Video Game / Neocron

Neocron and its later expansion-turned-sequel Neocron 2: Beyond Dome of York is, as considered by many, the very first (and perhaps only) cyberpunk MMORPG, fusing together elements of both traditional MMOs and the relatively faster-paced combat style seen in first-person shooters; in a time long before "action combat" (such as in Guild Wars 2) was a marketing buzzword in the MMO scene.

The original game was developed by Reakktor Media and published in 2002 by CDV Software, while its 2004 sequel had 10Tacle Studios take up publishing duty. The game received middling, mixed reviews and netted a Metacritic score of 66, as its FPS-style interface and combat systems proving rather divisive.

Despite its presence on this site's Defunct Online Video Games list, the game - despite now being two decades old (for reference, it's two years older more than the seemingly immortal World of Warcraft) and its original developers having experienced financial troubles twice - is still in an active if played-by-few state, the reins of the game having been given to a team of skilled fans under the name of Neocron Evolution.

Neocron and Neocron 2 provide examples of:

• Abnormal Ammo: Neocron combat includes several different damage types and many guns can be modified to accept ammo that will change the type of damage it's shots deal. Fairly common examples include high-explosive (force damage), incendiary (burn damage), poisoned (toxic), and uranium (radiation) rounds.
• Abandoned Laboratory: Most of the advanced Dungeon Crawling players will do in the wastelands will be done in abandoned laboratories. The Ceres labs, in particular, are essential for acquiring the game's best items.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: While it doesn't possess the traditional level system of other more established games, the main five skills in which a player can gain experience - Intelligence, Constitution, Strength, Dexterity and Psychic Power - have caps which, regardless of the archetype chosen, add up to 300.
  • Beyond the cap, for a character's main stat, is the Wisdom of Ceres system. Though, given the sheer amount of XP required to hit the regular cap, very few players ever got to shoot for a WoC level and the rewards doing so conferred.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Neocron has many sewers that are typically a place where new characters can find low-threat critters to kill.
• Action Bomb: This is the entire point of the 'kamikaze' series of drones for a Drone Deployer player. These drones are fragile but nothing does more damage per attack.
• Advert-Overloaded Future: Neoron city is covered with ads. In the Plaza and Via Rosso glowing storefront ads cover most buildings and loud speakers regularly advertise each MegaCorp. In Pepper Park neon red signs using Sex Sells ads hang over every street.
• Alliance Meter: The player character will have an individual relationship rating for each of the factions, which can be raised by completing missions for that faction or sometimes by killing enemy players. At high enough faction trust the player can purchase items from that faction's exclusive store.
• Always Accurate Attack: One of the advantages of Psionic attacks is that, with the exception of those that fire a Painfully Slow Projectile, they won't miss. This is especially true of the 'Beam' and 'Halo' Psi modules which strike the target from the sky above and thus are never obstructed by terrain.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: More or less any weapons in Neocron that don't require the 'High Tech Combat' skill are examples of this. On the advanced end are store bought chunky and clunky assault rifles which are still far and away more advanced than the semi-automatic 'street rifles' that look like they were put together in a back alley using spare junk. Low tech melee weapons are undeniably this, as they include shivs made from scrap metal and baseball bats.
  • The 'Wisdom of Ceres' weapons are among the deadliest and hardest to obtain in Neocron and several are examples of A.K.A.-47, including one that is obviously an AK-47.
• Area of Effect: While several guns and explosives can hit multiple targets simultaneously Aggressive Psi Use is especially well-suited to multi-target Area of Effect attacks. The 'barrel' Psi modules create a lingering damage area on the ground that will hit any character that moves on it.
• Arm Cannon: 'Aggressor' mutants have a gatling rifle in-place of their right arm.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Completing the City Admin Epic Mission gives the player faction-specific Power Armor that makes his character look like a Copbot! Too bad the NCPD Powerarmor has stats that are almost completely useless, even for low level characters.
• BFG: Gen-Tanks can specialize in 'Heavy Combat' which provides access to explosive launchers and cannons that are usually examples of this trope. Instead of using a gatling gun they can use a Gatling Cannon. Rather than using a typical laser pistol or rifle Tanks are more likely to use Laser Cannons.
• Body Horror: Most N.P.C. mutants have some degree of Body Horror, especially the Genotoxic enemies.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: This is the City Admin's in-universe justification for the ubiquitous Law Enforcement Chip brain implants, which make it impossible for the implanted subject to commit crime. In-game the chip prevents new players from participating in player versus player combat but it is quite easy to remove.
• Chez Restaurant: 'Chez Cypher' is Neocron's fanciest restaurant.
• City of Adventure: Neocron city is supposed to be like this, although players will probably leave it fairly quickly to pursue more profitable quests in the wasteland.
• The City Narrows: Pepper Park is the "bad" part of Neocron, and looks a lot darker and grimier than the Plaza or Via Rosso, along with having mostly red neon lighting instead of green.
  • The OutZone is by far the largest section of Neocron city in terms of area. It consists of industrial areas that were abandoned after the collapse of Neocron's space programs and is now inhabited by hostile mutants, the Brotherhood of Crahn, and small-time criminals.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: A player can immediately tell what urban area he's in by the color of the buildings and street lights: Plaza is green, Via Rosso is white, Pepper Park is red, OutZone is yellow-brown, and Tech Haven is blue.
• Continuing is Painful: When a player character dies all of his stats and skills will be temporarily but severely reduced by 'Synaptic Impairment' which gradually decreases over time. Additionally some of the characters cyborg implants are likely to become uninstalled, requiring the player find someone whose character has the Implant skill to reinstall them if he wants to use them again. Finally, one or more items from the dead players inventory will drop with his 'Quick Access Belt' where he died. If he wants to get the dropped item back the player will need to return to where he died and take it from the dropped belt before another player hacks the belt and steals it. Fortunately characters can become quite durable so death will be a rarity for a prepared player, outside of dedicated P.V.P.
  • It's possible for a dead player character to be resurrected on the spot by a friendlypassive Psi user with a PSI Resurrection module but even the best version requires nearly a full minute of uninterrupted casting to work.
• Corporate Warfare: The various MegaCorp companies in Neocron city are sometimes willing to oppose their competitors violently. In particular Biotech and Tangent Tech players are hostile to each other and N.Ex.T and Proto.Pharm are also mutually hostile.
• The Cracker: Player characters with Hacking skill are needed to gain access to certain item containers, a dead player's dropped equipment belt, certain item blueprints, and to change control of outposts in clan P.V.P.
• Crapsack World: World War 3 happened in the 22nd century. Lasting just six hours, the nuclear armageddon which ensued sent the earth itself into chaotic flux for centuries; with earthquakes and violent storms reshaping the continents to an unknown extent. Humanity only claws itself back up to a tribal state after three hundred years. It isn't until the mid-28th century that, through the discovery of a knowledge project started six hundred years earlier, humanity's able to start rebuilding. And then the biggest city in the known world has its population reduced to the better part of a million people through a combination of coups and interstellar colonisation and has a former co-leader of the biggest terrorist faction in existence as its sole, all-powerful leader.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Neocron has many different categories of tools and weapons but using them all on one character is impossible or, at least, very impractical. Ironically this is most obvious on the Jack of All Stats Private Eye which are often optimized by competitive players to specialize in not just one weapon category but one weapon, period. For a while the Ionic Crossbow Pistol specialist Private Eye was considered the ideal p.v.p duelist.
• Cyborg: Many hostile mutants are cyborgs and all but the newest player characters will be cyborgs to get the stat bonuses from implants.
• Cyberpunk: Neocron checks off most of the Cyberpunk genre's main tropes and the developers used this to distinguish it from competing games that used a fantasy setting. "No Elves!" was Neocron's advertising slogan in it's early days.
• Cyber Space: The 'Hack Net' that players with a Hack Tool can enter at computer terminals consists of many interconnected floating platforms, raining Matrix-esque code, and abundant Tron Lines.
• Damage Typing: Neocron weapons have many different types of damage and characters can get resistance stats against each of them: Piercing (normal bullets/stabbing), Force (explosives or blunt weapons), Energy (lasers/plasma), X-Ray (radiation), Poison, Fire, and PSI (psychic powers).
• Determinator: A meta-example in that the game itself is one. Over the course of twenty years and counting, it's had two different publishers, Reakktor went through financial issues twice before eventually throwing in the towel, handing the game over to a team of fans in the process and, somehow, the servers are still running.
• Domed Hometown: While the dome itself is a Star Trek-esque energy barrier rather than a solid construct, Neocron is one of these, the barrier serving to protect the town's million inhabitants from the Wasteland's radiation.
• Drone Deployer: This is a possible combat specialty for a player character that takes the Remote Control skill.
• Dumb Muscle: In-universe this is the common use for Genetic Tanks, humans genetically engineered to be expendable frontline fighters in the wastelands during the Ceres War. In-game Tank characters have a low max level for Intelligence and thus few skill points for it's related stats, but significantly higher Strength and Constitution than other character types.
• Dump Stat: Most players ignore economic and Item Crafting skills except for use on dedicated merchant alternate characters.
• Easy Amnesia: A player can use cheap and easily available 'Loss of Memory' pills to instantly remove his character's skills in a stat so they be reassigned to a different stat. However the pills do reduce the character's total experience, potentially reducing his total available skill points if used repeatedly.
• Evil vs. Evil: While every Neocron faction besides maybe the Fallen Angels are morally dubious, the most obvious example of this trope is the Black Dragon Clan versus the Tsunami Syndicate. In-universe they're the two major players in Neocron city's organized crime and black market and they frequently compete in Pepper Park's illicit sex and drugs scene violently. In-game players of one organization will always have players from the other labelled as 'Hostile', making them valid targets in most areas.
• Expy: Mr. Jones, the mysterious mentor that welcomes new characters to Neocron, is Morpheus wearing Agent Smith's suit and tie.
• Faction Motto: Thanks to the background advertisements that play in Neocron city the player will hear these repeatedly.
  • Biotech: Custom Evolution.
  • City Administration: For Reza. For Neocron. For the People.
  • Diamond Real Estate: It's where you Live!
  • Neocron Exploration Technologies: Wherever you want to go, go NEXT!
  • Proto Pharm: Your Hope. Your Strength. Your Cure.
  • Tangent Technology: In guns we trust!
• Fanservice Extra: Neocron has many strippers and scantily clad female N.P.Cs throughout the seedier parts of the city, and they have no impact on most quests. Now maybe this is thematically appropriate in the Red Light District, but it's a bit questionable why players can place dancing girls in their apartments for decoration.
• Floating Mask: The 'Phoenix CPU' Boss Fight in Hack Net looks like a floating mask combined with Swirly Energy Thingy and electric Combat Tentacles.
• Flying Car: The free hovercabs that fly through Neocron city sectors on predetermined routes are essentially flying cars. Unfortunately the player can't buy one for personal use, having to settle for the much bulkier wasteland Gliders for Videogame Flight outside the city.
• Gatling Good: The 'Gatling' series of guns have the fastest attack Frequency and largest ammo capacity of any guns.
• Giant Spider: Neocron has big, possibly mutant, spiders but the biggest are the completely mechanical Spiderbots in the wastelands.
• Grenade Spam: If a player wants to utilize explosive projectiles without having to craft, load, and lug around a launcher he can opt for hand grenades. Considering they come in a stack of 24 and can be thrown at a rate of about 40 a minute grenade spam is easily possible. Hand grenades are weaker than most explosives since they have no rare-weapon versions but they use the 'Melee Combat' skill so melee characters can supplement their main close combat weapon with Grenade Spam while closing the distance.
• Gun Accessories: Many types of accessories can be added to player weapons. Most, like laser sights and barrels, slightly improve accuracy or damage. More substantial accessories can grant the weapon the ability to use Abnormal Ammo.
• Hacking Minigame: Whenever a player wants to hack a secure item he must beat a maze-like minigame that requires he make a certain number of line connections from left to right. Depending on the difficulty level of the object and the player character's Hacking skillpoints the difficulty of the minigame can range from mindlessly easy to literally impossible.
• Hand Cannon: Several large weapon systems also have pistol variants including: gatling guns, ionic shotguns, and even rocket launchers!
• Heal Thyself: While the most rapid healing powers are restricted to Passive Psi Use specialists, any character can use a healing nanite injector, store-bought or recycled consumable medical kits to gradually heal completely.
• Hover Bike: The Hovertec line of one-man hover bikes are relatively popular player transports through the wastelands due to their speed and availability.
• Hover Mecha: Some of the mechanical-type Killer Robot enemies on the wasteland fly like this, most notably the Hoverbots.
• Iconic Outfit: The top-tier power armor for each of the four character types is iconic among the playerbase since that's what's going to be displayed all the time. The Tank's power armor even made it onto the cover art for Neocron 2.
• Interface Screw: When the duration of Status Buff drugs ends the player experiences 'drug flash' which lowers the player's screen visibility and can impair his characters movement control responsiveness until the effect ends or he takes more drugs.
• An Interior Designer Is You: Every player character starts the game with a small apartment based on his faction choice. Much larger apartments can be bought and all apartments can be furnished with a variety of cosmetic items or storage containers.
• Item Crafting: Obtaining high-quality weapons often requires utilizing Neocron's rather complex crafting and modification systems. Many long-time players keep alternate character solely for crafting and other economic abilities.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: This is the dynamic that exists between Gen-Tanks (fighter), Psi-Monks (mage), and Spies (thief)
• Flawed Prototype: While World of Warcraft popularised and polished the technology by applying it to just about all of its PvE content, Neocron actually possessed instanced player housing, with passwords entered into the elevator keypads determining whose apartment you visited^note Every character, for example, started off with a small basic apartment whose password was simply the character's name. Larger apartments came with keys, with which the owner could change the password to whatever they wished.. Like numerous things in Neocron however, it wasn't a stranger to bugs.
• Fantastic Drug: While not an illegal narcotic, ProtoPharm's Vitae vaccine qualifies as one of these; essentially signalling the end of debilitating disease.
  • However, almost a century later, their efforts to recreate Vitae - which was stolen by the Brotherhood of Crahn - resulted in Spirula; a drug which caused irreversible genetic mutations in anyone who took it.
  • Many fictional drugs in Neocron offer a temporary Status Buff and their nature as consumable items make them very sought after from faction stores and a regular Money Sink.
• Forever War: As far as MMOs are concerned, Neocron both subverts this trope and follows it. While Neocron has a dozen factions with their own relationships/alliances between each other, they can be lumped into one of two camps:
  • pro-City: City Administration, NEXT, Tangent Technologies, Bio Tech, ProtoPharm, Diamond Real Estate and City Mercs^note The City Mercs officially declare themselves as a neutral party due to the nature of their business as a PMC, but they aren't viewed as enemies of the state for precisely that same reason.
  • anti-City: Fallen Angels, the Brotherhood of Crahn, Twilight Guardian, the Black Dragon and the Tsunami Syndicate.
• Generation Ships: In Neocron's

backstory N.EX.T. and Proto.Pharm collaborated to create this style of spaceship, united by a belief that Earth is so damaged humanity would be better off escaping it. The Neocron space program was eventually abandoned and the industrial downturn that followed helped create the OutZone.

• Jack of All Stats: Private Eyes can't reach the maximum in any character stat but can raise them all to at least mediocre levels. They're the only characters besides Psi-Monks that can get a non-trivial amount of Psychic ability, but have much better physical potential than Monks.
• Karma Meter: In Neocron the karma meter is called 'Soul Light' (SL). A player will lose SL when he kills other players from friendly factions or kills players in a 'high-security' sector or player housing. A player will gain SL by killing players from enemy factions and slowly gain it over time from normal gameplay. Players with low SL will drop more items when they die, those items will be easier for other players to steal, other players will be able to place bounies on their head and, at especially low levels, law enforcement N.P.Cs will shoot on sight.
• Killer Robot: The most common hostile N.P.Cs besides mutants are killer robots. The towering Warbots that roam the wasteland and provide rare parts and the City Admin's law enforcement Copbots deserve special mention.
• Knight Templar: The 'Temple of Cleansing Fire' that features in the Soldier and Inquisitor job missions is a group of aggressive psionics users that want to violently purge Pepper Park of sexual deviancy. The Brotherhood of Crahn player faction can also be seen as this since it violently opposes Neocron's current government and leadership and desires a Psi-Monk led theocracy.
• Laser Blade: One of the more common categories of high tech melee weapons is named 'Laserblade' and these are very similar in appearance to Star Wars lightsabers.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Neocron needs to 'synchronize' everytime the player changes zones. This isn't much of a problem in the wasteland, where zones are pretty expansive, but a player running through the city might hit a loading screen every couple of minutes.
• Magic by Any Other Name: While it's referred to as 'Psi Use' or Psychic Powers Monk's aggressive Psi Use definitely looks like typical fantasy magic such as conjuring fireballs, calling lightning from the sky, and firing energy beams from their hand.
• Matter Replicator: This explanation is given for the Gene Replicators' and Go Guardians' convenient teleportation powers.
• MegaCorp: The twelve factions a player can choose from are these. Most of them literally, while others are simply the biggest and most noteworthy examples of their kind.
• Nature Is Not Nice: Players that leave Neocron city will have to watch out for wolves, snakes, scorpions, and many other comparitively mundane animals as well as crazed mutants and killer robots.
• Non-Indicative Name: The 'Job' a player chooses at character creation doesn't impact anything except the tutorial missions available when he first enters Neocron. It is most likely that a character's listed Job will have nothing to do with his skills and equipment, for all but the newest characters.
• Noob Cave: Area MC 5 is where a new character starts the game after a Human Popsicle mishap and the player can get an extended tutorial on Neocron's many economic and combat systems here. A character can never return to this tutorial area once he uses the Gene Replicator to leave it. As a Continuity Nod a player exploring the wasteland can find a high difficulty version of Area MC 5 where certain valuable items can be looted.
• Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: Both low tech and high tech guns are quite bulky and angular. This may be partially due to the game's technical limitations but it does contribute to the game's Low Culture, High Tech theme.
• Padded Sumo Gameplay: Evenly matched players using max-power characters can endure several minutes of constant combat before one gets killed. Gen-Tanks can use the toughest armor and implants in addition to having the highest innate Hit Points and Damage Reduction. Spies can inject resistance nanites that massively boost resilience to specific damage types. Psi Monks can apply PSI shields and the fastest heals and cures. Private Eyes can select from a variety of all these survival tools. Any character type can become very difficult to kill outright, even using the game's most damaging weapons.
• Money Sink: Neocron contains many money sinks designed to siphon credits out of the economy. Store-bought Implant Gel and Repair Gel are consumed when installing implants and repairing items. Store-bought item parts are needed for most Item Crafting. Vehicle repair costs are a regular expense for players that use combat vehicles. Drugs are consumable items but competitive players consider them a must-have in player versus player combat. Drone Deployer characters will need to replace their drones on a regular basis. Ammunition types that can't be made with Recycle skill are a constant, minor Money Sink. Some players will make an alternate character with a high barter skill just to optimize Money Sink purchases.
• Obvious Rule Patch: When Neocron was first released one of the available factions was the 'Anarchy Breed'. AB had no ally factions and labelled most other factions hostile. It was eventually removed as a playable faction due to the developers deciding AB upset other factions balance and encouraged a murderous Troll P.v.P style. References to the Anarchy Breed still exist among N.P.Cs to this day, despite AB players having disappeared long ago.
• Palette Swap: The different sections of the Hack Net are distinguishable by the different colored environment.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: Many explosive projectiles have slow velocity but this is especially noticeable on Rocket Launchers, which have relatively long range but are practically useless against moving targets.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: One of the starter job quests pits the player against a Knight Templar cult that wants to morally purify Pepper Park by kidnapping and killing prostitutes.
• Powered Armor: Although the PSI Monks' version is little more than a hooded cloak that obscures their face, the best armour in the game for the four classes is referred to as "Power Armour".
• Power Glows: The rarest weapons are typically distinguished from their common counterparts by extra glowing bits.
• Private Military Contractors: The City Mercs faction is the closest thing to one of these that remains in the post-apocalypse. In gameplay terms City Mercs members will see most other factions as 'neutral', which gives them a bit more flexibility in player versus player.
• Propaganda Machine: Within the populated sectors of Neocron city propaganda is routinely spouted over loudspeakers warning of wanted criminals in the city limits, promoting the city's MegaCorp, hailing the City Admin's leadership and generally contributing to the dystopian urban atmosphere.
• Psychic Powers: Psychic powers are the specialty that Psi-Monks have acquired via mutation. In gameplay PSI powers basically function the same as magic in fantasy games, with 'Aggressive Psi Use' specialists filling the role of Black Mage while 'Passive Psi Use' monks are a group's White Mage.
• Random Transportation: The 'Venture Warp' terminals will teleport the player to the wastelands instantly, but the destination is somewhat random.
• Rated M for Money: Neocron contains nudity on random strippers seemingly just to emphasize how 'mature' the setting is compared to typical fantasy R.P.Gs. This nudity was censored in the North American version of the game.
• Ray Gun: Most ranged weapons that require the 'High Tech Combat' skill are some variant of Ray Gun; one especially advanced category is literally named 'Raygun'.
• Red Light District: In-universe Pepper Park is Neocron's infamous red light district where drugs and prostitutes can be found for cheap, provided the would-be customer is willing to take the risk of going there. In-game Pepper Park is literally covered in red lights, dancing girls, and erotic advertisements and Park zones are 'low-security' so player killers aren't punished much. Pepper Park also contains the headquarters of the Black Dragon and Tsunami Syndicate criminal factions.
• Religion is Magic: Or in Neocron's case Religion Is Psychic Powers. The Brotherhood of Crahn's cult is based entirely around the study, worship, practice, and enhancement of psychic abilities. Their faction store and quests favor Psi Monks so players using such characters tend to flock to the Brotherhood.
• The Remnant: If a player bothers delving into Neocron's backstory he'll learn that Crahn and his Psi-Monks were Neocron's original ruling class but were overthrown after losing the Ceres War. The Crahn Sect cult is now the only legacy of Crahn's reign, but it nonetheless aims to restore what they view as his rightful rule.
• Robbing the Dead: In addition to the standard looting of dead N.P.Cs a player can grab the items from a dead player's dropped equipment belt, although doing so normally requires a high level Hack Tool and a whole lot of skill points in Hacking.
• Rock Beats Laser: Characters that specialize in either low-tech or high-tech weapons can both be made competitively capable in combat. This can lead to amusing situations like a character that uses laser rifles getting overwhelmed by one that uses weapons which wouldn't be out of place in a history museum. One of the game's legendary low tech pistols is even named after the 1800s American lawman, Wyatt Earp.
• Scavenger World: It's possible for the player to benefit from scavenging and MacGyvering using the 'Recycling' skill. Most players that participate in player versus environment content will put a few points in Recycle just for the convenience of turning junk items into ammunition.
• Schizo Tech: Neocron city is rife with this: hovercraft taxis, antigravity lifts, and law enforcement robots with plasma rifles exist alongside gang enforcers armed with double barrel shotguns and degenerate mutants that resort to shanking people in back alleys. The greatest example of Neocron's odd mix of tech is probably Tangent Technologies which manufactures both the 'Wasteland Eagle' conventional semi-automatic pistol and the high-tech 'Pulse-laser' pistol.
• Scratch Damage: In player versus player each hit does at least 1 Hit Points worth of damage. This miniscule damage can be lethal after several minutes of sustained fire, which can be amusing when a low level player comes across a high level player that's away from their computer.
• Sinister Surveillance: This is the impression made within city sectors patrolled by the City Admin. "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear."
• Sniper Rifle: Sniper Rifles are available to any character sufficiently skilled with Rifle Combat and High Tech Combat, which usually means Spies. While Sniper Rifles do have the longest range of any weapon in Neocron there's not many areas where such range is necessary or useful and they're awkward to use in P.V.P. due to the Padded Sumo match-ups usually seen in competitive play.
• Squishy Wizard: Aggressive Psi Use specialists are among the most fragile combat characters players will make.
• Subsystem Damage: Player characters can suffer damage to head, body, or legs and this damage will reduce the character's performance. For example, taking falling damage can cripple a character's legs which slows down movement.
• The Triads and the Tongs: The Black Dragon crime syndicate is a fusion of both the Triads and The Mafia, due to the allegiances of the original founders, Nico Manecci and Wan Tokai.
• Truce Zone: There's only a few areas in the entire world of Neocron where player versus player is disabled completely but they tend to be the hang-out spots for participating in the player driven economy. The most popular such zone is typically Plaza Sector 1. Other areas classified as 'high-security' are patrolled by A.I. guards who'll intervene if one player attacks another and give a big penalty to a player-killer's Karma Meter
• Used Future: Pretty much every area besides Via Rosso, Tech Haven, and Hack Net looks grimy and barely habitable.
• Useless Useful Spell: 'Freezer' high-tech guns, 'Electroshock' high-tech melee weapons, and 'Parashock' Psi modules will slow down other players they hit. Slowing movement sounds like it would be useful in player vs player combat but the effect from these weapons is mild and rarely lasts longer than 8 seconds, making them unpopular. It doesn't help that the slowing effect don't work on N.P.Cs and weapons with it are considered useless for player versus environment gameplay.
• Videogame Flamethrowers Suck: Flamethrowers require Heavy Combat skill, have range so short they're practically melee weapons, have a slow fire rate and only hit a single target despite the misleading graphic effects, and require ammunition that's incompatible with any other weapons. They can stack up damage over time on the target, so your opponent might be annoyed by continuous damage after he kills you with a proper weapon.
• Visible Invisibility: When a player uses a Stealth Tool most N.P.Cs will ignore him and he won't normally be targetable by other players but he'll still be visible as a flickering translucent blue cloud.
• We Will Spend Credits in the Future: 'Neocron Credits' are the game's basic currency and are required for a player making purchases from N.P.C vendors.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Twilight Guardian present themselves as freedom fighters opposing Neocron's despotic regime and use the Faction Motto "freedom is our law." The City Admin derides them as Bomb-Throwing Anarchists who are willing to destroy what civilization remains in the wasteland out of spite.

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