OK, so the last thread got closed, but there's still more going on. Word is that the most recent documents were going to court on May 27. Does anyonehave any information on this?

That's why I was asking specifically before if they lost the license, would they be able to sell anything already printed or if they would have to pulp it. They might rush out as much as they can if that's the case. But if, as was stated earlier, they'll have to turn it over to Topps; I can't see them rushing it out instead of waiting a week or two to see.

I think it's overly optimistic to assume that no information and business as usual at IMR means that they have the licenses. In fact, since they made the mistake of releasing product after the freelancers pulled copyright I wouldn't be surprised if they continued working after the license was revoked as well. But that's pure speculation based of past behavior. Behavior I'm not willing to cut them any slack on.

That's all assuming that IMR expects to be a solvant compnay if they loose the license. All indications are that if the licenses go there isn't going to be much of IMR left. So why wouldn't they gamble a half a print run and see what happens?


My fear is that they will do exactly that. Take everything in the pipe and bang it out before they go bust. At least, on the Shadowrun side. I can't speak to the Battletech side because I don't care at all about it. However all indications are that Randall, and by proxy IMR, cares more about it so I expect Battletech to get better treatment over all by the time this is over.

While I do care about Battletech, until a few months ago the same impression, that being more care for Battletech by IMR, was in my mind. Now, I am less sure. If you spend a few weeks (its what it took me) to really understand the MACHINE that is the Battletech community, you will see that its radically different from the Shadowrun community. Some of the difference is clearly due to the efforts of IMR , such as the existence of official forums. The other aspects of the difference have to do with the difference in the games and community.

The community for Shadowrun 4 supports the concepts of extremely open rules. Most of the talk about games here includes the terms "We house rule around that". This does not work in a Battletech world. And the work to fix this, isn't all on IMR's side. If you open the pdf for A Time of War or a beautiful copy of Masters and Minions, the size of the authors list will overwhelm you. The battletech forums are pretty serious on Errata too, and without catfights in the errata threads. RAWR

I speculate, that with Jason Hardy having experience inside of the Battletech machine, the Shadowrun "machine" is at least in its planning phase. A larger more active writing base will be here soon, assuming the license stays in place. The only downside for me, and perhaps *only* me, is that these writers will be fiction writers; when the game could seriously use some rules masters. I'd send $1,000 to IMR right now if it would be enough to move the SR4LA rules to being as stable, consistent and well written as the Total Warfare series for Battletech.

To further dream, I would love to see the income from each product line. With the SR4A Borders rollout, who knows which pulls in more.

BlueMax

Wargamers vs. Role-players. Massive difference in the style of game and what they want from the company producing it. It's one of the biggest reasons why I don't think the same company should be doing both Shadowrun and BattleTech but having Earthdawn with another company.

BlueMax, excellent post. I know that I have often considered the lack of Holostreets and the use of an official forum as a mark against CGL's value of Shadowrun. However, the official site
for Battletech started as a fan site under Warner Doles. The shadowrun community as a whole seems to value their fiction less then the Battletech community, as well, since the Shadowrun fiction
really is not a major part of the setting. It is almost always(with certain exceptions) extremely fringe events, while for Battletech most of the old novels were dealing with pushing the story along.

You are dealing, always, with two very different communities, and this influences everything. It is why Dumpshock, despite having its writers and developers here, will never get a promotion
to "The Official Shadowrun Forums." Seriously, would you want someone who is new to the game to come here and see the negativity that is a huge part of these forums? Or the emphasis placed
here on "Optimized Builds"? It would be nice if Dumpshock was as friendly a forum as the Battletech Forums.

In defense of Dumpshock, I do find the Battletech forums to be rather too docile at times. Speculation on CGL's future will conjure up a bunch of zealous CGL defenders, and the amount of community worship for some of the writers (if I hear another Herb + Nuke joke...) gets a little cloying at times.

Eh...the reason for the Herb + Nuke jokes is because, otherwise, the Battletech fans would be crying over the handful of nukes fired so far in the Jihad era. It is a way of dealing with
their own form of grief. You know, making fun of it gives it less power over you.

I'm not sure I'm ready to buy into the notion that an entire community constantly comes up with lame jokes as a coping mechanism. In any case, its certainly not a big deal.

I highly value the fiction, and would love to see much more of it. In fact, the small group of players I've put together have all said that the fiction helped them. The fiction that opened the original SR4 was what pushed one of them to start GMing Shadowrun.


I agree that there are two different communities. When the news about Coleman broke it almost felt like we were being invaded here.

But I disagree that becoming the official forum is some kind of upgrade or that the attitude here is some kind of issue. Not being the official forum positioned Dumpshock as a more neutral forum, even if the close operation with IMR staff sullies that a bit. Despite a few forum locks and thread diversions, communication has been relatively free here and I can't be sure that would happen on an "official" forum.

The only real issue I see to new players is the amount of metaplot info that gets thrown around here. When I first found Dumpshock back in the day I was wondering if we were talking about the same game. But it's good, and it's healthy to talk about that stuff. Aside from a few prolific posters with very strong opinions the community here is rather welcoming. So, on the whole not much different than any other enthusiast forum out there. The power gaming can get a bit out fo hand, but if the GM reads the threads as well he should have plenty of ammo to use against any potential munchkins.

Do you really want to go there?

Dude... have you ever been to the Wizards D&D forums? They have an entire subforum dedicated to character optimization, nevermind the flamewars.

From my experience, Dumpshock is 1/3 rules questions, 1/3 "Help me minmax the hell out of this character", and 1/3 talking about the metaplot. The threads that get the most posts tend toward the last of those...and many times the other two thread types will degenerate into that as well.

From my little bit of interaction on the BTech forums (when they were still somewhat new on classicbattletech), heaven help you if you suggest a legitimate interpretation of the rules that isn't what is comonly accepted. Had a bit of a tussle with a few posters there and a couple of big names (writers) over a question.

Unlike here, I was never made to feel welcome on the BattleTech forums yet it being the game that got me into FASA products. First time, I was welcomed to grab a seat and jump in. On the official BT forums, I got the feeling I was supposed to sit where/when instructed and simply like it just because.

I play a lot more SR than I do Battletech these days. Communities make a difference.

You know what? I suppose I don't. I have the same handle over there as here...

Same here...I browsed the forums there when I tried to get back into BattleTech and didn't stick around. When I was 11, one of my friends introduced me to BattleTech. When I was growing up, I split my gaming attention evenly between BattleTech, Shadowrun, Magic: The Gathering, and Vampire: The Masquerade. I dumped Vampire the quickest as I got to college after...well...dealing with V:TM people in the late 90s. Creeped ME out and I watch Takashi Miike films and hang out at the local goth club. Magic went next, pretty much as soon as I had to start paying bills. Before both of those went, though, I got out of BattleTech.

To this day, 18 years later, I STILL read Shadowrun. I have probably about 2/3 of all the books published and I'm trying to track down the ones I'm missing. If I'm bored and stuck for something to read, I pick up one of the old sourcebooks. What brought me back to the forums here was trying to get info on 4th Edition since my roommate (who has only heard me talk about Shadowrun and has never played) talked some of his friends into a game. However, I've spent pretty much the last 3 or 4 days talking business politics in this thread and discussing the old metaplot stuff.

Honestly, there are only a few things that draw out that much devotion in me...Shadowrun, Red Dwarf, The Dresden Files, and Psych...that's about it. And I'm betting every single other person on here feels just the same way. That's WHY we get so worked up about it. This is something important to us, something that, for many of the others on here and definitely for me, that has been part of our lives for decades. It's been part of my life for almost 2/3 of it. And I'm sure it's just as big a part of the lives of a lot of the other people on here, whether they're just fans or freelancers or with CGL/IMR. This is important to us, and that's why we're so passionate about it.

Sub-forum? They have a whole BOOK now! Can we please not discuss the baby-eaters, please.

Also, people complaining about the CBT.com forums being regimented? Stay away from the
l5r forums...those are insanely regimented. To the point where, really, I do not think one can
post anywhere and not be breaking one of their "this goes in this forum" rules.

I, personally, find Dumpshock to be an unfriendly forum. But that is because, as a whole, the
forumits want to do nothing more then find fault with everything. Since they did not write it, they
think it is bad. Maybe it is a small, vocal group, but they shape the perception of here. When you have
people who have attacked 4th edition with seemingly every post of theirs I have read, or attack every
little detail ranging from the change in aesthetics to people still preferring to do the pink mohawk style
to dragons to immortal elves to OPTIONAL rules additions...I know these people do not like these things...
can they PLEASE quit trying to bully and harass the community on them, though? I have heard it enough.
I am tired of hearing why Ghostwalker sucks, why Technomancers should not be, and why Tir Tairngire
should not be able to have any change happen to it. I would rather be able to discuss all these topics and
more reasonably without having the people who hate them jump into the threads and flame as hard as they
can simply because they have nothing better to do then hate.

I'm going to skip all the unnecessary and off topic arguments about why one game/community/forum is bad and the other isn't. But BlueMax, that's a darn interesting post. I'd be mighty curious to see Shadowrun handled with some of the processing power available in the Battletech machine (not literally in the Battletech machine, but the same level of resources). Between the folks doing things like the Master Unit List, the fact-checking group (which I swear gets bigger every book), etc. Setting aside which company handles the game line, or which writers, I'd just love to see SR have that level of resources available. Maybe it does, but I certainly haven't perceived it that way.

I think that what is happening with the license maybe a possible extension and that is why we are seeing this "rush to publish" these things that are coming soon. First off I want to say that Corp Guide feels in places very rushed, and the fact that a PDF is out before even a street date for the book is strange indeed. Seems to me that it is about getting income now because possible very soon there may not be any more to be had...


No I don't have any solid info, I am just going off of feel of the products and such.

Um...you must be new. We have been seeing PDFs out before the street date for a very long time. For battletech,
we usually assume 3-6 months from the PDF to Dead Tree, for core books, 6-8 months. For Shadowrun, usually,
the PDF is 1-2 months before the Street Date is released. Sometimes, as short as a couple weeks. But, over all,
CGL is an early adopter of the Electronic Print Media. Brilliant idea. I mean, I buy the stuff in PDF, and, when the
announcement of the street date is made, I begin fighting with my FLGS to get the book in dead tree. But, I have yet,
that I recall, to see a single book released in PDF with a street date for the Dead Tree version

While I like the CBT forum and hang around there a lot, try to utter one of the following there (or better yet, a combination thereof): Cappies, Davionista, Hanse, Sun Tzu, Fiat. It will most likely result in the same few posters rehashing their very strongly formulated opinions until it makes your eyes bleed. (And that's not even touching on the "DarkAge ruined the game!" "No, the Jihad ruined the game!" "No, the FCCW ruined the game!" "No, the Clans ruined the game!" "Bah, the 4SW ruined the game!"- issue...)

Every place has its trigger phrases and hot buttons, and Dumpshock isn't an exception to that rule. Right about now, I'd imagine Loren Coleman would be one, but I'm sure cybered vampires, the Dragonheart, Leonardo, and plenty of other things will trigger similar reactions here.

Yes, but they are far more civil about it then the "Ghostwalker ruined the Game!" "No! Surge Ruined the game!"
"No! Immortal Elves ruined the game!" "No! X edition ruined the game!" crowds on here....And, you know, at least
the people on the Battletech forums have a reason to complain. Either it is their factional alliances coming to bear,
or it is the fact that much of BT fiction focused on the same small group of people until we all got sick of them.
Could you imagine Shadowrun if 75% of the fiction all focused on the same couple of Shadowrun teams?

I've come to like 4e a lot more recently as a rules system, but the world building and metaplot leave a lot to be desired.

I love Ghostwalker. I love technomancers (even if I think they're a tad overpowered as PCs).

The only problem with the way Tir Tairnegire's been handled in 4e is that it's all off-screen. 2 decades of story was resolved with a single line in the "How It Came to Pass" section of the new BBB, which pisses me off. Want to close it off and banish IEs to the far, far background? Cool. Just don't take a story I've been following since I was thirteen fucking years old with a lot of investment in all the characters, then just say "Oh, the rebels that may or may not have been lead by Harlequin won and took over and now the country's in economic collapse now let's move on to how awesome all the new stuff we wrote about Evo and Horizon is."

It's indicative of what I don't like about how 4e's metaplot has been handled -- focused exclusively on down-and-dirty street-level play and ignoring those of us who like the IEs and dragons and Deus turning the Archology into a horror show that would may the dude from Saw gag and Dunkelzahn's will and all that other stuff. I'm missing that in 4e and I want it back.

IMO, the last good book for Shadowrun I've read was Dragons of the Sixth World. That's not saying much though because the only competition is Emergence. Every other book has been core rulebook expansions (Street Magic, Augmentation, etc) or location books ("Ooh, let's do 2500 words on this place that had an entire sourcebook in 1st/2nd ed and spend the entire thing recapping what was said in there!") The potential stall in production due to the loss of the freelancers and the shady business practices that might cost the company the license pisses me off because, frankly, there's not much else they CAN write about other than getting back to the damn metaplot or coming out with a new edition of the rules and all the core books solely to attempt to make a buck.

I have to agree there. However, as we all know, if there are ever any hints of that, the majority of Dumpshock rises in revolt and flames against the writers. I mean, we are talking about a forum that, over all, has a policy that one is not supposed to make your characters at the 400 BP, but at 300, and restrict availability to 8 or even 6 to make it "street"
because the BBB is "too powerful for street level play."

I agree that I would love some more cool stuff like Dunk's Will, but I have to accept that all that is in the past, because Dumpshock doesn't like it.