I got mine yesterday and went through it before going to sleep.
It's not too bad, though I had an interest in reading the Hong Kong section since I've studied there before and been there several times over the years visiting relatives.

It wasn't too bad though a few areas I do wonder about the changes to the place. Such as the Saikung region (Some parts of I agree that it could easily become pirate havens due to all the islands and inlets, but the parts closest to the city also has the studios for one the television stations and the campus of HK Uni of Sci and Tech, so I think to entirely brush the Saikung region as lost is a bit much), I wish there was mention about the universities/colleges (since it is a big deal to be able to have someone able to go to college), the access between border region (such as light rail for communters to Shenzen) of the New Territories and the rest of China and border security, and a few other nitpicks here and there. Other than that it's not too bad from what I've read.

edit: The brief inclusion of Shenzen was a nice surprise and not bad. I've been there if you're wondering and it really is a sight to see. The mention of the Night markets was nice and it is amazing how crowded the place is, one can have sensory overload in that area. The mention of the banking is interesting in particular, the safety deposit boxes and bank robberies, though one aspect I wish that could have been mentioned was the heavy use of Nepalese and Sikh guards for many of the banks. It's an interesting sight to see a Sikh standing inside the bank with his turban and shotgun in his hands just waiting for any trouble. Well, it's nothing vital, but it's just something to represent how diverse the population is in the city. Oh yeah, it's nice the writer mentioned about the Peninsula hotel and it's fleet of limos.

w00t! My hard copy is waiting for me at home.

Well the thing is, some parts I really can't judge like the corporation and some of the movers and shakers of the Hong Kong landscape. Neither can I judge certain areas entirely because of the influx of refugees. Plus, with the limitation of how much space you can write, the less specific details mean less to really criticize. But overall it wasn't bad, it would be like how I would imagine it in regards of being a corporate haven.

Though, thinking back the city might have more of a military presence to tell the rest of China and in particular the Canton Confederation to dissuade any ideas of invasion. It'd be similar to how powerful and modern of a military force that Singapore currently has to persuade Malaysia that an invasion would be a very stupid thing to do.

The area of Saikung, there's one thing about the region and another about the town of Saikung itself. The road along the coast leading up to it has various villages and also some large houses (for those who can't afford the pricing of one of the estates on HK island itself) and also Saikung is a place for people to go fishing and such. Beyond that, further up in the map, yeah, those area can be rather far from eyes. I have visited that region before actually and visited one of the remote islands (we had to rent a water 'taxi' to it), it was within eyesight of the China mainland so you would see the occassional helo flight of the HK police watching the border. This was after the reunification with China, but they're still stringent in making sure HK remains it's own separate economic zone.

What was interesting was the blurb on the Luk tea house, I need to talk with my mom about the place we went to last time, but I went something similar to that. Just very interesting.

Another aspect of HK would be the dynamics of the expats (foreigners) living in the city with native population. I can't remember how much you emphasized in the book on that (it was getting late and I was getting sleepy!). There's some nightclubs (as of 2005) whose front doormen are biased into letting those who are foreigners (or speak really well english) in the place while giving those who are native to HK more of a hard time. With the heavy influx of immigrants, especially those of illegal status and from China and other local regions, I can see English, Japanese (this is srun afterall), being the exclusive way of opening doors into certain places.

Oh man, I think I can go on a bit more about the city. What was really sad was when I was visiting over there, I did wonder what the place would be like in Shadowrun. One of the major issue of the city is the land reclamation project that I wonder what would it be like by 2050 and later. I did like how it was briefly mentioned in the book in regards to one landmark that used to be at water by is now several blocks inside the city. I saw this happen at another place in the city and when I read that it used to be at the waterline, I was amazed at how far away from the water it was at that point in time.

I guess the last thing I was wondering about was money. Would they stick with Hong Kong Dollar? What is interesting is the banks publish the money (similar to the system in UK), so each note has some differences in design due to the bank made them. It was interesting collecting them and actually looking at them. Anyway, I know it's srun and there's credsticks, but with such a large population and many that are not of legal status, I can see it being a major reason for there to be a circulation of paper money still. Though, with the new matrix 2.0 and widespread use of AR and such... still, if a large enough population don't have and would rather be dependent on the use of paper/hard currency, I don't think the corporations would be disinclined to stop printing them if it aids in the economy (of the unrepresented). Hmmm... ah well.

The german version got released today...

I spent a little time in Hong Kong about 13 years ago (spent my 21st birthday there in fact), though didn't see much of the outer-lying regions. Still, the RH version certainly rings true to me. It was nice to see the Kowloon Walled City rebuilt. Remember reading about that back when the real thing still existed and thinking 'man, that's a messed up little real-life dungeon'. The Splendid Dragon Path is something that I can really picture as well.

Heh, I was going over the section again, I got the Big Trouble in Little China reference, and also the quote of the 'Reaver' pirates. Hehe.

Or you can just admit it was a stupid and gratuitous retcon and not try to bullshit anyone about why some shadowtalk in a book most SR players have never read (nor ever will) replaced the original explanation that it did collapse during the 2005 quake (They don't make buildings like they used to considering what did and didn't survive). I mean, seriously, what the fuck was the point of adding that?

Just saying.

It doesn't actually say anywhere, to my knowledge, that the WTC collapsed in the quake. It is implied, but I don't think the German inclusion contradicts anything. The two references I'm aware of say that the ESB was the only Manhattan skyscraper of good size to remain standing after the quake and that Fuchi-Town was built over the ruins of the WTC.

It's a retcon, sure, but I'm less convinced it's a bad one. It certainly makes more sense than most of SR's NYC material.

Well, I think that may have been because there was only one event that occurred in New York when NAGNA was written and set that could have done it. Otherwise, if it was important enough to mention bombings in Union Station in DeeCee it'd have been important enough to mention that something other than the quake collapsed the WTC.

Not to mention that, "the ESB was the only Manhattan skyscraper of good size to remain standing after the quake" would strongly suggest that the tallest skyscrapers in Manhattan weren't standing since, like I said, it was the only possible explanation at the time. I fail to see how adding 9/11 to Shadowrun is anything but gratuitous given the fact that there is not one goddamn other thing in the history of Shadowrun to suggest even the slightest inkling of its effect because in SR IT DIDN'T FUCKING HAPPEN.

This isn't an insignificant retcon. It's not like T:W listing the handful of aggressive detonations of nuclear weapons and then have SOTA64 and SoA introduce a whole series of tactical nuclear exchanges out of the blue. It's something that would have affected pretty much everything that happened for at least four years until the Quake within the U.S. and around the world. As history has shown, deficit or no deficit, the U.S. would bomb some motherfuckers.

Instead of, you know, being led by archconservatives who were singularly concerned with reducing the size and influence of the U.S. government from Reagan onward. Plus, you know, someone might have thought to mention it somewhere in some book since.

It's also a bullshit excuse because Seattle never had one before. But, gee, it had one after a massively coordinated simultaneous terrorist attack on multiple global targets using physical WMDs and a Matrix WMD, followed by a fucking coup inside the UCAS and its neighbors by a wholly separate group of terrorists and traitors.

Nah... That would actually make sense.

True. Or tell me where it's specified that the WTC was levelled by the '05 quakes.

It's retcon right, but I have no problem with that, and I don't see why you should, except as a matter of personal taste maybe, as long as it doesn't contradict anything.

The problem is, things were changed to fit the world as it is and remain relatively believable. The euro does exist as the European currency in SR, that's a retcon and that's a good thing, 'cause that's how today's world is and it would fuck up mine's and many people's suspension of disbelief if the European currency in SR was the Ecu or anything else.

Now I'm not going to argue about when exactly the SR timeline diverges from the RL one, I'm just stating an opinion by saying I don't see why this is a big deal that 9/11 happened.

The original Shadowrun setting never saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, right, as it was designed just before that happened, and still we're happy to see the timeline was fixed to accomodate such a major change. I for one believe the same was done with 9/11, but that's just my opinion. If you want to consider 9/11 never happened in your game, I, well, don't really care.

Well, I'll guess you'll be unhappy to hear that Al Qaeda is mentioned in Shadows of Asia then, and its massive influence at the beginning of the 21st century is strongly suggested.

Yes, this 9/11 thing is gratuitous, because it was written at that time, people were in shock, and there's even a word about it in DidS2's foreword.

But really, why should it be important?

And again, I'm not going into an argument over whether this is good or not. You're free to like it or not, blame it on the authors being traitors to the line's coherence, or whatever. I won't make a big deal of it.

I'm not saying that the writers of NAGNA predicted 9/11 and secretly snuck references to it into their writing through vague sentences. All I'm saying is that mentioning 9/11 doesn't actually contradict anything. While it is obviously implied that the '05 Quake toppled the WTC, saying 9/11 collapsed WTC doesn't go against any of the material in NAGNA. The ESB could still easily have been the only major Manhattan skyscraper to remain standing (afterall, the WTC wouldn't have been standing in '05) and Fuchi-Town could still have been built on the ruins of the WTC (afterall, it's '06 now and there's still nothing built there).

And if there were a 9/11 in Shadowrun, we don't know that there was no response. All we really know of the 2001-2004 Hunt presidency is that he initiated the Resource Rush. And we know even less of the 2004-2008 Bester presidency. SoA's Middle East timeline doesn't start until 2008, so we are also unsure what may have happened there prior to that year.

Bringing it up in Deutschland in den Schatten 2 probably was gratuitous. But whether or not it should be in Shadowrun's history would be an important discussion if NYC were detailed in Shadowrun again.

By that argument, you can also say that since NAGNA didn't explicitly state it that for all we know Cthulhu came down to earth and leaned on them until they collapsed.

Well, yes, that's possible. Not likely, but possible.

I'm with SL James on this one - incorporating 9/11 into SR is a direct contradiction to the timeline. Not so much the collapse of the Towers per se, but the War on Terror that is the direct result of 9/11. While the Middle East timeline starts in 2008, the War on Terror and Republican Neo-Conservative agenda would have direct implications regarding virtually all of the early events of the timeline, affecting them in such a manner that the resulting world would not resemble the Shadowrun we know and love (after all, can you really see the political climate of 2001 allowing the Shiawase decision that established multinational corp extraterritoriality?).

The Shadowrun timeline diverged from reality in 1999 when the Seretech incident/decision failed to materialize. I for one find that it weakens rather than strengthens my suspension of disbelief to try to cram "current" events into a world where they never occured, especially when the implications of said events on canon events are obviously not considered. In other words, leave the timeline alone 'kay

As for DiDS2, well, that's really nice, but I don't speak or read German so that pretty much makes the book a non-entity to me.

------

Btw SL James, Cthulhu is already on Earth, just sleeping in sunken R'leyh beneath the Pacific

I know. After all, what do you think caused the Ring of Fire catastrophes in 2061? A comet?

*Bump*

I still don't have it. Neither my FLGS nor any internet shop has it available. At leat I got Secrets Of X'endrik and Five Fingers.

Jong, please don't bump threads. We're somewhat civilized here.

As for European shops, Leisure Games in London seems to have it in stock -- they're one of the most up-to-date stores in Europe. It usually does take an extra couple weeks to get stuff across the pond.

Well, some people here in France have it, so it reached our distant shores already sometime last week I think.

No chance here.

And my prediction for august has come true.

It came in Friday at my local game shop. Course, I got a copy at Origins, but still, it's out here now.

<shrug>

Fanpro actually hita relase date. Go figure

Bull

Scary

Just for general info:

about the locations of the new clubs/restaurants/whatever in the Seattle section

On that note, though, I do have the actual addresses of all the Hong Kong locations and will be posting them. It's up to you whether you wanna use them or not.

I should get a list of some of the clubs/restaurants I've been to in HK and give the location and small description for each.

You won't, you're too lazy...

Honestly? How is it, compared to the crappy edited and translated last books?
Did you buy München Noir too?

Yes I did. But I still didn't read the whole book. Lack of time and we are playing a campaign in Seattle. I like the part about the city but I dislike the campaign so far.

'Schattenstädte' (German title of Runner Havens) reads much better than the translation of the SR4 rulebook. The Hamburg chapter seems to be well developed and 'feels' consistent with the rest of the world. There is a bunch of typos and a minor error in layout (the table of seattle gangs is not fully readable in at least some copies, but that could also be a printing-issue), but nothing terrible.

Possibly my last post has been a bit misleading: I like the campaign I am playing with my group at the moment. But I dislike the campaign that is in the 'München Noir' citybook.

Ah. Yeah, that's a whole different matter.

Munchkin Noir?

I think I've played in that game before.

I hope you guys have noticed there are scales in the maps You asked for them, so here they are.

Could someone give me a quick update on the Tir leadership?

Publicly, it's now a democracy run by the elected Star Chamber, which is chaired by ex-prince Larry Zincan.

Zincan? That's pretty wacky even for a fake democracy.

Another week passed and still no RH here.

What's wrong with Zincan?