Shadowrun 5 & a lot more in 2013! Options

[RHat]

Something that Mark mentions in the interview, and it's 100% true.

WHen we sat down to write the new Matrix, one thing that was decided early: THis is a fictional construct, and real world computing has very little bearing on it. It's not designed to be realistic. It's designed to facilitate gameplay and to allow for good stories.

So for future reference, anyone who says anything even close to "Well in real life we can do x...", their comments or arguments are automatically invalidated as far as I'm concerned.

Bull

Which is fair - I was more getting at something I have a conceptual problem with in cyberpunk more generally. I get that it's a genre trope, but it just bugs me.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I'm with Bull on this one, but then I've always had that view of the Matrix.

The difference from our computers here in 2013 and the Matrix of 2074, would be akin to the first consumer computers in 74-77 and the Computers we have today. Sure they 'were' computers in 74, you could buy them, but if someone told you "Oh well in 35 years, your computer will be able to, through the air mind you, talk to billions of other computers around the world in real time, play immerse video games with player bases larger than the population of Greece, and that you could fit your entire music library, your brothers, sisters, father's mothers, music libraries, and all the books they've ever read on a computer you can fit in your hand and slip in your pocket, oh.. and it'll only cost a few hundred bucks!" You'd go "Wow, that's awesome but computers (( in 1974)) Don't work that way man!"

You can.. Envision such wondrous things, but there's no way you could describe them in 1974 with the computers you had around then. Trying to "Make them work" with 1974 technology would be moronic. Same way with the Matrix. We can visualize it in our minds, or even in art, be it visual or written descriptions, but trying to get from where we are now, to there, using 'Real world technology" is a joke.

So why try? It works in Shadowrun because, that's how it works in Shadowrun. Have a problem with the plausibility? Just make sure you keep an eye out for that armadillo that's bigger than a 4 story house and can suck up racks of cluster bombs dropped on it and only get ornery. Or that bird that is big enough to carry off Elephants to eat. Lets not even touch dragons and such.

[RHat]

The difference from our computers here in 2013 and the Matrix of 2074, would be akin to the first consumer computers in 74-77 and the Computers we have today. Sure they 'were' computers in 74, you could buy them, but if someone told you "Oh well in 35 years, your computer will be able to, through the air mind you, talk to billions of other computers around the world in real time, play immerse video games with player bases larger than the population of Greece, and that you could fit your entire music library, your brothers, sisters, father's mothers, music libraries, and all the books they've ever read on a computer you can fit in your hand and slip in your pocket, oh.. and it'll only cost a few hundred bucks!" You'd go "Wow, that's awesome but computers (( in 1974)) Don't work that way man!"

You're now defictionalizing, at which point I'm going to have to point out that I was talking about something high level that's not directly related to the specific technology involved. Basic protocol structure's not gonna change - it's largely a description of the elements you cannot have networking without. I mean, it's not like the physical layer is ever gonna go away, as an example.

[ShadowDragon8685]

1) "Corp Produced Decks" exist because corporations need Deckers too. They don't sell them in stores. But they need to arm their own people with the same tools the hackers are using.

Yes, but the important question is, why would Corps have more than two, maybe three models of cyberdecks?

Using SR4's numbers, they'd have the Rating 6 Cyberdeck that they give out to their rank-and-file cyber-operatives. They'd have a Rating 8 Deck for the guy in charge of those cyberoperatives, and a Rating 10 'deck that they'd hand out only to their Ultra-Important Persons who can basically order the company to give them whatever they want (if Damian Knight wants a Rating 10 deck, Damian Knight gets an R10 deck, even if Ares Military Electronics has to gear up to make him a one-off,) those VIP's cyber-bodyguards, perhaps, and their elite black teams.

And, of course, for installations where your spiders are going to be in one place while they do their security spidering, they don't get decks, they get heavy metal; they get Nexi, and say bye-bye to program-running-at-once limitations.

There is no reason what-so-ever for the corps to manufacture goods that are illegal to sell in most places in Ratings 1 through 5. That's what he's saying: not that the corps won't make illegal cyberdecks, but that they won't make the ones it does not make business or operational sense for them to make. They can't profitably run production lines to run off and produce these things, because anywhere they're allowed to sell them, either nobody will buy (sure, Ares can, if it chooses to, sell cyberdecks illegal in the UCAS in its Ares Electronics Outlets that are on extraterritorial property, and Lone Star/Knight Errant will be sitting on the sidewalk to harass their customers and arrest them for the purchase they just made with their cold hard jing,) or they'll be selling in places where nobody has the money to buy, and would probably rather bust in and take them by force (Setting up in Redmond Barrens, for instance.)

So then, their market for illegal cyberdecks consists of their own security forces and black operatives, the Grid Overwatch Division, assuming they land the G.O.D. contract, corporations without a strong Matrix focus, and governments.

None of those are going to be buying the Rating 1 illegal cyberdeck. Nor the Rating 2, 3, or 4. Maybe 5, but probably the 6.

[hermit]

The difference from our computers here in 2013 and the Matrix of 2074, would be akin to the first consumer computers in 74-77 and the Computers we have today.

Uhm, no. Even not considering accelerated technological progress, it'd be like today's computers versus the computers of the 1950s. In other words, very, very different.

1) "Corp Produced Decks" exist because corporations need Deckers too. They don't sell them in stores. But they need to arm their own people with the same tools the hackers are using.

Ah. Well, if there are GOD Model 1 and GOD Model 2 decks, I'd be fine with that too; if there's a whole palette of different decks, like in E1 through 3, I'd have trouble believing they're as illegal as Mark makes them out to be. But I cannot see a market for "beginner" decks and "medium" decks in the security business, as ShadowDragon says.

2) In-World consitancy is very important. And I'm not saying that there will never be any real world parallels. There certainly are. But the Matrix is designed as a game-world model of the internet, or any computer system as it exists today. It's a unique thing.

Ah, so it's "this is not Windows with magic". I'm entirely with you there.

[Pepsi Jedi]

You're now defictionalizing, at which point I'm going to have to point out that I was talking about something high level that's not directly related to the specific technology involved. Basic protocol structure's not gonna change - it's largely a description of the elements you cannot have networking without. I mean, it's not like the physical layer is ever gonna go away, as an example.

*shrugs* You don't know that. We're talking about direct brain/computer interfacing. You very honestly don't know WHAT they'll have. That's the entire point. Just like those people in 74 couldn't dream of the computing power and abilitys of the modern PC or Smart phone, we can't really conceive what the Matrix would 'take' to be brought into effect. It's just as alien as magic, and the rules both fictionally, figuratively and literally haven't been written yet.

You can't sit there and go "Oh, well protocol structure's not going to change! You can't have networking with out it!" Look how much computers and programming changes year to year. Look at the Apple II and then look at a 4th Generation Ipad. Other than an Apple on the case, and you use your eyes to see a screen, everything has changed.

You don't know that we can't have networking with out it. Just like those in 74 probably thought you couldn't have computers with out plugs, or be able to upload the way we do. They couldn't conceive of wi-fi.
For all you know it could be and very likely is, so different from our computers in 2013, to look like a 100% new thing all together. And that's the point. No more than you can try and 'disprove a spell' based on Physics, you can't 'KNOW' how the matrix works.

[_Pax._]

The difference from our computers here in 2013 and the Matrix of 2074, would be akin to the first consumer computers in 74-77 and the Computers we have today.

Actually, it'd be more like the earliest computers in the 1950's. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Your point is valid, mind. Just, 2014-60 is not 1974. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

However, I still don't think it's automatic invalidation, if you mention "in real life, ____".

[Fatum]

I hate to break it down for you, Pepsi Jedi, but nothing much has changed qualitatively in computing since 1974, much less since the 80ies. Pretty much nothing has changed in the foundations of computer science, at all.

ARPANET was established in 1969, so computer networks were already there by 1974. Transmitting data wirelessly was not "inconceivable" by 1890ies, and changing pseudographical screens for color HD ones makes no principal difference, just as replacing magnetic tape drives (or what was it, semi-permanent magnetic memory then?) with HDD or SDD drives. Whether you type on a physical keyboard on Apple II or a virtual keyboard on an iPad screen, you're using realizations of the same concept, which began with typewriters (and which still bears ugly birthsigns from that time). If you met an engineer from 1974, explaining to him that "computers will get faster, smaller and cheaper, pretty much everyone will be able to afford one, and they all will be able to exchange data" would be extremely banal. And there is nothing that a well-funded team of engineers would be able to do with a computer in 1974 that you wouldn't be able to do on your PC, and you can do many things besides - that's what technological development is all about, giving you new abilities.

Now, in what comes to the Matrix. A few things have changed for it, but for all we know in the established fluff, those are limited to output/input mechanisms and decryption algorithms. There is nothing that'd invalidate modern computer science among those changes that we know about (before you argue: technomancers invalidate it no more than magic invalidates the laws of physics, and things like unlimited bandwidth and zero ping are in fact not "unlimited" and "zero" but "large enough not to notice the wait" and "small enough not to notice the wait", respectively). Abstracting it to a system working differently from today's Internet, I am fine with. But that system not being internally consistent or going against logic and common sense, just like any other illogical piece of fluff, would be ruining the system. "It is so because we said it's so" does not work here, it's not magic (and even magic is limited by its own laws). So claiming, like Bull does, that RL logic somehow does not apply to Matrix just means capitulating before the task of formulating working rules.

[_Pax._]

Ah. Well, if there are GOD Model 1 and GOD Model 2 decks, I'd be fine with that too; if there's a whole palette of different decks, like in E1 through 3, I'd have trouble believing they're as illegal as Mark makes them out to be. But I cannot see a market for "beginner" decks and "medium" decks in the security business, as ShadowDragon says.

At a complete stab-in-the-dark guess, and given how things like this generally tend to work in real life (uh oh, there's that phrase!) ... we still might see, say, 3 to 5 models of relatively standardised cyberdeck. Because, well, someone has to make those GOD decks - most likely, many[/i someones, working to a common designed architecture. And the corps will still have their own in-house security spiders and such.

And the manufacturer is going to want to benefit from [i]economies of scale, which means not hand-building each one ... no ... it'll mean an assembly-line affair. Standard layout, standard parts list, standard (foundation) software.

And then, inevitably? A shipment is going to get 'jacked. A crate will "fall off the truck". Someone in Q.A. will "fail" a few perfectly-good units, because they "know a guy" who'll pay good money for an out-the-back-door sale. Or a group of shadowrunners is going to get ambushed by a corp hit-squad who was just a wee bit less competent than they needed to be, and during the "loot the bodies" process .. "hey look, this slot had a cyberdeck! BONUS!"

They'll find their way into the shadows. The first non-corp units will be handmade (maybe copies of a few captured units?), and for a while, most or all will be at least partly hand-made. But, well ... it is shadowrun, after all. Which means, the Black Market is always trying to put buyers together with whatever they happen to want.

Cyberdecks included.

[_Pax._]

ARPANET was established in 1969, so computer networks were already there by 1974. Transmitting data wirelessly was not "inconceivable" by 1890ies, and changing pseudographical screens for color HD ones makes no principal difference, just as replacing magnetic tape drives (or what was it, semi-permanent magnetic memory then?) with HDD or SDD drives.

In 1974, lots of computers still used PUNCH CARDS for data entry - which were still in widespread use until the early-to-mid-80's. Moving from punch cards to magnetic, and then optical, storage was a qualitative advance. Around 1981 or 1982, my father was studying computer science ... and all the programming and data entry was done with punch cards. All of it. Stacks, and boxes, and CASES of them.

And there is nothing that a well-funded team of engineers would be able to do with a computer in 1974 that you wouldn't be able to do on your PC, [...]

"Print this data to punch cards."

...

Hmm, guess there's one thing, eh? *shrug*

[Sengir]

1) "Corp Produced Decks" exist because corporations need Deckers too. They don't sell them in stores. But they need to arm their own people with the same tools the hackers are using.

I doubt corp deckers would use a Radio Shack deck (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

@Fatum: Ferrite core memory, immortalized by countless "memory cores" in scifi

[Fatum]

In 1974, lots of computers still used PUNCH CARDS for data entry - which were still in widespread use until the early-to-mid-80's. Moving from punch cards to magnetic, and then optical, storage was a qualitative advance. Around 1981 or 1982, my father was studying computer science ... and all the programming and data entry was done with punch cards. All of it. Stacks, and boxes, and CASES of them.

So what? Instead of punch card, you now have blu-ray and flash drives - the compression of data has changed, the ideas behind its storage for input not so much. Just the fact that ones and zeros are now represented by tiny black areas on plastic, not paper, does not make a qualitative change.

"Print this data to punch cards."

You can print data.
And if you want, you can still get a punchcard printer from IBM - zSeries mainframes still support them (actually, they emulate them for all JCL jobs submitted).


As for the cyberdecks, self-made vs factory-produced - how many runners make their own assault and sniper rifles, much less heavier weaponry? :3

[apple]

I have to admit: the podcast + Bulls news regarding the new matrix are ... troublesome. There are of course no details yes, so I really hope that I am wrong (perhaps Bull could clarify?), but a matrix only for legal users? This would lead to a SR3 Matrix, where only the deckers would use it for commando raids while the rest would "tipping on the pocket secretary" and not use the matrix at all due to tracking/surveillance considerations. To be honest it was a avery good development in SR4 that the matrix was usable for everyone (as in everyone had a link and used the same space and attributes and was part of the daily life, both in background and in rules).

I sincerely hope that in SR5 the link/deck prices are still normal/affordable and not in the SR3 range where you had to be a rich man before you could start hacking/decking.

SYL

[Sengir]

At my workplace we still put lots of data on punchcards -- there is a huge load of empty ones in the basement and instead of throwing them away we have adapted them for taking notes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[hermit]

At a complete stab-in-the-dark guess, and given how things like this generally tend to work in real life (uh oh, there's that phrase!) ... we still might see, say, 3 to 5 models of relatively standardised cyberdeck. Because, well, someone has to make those GOD decks - most likely, many[/i someones, working to a common designed architecture. And the corps will still have their own in-house security spiders and such.

... and there will be standard performance benchmarks. There will not be a large gap in performance between a Renraku Master User Device (MUD) and a Transys MatrixGOD 2000, because those models compete for a limited field of buyers who all have the same standards, more or less.

If those brand name decks are to be viable as PC decks, there has to be, though, because there has to be a progression possible between the decks (like the old Radio Shack PCD 1000 versus the old Fairlight Excalibur). I'd personally like to see decks being custom jobs and every decker building their own and maintaining it as a standard, not least to avoid the problem of super-expensive decks apple mentioned.

Personally, I am happy to see a more reglemented Matrix return. SR4's super-free, security-less Matrix had just all kinds of facepalm moments for me (even the real internet is more regulated than SR4's Matrix was).

[Nath]

WHen we sat down to write the new Matrix, one thing that was decided early: THis is a fictional construct, and real world computing has very little bearing on it. It's not designed to be realistic. It's designed to facilitate gameplay and to allow for good stories.

As a gamemaster, I still think that there are good stories that can only be told with encryption that can resist for a week or a month, and datastore that can only be accessed physically. That has nothing to do with realism or how computers work in real life, but simply with having plots that a merely skilled hacker can single-handedly resolve.

without the fluff telling me that everything must be connected to the Matrix.

And then, inevitably? A shipment is going to get 'jacked. A crate will "fall off the truck". Someone in Q.A. will "fail" a few perfectly-good units, because they "know a guy" who'll pay good money for an out-the-back-door sale. Or a group of shadowrunners is going to get ambushed by a corp hit-squad who was just a wee bit less competent than they needed to be, and during the "loot the bodies" process .. "hey look, this slot had a cyberdeck! BONUS!"

I have yet to see NSA gear and software "fall off the truck". I wouldn't call that realism. It rather is the internal consistency Shadowrun require for PC to have military-level gear like cyberware and hacking stuff we expect them to.

[_Pax._]

So what? Instead of punch card, you now have blu-ray and flash drives - the compression of data has changed, the ideas behind its storage for input not so much. Just the fact that ones and zeros are now represented by tiny black areas on plastic, not paper, does not make a qualitative change.

The qualitative nature of the change is not in the technology or it's underlaying systems. If it were, then there would not be a qualitative change between hand-forged tools (carbon-infused iron heated and battered into shape), and machine-forged tools (carbon-infused iron heated and battered into shape), even though the modern tools might be a hundred thousand times bigger and be ready to use in a tenth the time or less.

The qualitative change, is in our relationship to that technology.

...

I've no idea how old you are or aren't. But I actually do (dimly) remember the 1970s, and I remember the 1980s. My first introduction to home video games, was the original Pong console unit. More to the point: the first personal computer I owned, was a Commodore Business Machines C-64; I got it for Christmas in 1985 ... I was fourteen years old, and the C64 was an absolutely amazing piece of technology at the time (also, one of the gifts for the holiday, and gods bless my mother for the scores of hours of overtime she worked, and then tens of hours she spent scouring stores, in order to get it for me).

Now, the C-64 was, by today's standards, a woefully primitive, underpowered, limited-capability machine. No hard drive, no built in nonvolatile memory - there were two options for permanent storage were (a) a cassette drive, or (b) 5.75" floppy disks. There was no "mouse" or other pointer - though you could use a standard Atari 2600 style one-button joystick for many games. I think you could connect it to a modem, but I'm not sure that was even possible. Compare that to my current PC, and .... good grief, my mouse has more computing power (and probably more memory) than the whole C64 did!! The internet - email, Twitter, Facebook, Steam, streaming movies from NetFlix, iTunes (hell, my iPod is a million times the computer my C64 was) ... yeah. The whole adds up to a strong qualitative change. Because, sure the parts each existed independently in 1985. But they hadn't been put together, and more importantly had not yet been rendered commercially affordable to the majority of people, until many years later.

To be as succinct as I can: how we interact with and relate to all those devices and systems, is what has changed. And in sixty years? We are not able to predict, with any degree, how we will interact with and relate to the technology available to us at that time.

Which is to say: while looking to real life for ideas is all well and good, "it isn't possible because the setting says so" is also a legitimate response, simply because doing otherwise might never occur to someone in the setting.

After all, how many teenagers right now are perfectly comfortable surfing the web on any number of devices, even circumventing parental control locks or other security measures?

And ... how many of them would know how to use a TELNET client, without looking the instructions up online? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Hell, how many of them would even know what TELNET is ...?

Now project that forward, to those teenager's grandchildren in the 2070's.

[_Pax._]

I have yet to see NSA gear and software "fall off the truck".

Just because you - presumably not a veteran freelance black-ops professional - don't personally know of it, do you really think it doesn't happen?

Here'sone great example of a "fell off the truck" sort of thing. NSA's own people allegedly stole fifty thusand rounds of ammunition.

Then there's the 700 cryptography machines they lost in Viet Nam ...

[_Pax._]

... and there will be standard performance benchmarks. There will not be a large gap in performance between a Renraku Master User Device (MUD) and a Transys MatrixGOD 2000, because those models compete for a limited field of buyers who all have the same standards, more or less.

If those brand name decks are to be viable as PC decks, there has to be, though, because there has to be a progression possible between the decks (like the old Radio Shack PCD 1000 versus the old Fairlight Excalibur). I'd personally like to see decks being custom jobs and every decker building their own and maintaining it as a standard, not least to avoid the problem of super-expensive decks apple mentioned.

A-level corps won't be able to buy the "best of the best" gear for their spiders, let alone the B-level corps who might want to have a couple in-house Matrix Security specialists.

So, I'm sure there will be machines with lesser capabilities, at a lesser pricepoint. After all, if there's a market for something .... someone is going to produce it and sell it.

[Fatum]

they hadn't been put together, and more importantly had not yet been rendered commercially affordable to the majority of people, until many years later.

A lot of them were available to professionals. Whatever was not available, was easily imaginable (okay, except maybe for the social networks, because seriously, why would anyone want to post every little thing about their life for all to see?)

To be as succinct as I can: how we interact with and relate to all those devices and systems, is what has changed.

The effect is less for the professionals, again (I imagine, I was neither a professional nor alive in 1974).
But yeah, sure, our interactions with the computers and the degree to which they permeate our lives have changed. But that is not what we were talking about.

And ... how many of them would know how to use a TELNET client, without looking the instructions up online? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Hell, how many of them would even know what TELNET is ...?

Actually, most computer-savvy teenagers know what telnet is if only because any sysadmin manual will tell you to use ssh over it as more secure. A better option would be coding with direct memory access by address or something. But, again, anyone in IT now knows what telnet is, and people in related fields know the tricks previously available and much more. We can do more, not less - that's the essence of the progress. Some moves might become obscure for being complex and rarely used, even if effective in some particular cases, but they won't magically stop working without a good reason.

[_Pax._]

We can do more, not less - that's the essence of the progress.

Flint knapping is pretty much a lost art (being revived by a very, very few).

Not many people know how to hand-smelt and -cast bronze implements.

...

Some knowledge falls into disuse, then obscurity, and finally, is forgotten. That's also part of progress.

[Fatum]

Few people posses those skills now (in the developed countries). However, if we want, we can learn them just the same, as evidenced by existence of reenactors, and bronze will be hand-smelted just as well as it was three thousand years ago.
The knowledge is still there thanks to that great idea called writing stuff down :ь

[_Pax._]

Few people posses those skills now (in the developed countries). However, if we want, we can learn them just the same, as evidenced by existence of reenactors, and bronze will be hand-smelted just as well as it was three thousand years ago.

No, it really isn't that simple. Just the few people who can flint-knapp, are re-inventing the entire process. And it's taken them years, perhaps decades, to do it.

And ... "developed countries" ...? Try, few people know how to do that anywhere on the face of the earth. I'm talking about making stone-age tools, the knives, scrapers, and so on of Neanderthal and early Modern humans.

The knowledge is still there thanks to that great idea called writing stuff down :ь

Not everything gets written down.

And see, that's a bit of 2010's thinking you've got there - you're assuming everything has been recorded, and those records preserved. We don't tend to preserve things we come to think of as irrelevant.

Obviously of course, given that this is a purely text medium, I won't be able topoint out any examples of this - because if it exists to be pointed out, it's not an example of "no longer exists", now is it? Ha! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

...

No, wait, actually I do have an example. It's something that has been theoretically rediscovered, but for a century or more, was completely lost. Noone knew it, and noone had written it down:

How the moai of Easter Island were moved into their current positions, with only hand-power (and not even horses or oxen).

The most recent theory I've seen - proved with a hands-on test to at least be possible - was a system of ropes, and "teeter-wobble-walking" them from the quarry to their final position .... a method that jbes well with the oral traditions, which include legends of the statues "walking" (and the motion looks VERY like walking). That's probably how at least some of them were moved. But we don't know for certain.

[hermit]

A-level corps won't be able to buy the "best of the best" gear for their spiders, let alone the B-level corps who might want to have a couple in-house Matrix Security specialists.

Sure, because outsourcing is a forgotten art. Also, regulation =/= free enterprise.

So, I'm sure there will be machines with lesser capabilities, at a lesser pricepoint. After all, if there's a market for something .... someone is going to produce it and sell it.

Unless it is illegal. Then, it may be syndocate/individually produced (see deckmeister decks), but certainly not by major megacorps. Why should they cater to the shadowrunner/low-end competitor market? It'd only shoot themselves in the middle to long run, and unlike (most) real-life large corporations, Shadowrun megas do plan ahead for the long run apparently.

[_Pax._]

Sure, because outsourcing is a forgotten art.

"Outsourcing" and "in-house" are mutually exclusive. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Unless it is illegal.

It's only illegal for the people who can't afford the license. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

(Which might entail registering your DNA and EEG signature, then providing a bio sample as a Ritual Link, along with a stupendous pile of cash that only a B-corp or above could even contemplate spending ...)