I´m going to be a little bit non-linear and off-topic (and long I'm affraid),I apologize in advance
And for my lack of explanation, I can only offer my apologies.
Don´t really think you should apologize at all, I tried to explain why I see two fundamental stoppers for combining in a game both "meat" and "cyberspace" time: different timeframes and classes should be complementary basically. Still think that a completely independent Netrunner game is feasible.
I can definitely say creating a CP 2020 style Netrunner class in a MMO is quite possible. I recognize others may not see the way HOW to do so, so feebly, I can only put forth the belief that it IS possible. I can see how it would be done, quite clearly in my own head, but unfortunately converting what I see playing out in my own head to a written explanation is not possible for me
I would have loved that you shared what you see clearly but at the same time you cannot put in written, because well its why forum are intended I guess.
. I will humbly offer up that I have played close to 40 MMOs, starting with the original EQ1 on day 1 of release. Most of the MMOs I've played (except for a few grinder style games - RF Online as a example) I've maxed out characters, including crafting & the best gear I that was accessible. Consequently, repetition breeds familiarity and out of that I can see how a Netrunner class could be implemented so that it works hand-in-hand with actual Solos, Medias and Rockerboys who are in the field.
Being an avid consumer != as a creator IMHO, I have in my bookstore 100's of books and I don´t pretend to be a writer. So I cannot take that as a sign of authority.
You DO realize however, Neuromancer came out in July of 1984, while Cyberpunk 2020 came out in September of 1984? Pondsmith simply developed into 2020, the Netrunner Gibson originally imagined as Case.
The "artist" (Pondsmith) had plenty of time to read the quintessential cyberpunk novel, like so many "appreciators" did and went on to develop something for Cyberpunk 2020 that everyone sort of nodded and agreed upon. Netrunning. They (Pondsmith) later went back on what they established, and turned it into something else(Cyberpunk 2077 - Nethacking), years later. Something else, that did not match their original vision (Cyberpunk 2020). That's not appreciator self-entitlement, that's simply disappointment.
On a final note, Nethacking in it's current state in the game is 100% superfluous at any difficulty level, with any lifepath. CP 2077 is mostly just Call of Duty with some GTA and WatchDogs mixed in and a "cyberpunk" wrapper. To the best of my knowledge there is no Netrunning in either GTA or Call of Duty, which would have at least separated it somewhat. Netrunning would have at least made CP 2077 stand out, had it been done according to the original 2020 vision.
Just few rambling here: 1st edition of Cyberpunk is actually from 1988 and 2nd edition CP2020 its 1990 (my personal copy is 1996, something like revision 2 translated to my mother tongue). According to himself, he didn´t read Neuromancer till later:
https://www.dicebreaker.com/categor...rpg-almost-killed-us-mike-pondsmith-interview
Some people doubt that, but original "Tron" film is from 1982 so is where maybe got the inspiration for his system in the 1st two editions of Cyberpunk (or maybe comes from Walter Jon Williams help with the 1st edition, because he was likely aware of Gibson work).
But I think, you are quite mistaken glorifying Gibson "Netrunning" since what you liked actually is Pondsmith one. In Gibson Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer,Count Zero,Monalisa Overdrive) + Burning Chrome hacking is quite old style:Case spends weeks planning how to break ICE in Sensored he didn´t fire a single daemon and only time he controlled an ICEbreaker was on his final incursion (and I don´t remember, if the ICEbreaker was controller by the Dixie Flatline); similarly in Count Zero you don´t see any Netrun battle just Bobby near flatlined almost in the 1st page and I don´t remember any active incursion to the Net in Monalisa (one by Tick as an observer,one by the Finn). Burning Chrome similarly, Netrunning intrussion is based in standard hacker practices of deception (pretending to be a data packed to get into the ICE,pretending to be a call) and lots of planning. Everytime one of the hackers get close to ICE without preparation, they flatline because your brain cannot be faster than a computer and Gibson catched that in almost every hacker event.
Gibson Cyberspace was mainly a better way of representing information than a plain textfile or our humble webbrowser (also a visual metaphor of information flow, his description of the Sprawl as a pulsating Nova of bytes and reducing scale to appreaciate the data structures).
In CP2013 and CP2020 Pondsmith came out with a combat system intended to be dynamic for the Netrun class, he had experience already since he designed Mekton RPG back in 1985 that was ANIME inspired so he knew how to make stylish combat.
Now, is where I think that is a matter of taste whether you like more CP2020 Netrun style and CPRED/2077 style. Pondsmith explains it in the interview, is what I tried to say before (I didn´t read that in advance, just experience of CP2020 master): the Netrun do his adventure while "meat" is just observing,then "meat" do their stuff while Netrun just observe --> not really funny in a cooperative RPG session.
He wrote his final campaign of CP2020 (Firestorm) leading to the datakrash in mind and used as the basis for Cyberpunk 3.0 (3rd edition) that was a setting in post-apocalyptic,post-cyberpunk,transhumanist world (with Netrun quite similar to RED). It was not well received by fans and went to the hiatus.
So when he had the opportunity for RED (I assume after being approached by CDPR) he had the chance to rewrite his story (Cyberpunk 3.0 is not a cannon for CP2077), but he kept the datakrash,no Net, physical hacker incursion Netrun type. So I can imagine there was not really that much demand for that dynamic in tabletop (as I tried to explain) because he had like 20 years of customer feedback + his own adventures.
I can imagine that CDPR and Pondsmith also had quite a lot discussions about Netrunning because RED was published last year also and he could have very easily put something like "after years of glorious battles and countless lives Netwatch agents finally cleaned up the old NET"-Shadowrun do something like that in their lore-, as an engineer I would have done old style Covid time quarantine: isolate sectors,cut electricity,clean and just start expanding the net by interconnection of cleaned sectors... I can only guess, that if they didn´t do something like that is exactly because its not that easy (+ CDPR would have needed a complete cyberspace on top of the own real space); the use of wirless (eyes) in CP2077 instead of wire was explained in some other thread in this forum also and I think it makes sense: gameplay wise, if you need to physical hack to a target to hack you are probably a stealth build so its faster to just kill the enemy without hacking so Netrun becomes superflous (it works well in RED,since its team based and different classes provide the different skills).