun Returns Editor: Design your own stories and share them with the entire Shadowrun community. This is the same powerful tool the Harebrained level designers used to create the game. With it, you can construct new locations, characters, stories and elaborate tactical scenarios.I hope this gets added to the Steam workshop too. I am so getting this!!! They've got a lengthy, commentary-filled (and funny to listen to) video on the store page too that's worth watching. Really highlights the kinds of encounters, traps and triggers that are possible with the game editor.
I never played any Shadowrun stuff before, but the look and feel of the game and skill-based progression makes it appear almost like the science fiction-y Ultima-style RPG I always wanted but never got. Combat is even turn-based and looks like it might be based on some kind of a D20 system. Advantages, effects, AOE spells, cover, etc.
Throwing fantasy creatures into a cyberpunk world could be really cool if done right. At first glance it appears they're doing it right. Of course, coming from City of Heroes, such genre-mashing is nothing new to us.
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Unrelated rant: On a side-note, speaking of Ultima, I just want to say how aggravating it is that Ultima Online never pioneered true UGC beyond house design, books and character bios. The first time I delved into an emulator, it wasn't to play for free but to take UGC to the next level. I learned how to create my own NPCs, dialogue boxes, and quests. In the first quest I created, an NPC in Britain sent you on some initial tutorial-ish errands (this was more to teach me than the players
), then on a mission to kill a unique creature in a cave outside the city, where you discovered a body and a clue (a note), which led you to Trinsic to help the City Guard unravel a plot to destroy the city from the inside.
For those of you who played UO,
WHEN DID YOU EVER SEE THEM DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT? But they could have. The whole time, the capabilities were there inside the engine. Sadly, the tools that allowed me to create my own quest had to be coded by players!
Ultima Online was never big on theme-park elements such as quests but I've since discovered how fun it is when developers drop theme park elements in the middle of a sandbox--and then allow players to build their own theme park elements.