Why Dumphock is not a good place for Developers, a statement Options

[Machiavelli]

Currently we had a discussion about haters (especially about SR5) on Dumpshock and how it will cause the death of our beloved forum. Here is the statement of Deathstrobe that made me feel to comment:

Obviously, some people's personal biases are blinding them to the actual state of SR.

The official forums didn't kill dumpshock. Dumpshock killed dumpshock by being so negative about everything Shadowrun. You guys make the freelancers not want to come here. You make new users not want to come here. Obviously there is no reason to talk about SR here, because the talk that Dumpshock likes to talk about is the death of Shadowrun.

SR4 is still being supported, strangely enough. So clearly if SR5 is a money grab to force everyone to buy new books, CGL is doing a terrible job at forcing you to buy SR5 when things like Battle of Manhattan is SR4 compatible.

I don't know if you've been keeping up with other RPGs outside of Shadowrun, but all RPGs have editing issues. I can't imagine CGL is able to single handedly solve all the issues of the entire hobby. Cut them some slack and discuss the problems and how to solve or interpret the issues rather than spew out vial that doesn't help anyone.

Lastly, Shadowrun is more popular than ever. SR books are almost always on RPGDriveThru's top 10 best sellers, as well as core books are often rewarded with platinum status. the shadowrun subreddit is huge, and there are 2 shadowrun play subreddits. CGL's forums run poorly, I assume because they're getting a lot of traffic.

If you don't like SR5, that's fine. But by not supporting it, you are willingly being left behind. You can't stick your head in the ground and expect people to come to you. What are you going to do? Have the same rule discussions about SR4 that have already been talked about a million times over?

@DeathStrobe: Hate is quite a strong word and I think you see it from a wrong perspective. I assume I can speak for all of us at DS, that it is quite the opposite. We love the game. We love it so much, that we are sometimes over-protective. The game was part of our youth as well as it a part of our life now. We saw it growing up, we supported its first steps and we spent a lot of money, so that it could become what it is now. We donated for the kickstarter-project, so that “Shadowrun Returns” could be realized, we kept the game and the corresponding discussions alive and supported fellow gamers with our experience - at times as the “official SR-forum” was not even existing.

The community is small, we are nerds, but we are proud of it and I think that what we have, the community, is more than a “customer-seller” relationship. Shadowrun is not only a product, for us it is a big part of our life (because it sucks up a lot of our free-time). The problem is, that if you are involved so tight into something, it becomes a personal matter. And because we care, it hurts if we see that something might go wrong. Like parents, that only try to protect their children and therefore sometimes become overprotective (and also too critical), we simply cannot stand beside, silently watching what is happening. We have the urge to do at least “something”, which is commenting. We feel that we have the right to tell the devs what we think, and unfortunately we don´t have a personality structure, that makes us bow or back back down, just because “officials” are around.

We are the ones, that keep them on the ground because we feel equal. We are the ones who tell the officials what they messed up with and what needs to be done. We are the hard but honest truth. We are Dumpshock. If they cannot stand the critic, they really shouldn´t take place in the official discussions, they shouldn´t host the forums, they shouldn´t be available at all. IMHO this is the price you have to pay, if you go public in a small but enthusiastic community. Yes we are hard discussion partners, but we have never been unfair. And if we have been so, we apologized for it. For us, such discussions are not “nerds vs. developers” for us it is “fans vs. fans that can really make a change”. We are on their side and the only thing we demand, is that our opinion is heard, that our opinion is taken serious.

I personally appreciate every Line-dev that has the balls to come here and if they feel offended, they might have the same fals impression you got. This was surely not intented.

Sorry for the long post. Here is a 9-gag-potato(e). *imagine potatoe-picture*