Looking Forward to Changes Options

[icharbezol]

I don't post on Dumpshock much, and for what I deem a good reason. I am neither new to Dumpshock, nor am I new to Shadowrun. I have been playing the game as long as many of you, having started with 1st edition and worked all the way through 3rd edition, and probably longer than many others of you. I do not equate respect for someone on a forum with their post count, but the quality and content of their posts.

I will state now that I do not intend to start any sort of "flame war", and anyone who perceives this as an opportunity to attempt to begin such themselves is doomed to failure. I am just stating my own thoughts on why this forum fails to support the very game that it was built to support. Respond as you like, to agree or disagree or swordfish mustardball; I'll likely not respond myself. In the immortal words of Tommy Victor, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone's one." After having seen so many of them for months on end while awaiting the upcoming 4th edition, I thought to add my own to the mix. And yes, I am being ambiguous on whether I am really speaking about assholes or opinions, both on my part and the part of some others here :D

Seems to me that Dumpshock is not really for logical discourse of thoughts and ideas, but more like the gathering place for a crew of elite uber-posters who get off on telling everyone who disagrees with their opinion how wrong they are and exactly why their opinion is better and how much the person who disagrees with them sucks. Note that I am not including everyone on Dumpshock in this category, but it seems that I must include a goodly portion, anyway.

Take this how you will, but when someone posts a valid question relating to a subject that they may not know as much as someone more familiar with the rules and game system (which is probably what they are hoping for when they ask such a question to begin with) and all they largely get are snide comments, that's exactly how I see it.

On the subject of the 4th edition, it seems to me that a majority here are coming out with an attitude that SR 4 is a failure to deliver before they even crack open any pages and have any insight at all as to why their opinions are validated by fact.

True, the artwork that I have seen for the new edition is not the best in the world. But it is definitely not the worst. The general quality of RPG art overall has been suffering for years; it's no surprise that SR is suffering too. But I have not seen it all in its entirety. Basing my entire opinion on a game by a few bits of art that are thrown at me by the publisher is not the sort of direction I wish to take. Besides which, it's pretty easy for someone with no talent at any artistic endeavor to point a finger at something someone has created and say "This is bad because blah, blah, blah", while having no ability whatsoever to produce anything better themselves.

The rules I have seen so far (and, indeed the rules anyone has seen who are not under an NDA) are not bad. They are merely different. And that difference seems to have raised a hue and cry from those who are not prepared for a change. It's been seven years; most games don't last that long before they get some kind of overhaul. SR's time has come. If you happen to be one of the people who disagrees, there's a simple answer for you that really should be apparent: don't buy the new edition, keep playing SR FASA. But FASA is dead and WizKids/FanPro owns Shadowrun, therefore I feel it's well within their right to put their own stamp on SR and move on, with or without the "core (FASA) fans".

As far as the claim of over-simplification, or "kiddie-fying", I have yet to see any hard evidence on that for certain either, although it seems many would make that assumption based on rumors, hearsay and what little has been exposed so far. I don't suspect the direction of SR will be towards twelve-year-olds at all; but if FanPro does aim in the direction of a new audience, who can blame them? It is about keeping their game alive, after all. Something I will assume more people who currently play SR want than don't.

And then there's those cries of "They are only doing it for the :nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen: !!!" That's probably not the only reason, as it seems most writers, artists and so on seem to enjoy their work as well. I'm sure they will be happy if their product sells, of course, but people in the RPG industry (at least the ones I know) don't labor under the illusion that their products are going to automatically become #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and make them millionaires overnight. (Sorry if anyone at FanPro reads this and it spoils everything for them ;) ) Indeed, the cost of most RPG products to create makes them inherently a labor of love, as most industrialists I know would say they don't make nearly as much return for the investment that's put into them. The publishing business is quite expensive...unless your name happens to be Ha$bro.

All this negativity, and invalid negativity at that, is counterproductive to the forum's purpose of supporting Shadowrun. Anyone new to SR who came here to see what was up with this game called Shadowrun probably would find very little reason to get into the new edition due to the overwhelming negativity and every reason to buy SR3 that they could think of and many people here could put forth. And then they would find they had purchased a product that is outdated and not even supported any longer.

Therefore, I am given to the opinion that this forum should be renamed "The Outdated Versions of SR Forums" and a completely new set of forums should be created for those who will be playing the 4th edition. Oh, wait, I thought that's why this section was called Shadowrun 4...