CGL Speculation #9, Please review ToS before posting Options

[Penta]

When's GenCon this year? That's right amidst it, ainnit?

[Taharqa]

... that means that this small event should not overshadow the much larger and more important issue at hand: the situation at IMR. Because in any effort to derail a debate, it is a time-tested tactic to attempt and ignore the bigger and more pressing issues by focusing on the smaller issues and details. Detractors seize on these small issues and work to bring them to the forefront of the conversation in order to suppress the real issues at stake.

Except that is not actually how it happens. I would be delighted if you would stop airing your dirty laundry in public, but the reason this keeps coming up is because you keep bringing it up. I am beginning to think that when you log in, you first check JH's recent posts,so that you can make some snarky comment. If you want it to be a small thing that doesn't distract us, then use PMs to continue your personal feud with JH.

[Nevermind]

Except that is not actually how it happens. I would be delighted if you would stop airing your dirty laundry in public, but the reason this keeps coming up is because you keep bringing it up. I am beginning to think that when you log in, you first check JH's recent posts,so that you can make some snarky comment. If you want it to be a small thing that doesn't distract us, then use PMs to continue your personal feud with JH.

I wonder why u dont lead by example. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Ancient History]

I wonder why Taharqa doesn't read the thread and realize when he's making an incorrect statement.

[fistandantilus4....]

Except that is not actually how it happens. I would be delighted if you would stop airing your dirty laundry in public, but the reason this keeps coming up is because you keep bringing it up.

#1

I am beginning to think that when you log in, you first check JH's recent posts,so that you can make some snarky comment.If you want it to be a small thing that doesn't distract us, then use PMs to continue your personal feud with JH.

#2
Ok, we're going to do the Good Post/ Bad post game again.

Example number one is not precisely an example of a "good" post, but it is generally acceptable. It's the expression of an opinion.

Example #2 would be an example of trolling. It adds nothing to the discussion, adds nothing positive, is inherently negative (you'll note that being the opposite of positive). AH and JH had gone to PM discussions, as was brought and and requested of them by the mods. Not because it's a distraction, but because there's a lot of heat between the two of them, and we don't want the flames spreading.
So dont' add anymore fuel.

[MindandPen]

So, I've kept my powder dry for a while. One of the moderators a few threads ago asked everyone to not keep hammering their points home over and over. I decided that since I had said most of what I wanted to say on this before, I would keep my mouth shut, and hope people would read the prior threads before they posted.

Yeah, THAT worked. So, let's tackle this grab bag (I did promise Augmentin I would do that).

First Principles
Lets begin with first principles, which many people are missing. In any long running argument (like on a message board), you have to keep in mind that events occur over time. Add that people tend to look at things through their own personal filters, and you get where we are.

AHG/JMH Situation
The entire AH/JMH situation is a result of a long running event being played out in real time, and then people coming into it at the end and attempting to make moral judgments based on how things are now, instead of how things were at the time when the events took place. Those same people are the ones I alluded to earlier as who have come in here and stirred up this one issue to take attention away from the overall CGL situation. One of those people, in my opinion, has a habit of quoting out of context to continue the fight by trying to ignore a flame war - to distract attention from the CGL situation.

Freelancers/CGL Employees
Every freelancer and every CGL employee has to make a decision for themselves as to if they will work for the "new" CGL or not. Some have expressed their reasons for their choices, and in every case it is personal. For those staying, maybe they believe that things are changing from the "way it was" where freelancers dd not get paid. Maybe they see it as a chance to enter into the SR world which they've always wanted to do but didn't have a chance. Maybe they love what JMH is doing with SR and want to support it. As for those leaving, their reasons range from the opposite of all of the above, to just being tired of having to deal with all the shit. And there are other reasons for both. In every case, they are personal. If the freelancers choose to share them with us (the fans) so be it. If not, it's not like they owe us anything. For each of them, their choices will have consequences that will affect them personally and professionally, and effect the game we all love.

CGL/LLC
This all leads to the cause of this. The actions by LLC and CGL that lead to the financial audit and Topps appointing an executive to have operational control over the company. A statement mentioned in the press release which many people just left and moved on from. THAT is very interesting I think.

The Fans
We come into the home stretch with the fans. In the end, the choices we make individually as fans will all bubble up collectively to determine the fate of this game.

My Position
Which leads to the personal. My position. Through these threads I have not specified how I felt and have avoided being in a particular "camp". I dare some of you who think you know how I feel to use my words before today to prove that I have a particular position, other than wanting to see a fair discussion and presentation of the facts.

This is a transformational moment for Shadowrun. Any decisions any of us make needs to be made on facts, and we have several holes in the facts. We know there was co-mingling of funds. We know there was a large amount of money involved. We do not know how much of that money was co-mingled, but it is implied that most (or all of it) was. We know there was unethical behavior in the reporting of royalties to Topps.

We know that this situation, either directly or indirectly, led to people who have shaped Shadowrun into what it is to feel that they had to leave. That will change the game.

If I personally boycott the game, I diminish the possibility that the freelancers will get paid. If I purchase items, it could enrich LLC, but it could also lead to him repaying what he needs to, depending on how things are now structured. Either choice has both good and bad outcomes. Either choice can hurt or harm.

So my position is that I will decide based on what Shadowrun produces, which is how I have always decided on my purchases. The fact I have in either hardcopy or softcopy almost everything printed, and that I tend to buy the combo packs when offered, should indicate my decision to date.

My personal choice will be based on each product as I judge it. Nothing more, nothing less.

As far as this thread is concerned, all I've wanted to see out of it was honest and fair discussions. I like seeing how things behind the scenes work, and I like seeing the viewpoints from all sides. Personally, I'm a fan, a loud obnoxious, arrogant fan who will call foul when I see it, but in the end, a fan.

And I hope Shadowrun can survive.

-M&P

[Shinobi Killfist]

You should re-read some of the commentary about the FAQ. Acknowledgement of mistakes has already happened. But you would already know if you had done your homework instead of lobbing insults.

AH,

What exactly does that snipper from PACER mean?

If someone says X knows crap about rules they made this mistake. And then they say I wrote the faq as an example of your awesome rules mastery and the faq has mistakes in it well maybe your not as awesome as you think. Either accept people make mistakes and they aren't ignorant heathens or you damn well better be perfect in your examples. Guess what JH acknowledged his mistake as well, odd how that doesn't matter.

[Ancient History]

Ye gods and hairy fishes, that it comes to this... Jason attempted to answer one question, and made one mistake because he didn't know the rules and didn't think to ask for help. I answered a few more questions, with quite a bit of help. So if you want to talk percentages, yeah I think I have a better record than Jason does at this point.

My point is not that Jason doesn't know the rules, my point was that communication and trust were so bad that we ended up in the situation where Jason posted that question, without asking anybody, instead of posting the FAQ. It comes to something when you hand a FAQ to somebody and they deliberately ignore it in favor of trying another, inferior option. I didn't delight in Jason's little slip-up, I was pissed and took it as a personal slight - which is what I was attempting to illustrate, my degree of frustration and why. It has nothing to do with Jason's rulemastery vs. mine. Everybody makes mistakes.

[JM Hardy]

I'd be happy to offer my perspective on all this if anyone cares. I'd be equally happy to not say anything about it if nobody cares. Just let me know.

Jason H.

[Ancient History]

I'll shut up about it if other people will.

[MindandPen]

You know they will not let it go. Figure out why everyone is making a big deal of the AH/JMH situation and you figure out what it takes to let it drop - unless you two don't rise to the bait.

-M&P

[Dread Moores]

If I personally boycott the game, I diminish the possibility that the freelancers will get paid. If I purchase items, it could enrich LLC, but it could also lead to him repaying what he needs to, depending on how things are now structured. Either choice has both good and bad outcomes. Either choice can hurt or harm.

So my position is that I will decide based on what Shadowrun produces, which is how I have always decided on my purchases. The fact I have in either hardcopy or softcopy almost everything printed, and that I tend to buy the combo packs when offered, should indicate my decision to date.

My personal choice will be based on each product as I judge it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well said. That's about where I'm at.

[lehesu]

It's like Vietnam. Hearts and minds, hearts and minds.

[BlueMax]

I'll shut up about it if other people will.

How big a list is "other people"?


BlueMax

[Furluge]

Ok, so I just went through pages 2 to 14, so, yeah, expect some reaching back here. (Actually it's technically page 1.5-14)

I hope CGL will take this opportunity to really devote the resources necessary to make Shadowrun every bit the lean, mean, polished game that Battletech has been. I don't expect this to happen over night, but I hope a sustained long-term strategy is applied to the line, as opposed to the constant regime changes of the past.

Actually I'm a bit curious about this perception. I've never really noticed that they get different levels of support. They're just largely different games so they have different kinds of products released. I don't have numbers, and as has been pointed out already anecdotal evidence isn't worth the electrons to write them, but it's always seemed like to me that they've gotten equal levels of support.

At my FLGS, Shadowrun has a game or two a week and Battletech is shelf dressing. That's despite a healthy trade in 40k, Warmachine/Hordes and a few other miniatures games.

I would love to hear news that IMR wants to drop Shadowrun. That would allow some other company with the right staff to take it over and give it the attention that it deserves.

Just to point out, since I know you don't care about Battletech, but 40K and Warmachine/Hordes are similar games to each other, but Battletech is largely different style of game when compared to them. Battletech is about as similar to those games as Shadowrun Duels is to Shadowrun. It has more in common with historical war games (Think Civil War, WW2, Napoleonic Wars, etc.) than it does with "Miniature" games. Miniatures are as much a requirement for Battletech as they are for Shadowrun (Which is to say, not required at all.) In comparison "miniature games" require a player to purchase miniatures to play. Their ability to field a unit is identically to physically owning the miniature for that unit, so a large portion of the game revolves around waiting for miniatures to be released and adding them to your army to have a more rocksolid strategy. It's not unlike collectible card games, except the "Cards" in this case aren't sold in random packs.

I chose BP because it's all over the news right now. Otherwise I would have mentioned the Exxon Valdez.

But the fact is, your money is your voice. No matter how much we jones for it, we don't really require the latest Shadowrun product. If you don't like what CGL is doing, then don't buy their stuff. The best thing to do, if you want to speak up, is to speak from your wallet.

Actually that's not entirely true. That only works when you have a free market, where a business' success and failure is based upon their ability to convince consumers to trade their money for the business' goods and services and their ability to manage their business efficiently. Most developed nations sold those away wholesale to further their agendas almost a century ago. Now, if you actually wanted to hurt BP you would have stop buying their product, eliminate all their political backers, eliminate all the laws BP paid their political backers to write for them, and stop BP from purchasing new political backers to replace the ones you just eliminated.

Though not buying product from a small company like CGL should still work because they haven't gotten large enough for that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

My 2 cents:

I had heard something about the LLC situation, but at the time had no interest. My LGS got copies of the SR4a LE, and I nabbed one. Started checking online and found out about it after. The majority of people at my LGS had no clue about it.

This seems to mirror the situation at my own game store. (Which since it's anecdotal means nothing! Ha ha!) I took it upon myself to inform players I was playing with. The impression I got is they don't really care about what's going on so long as the spice.. er.. the books.. still flow.

Not just the RPG industry. It's all publishing companies. They're always behind the curve. And CGL is not the only company to pay after publishing. It is unfortunately getting more and more common.

Want to talk about behind the curve. Take a look at WotC who after finally embracing PDF releases grudgingly, promising players PDF copies of their books, slowly broke every promise about the PDFs until they finally stopped PDF releases all together after only a year.

Depends on the state you live-in. Here in Colorado, it's a no-fault state. Your boss can fire you for no reason whatsoever, especially if you work in a non-union shop. Even if you are union, they don't need much provovaction to terminate.

Yeah contractors I don't know, but where I have worked it usually is 3 documented incidents and then they fire the employee. Once they have that they usually figure they have enough to protect there butts if it comes to a lawsuit even if the States laws are a pain in the ass. Though yes in some states they can basically fire you because they don't like the cut of your jib.

There's a reason most unions won't touch Virginia with a ten foot pole. Generally here employers will fire employees who are found to be working with a union to spread it to the state. That's never the reason they give, but the effect is identical. It's so easy to fire someone here that generally if a company needs to downsize they'll, on paper anyway, fire someone rather than lay them off on the off chance that they might not have to pay out for the employees unemployment. (If it says firing on paper a hearing is required to challenge the companies claims. Most of the "layoffs as firings" end in the employees favor because the employer often can't show any actual evidence for the firing, but they're hoping the employee will be intimidated by the hearing and won't bother, which is surprisingly effective.)

Seeing as how I've been reading these posts for a while now, and it's now 1 AM local time for me, I'm predicting that the above is filled with typos, unclear wording, etc, and that if I were a wiser man I would print it, read it over, and make sure it was concise and clear. But since I'm not that wise a man, I'll settle for apologizing in advance.

[Kid Chameleon]

When's GenCon this year? That's right amidst it, ainnit?

In one of the most twisted results of cosmic fate, August 5th-8th. Though it is possible the case could be dismissed, settled or dropped before then.

[otakusensei]

Just to point out, since I know you don't care about Battletech, but 40K and Warmachine/Hordes are similar games to each other, but Battletech is largely different style of game when compared to them. Battletech is about as similar to those games as Shadowrun Duels is to Shadowrun. It has more in common with historical war games (Think Civil War, WW2, Napoleonic Wars, etc.) than it does with "Miniature" games. Miniatures are as much a requirement for Battletech as they are for Shadowrun (Which is to say, not required at all.) In comparison "miniature games" require a player to purchase miniatures to play. Their ability to field a unit is identically to physically owning the miniature for that unit, so a large portion of the game revolves around waiting for miniatures to be released and adding them to your army to have a more rocksolid strategy. It's not unlike collectible card games, except the "Cards" in this case aren't sold in random packs.

Nah, I get that. But the store stocks a few of those too, and I don't see them get any play either. I know everyone's experience is going to be different, but I was reporting that in my area there isn't really a demand for Battletech. And to be honest I haven't seen it played in years.

Maybe I could have been nicer about saying it. I had some friends in highschool that played Battletech, so I got to see it and I had a little taste of it. I can see why it appeals to some people. I generally went in for something with more story, leaving the pure simulation stuff to videogames. That, and the collectible nature of the 40k/Warmachine grind is what kept me out of minis in general.

Maybe it's not my game, maybe I'm bitter and resentful because of recent events. Wait, I know that last one is true.

[Jaid]

actually, at this point i rather doubt buying shadowrun (or battletech, or leviathans, etc) material will get any money into the hands of mr coleman. largely because mr coleman already *has* a large amount of money in his hands beyond what he should, and the way to balance that out is not to hand him more money, but rather to withold the money he would have earned until it equals out (which, if the amount is indeed 750,000-850,000 dollars, will likely take quite some time).

if CGL crashes and burns, then one person (ie mr coleman) walks away with all of the commingled funds, and everyone else walks away with nothing.

now, does this mean that you should rush out and buy every last CGL-published product you can get your hands on? of course not.

but it does mean that buying shadowrun product does not necessarily mean you're lining mr coleman's pockets. it *would* be nice to know exactly how mr coleman is going to make it up to the people harmed by his actions, but it seems to me that whatever method they choose, it isn't likely to include "keep on handing all the profits to mr coleman to spend on his house"

(i'm also still quite baffled as to why everyone thinks randall bills is a villain on the same level as loren l coleman. so far as i can tell, the reason most people are upset with him is that he is not being a spiteful, vengeful, merciless bastard to loren l coleman at the possible expense of a number of other people... which last i checked, makes for a pretty crappy super power.)

[emouse]

So what happened at the hearing today?

Since no one on either side is crowing about it, I'm going to guess not much of significance. We'll have to wait and see if any new filing show up as a result of today.

[emouse]

I'd be happy to offer my perspective on all this if anyone cares. I'd be equally happy to not say anything about it if nobody cares. Just let me know.

Jason H.

I'll shut up about it if other people will.

A consensus is reached! Everyone can follow their lead!

[Dread Moores]

Maybe I could have been nicer about saying it. I had some friends in highschool that played Battletech, so I got to see it and I had a little taste of it. I can see why it appeals to some people. I generally went in for something with more story, leaving the pure simulation stuff to videogames. That, and the collectible nature of the 40k/Warmachine grind is what kept me out of minis in general.

Maybe it's not my game, maybe I'm bitter and resentful because of recent events. Wait, I know that last one is true.

Since things like this haven't been said enough in these threads, thanks. It's nice to see some vitriol (deserved or not) pulled back. That's fairly cool of you, sir.

[emouse]

I think part of it was about a clerical error. As I understand it, a date for the actual hearing was set for August 9th.

Er, am I missing a post? I'm not sure what you're referring to with this.

[Cain]

I'd be happy to offer my perspective on all this if anyone cares. I'd be equally happy to not say anything about it if nobody cares. Just let me know.

Jason H.

While I tend to believe AH, I'm always willing to listen to both sides of a debate.

Actually that's not entirely true. That only works when you have a free market, where a business' success and failure is based upon their ability to convince consumers to trade their money for the business' goods and services and their ability to manage their business efficiently. Most developed nations sold those away wholesale to further their agendas almost a century ago. Now, if you actually wanted to hurt BP you would have stop buying their product, eliminate all their political backers, eliminate all the laws BP paid their political backers to write for them, and stop BP from purchasing new political backers to replace the ones you just eliminated.

Though not buying product from a small company like CGL should still work because they haven't gotten large enough for that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

While it's doubtful that a boycott of the likely size will hurt CGL, I don't think that hurting them is what anybody wants. Instead, we want to send a message to CGL, that certain antics will not be tolerated. A boycott is an effective way to get your voice heard. It's not such an effective way to bringing a company down.

[emouse]

That, and the collectible nature of the 40k/Warmachine grind is what kept me out of minis in general.

One good thing about Battletech is that there are no rules about the miniature defining the figure it represents. I use paper/cardboard cutouts. I know others just use figures that came in the starter box. There's also an awesome Java version of Battletech that takes out a lot of the time-consuming stuff, so you can play large battles online in a reasonable amount of time.

That's always been the one knock on Battletech for me. It can be a slow game. That was part of why I liked MechWarrior, despite its 'collectable' nature. You could play out a battle in an hour what would take a number of hours in Battletech.

There are people who play the RPG version of Battletech, and it's actually pretty cool, with a bit more focus on making battles play out as stories rather than hard core simulations. There's supposed to be an updated version of the RPG coming out sometime soon, in the style of the other core books.

Battletech as a simulation has a incredible level of scale to it at this point. It's possible to play out an entire system invasion, with various aspects of encounters and events played out in abstraction, or using various levels of rule detail or options to focus on hard core strategy or storytelling.

[Aristotle]

the way to balance that out is not to hand him more money, but rather to withold the money he would have earned until it equals out

Well yes, but they can't have him working for nothing. I would guess payment is being made through some garnishment of wages. He will still get paid... just after a (hopefully sizeable) deduction. They can't leave him without a way to make a living. So long as he remains attached to the company we have to assume that he will profit, though presumably not nearly as much, off of the any success the game has while they hold the license.