[Corp Guide] Random Thoughts Options

[Eugene]

Picked this up at the FLGS the other day, but haven't seen a lot of comments on it on the board. A few random observations....

I like the cover art, but I'm not sure why it was repeated twice in the book itself. Surely one of those pieces could have been the missing Jackpoint page instead?

The art goes from awesome (p.10, 33, 56, 93, or 99, for example) to OK to "hey, were you going to do more than pencil it in?" (p. 183, etc. - the art is fine, but looks unpolished to me); most of the art is portraiture with some action/story scenes scattered about.

The layout isn't quite as nice as in previous books, IMHO. There's a lot of white space on some pages, for instance, and lack of consistency in the look of sidebars.

It's a bit of a different beast from Corporate Download; most of the info from that book was more conversational and shadowrunner-central than what I've found here. But the new book has much more information on corporate culture and what it's like to be a wageslave. It also consolidates all of the "doing runs" style material into the last chapter, and doesn't differentiate what it's like to work for Ares vs., say Renraku nearly as much as the old book did.

Another good detail about the new book is that it has info on more than just the Big 10; there's even an update about what Lone Star's been doing, for instance.

What do you think about the book?

[Warlordtheft]

Doing a slow read through of the book. Compared to corporate down load and corporate shadow files, I'm still mulling through it all.

So far, I 've liked the artwork and viginettes. The corporate descriptions of the big ten are not covered in the same way though (somewhat different from the previous corporate books). They all (so far-I still am reading the book) seem to cover the major divisions of the corp in some detail.

In all a good resource for the GM, and Players (to develop back grounds). Veteren players who haveread older editions will like the fact that most of the material is new.

[Dashifen]

But here's the real question: do we know who the father of Netcat's baby is?

[Jaid]

But here's the real question: do we know who the father of Netcat's baby is?

strictly speaking we don't know 100%, but based on the shadow talk, it's slamm-o. or at least everyone else seems to assume it is, and nobody else makes much sense.

[Dashifen]

That was my guess, too. Now i just have to wonder if it's sad that all the great, well-written information in the book and I have more fun imagining TM soap opera plots on the 2070's version of Springer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

But here's the real question: do we know who the father of Netcat's baby is?

Wait... What? Man, I have to wait until I get 6WA, then Corp Guide.

More Shadowbabies, another generation of 'Runners growing up in the Shadows.

[Abstruse]

Wait... What? Man, I have to wait until I get 6WA, then Corp Guide.

More Shadowbabies, another generation of 'Runners growing up in the Shadows.

Don't forget that this baby, if he/she becomes a runner, will be third generation since Slamm-O! is second generation himself.

[Acme]

Not just that, but among the first kids of technomancers, which brings an interesting wait to see what that's going to bring. Though the bit where Netcat goes into technomancer morning sickness IMHO is actually GREAT background material, bringing some depth into the shadowtalk.

I'm a bit worried at the lack of JackPoint, to be honest. I thought it was a good return to the old Shadowland days, even down to the recurring joke in the early bits about the virtual pets eating one another... But all in all I kinda like the bits about the fiction and then the information. But different stuff here and there, I notice you only seem to get one or two of the corps that actually shows percentage of ownership, where in the old books you got ownership stakes even for the private corps (except Aztech IIRC). But it's good to see the evolution of how things have gone. Just finished S-K, and the evolution there is fun, watching the power players shift around and enter and exit like players on a chess board. I've always enjoyed the mystery and things left unsaid; I'm actually glad they left out the true field of what MCT's Rose Garden is for instance, though if you can get pieces from different books and the info offered you can guess.

I just want JackPoint bad, dammit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Voran]

Heh just to throw them a curve, Slammo and Netcats kid is going to be a gunbunny phs ad.

[CanRay]

Heh just to throw them a curve, Slammo and Netcats kid is going to be a gunbunny phs ad.

*18 Years Later*: "NO! I hate you! I hate you both! And your Neo-anarchistic mentality! I'm going to run off to school and become an Accountant!"

[JollySkull]

Wait when did she get knocked up.

And yes she will be an accountant.

[Acme]

*18 Years Later*: "NO! I hate you! I hate you both! And your Neo-anarchistic mentality! I'm going to run off to school and become an Accountant!"

Hmmm... Swinging from desk to desk, as he floats down the numbers of Accounts Receiving... The Invoices! The Estate Tax! The mighty Fiscal Year End! With his best calculator at his side.. He'd sing... Sing.. SING....

*Record scratch* Where were we again?

[toturi]

*18 Years Later*: "NO! I hate you! I hate you both! And your Neo-anarchistic mentality! I'm going to run off to school and become an Accountant!"

His professor in college turns out to be the Chrome Accountant and he is hired by the Dawkin's Group.

[CanRay]

His professor in college turns out to be the Chrome Accountant and he is hired by the Dawkin's Group.

Wasn't the Chrome Accountant able to buy an island?

And I'd bet he is retired, or else he'd be on JackPoint. Then again, he might be Mr. Bonds?

[Acme]

Wasn't the Chrome Accountant able to buy an island?

And I'd bet he is retired, or else he'd be on JackPoint. Then again, he might be Mr. Bonds?

Mr. Bonds is probably a protege, and I could swear I've seen CA in the shadowtalk here and there.

[KageZero]

I used to have a spreadsheet that detailed all the Jackpointers and where they made comments.

But Slamm-o! fried the sucka when it got to 25 mb... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Acme]

I used to have a spreadsheet that detailed all the Jackpointers and where they made comments.

But Slamm-o! fried the sucka when it got to 25 mb... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Wow, that... is quite a project. Did it count all the old-school SL'ers and if they carried over past System Failure? I'd put something like that together but I have a few holes in my collection.

[KageZero]

Yes, yes it did. I was putting it together so that it could be used as an index to look up any of their posts, and also tracked their real ID's and current status.

I'm seriously considering restarting the project (I do have some bits and pieces left over), especially since originally I had been doing it in Excel 2K, and with the new office bundles, Excel has a LOT more processing power (to the point where the 25mb would now only be a 4mb).

But, it has to wait a bit. Right now I'm working on a BattleTech TO&E project that tracks all published units and their locations (which is actually a MUCH bigger project than the Jackpoint/Shadowland project had been).

[Acme]

Hmm.. If you don't mind, I could start working on that for you. I do OpenOffice but the stuff carries over. That sort of thing just seems to scratch my mild OCD organization of facts and details, hehe. I might have to work from the modern stuff backwards though since like I said, holes in books.

[Boscrossos]

I just read the Horizon chapter, and now I'm really wondering what's going on there. The bit about how they seemed to know about crash 2.0 more than a year in advance, the part about the Cline scam (did he exist before 2065?)... Discuss, if you please...

[Ascalaphus]

Oh, I'd really like a shadowtalk index, also, with informed speculation about who's who. I mean, discovering who's who is fun, but at some point my memory starts blurring again..

[Acme]

I just read the Horizon chapter, and now I'm really wondering what's going on there. The bit about how they seemed to know about crash 2.0 more than a year in advance, the part about the Cline scam (did he exist before 2065?)... Discuss, if you please...

Well, I COULD make it Unsolved Mystery #3, but that's way too big and besides, it's not really part of that... idiom. So that's a good discussion.

Horizon is an odd duck. A CEO that may or may not have existed before 2062, a corp started as a charity that sort of tripped into AAA status after buying up half of LA, a corp supposedly trying to be good guys while at the same time still operating mental manipulation to get people to buy their products, a corp doing its best to piss in Lofwyr's Corn Flakes so much that he's probably hoarding most of that new money just so he can damn well eat it whole, while at the same time giving the one-finger salute to the Azzies. (My bet? Horizon pissing off the wyrm is what's saving NeoNET from being extra tasty crispy in Europe.)

Horizon fills the role of Wuxing and later Cross, that AAA that came out of no-fragging-where enough to make players blink and go "whaaaaa?" It literally didn't exist before 4e. I remember thumbing through 4e when I bought it brand spanking new in September '06 and seeing that sunrise logo and going "What the hell's Horizon?" I knew that things were going to be different with the 6 year hop (LA's Big One, Ute going pfft, Tshimshian getting eaten by S-S, General Corp, er, Colloton being Prez), but a new AAA was kinda cool. And a media one! The one area that seemed to be left unfilled by any of the others in the 20 year history (oh sure, the others owned media, but this one was "the media corp" like Ares is "the weaponry corp"). Aside from the grand mal lunacy of Shiawase's reinvention and MCT's tantalizing Rose Garden vivisection of technomancers, getting to finally peek into Horizon is I think the most gold portion of CG.

So the implications that Horizon is a new UB (you sorta got that hint a few other books, LA had it sorta hinted and then there was that fiction in Seattle '72 with the Horizon VP) just makes it that much more interesting. Honestly? I'm kinda torn. Except for the Draco Foundation, there hasn't been a group in Shadowrun that could be considered at least sortof "good". Evo has a sort of claim with the meta-friendly thing, but they're starting to become a Vory front. So this very creepy and sinister underpinning to Horizon's SoCal lifestyle kinda is jarring, it really could be UB Mark II, this time without the bugs. Is it another Deus-like collective? Possibly. THat's where my biggest money is, especially when combined with the whole Consortium thing. It would also sorta make sense when you think about it.

Yamatetsu/Evo is largely run by a free spirit. Saeder-Krupp? Dragon. Shiawase? Literally married into the Japanese Empire. Azzies have the blood mages directing some part of it. Wuxing is HIP deep into wujen. NeoNET now has a dragon on its own BoD and personally overseeing its R&D, and if that's not original they're big with technomancers now. MCT is lock stock a Yakuza operation. Ares and Renraku are now the exceptions to the freaky stuff in the higher-ups and even that's a little thin with both of them (Damien Knight reinventing himself from Gavilian with Dunkelzahn's help to buy Ares in '32 and Renraku farming out all it can learn from Deus' experiments). So Horizon having some freaky thing as part of its gestalt is... Normal really. At least being run by an AI or some other collective intelligence would make it unique.

I'm sure we'll see a lot about Horizon in the future, either as another corp war breaks out with it and Saeder-Krupp (since the Azzies are now officially turning their sights on Amazonia later this year) or something with what's behind it finally sees light. I'm pretty damn sure it's not going the Cross route and existing for all of 4-5 years.

[Mäx]

I just read the Horizon chapter, and now I'm really wondering what's going on there. The bit about how they seemed to know about crash 2.0 more than a year in advance, the part about the Cline scam (did he exist before 2065?)... Discuss, if you please...

I would say that the scariest part about Horizon is the e-mail that Sunsihine got after he left the corp behind, thanking him for hard work and stating that his position is still open if he ever care to return(under any of his aliases) and explaining what the Consensus is as he had find a satisfactory answer to that. And that mail came directly from Gary Gline to his Jackpoint email.
Stuff like that really makes you think twice about running against Horizon.

[Saint Sithney]

Ares and Renraku are now the exceptions to the freaky stuff in the higher-ups and even that's a little thin with both of them (Damien Knight reinventing himself from Gavilian with Dunkelzahn's help to buy Ares in '32 and Renraku farming out all it can learn from Deus' experiments).

Isn't a bug spirit the head of Ares magical research division still?

[Acme]

Isn't a bug spirit the head of Ares magical research division still?

Ah, well, there you go. I think the implication of something like that is in there, I'll have to check the Ares section again.