Storm Front is out!, Leading to SR5! Options

[Bigity]

This is referencing something a page or two back, but if somebody turns Dodger into a TM, I can promise that at least personally that will be the end of the line of me buying any current SR products.

[hermit]

This is referencing something a page or two back, but if somebody turns Dodger into a TM, I can promise that at least personally that will be the end of the line of me buying any current SR products.

The Artful Dodger was already pre-released in it's entirety. He may be, he may not. We don't know. It also doesn't have a Game Info section.

[Pepsi Jedi]

This is referencing something a page or two back, but if somebody turns Dodger into a TM, I can promise that at least personally that will be the end of the line of me buying any current SR products.

Why?

[Fatum]

Pepsi Jedi, nah, you're thinking of bears. Those get vicious unless they get their daily dose of vodka and balalaika music.

As for the chapter on Dodger - hey, at least now we know that a technomancer thinks it possible for a first generation AI to be a Paragon. Which supports hermit's hypothesis, if you ask me.

[ChromeZephyr]

Why?

I'd imagine because we all have some "fuck no" buttons about our hobbies that if the developer presses we'll pack up and leave. Had it happen to me in Magic and D&D so far, and was very close to walking away from Shadowrun with how heavy-handed the Horror angle was being pushed towards the end of FASA (I loathe the Horrors. If I wanted to play CoC, I would do just that).

[Pepsi Jedi]

Pepsi Jedi, nah, you're thinking of bears. Those get vicious unless they get their daily dose of vodka and balalaika music.

It was a running thing in the first Paranormal Animals of North America. There was a Russian guy that kept popping up, either talking about killing every critter or saying how "That ain't nothing!! in RUSSIA.... " I'm pretty sure at one point he started talking about killer beavers that could kill grizzlies. lol

[RHat]

Sure. Rationalize lazy writing all you want.
The fact remains, it is a gun that is working correctly in only 1 of 6 cases.
If you intend to fire such a gun in a combat situation anywhere, you, as the end user, first test it (which means, btw, firing it). Then you realize it's shit, take it back to the shop and say "I want my money back".*

I suppose, then, that you didn't notice that the fiction specifically explained what happened when people tried to take it back?

Also, something you may not be aware of: It would be entirely up to Ares if they wanted to refund vendors/retailers for the return of defective product. In this particular case, they put out a notice that defective Excaliburs were to be handled in a specific way that was not a refund, which means there's no way in hell the guy you bought it from could get his money back. Which, for the most part, means that you're not going to be able to get a refund for yourself, either. That's just how this works.

And given that they had a substantive amount of Excaliburs, which do you think is a more likely course of action for an entity that exists solely for the purpose of making money?

(a) Take a massive hit in terms of RnD, marketing, and manufacturing costs
(b) Try to sell as many as you can before people find out they don't work so that you can recoup as much of the loss as possible, while suppressing the story to avoid the damage to your reputation

Seriously, just stop and think about it for a moment. I'll wait.

Yes, it's a different one with unfortunately similar initials. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Prince Jake Foster is an ork, born and bred in Portland's orkish ghettoes, and a major liberal/progressive reformer in current Tir politics.

So how is it that no one gave her a hard time about this? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Yeah, looking back, I probably should have done something about that for Storm Front, but I'm not thinking it should be anything horrendous to cobble together for transitional purposes.

[ Spoiler ]

All the Infected are more sensitive to sunlight now; bump their Allergy up a notch. If you're a nosferatu, stay the frag out of the sun since I don't have much in the way of rules support for bumping things past Severe. Or half the time it takes to take damage for Severe; that makes it every 30 seconds, if memory serves. As noted in "Sleeping," Regeneration doesn't heal damage caused by sunlight, but it does respond to magical healing.

Regen's gotten to be a bear with implants. Cyber is expelled; bio is absorbed/rebuilt over the course of time. Both processes are probably painful, but the expelled cyber's a lot worse. Either way, enhancements stop working. While it's lethal to the poor NPC in the story, it shouldn't be for PCs, at least not automatically. There's a certain amount of hand-waving that's going to have to be done, but as a GM, you have to do that sometimes anyway.

Does that help? It's not official, but it's how I'd wind up house-ruling it.

Hey, if you weren't contracted for Game Information, it's hardly your fault.

This does certainly give me something to work with, though. Thanks.

This is referencing something a page or two back, but if somebody turns Dodger into a TM, I can promise that at least personally that will be the end of the line of me buying any current SR products.

I'd echo Pepsi Jedi's "why", but I'll just point something out: if they were making him a technomancer, it seems to me they would have come right out and said it. There are observable physiological differences between technomancers and non-Emerged; someone along the way would have done a medical exam and figured it out. Could well be he's something new entirely.

And given that Dodger's situation is unique, if he is a technomancer and Maegara is his paragon, the uniqueness of that might serve as counter-evidence to hermit's hypothesis - because this one case is very unique. it breaks the rules that would apply to other cases.

However, I do think they're setting things up for the old-school AI's to make a return, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with this.

[hermit]

And given that they had a substantive amount of Excaliburs, which do you think is a more likely course of action for an entity that exists solely for the purpose of making money?

Unlike other, less crappy goods, which exist for the purpose of charity?

[RHat]

Unlike other, less crappy goods, which exist for the purpose of charity?

Could you clarify what you're saying?

[bannockburn]

Seriously, just stop and think about it for a moment. I'll wait.

Exaggerated for comical purpose:
"Whoops! For $obvious_excuse we forgot to put out that bugfix and printed a gajillion defective rifles! How did this happen? Well, I suppose we better sell ALL OF THE GUNZ, before someone notices it!"

Yes. Thought about it. Laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the notion. Still laughing at your inability to accept it as decidedly pink. Also laughing about the fact that Ares running shoes aren't selling anymore.

At some point, if you're in the business of making money (as you so eloquently put it), you recoup your losses and cop to a mistake. And you let the Apple maps guy go.

[hermit]

Could you clarify what you're saying?

What is so hard to understand there? Apparently, you think it is normal for money-making products to be extra-strength crap. So products that aren't super crap aren't made with profit in mind, but ... well, what? Charity?

(a) Take a massive hit in terms of RnD, marketing, and manufacturing costs
(b) Try to sell as many as you can before people find out they don't work so that you can recoup as much of the loss as possible, while suppressing the story to avoid the damage to your reputation

Economics 101: Sometimes, you just cut your losses instead of throwing more money at a money sink.

Also laughing about the fact that Ares running shoes aren't selling anymore.

And nobody flies Qantas or American anymore. Oh, and there's a run on the Bank of America.

[Faelan]

The whole Excalibur angle is beyond stupid. You have to try pretty hard to screw up a firearm even in this day and age. The greatest likelihood of a problem comes from materials not being up to snuff, but catching that is pretty easy and in the worst case you jump back to something tried and true, which usually adds weight. At worst you wind up with a weapon that weighs more than intended, maybe even more than the competition, but to get a weapon that fails 1 out of 6 times that takes real effort. If they wanted to screw Ares they should have picked a weapon system a lot easier to screw up, like a plane, a drone, an attack submarine, not an item a 12 year could make in a decent machine shop.

[bannockburn]

but to get a weapon that fails 1 out of 6 times that takes real effort

Small nitpick here: It _works_ 1 out of 6 times. 1 out of 3 times, if you only ever fire SA.

Apart from that: Full agreement (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[hermit]

If they wanted to screw Ares they should have picked a weapon system a lot easier to screw up, like a plane, a drone, an attack submarine, not an item a 12 year could make in a decent machine shop.

Yeah. Have Ares bank everything on the Lightning III and sell it to lots of governments for up-front cash Knight misappropriates for adventures in Weyland-Yutani economics instead of developing an actual plane. That would at least actually hurt Ares' bottom line.

Or, even better, Ares dies from infighting. That's tried, true, and plausible.

[binarywraith]

Yeah. Have Ares bank everything on the Lightning III and sell it to lots of governments for up-front cash Knight misappropriates for adventures in Weyland-Yutani economics instead of developing an actual plane. That would at least actually hurt Ares' bottom line.

Or, even better, Ares dies from infighting. That's tried, true, and plausible.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense than 'Hey, Guys! Let's pull Billions in bad publicity instead of eating a few million in sunk costs!'

The above is the kind of thing that gets middle management promoted out of a window forty floors up.

It's also so mind-numbingly stupid that I can only assume the writer thought he was talking about a mom & pop gun shop in Bumfuck Egypt rather than a company bigger than a country.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Exaggerated for comical purpose:
"Whoops! For $obvious_excuse we forgot to put out that bugfix and printed a gajillion defective rifles! How did this happen? Well, I suppose we better sell ALL OF THE GUNZ, before someone notices it!"

Yes. Thought about it. Laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the notion. Still laughing at your inability to accept it as decidedly pink. Also laughing about the fact that Ares running shoes aren't selling anymore.

At some point, if you're in the business of making money (as you so eloquently put it), you recoup your losses and cop to a mistake. And you let the Apple maps guy go.

Apple Maps wasn't quite that big a deal. Yeah it made the news, but as humor when they showed pictures of roads dropping into valleys and stuff. It wasn't a 'real' problem. If any idiot actually thought the road melted and went down and into the valley and back up and stuff like the few mistakes that were shown... well there's no help for those people, even with good products.

I know you're using it for illustrative purpose, but it just wasn't a big deal.

"New Coke". Now there you go. Use that. lol.

[bannockburn]

I know you're using it for illustrative purpose, but it just wasn't a big deal.

It was a big enough deal to officially be called out as a hazard to your life by the Australian police.
And big enough a deal for the guy being responsible for that clusterfuck to having been let go. Or resign. Or whatever. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

And yes, the point was, that even with THAT BAD a publicity, Apple is still going strong.

[Pepsi Jedi]

What is so hard to understand there? Apparently, you think it is normal for money-making products to be extra-strength crap. So products that aren't super crap aren't made with profit in mind, but ... well, what? Charity?

Going out on a limb here but I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he was saying 'We've got this pile of inventory that we spent money to produce. It's crap. We can either just eat the total loss, or sell the crap and hope to recoup SOME of the loss."

Economics 101: Sometimes, you just cut your losses instead of throwing more money at a money sink.

And you're not actually reading what he said. He's not talking about throwing more money at a money sink. He's talking about recouping as much of your losses that you can, from a known pile of junk.

And nobody flies Qantas or American anymore. Oh, and there's a run on the Bank of America.

Not sure what you're trying to say with that. I know I don't use Bank of America any more.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Makes a hell of a lot more sense than 'Hey, Guys! Let's pull Billions in bad publicity instead of eating a few million in sunk costs!'

The above is the kind of thing that gets middle management promoted out of a window forty floors up.

It's also so mind-numbingly stupid that I can only assume the writer thought he was talking about a mom & pop gun shop in Bumfuck Egypt rather than a company bigger than a country.

Did they do that, or are you being hyperbolic? Did they put Billions into publicity, or does it just sound good when making a point?

[Errant]

The Guinevere underwear line?
The Lancelot home security drone?

Perhaps the Lancelot will do double-duty as a home pleasure drone?

[hermit]

Not sure what you're trying to say with that. I know I don't use Bank of America any more.

They're Ares companies.

I think he was saying 'We've got this pile of inventory that we spent money to produce. It's crap. We can either just eat the total loss, or sell the crap and hope to recoup SOME of the loss." (...) And you're not actually reading what he said. He's not talking about throwing more money at a money sink. He's talking about recouping as much of your losses that you can, from a known pile of junk.

You don't understand economics, nor what I said.

[Pepsi Jedi]

They're Ares companies.


You don't understand economics, nor what I said.

lol I do.

You've paid X amount of money to produce the product.

Your (Hermit) advice is to just take "X" as a total loss.

He's pointing out, You've already paid X, for the product. You can try and sell as much of the product, to make Y money back.

Now... your saying 'Just take X as a loss."

he's saying "Sell as much of the product as you can, to get Y

"X" loss is bad.

X loss + Y profit, is always going to be less than X alone in the loss department. So that means the company has a smaller net loss. (( and sometimes you might actually cover your production expense and make some money) You've recouped some of the money you've invested for the product, by selling as much of it as you can before word gets out.

Usually this tactic works. Granted you might not make ALL of X back but you make more back than if you sold none at all.

The kicker comes in when some out side factor, makes the market freak out.(( As apparently it did on Ares.)) To where your attempt to recoup some of your production expenditure, backfires and the negative reaction is more than you anticipate. Most times (( as most everyone, including yourself, in this thread agree)) the backlash for ONE bad product is not this big. So the gamble to make 'Some money' instead of "No money" Works.

In short, if you spent cash to make crap, and you can sell that crap fast, you make back some of the cash you spent to make it, maybe even all of it.

But sometimes it IS worse than you plan for.

[RHat]

Exaggerated for comical purpose:
"Whoops! For $obvious_excuse we forgot to put out that bugfix and printed a gajillion defective rifles! How did this happen? Well, I suppose we better sell ALL OF THE GUNZ, before someone notices it!"

Yes. Thought about it. Laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the notion. Still laughing at your inability to accept it as decidedly pink. Also laughing about the fact that Ares running shoes aren't selling anymore.

At some point, if you're in the business of making money (as you so eloquently put it), you recoup your losses and cop to a mistake. And you let the Apple maps guy go.

The thing had already been marketed - the Desert Wars thing consisted of giving them free ones, and keeping the bad footage from showing; in essence it just doesn't count. The only cost they'd have saved by scrapping it is shipping, which is going to be relatively negligible. And it's not a bug fix - they were fundamentally never able to make the thing work properly. So they could either scrap it and make no money, or release as was. Given the specific scenario, it's an entirely realistic result. It may not have been smart for whoever made that call, but far worse calls have been made in reality.

If nothing else, someone in the chain is guilty of the Sunk Cost Fallacy which, again, happens in reality.

What is so hard to understand there? Apparently, you think it is normal for money-making products to be extra-strength crap. So products that aren't super crap aren't made with profit in mind, but ... well, what? Charity?

Ah, so that is what you're saying. That's about as irrelevant as it gets. Especially given that I was saying that everything they do is about making money. The results are clearly not what they were expecting to happen. In fact, they're not what anyone would expect - it's fairly obvious that someone, probably whoever is responsible for the thing being sent to production in the first place, is using this to go after Ares and do some damage. It smells like a Horizon/Dawkins Group thing, really.

And where are you getting the notion that I'm talking about them spending more money on it? And if your counter-argument consists of "you don't understand X", you're obligated to explain the relevance of that, and to cite the specific principles involved - otherwise, it's fair to assume you're just making shit up.

[Wakshaani]

The difference here is that it's not a single book. Hell, even Storm Front, what, a year after the hit, still can't spell a Shiawase's first name the same throughout a page.
And CGL hasn't gone out of business or dropped its release schedule or anything.

CRAP! Would you be so kind as to point out where? I went through that section three times, but if something slipped through, it's squarely on me.

[Fatum]

It was a running thing in the first Paranormal Animals of North America. There was a Russian guy that kept popping up, either talking about killing every critter or saying how "That ain't nothing!! in RUSSIA.... " I'm pretty sure at one point he started talking about killer beavers that could kill grizzlies. lol

Now I have to stat them up in my alt.War fan supplement (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)