FASA doesn't want unified lighting. Characters need to fit in & stand out

[Brimstone]

As far as I know, "Shadow" refers to Shadow creatures like trolls, elves and dwarves, not the absence of light.

That is an intresting observation.



Anyway I looked on wikipedia and found this.

Because no corporation wants to be held liable for damages, it has to be done by deniable assets: shadowrunners, invisible to the system where every citizen is tagged with a System Identification Number (SIN). They are outcasts, from the streets or disillusioned ex-corp/government/military personnel who threw off the shackles of corp society to achieve freedom. They chose or were forced to work in the shadows cast by the gigantic corporate buildings to support their living. Players of Shadowrun generally assume the role of these shadowrunners.

Shadowrun is more of a metaphor for how people that are doing mercenary style work for global corporations exist in society. They live under the radar and dwell in the shadows of society.

Well, nevermind the graphics quality. I and a couple others are referring to the point of the maps taking place during the day and not during the night as the name Shadowrun would normally imply.

As far as having dark maps, it just doesn't work for an online shooter. The most popular maps for Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat are extremly brightly lit maps. It is simply more enjoyable to play on a bright map. Besides all that happens when maps are dark, people just crank their gama setting or brightness on the display so they can see people hiding in dark spots on the map. It is utterly pointless to make dark maps for an online shooter.

This ties in with what the Shadowrun blogger is saying about easy identification of friend and foe. Gamers just don't won't to struggle to pick out targets against textures that help to obfuscate the identity of the player models.

The display is already a 2d device struggling to display a 3d world. The graphics are no where near realistic enought compared to real life anyway. In the real world I can pick up subtle details of people a fair distance away no problem. With current graphic hardware, the pixels are no where near detailed enought for these subtle nuances. Then you have the issue of latency (Lag) when playing online. This is why making it easy as possible for player models to easily stand out is vital to having a fun online game. Once again think of Dust on Counter-Strike. The texture work is so simple and the design fairly basic, yet that map is by far the most played map in online gaming history. On Dust, it is easy to identify who is who and whats going on.

I've played on some ok dark maps. They just need to be brightly lit dark maps if you know what I mean. Where the dark backgrounds help set a mood, but the darkness isn't inky black shadows everywhere. The level is still well lit where it is easy to see stuff.

For single player it's not as bad I guess. Games like Theif have really used dark setting well. But in general I find dark games get old very fast, but that is my personal taste on that issue.