SC2Mapster

Since my standard project is far from successfull, I've been throwing some new ideas around, maybe I'll find one that is worth working on. The previous "TrollCraft" was simple but didnt get enough answers and obviously wouldn't go far as a project anyway.

So I switched to a single-player story-driven RPG. For a quick picture it would be loosely based on the SNES Shadowrun RPG, but based on SC2 universe (So Void Run could be a good name for it, but feel free to suggest a new one).

BACKGROUND:
A random psionic dude that was supposed to be dead wakes up, he remembers only a few things about himself. Running around he gathers some info on what happened until someone sees him and he must hide for a while until he can gather enough resources to go hunting his past again. Lots of weird characters cross his path while he becomes stronger. He will eventually discover he was part of genetic research involving psionics and the Zerg, so he will have to fight some freaks (to replace the magical creatures from Shadowrun).

GAME MECHANICS
From what I've planned it can barely be considered a true RPG. The main character won't gain levels himself, all abilities and improvements will be unlocked by upgrades, and the player must spend EXP points to get them. So one player might focus on Health upgrades while another could focus on Aiming upgrades or Psionic upgrades.

-Health: Can only be recovered by a few items (weak recover) or by finding a "bed" to rest and save (total recover).
-Psionics: Many different upgrades like Energy upgrade and Power (damage or duration, or even range) upgrades.
-Speed: Very limited speed upgrades, so the character would go around faster by the end of the game, because by then its usually boring when you need to go back to some areas.
-Aiming: Increases the chance of dealing damage with each attack. From start the main character will miss most of his shots, but by the end of the game every shot will be a hit with a high Critical chance.

CONVERSATIONS
To me one of the special features of that Shadowrun game was the conversation system. Players would "acquire" words and they could ask people about these words. Most people would only have answers to a few specific words, but you can never know until you ask them. I don't even know how to start but this would be an awesome system.

ITEMS
Again one of the strong points of the game, you can never know when or where to use certain items, to the point it could be upseting when you just couldn't figure out what to do. Of course I plan to give players a little more direction so they wont get lost easily. I never worked with items in this editor so I would probably need a lot of help with this system.

-Weapons: I'd like to use some SC2 weapons. Gauss Rifles, Pistols, the Canister Rifle and Spectre's AGR Rifle could be in, also some odd weapons like Psi Blade maybe. It would require a specific model for the main character though, with lots of animation groups.
-Armor: Only a few armor with maybe the marine or marauder suit as the most powerful in the game.
-Technology: As the Shadowrun character had a notebook-like gadget I think I can give something similar to the main character, it would be smaller or maybe a tiny head implant. I could be upgraded or replaced along the game to have some extra features/better results.

That's it for now, those who played that Shadowrun game will probably understand where it could be going, I hope I get some feedback here. I don't have much free time now to work on it, but I can get some things done little by little, like the EXP point and upgrade system. Tell me if its worth as a serious project to work on.

Talking to myself a little: Health and Aiming upgrades are working. There's no Experience Point system yet, but it will be a custom resource, so when the player kills an enemy it may give the killer some Exp. I don't know how to manage the weapon and armor system, I gave the hero unit all weapons and I plan to enable/disable them using behaviors, but I don't know how the player will be able to switch weapons. I never worked with items or stores but I'll have to learn about it.

I decided to change te story. I think I'll create different, short stories about different characters so maybe it could become a series. Each character would have different upgrades avaiable to them (i.e. one may be a strong psionic, but the other is tougher and better with firearms). Different items could show up in each "chapter" of this series and so on. Right now I have 2 "beta" storylines I can develop, but first I need to work on the game mechanics.

Ah, I've played shadowrun back when I got obsessed with cyberpunk for a while. It was a good game, but I don't see how you could transfer snes version to sc2 and have sc2 version remain exciting and involving.

I don't have anything to suggest right now other than "Void run" sounds off. Where does "Shadowrun rpg" gets it's name from? In that univerese there are people called shadowrunners performing activities called shadowruns. What would "Void run" stand for? Maybe "Grid run" or "Korhal run"? Nah, both of those suck so you probably would be better off with thinking a name for map after you finish storyline. Meanwhile you should assign this map a code name. Something like "Banana" would be fine I guess.

But in all seirousiness I would love to play a cyberpunk map. Best of luck to you.

@DuckyTheDuck: Go What exactly will be missing in a possible remake? And keep in mind I don't want it to be a remake, it will use some of the game mechanics and story hooks, but you wont see elves, orcs or magic. Right now the main problem I see is the need for proper unit models for the hero and for common people, since we only have a few civilian models, and they look all the same. I'd love to have more civilian styles, maybe with attack animations (holding a revolver or pistol).

EDIT: Disabling one or more weapons causes the hero's UI to change into something weird. Beta Speed and Psionics upgrades done.

Speed and Psionics upgrades are working. Created a few items based on the Starcraft universe, like Stim Pack, I'm going to add others like Nuke Cola, iPistol and so on. Feel free to share some ideas. I still haven't fixed the issue with weapons.

@yukaboy: I started with atributes based on the Shadowrun game (those a somewhat based on the RPG). One that I still have to work on is the Leadership skill, but the only effect I can think for it is that it would increase the duration of hired companions, just like in that game. I will include more atributes as I find interesting effects for them, specially if they're easily calculated by data.

I don't know the BioWare system, but it could be a good idea if some words could only be used if the character is smart enough or something like that.

Good luck to us both!

The aiming system will work perfectly. Different enemies will have different ability levels so I can have variety, like enemies that can't deal much damage but will hit frequently, while others could deal great damage but with low chance of hitting the character. This will create an interesting system combined with armors. A character in a Marine suit won't have to worry about a standard street punk with a pistol even if the punk hits most of his shots, but a guy with a powerful gun will be dangerous even if he misses most of his shots.

That made me think I may need to include a sounds or visual effect (maybe a text tag?) telling the player when shots actually hit, or maybe when they miss.

Text tag for damage was way easier than I thought :-)

Today I started to learn about custom layouts so I took the time to plan the UI. I removed everytihng I thought would be useless, but of course I still can't move things like I wanted. Here's a screenshot: