Personnally i think Mxo rocks, although i stopped playing after the beta.

But yeah shadowrnu would be great as a mmorpg, but imagine the size of the world you'd have to make. You'd literraly have to recreate the world in 2064-2070(or earlier if you prefer v1.01d or v2.01d). until now, in comparrison to the real world, mmorpgs are very small, also in shadowrun there is no real going out killing everything in sight kind of leveling, unless of course you let your sessions detriment to pure hack n slash. There would be virtually no room for solo play. The way shadowrun can be played, and mostly is, ie fightless, would require a completely new style of ai (although what i hear about DDO it theirs might just about do :P). In effect it would end up more or less like a massively multiplayer version of splinter cell, although i wouldn't mind.

It is true that the shadowrun system would effectively eliminate the low level - high level gap, except in extreme cases, but that really is only because the starting characters are already the equivalent of endgame characters in other rpgs (for all those who don't know about the RPG, a properly equipped group of starting characters can, and almost certainly will, have the equivalent firepower of a multi-megaton tactical thermo nuclear weapon; this is excluding their magical abilities). If you play by the, since v3.0 not semi-allowed anymore but full fledged, rules for magic adepts, then after a month you have what is essentially the ultimate killing machine, no metal parts, the ability to rip even cyber zombies to shreds, all while throwing more or less endless amounts of fireballs and lightning bolts (as you will have augmented willpower :P). Hell why not have that from the start, make him a druid of the sun, and you have that more or less form the start except you have to specialise more in manipulation magic rather than combat magic. Oh and before i forget this thing heals itself aswell. Or go the other way and make a cybernetic killing machine without par, get a whole load of cash, replace your torso, get cyber arms and legs, the arms with gyro stabilisers please, the gyroscopic arm upgrade, a move by wire system, neuro boosters (sorry cant remember the real name the thing that gives +1d6 reflex but is bioware) run around with some Panther MA minicannons and a vindicator minigun and presto the expression: "You and what army?" becomes less of a joke and more of a given fact.

This illustrates another very big problem in Shadowrun, its powergamers galore, dont get me wrong i love the game, but currently its just not feasible as a mmorpg. The game is too background and storyline heavy, also if you ever play it get your best GM to GM for you, bad ones ruin the game completely, and mediocre ones will have insane dificulties with it.

Problem number...ohh i don't know anymore... the magic system. How will you realise hermetic magic and shamanic magic (the problem really lies in the later, because of its subsets, eg druidic magic and voodoo). In the general setting that a mmorpg has, the shamanic magic has the upperhand by miles. In normal shamanic magic i think the highest plus to gain on a magic type is +2 (which is a lot, a level 8 fireball is a lot more to swallow than a level 6 one, mostly because you have to roll 8s on a D6, but i am straying off topic here). The shaman has the upper hand in the general setting of a mmorpg, no need for preparation of spirits, enhancements of spell categories, while mostly retaining the ability to dish out either the pain or the healing not only when needed, but all the time (i mean come on, when did that -2 to illusionary magic really matter too much?). Then the advancement, specifically in this section, magic. One big problem about shadowrun, as a mmorpg, is that advancement is not a given. In magic it takes time, extreme pain (to the character that is), sometimes reduction of stat points, sometimes geas (a forced limitation of your magical ability, sometimes taken on voluntarily). How exactly would you simulate some of the geas, of course the more insane things would not be included, but even some of the more simple geas would be very difficult to achieve.

The advancement system in general is a problem too. Shadowrun has no classes, as such the only differentiation made at character creation that will mostly determine the path of a character is whether he/she/it can use magic or not, if they can which kind. Even if this is done it does not stop them from becoming ultimate cybernetic killingmachines (i hereby refer to Burnout, or later Burn, very famous mage who basically had his whole body replaced with cybernetics, just to then trap a very high level free spirit in the karma mesh that held his soul trapped inside his body, making him apear to be not only impossibly cybernetically enhanced but also an incredible mage, who then finds an item created by an elder dragon which kind of allowed him to reatain his own powers...lets just say dont **** with the man... and i am off topic again). Even if the character is non magical from the beginning in the roleplaying game this was not a problem, the books are litered as such with people who got their magical powers later on in life...the tendential and highly valid reason being: "well you just never knew about it, dimwit." The first series of books centers around one of these types of characters in fact. This complete lack of focus makes a very good background for a character all the more handy, because this is what gives him the focus a character class would provide usually, unless of course you go the brute force way of making either the best spellcaster, or best killing machine, although the two are by no means mutually exclusive, as mentioned above.

Well maybe this short introduction into one of the less known pen and paper roleplaying systems was fun for you. I certainly doubt it because i have waffled on for a distinctively too long time. Although i think that i have made my point of why shadowrun is not feasible as a mmorpg at the moment, at least somewhere in between the words. Also I wouldn't want some half baked ****** version of it put me off my appetite for ever. If anyone ever ever ever wants to make the game, please hire the complete previous staff of, the now bankrupt, FASA, that worked on Shadowrun, also please please please, if anyone reading this has te power to do it and is planning on doing this (although i doubt that anyone is, or that anyone will listen to the ramblings of some freak on, of all bbs systems for mmorpgs, allakazam) also work very closely with fanpro, otherwise the results could turn out to be the biggest pile of crap ever to see the light of day on a computer (with the possible exception of any barbie game ever published). Anyway got ay questions or stuff about shadowrun, or something along the lines of rolplaying in general send me a pm r something i am more than happy to go into minute detail about the world of it, character creation etc ^^

Massively Multi-player On-line Role Playing Game, MMORPG he just left out the P