Deckers are called "hackers" now?! BOO!

The Matrix is Wi-Fi?!? WTF?! BOO-FRIGGIN'-OOO!

Dem Krazy, krazy Deutchelanders...

Given how utterly unstable most wireless connections are, I can just picture the ads:

"Don't you hate it when you're doing a nice, simple datasteal - and just as you've hit paydata, your illicit signal carrier (DROPS THE CONNECTION! I MEAN, WHAT THE FRAG?!)... So I switched to Mitsuhama Laserstraight, and it never happened again."

Wee Gee, Firehawk. You can accept metahumans, magic, virtual reality, AI, arcologies, dragons, etc, but the idea that wireless could be made stable with 60-odd years of research? Nah, that kills the suspention of disbeleif too much.

SR has had the technology for a wireless matrix as Canon from Day 1. Otherwise remote rigging could never have worked.

Meh. To each his own, really. Then again, this thread isn't meant to be taken seriously, anyway.

Still, that commercial would be damned funny.

I still like the word Deckers myself, partially because it is very in setting and partially be cause I'm nervous about typing the word Hacker and it coming up on some CIA filter.

Don't you know SR is a training ground for RL terrorists?!? The CIA has a filter for deckers as well, trust me.

(Not really serious, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.)

"America" voted him in (that only includes the crazy conseritive black people who vote rebpublican. The rest of us dont count b/c were kept away from the voting booths )

The CIA wouldn't do something like that. That is the job of the NSA.

CIA = Cointelpro. And I thought It would be the FBI that do that?

BBBBBBBOOOOOO!!!!! Shady government organizations!

Bishop: I don't know, I think maybe a personality conflict. Who are you guys?
Dick Gordon: National Security Agency.
Bishop: Ah. You're the guys I hear breathing on the other end of my phone.
Dick Gordon: No, that's the FBI. We're not chartered for domestic surveillance.
Bishop: Oh, I see. You just overthrow governments. Set up friendly dictators.
Dick Gordon: No, that's the CIA. We protect our government's communications, we try to break the other fella's codes. We're the good guys, Marty.

Uh-MUR-ca?

Can we please keep the RL politics away from SR?

But then we lose the ability to impress our peers on Dumpshock with our MTV grasp of politics and economics!

...mmmmm emptyVee....

Thats the problem with things that are ON the cutting edge. They usually aren't doing the cutting, they are usually what's being cut, and the knife edge will pass them by soon to cut through more stuff.

The one thing I really don't like about shadowrun, is the lack of actual examples.

For example in DnD, the book will give a session example of how combat roles. there aren't enough in any of the Shadowrun, which leaves things pretty vague to me.

SR4 has tons of examples. There isn't a complete example of combat, but there's examples for initiative, attacks, spells, the matrix, and pretty much anything else that might happen in a combat round.

What I hate is the fact that the whole crash was caused by some random novel character and weird cult. The first crash was mysterious and sudden and great. The latest crash was like... okay? It really feels like a cheap excuse to take the corny early 90's vision of the 2060's intertron and make it into a more realistic feeling standard.

Now, I do like the new matrix. I like it a LOT. Not only is SR4 technology no longer worse than new technology today, it has relevance to everyone, not just hackers!

But that brings me to my next gripe, which is that the net has only existed for five years! This basically stops us from making characters who include AR type stuff in their background... If I want a character who developed their adept powers while mastering Ares Miracle Shooter when they were just 8 years old... That makes them 13 now, since the game has only existed for five years tops -.-

Adults who are master hackers have had just five years of experience, at the most, with the new matrix. Yet their skills with the old fashioned matrix seem to transfer perfectly to the radically new and improved systems. FastJack is still the best, even though he's been playing with the new toys just as long as everyone else.

I guess what I would have preferred is a jump of maybe 10-15 years, which gives more opportunity to have a character whose background includes some of the fun new tech. And, of course, a less lame and contrived explanation for the crash.

Generally, I like SR4 but these are my few serious gripes:

SR4 Matrix dice mechanics being completely inconsistent with the rest of SR4 (and unrealistic to boot)

SR4 complete loss of flavor of the Matrix (does anyone really think the SR4 Wireless Matrix has remotely as much flavor as the "old" Matrix?)

Improved Attribute (adept power) magic cost compared to essence cost of cyber/bio-ware (more expensive is fine but 5x (10x if over racial max) is rediculous)

No bonus whatsoever for using smartgun/laser when firing two weapons [minor compared to others]

The old Matrix made sense from the perspective of it being controlled by a small group of insanely powerful corporations who can charge whatever they want and dictate the rules by which you play their game on their Matrix with their toys.

SR4's Matrix is a crappy ripoff of Ghost in the Shell and Cory Doctorow's wet dream.

Pthbbbbbbt on that crap.

As for no AR, that's crap, too. We've been using AR on Shadowland for, like, five years IRL and since the late 50s in-game. It just wasn't the primary means of decking. We stupidly used it for, you know, daily computing and lifestyle functions. Anything that uses a glorified iPod UI is less than worthless for hacking.

BOOOOOOOOOO:

Giving us a totally new technology and the hacking section being 31 PAGES shorter than the magic section.

Fluff books coming out before the books with the actual rules in them (Yes, I'm bitching about Emergence coming out before Unwired )

The apparent high mortality rate of anyone learning ANYTHING new when using the dice system! Honestly, can you imagine the number of kids who've critically glitched while learning how to swim? Let's say 2 Str+1 for Swimming. That's pretty good odds that little Timmy is going to be floating face down because mom wanted him to learn how to swim. Man, can you imagine the insurance rates!?

Royally shafting Riggers in 4th.

Totally ignoring the East Coast (other than to say it's in ruins).

Getting more dice if I were to default on any rolls made involving a program than if I were to use the appropriate skill.

Not being able to hit enemies with spells (even elemental ones), but not being able to exclude targets either. Makes area-effect spells more harmful than anything else...

Not having ammo that can deliver toxins, but having a Super Soaker that you need an exotic skill to use.

The apparent inability people seem to have dealing with the fact that with cosmetic surgery being an outpatient affair, catgirls and much crazier would be relatively common place, if not passé.

Run-on sentences.

Hooray:

BEER!

the super squirt works fine with contact toxins.

so, iirc, you could hit someone with pepper punch. it's not *completely* without ammo from chargen at least.

Yeah, I can see it now: The Biggest Troll You Ever Saw pulls out an Ultimax(atatched to a gyromount, as trolls can't fire anything larger than an assault rifle just because. You pull out your trusty Can o' Mace!

And don't get me started with some of the toxin prices...I'd be better off throwing hypodermics full of bleach at the guards and hoping for the best...