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[Egan_BW]

Technofeudalism, man.

[pikachu17]

Actually, guns were introduced to Europe in the 13th century. It actually predates the popularity of plate armor in Europe. Not that they had particularly good guns, but you can have historically accurate gun fights in a middle ages game.

[LordBaal]

They would be as likely to blow up in your hand than shooting, and then there's the acuraccy thing.

And the power wasnt such great either, for quite some time quality amor plate was capable of stopping bullets and ofter armor makers would promote their creations showing up bullet dents on their wares.

[pikachu17]

Quality plate armor is still capable of stopping bullets.
I did say that they were not good guns, right?

[LordBaal]

Oh I was just pilling on what you already said, not disagreeing with you.

[pikachu17]

Yeah. I know. I am not fully disagreeing with you're saying either, you have good points.

[LordBaal]

It all would be for interesting mechanics.

[Reelya]

I want a game that's basically Fallout New Vegas, minus the post apocalyptic elements.

A first person, action RPG with skills, stats, and gunplay that's at least on the level of FNV. Having gunplay mechanics be tighter wouldn't hurt. It would be nice if it could capture the overall "feel" of New Vegas, with small towns being prey to ruthless bandits, big cities full of corrupt individuals, and untamed, desolate wilds where anything can kill you.

I guess Red Dead Redemption 2 has a lot of that, but it has too little "make up your own character elements". FNV was the best because it let you play as a drifter who could have absolutely any backstory of your imagining, with no prior history, loyalties or commitments. The world of this western should definitely feel like it doesn't revolve around you, while also still open to being influenced by your more drastic choices.

i suppose to bridge the techno gap (the laser weapons, power armor, whatever) this could be a cyberpunk western game. holy shit, having said that, why isn't there games like that.

Because the movie Wild Wild West was made and poisoned the idea of steampunk + western for the next 4 decades.

[Dunamisdeos]

I think this is called Skyrim. Excerpt for the guns.

[LordBaal]

Aren't gun mods?

[Trekkin]

i suppose to bridge the techno gap (the laser weapons, power armor, whatever) this could be a cyberpunk western game. holy shit, having said that, why isn't there games like that.

This has bugged me too,enough to actually look into it, and I think I have a partial explanation.

Before I start, in fairness there are cyberpunk Western pnpRPGs like Deadlands: Wasted West and Firefly, so none of this should be taken as a reason cyberpunk Western games can't happen, just reasons why they are hard.

First, of course, the Wild West never actually existed; it's a product of "Wild West Shows" and spaghetti Westerns. If you want to ask what the Wild West would look like if everyone had laser guns, it must be pointed out that what the West looked like with revolvers was not wild; the reality was more of an organized westward expansion aided by military genocide and federal land grants. Cowboys just moved cows around. So trying to make an alternate Wild West just compounds the problem of trying to provide a plausible explanation for a theme park version of history made by people who never saw the original.

Even if you can get around that, the myth of the West is rooted in the technology of the time. Cyberpunk deals with our anxieties at being, if anything, too connected to the rest of the world; the Western is a study of what people do when isolated. Those don't necessarily mesh cleanly. You don't need circuit judges and posses when you have cell phones and cars, and the real-life cowboys stopped being a thing when refrigerated cattle cars became sufficiently available and killed the cattle drive. The very concept of a frontier gets vastly more complicated in an age of worldwide, portable lightspeed communication.

In short, there aren't cyberpunk Westerns because it's really difficult to make a believable Western, and trying an alt-history Western just makes that even more obvious.

[JimboM12]

what i was envisioning was some sort of demented hybrid of Judge Dredd (a few closed/walled megacities with advanced tech but draconian government control and greedy corrupt megacorps, with rampant drug use and crime and cybercrimes) and Mad Max (a frontier of wild bandit gangs and very little law, just a few smaller settlements with a sheriff and militia for fighting off the gangs) with a thin western veneer over it (instead of warboys and Australia, its more like nevada and wannabe separatists, with homespun southern accents, old fashioned gunslingers and some of those darn city mouse cyber criminals having to adjust to not having fiber optic internet and so much of that varmint ridden technology).

[Iduno]

what i was envisioning was some sort of demented hybrid of Judge Dredd (a few closed/walled megacities with advanced tech but draconian government control and greedy corrupt megacorps, with rampant drug use and crime and cybercrimes) and Mad Max (a frontier of wild bandit gangs and very little law, just a few smaller settlements with a sheriff and militia for fighting off the gangs) with a thin western veneer over it (instead of warboys and Australia, its more like nevada and wannabe separatists, with homespun southern accents, old fashioned gunslingers and some of those darn city mouse cyber criminals having to adjust to not having fiber optic internet and so much of that varmint ridden technology).

Both of those properties implied that there were (or should be) civilized areas with large lawless wastes between them. But both focused on only one of those things. I'm imagining stealing resources that are intended to go to the cities, with corporate military coming after you if you're too successful (or manage st actually access the cities). I think the major issue is that you have it's full freedom and violence on one side, totalitarianism and peace on the other, and the most powerful people in the world keeping them apart. I guess you could do some reverse-FF7 thing where you struggle through the wasteland slums to eventually get good enough to sneak into a city to...free it against the will of the people living there?

[pikachu17]

Detective Noir, except its set in Atlantis and everyone is a merperson or other aquatic being.

[MrWiggles]

To my understanding the 'wild west' wasnt as wild as depicted in dime novels or italian filmed western movies. It was also a very short period of time. Something like a bit before the American-Mexican war and the California Goldrush and a bit after the Civil War. Like 30-40 years. There were outlaw gangs and duels. But mostly it was poeple, trying to farm the dirt for what they could and forcing the native americans to move in often cruel and arbirary means.