The Great CGL Rumors and Speculation Thread Options

[hermit]

Wonder if the Freelancers would/could consider contacting Pegasus Spiele.

I would hope Pegasus doesn't overstretch itself, like FanPRo id. But they seem to be a bit more solid than CGL, truely, never mind how I dislike some of that team.

There's not much he does not know about the universe and the background.

I'd wager the only thing he does not know are those Findley and Sargent took to their early graves. Pity those are among the most important parts to make the SR background fit, but such is life.

I wish all those departing the best of luck. As Adam said, a damn shame it played out like this. Just when SR4 was starting to look nice.

[BishopMcQ]

There are a large number of Freelancers who are not under NDA, Jennifer and Bobby are among them.

[Ancient History]

No, that would be SOTA:64 (additional writing) and I think my "official" webfiction story Dog Days was before that. SoLA of course did not happen, so my first main writer credit on an official product was the SR3->SR4 character converter freebie, and my first main writer credit in a published book was Runner Havens.

[pbangarth]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) Sig worthy, I needed one....and in an ironic twist since I'm no longer in Calgary (is your meatbody still in Edmonton?) I guess you'll have to wait for payment till I can make it to GenCon on a year you are there.

Edmonton? EDMONTON? I'm an hour and a half out of that city and can't find anybody to play. And an SR writer is in Edmonton?

#&$#&^

[LurkerOutThere]

Just out of curiousity's sake i grabed the oldest SR book i had on the shelf and flipped through the cover pages. For those of you who are curious this book was Seattle Sourcebook.* Then just for curiousity sake I flipped through dragons of the sixth world a product from the fanpro era. You know how many names they had in common? Zero.

I could go from DotSW to System Failure and on into fourth but the point of this little exercise is there have been lots and lots of turnover amongst development personnel over the years.

Yes current freelancers some of whom I respect a lot, departing is concerning, but turnover hasn't killed the line before and I see little reason to believe it will now. To be honest until I started coming around dumpshock frequently (a fairly recent occurance) I never paid much midn to who was on the team, as long as they put out books I'll generaly buy them. Some will be pretty amazing, others will be Year of the Comet and Dusk. The point i'm making is for all the noise and shock value I have neither the ability nor the desire to influence where the license goes. CGL has done right by me as a customer and that's good enough. If the license stays with them excellent I hope they get the release schedule back on track and I can continue to send them my money. If not well then things get a lot more uncertain as even though SR is a profitable license theres always a learning curve on a new product line.

So in short: I'm not so upset with the company over people leaving that I'm going to stop buying shadowrun from them. I can sympathize with writers withholding copyrights although I'm not sure it's a wise move at this juncture, then again at some point if you havn't been paid long enough it starts to look like theft, and I suffer no one to steal from me.

So yea, once again, here's hoping CGL gets their acts together, either pays, or works out an arrangement to pay their freelancers, and life goes on. Personally i'm going to only really be annoyed and affected by all this is if delays the SRM release schedule further.

[Dwight]

Edmonton? EDMONTON? I'm an hour and a half out of that city and can't find anybody to play. And an SR writer is in Edmonton?

#&$#&^

Dude, Whitecourt. Whitecourt. A nice place to drive through on the way to Swan Hills. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[pbangarth]

Dude, Whitecourt. Whitecourt. A nice place to drive through on the way to Swan Hills. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Swan Hills! *spit*

[Synner]

I could go from DotSW to System Failure and on into fourth but the point of this little exercise is there have been lots and lots of turnover amongst development personnel over the years.

And you'd be mistaken. I had a hand as writer or developer in pretty much every project since Dragons of the Sixth World as did Rob Boyle, and in fact at least a couple of my projects for Catalyst as developer have yet to see the light of day. Serves me right for taking a break. A year and I'm already forgotten

Hi folks. Yes, I'm back.

[Cergorach]

And you'd be mistaken. I had a hand as writer or developer in pretty much every project since Dragons of the Sixth World as did Rob Boyle, and in fact at least a couple of my projects for Catalyst as developer have yet to see the light of day. Serves me right for taking a break. A year and I'm already forgotten

Hi folks. Yes, I'm back.

Two out of how many over a twenty year period?

Who are you again... ;-)

[BishopMcQ]

Welcome home, Synner. Hope you and the family are well!

[Stahlseele]

And you'd be mistaken. I had a hand as writer or developer in pretty much every project since Dragons of the Sixth World as did Rob Boyle, and in fact at least a couple of my projects for Catalyst as developer have yet to see the light of day. Serves me right for taking a break. A year and I'm already forgotten

Hi folks. Yes, I'm back.

And what a nice time to come back eh?
Hey there, long time no see. You OK?

[Tycho]

And you'd be mistaken. I had a hand as writer or developer in pretty much every project since Dragons of the Sixth World as did Rob Boyle, and in fact at least a couple of my projects for Catalyst as developer have yet to see the light of day. Serves me right for taking a break. A year and I'm already forgotten

Hi folks. Yes, I'm back.

Nice to have you back! Its about time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Stahlseele]

Well, looking at your Signature, just how back are you anyway?

[Dwight]

Swan Hills! *spit*

Does your punkass town have a Class I landfill and hazardous waste incinerator? No? I didn't think so.

Swan Hills, Alberta's Garbage Dump.

[Adam]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) Sig worthy, I needed one....and in an ironic twist since I'm no longer in Calgary (is your meatbody still in Edmonton?)

I should point out that I heard the "More lance, less free" quote from my pal Leah Jones of Natiiv Arts & Media; although she phrases it "less free, more lance."

And I have never resided in Edmonton. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Dwight]

I should point out that I heard the "More lance, less free" quote from my pal Leah Jones of Natiiv Arts & Media; although she phrases it "less free, more lance."

And I have never resided in Edmonton. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sherwood Park? Leduc? I thought somewhere in the area....don't tell me Calgary or I'll freakin' scream because I just moved last summer (to Houston).

[Bull]

Yeah, with a few exceptions, the lifespan of a Shadowrun freelancer seems to be at most 5-6 years. Some manage to hang in a bit longer, many a bit shorter. A few tend to bounce in and out every couple years.

Sometimes it's issues with contracts or money or lack of payment. THat has always been an issue stretching back to FASA. Sometimes it's people moving on to other games and game lines. Sometimes it's simply burnout. And sometimes it's that life, jobs, and family happen, and you have to prioritize, and simply put those have to come first, always.

I've been a "bouncer", mainly because as much as I enjoy working with Shadowrun, I don't consider myself a great writer, and I'm not a prolific writer. I enjoy working on development and management more, and there are a lot fewer of those opportunities. I've been involved for about 13 years now in one form or another. Other than myself, the only two that have worked on anything official for Shadowrun in the last couple years that come close to that is Steve Kenson (Who was involved several years before I was) and Adam Jury, who got involved not too long after me. I don't believe that anyone who's been involved with Freelancing for Shadowrun in the last year or two had any involvement with FASA at all besides the three of us.

My point is that SHadowrun's always had turnover. I don't believe there was anyone left from the original First Edition crew by the time I joined the freelancing team, which was about 3rd editions launch. By the time Catalyst took over, there was almost no one left from the FASA crew.

[Method]

Hey Synner. Good to see you.

The high turnover in Line Developers is a pretty recent development. Michael Mullvihill took over from the original creators (Weismann, Hume, Dowd, et. al) and handed things over to Rob Boyle who took the game well into SR4.

So by my reckoning: Original creators --> Mullvihill --> Boyle --> Taylor (Synner) --> Hardy.

If I'm not missing anybody, thats a pretty short list. Especially when you consider the volume of material written over the last 20 years.

[Adam]

The high turnover in Line Developers is a pretty recent development. Michael Mullvihill took over from the original creators (Weismann, Hume, Dowd, et. al) and handed things over to Rob Boyle who took the game well into SR4.

So by my reckoning: Original creators --> Mullvihill --> Boyle --> Taylor (Synner) --> Hardy.

If I'm not missing anybody, thats a pretty short list.

You're missing Carl Sargent, who was developer briefly before Mulvihill, and there was a period of time after Peter Taylor where myself/Jennifer/John Dunn split development duties until Jason Hardy could be hired.

[Method]

...and there was a period of time after Peter Taylor where myself/Jennifer/John Dunn split development duties until Jason Hardy could be hired.

I thought that was the case but I wasn't sure if that was official.

[Demonseed Elite]

I could go from DotSW to System Failure and on into fourth but the point of this little exercise is there have been lots and lots of turnover amongst development personnel over the years.

I was there too. My first book was Brainscan and my last was Ghost Cartels. In between that, I worked on...hmm...Matrix, Target: Matrix, Year of the Comet, Shadows of North America, Threats 2, Shadows of Asia, System Failure, Street Magic, Unwired, Runner Havens, and Corporate Enclaves. I think that might be all of them.

My feeling on the subject of turnover is that if you want to produce great writing, you want writers who build up experience. Both with your setting and with their own comfort and skill as writers. You won't get that if you keep running new freelancers through the meat grinder. You certainly won't get any Nigel Findleys or Tom Dowds writing entire, awesome books by themselves for Shadowrun if you never give your writers the opportunity to grow.

And that's not just limited to writers. CGL lost a hell of a good layout designer in Adam, who built up his skills over time on many Shadowrun books.

EDIT: Psst, Bull, I worked for FASA too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[darthmord]

This whole thread makes me sad... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

I hate seeing bad things happen to my ShadowRun.

[JM Hardy]

Just want to point out that I was talking to Mike Mulvihill about writing a Shadowrun novel right before FASA shutdown (he told me that it was a fine proposal--for two years earlier. Then he was nice enough to talk to me about how to bring it up to date). I've done some work for every line developer since then. And I've liked them all.

Jason H.

[Patrick Goodman]

I don't believe that anyone who's been involved with Freelancing for Shadowrun in the last year or two had any involvement with FASA at all besides the three of us.

Me. I was quite involved during the end of FASA's run, from Man & Machine onward.

Man, I've got to start dressing differently or something; I'm blending in with the scenery again....

[Cardul]

So....with all the Freelancers leaving...

Is this a good time to try and break into the CGL SR Freelancer pool?
Mr. Hardy, care to tell us what you look for in Freelancers?
And how we, too, can help fill the influx of vacancies?(Which seems to be ALL the SR writers except Bull
and, maybe, Synner)