Full Version: SR3 or SR4 which one has more
| QUOTE (Kesslan) | ||
Not much apparently. And definately not enough for them to have kept the 3rd ed system obviously |
The Old Blood Kept SR alive through 3 editions and truckoads of supplementals, through about 15 years. You wouldn't have SR4 if not for the Old Blood.
Fan Pro/Wiz kids made a decision to draw in new blood - I don't have a problem with that - I have a problem with how they did it; gutting the rules, changing the flavor and repackaging it.
And sorry, I'm not buying that SR4 is that great a seller - telling us that they sold through 4 printings or whatever isn'y telling us anything without numbers to back it up. A quick google search isn't turning up many new SR4 sites, just a lot of the old 1-2-3 sites that haven't been updated in years. Back in the day you could surf for days through SR sites, and not seem the same material repeated. (Except for variations of the Desert Eagle of course
)The new blood community does not seem very active. Except here at DS.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| How much old blood is there? |
well, every time someone posts anything about continuing/revamping SR3, there's a flurry of "hey, yeah!" posts. so, just here on DS, there's a reasonably strong following.
Thats true of alot of systems however. Also keep in mind SR4 is still pretty damn new. There's alot more SR1-3 books by far than there currently are SR4.
In the end I seriously doubt SR4 will -ever- be as big as the SR community as a whole was. Pen and Paper style gaming is still dying. It's just dying a little slower. Look that the Starwars RPG line.
Used to be pretty decently sized, if not pretty darned big. I'm not really sure but I know it -was- sizeable enough.
WEG craped out but the books were still around. MUSHes/MUDs adapted to use it, some times putting out their own custom materials etc. Eventually it was adapted to D20. It's done.. 'ok' I suppose. But I dont really see alot of it moving.
Alot of the SW based MU*s out there lost huge numbers of players when Starwars Galaxies came out. Those numbers never really came back. The biggest of the Starwars MU*s out there is but a shadow of what they once were. But there still are quite a few of them non the less. And the real kicker is most of em still use the old WEG system.
But they dont draw in many new players. The odd returning player but thats about it. The Shadowrun MU*s are the same way. Alot of the old ones are gone, and, far as I know no real new ones have replaced em. Denver isnt newbie friendly, Seattle is sitting dead in the water while it converts to SR4 and who knwos if it'll ever really rebound.
Heavy Gear had a few MU*s based on it goign for a while but their pretty dead in the water these days. The two HG computer games which used a bastardized version of the system however did quite well indeed. HG2 is actually still going in some circles infact with various user created mods still poping up from time to time.
Meanwhile the MMO industry is seeing a huge boom. WOW has millions of subscribers, EVE has a decent share, SWG is still going dispite the apparent efforts to kill it by SOE (I'm not sure that was their real intention but that was part of the effect none the less), D&D Online snagged a few more. Guildwars grabbed even more. And while quite a few folk play several of these MMOs each one still has a few die hard players everywhere.
I mean in the 80's and early 90's it was easy to find RPG groups around here for a good ol' tabletop game. Now it's flat out impossible for some of us.
ANd it's all well and good to say the old blood kept SR alive. Which is true enough. But eh.. old blood stays old blood. And as time goes on Old blood dies, gets tired of the game, or leaves for various other reasons. If you have no new blood you have no game in the end. SR4 seems to be drawing in quite a few new folk with a much easier and friendly to learn system. There's allways folk who wont like changes to a game, but they have to happen or that game dies. There's no two ways about it.
"A true fan never dies, they just... go away for a while." so to speak. Course in the interm the company can die along with the game.
Like card games pen and paper RPGs might never quite truely die. But it'll more than likely get relegated to things one doesnt do much. Especially when you can techically have the same thing in bright blazing graphics on your computer screen. Afterall arguably what's better? Immagining that your an ork running aroun dwith a samurai sword chopping up those evil corpers? Or actually seeing your character running doing it with all the blood, guts, explosions eviceration, death and destruction and noise?
The only thing computer RPGs have concistantly failed to do, and will for god knows how long, is to quickly and easily adapt the way a human GM can. I'm sure that will come along some day. We are definately forever inching forward towards that point with better AI, better and easier to use editing tools and other user created content etc.
And as much as some RPG companies hang on by their fingernails for years 'for the love of the game' even when it's not really profitable anymroe to do so. Eventually many cave in. They are afterall a buisness, and one run by people. People have to eat.
As for gutting the rules, now and then you -have- to do it. Old rule systems arent fluid enough, or you alter them so many times youw ind up with tons of contradictions and other crap. Just look at the palladium RPG system some time. The system itself is used for something like 4-5+ RPG lines. Each line has a ton of custom rules, modifications, revisions etc. All in all the base ruleset itself is so horribly altered and spread out across so many books it doesnt make much sense. SO the release a 'new edition' with 'updated rules etc' and then left a whole ton of stuf out, totally 'offically' changed the way some rules work. And they STILL dont cover half the crap other systems do and it STILL sucks as a game system in general compared to D20, SR3, SR4, Silouette and other far more 'advanced' game systems which are infact simpler and make alot more damn sense because they dont have 3 billion contradictions.
People still buy the products like mad because they love the settings. I hate the Palladium system with a passion but by god I love alot of their material anyway. ANd I'm not entirely sure I agree with the change to the 'flavour' of shadowrun. It's changed and evolved yes. Probably drastically so from SR1 to SR4 even. But if a game world didnt ever evolve.. well people would get bored and stop playing it. Afterall a gameworld that doesnt evolve, is one that never changes and thus is allways the same.
You run into that with RPGs like starwars. Playing as a rebel is litterally just like playing like an imperial, or a sith. The tech changes abit but overall the actual game experience doesnt, and the game stagnates. I still like starwars to a degree but very little about it has really 'changed' or 'evolved'.
SR on the other hand has slowly evolved, slowly changed here and there. Comming up with new twists, new plots, new toys, forcing adaptation to the way you play. Many folk may hate the change, but may more hate or at least, eventually pay very little attention to something that -never- changes in any notable way.
Afterall if that wasnt true why is it MMOs that dont 'keep up the pace' by releasing new content, new changes etc flat out die, or maybe at best you wind up with some die hard tiny ass community that will eventually die out as well. Its effectively darwinism and evolution in action but in the virtual world.
In the end I seriously doubt SR4 will -ever- be as big as the SR community as a whole was. Pen and Paper style gaming is still dying. It's just dying a little slower. Look that the Starwars RPG line.
Used to be pretty decently sized, if not pretty darned big. I'm not really sure but I know it -was- sizeable enough.
WEG craped out but the books were still around. MUSHes/MUDs adapted to use it, some times putting out their own custom materials etc. Eventually it was adapted to D20. It's done.. 'ok' I suppose. But I dont really see alot of it moving.
Alot of the SW based MU*s out there lost huge numbers of players when Starwars Galaxies came out. Those numbers never really came back. The biggest of the Starwars MU*s out there is but a shadow of what they once were. But there still are quite a few of them non the less. And the real kicker is most of em still use the old WEG system.
But they dont draw in many new players. The odd returning player but thats about it. The Shadowrun MU*s are the same way. Alot of the old ones are gone, and, far as I know no real new ones have replaced em. Denver isnt newbie friendly, Seattle is sitting dead in the water while it converts to SR4 and who knwos if it'll ever really rebound.
Heavy Gear had a few MU*s based on it goign for a while but their pretty dead in the water these days. The two HG computer games which used a bastardized version of the system however did quite well indeed. HG2 is actually still going in some circles infact with various user created mods still poping up from time to time.
Meanwhile the MMO industry is seeing a huge boom. WOW has millions of subscribers, EVE has a decent share, SWG is still going dispite the apparent efforts to kill it by SOE (I'm not sure that was their real intention but that was part of the effect none the less), D&D Online snagged a few more. Guildwars grabbed even more. And while quite a few folk play several of these MMOs each one still has a few die hard players everywhere.
I mean in the 80's and early 90's it was easy to find RPG groups around here for a good ol' tabletop game. Now it's flat out impossible for some of us.
ANd it's all well and good to say the old blood kept SR alive. Which is true enough. But eh.. old blood stays old blood. And as time goes on Old blood dies, gets tired of the game, or leaves for various other reasons. If you have no new blood you have no game in the end. SR4 seems to be drawing in quite a few new folk with a much easier and friendly to learn system. There's allways folk who wont like changes to a game, but they have to happen or that game dies. There's no two ways about it.
"A true fan never dies, they just... go away for a while." so to speak. Course in the interm the company can die along with the game.
Like card games pen and paper RPGs might never quite truely die. But it'll more than likely get relegated to things one doesnt do much. Especially when you can techically have the same thing in bright blazing graphics on your computer screen. Afterall arguably what's better? Immagining that your an ork running aroun dwith a samurai sword chopping up those evil corpers? Or actually seeing your character running doing it with all the blood, guts, explosions eviceration, death and destruction and noise?
The only thing computer RPGs have concistantly failed to do, and will for god knows how long, is to quickly and easily adapt the way a human GM can. I'm sure that will come along some day. We are definately forever inching forward towards that point with better AI, better and easier to use editing tools and other user created content etc.
And as much as some RPG companies hang on by their fingernails for years 'for the love of the game' even when it's not really profitable anymroe to do so. Eventually many cave in. They are afterall a buisness, and one run by people. People have to eat.
As for gutting the rules, now and then you -have- to do it. Old rule systems arent fluid enough, or you alter them so many times youw ind up with tons of contradictions and other crap. Just look at the palladium RPG system some time. The system itself is used for something like 4-5+ RPG lines. Each line has a ton of custom rules, modifications, revisions etc. All in all the base ruleset itself is so horribly altered and spread out across so many books it doesnt make much sense. SO the release a 'new edition' with 'updated rules etc' and then left a whole ton of stuf out, totally 'offically' changed the way some rules work. And they STILL dont cover half the crap other systems do and it STILL sucks as a game system in general compared to D20, SR3, SR4, Silouette and other far more 'advanced' game systems which are infact simpler and make alot more damn sense because they dont have 3 billion contradictions.
People still buy the products like mad because they love the settings. I hate the Palladium system with a passion but by god I love alot of their material anyway. ANd I'm not entirely sure I agree with the change to the 'flavour' of shadowrun. It's changed and evolved yes. Probably drastically so from SR1 to SR4 even. But if a game world didnt ever evolve.. well people would get bored and stop playing it. Afterall a gameworld that doesnt evolve, is one that never changes and thus is allways the same.
You run into that with RPGs like starwars. Playing as a rebel is litterally just like playing like an imperial, or a sith. The tech changes abit but overall the actual game experience doesnt, and the game stagnates. I still like starwars to a degree but very little about it has really 'changed' or 'evolved'.
SR on the other hand has slowly evolved, slowly changed here and there. Comming up with new twists, new plots, new toys, forcing adaptation to the way you play. Many folk may hate the change, but may more hate or at least, eventually pay very little attention to something that -never- changes in any notable way.
Afterall if that wasnt true why is it MMOs that dont 'keep up the pace' by releasing new content, new changes etc flat out die, or maybe at best you wind up with some die hard tiny ass community that will eventually die out as well. Its effectively darwinism and evolution in action but in the virtual world.
| QUOTE (Eldritch @ Jan 20 2007, 09:40 AM) |
| And sorry, I'm not buying that SR4 is that great a seller - telling us that they sold through 4 printings or whatever isn'y telling us anything without numbers to back it up. |
I did not present official numbers nor am I at liberty to, however, I will offer (again) the closest you will get:
SR4 (and speaking strictly hard copy BBB) has sold on par with previous editions of the core book during the same period of release at a point where the overall RPG sales have decreased to an optimistic 50% of the numbers a decade ago. Figure in PDF sales (which we haven't because there is significant overlap - though this means many fans have been willing to fork out 60$ USD to own both) and SR4 has outsold all FASA editions (in the heyday) during the same timeframe.
Read that as you will.
SR4 is a great success and very much deserved. It surely has some flaws, even some pretty big ones, but it's overall the best edition they have put out so far (IMHO, of course). 
As for the initial question, there is really no contest. SR4 all the way.
Bye
Thanee
As for the initial question, there is really no contest. SR4 all the way.
Bye
Thanee
Unfortunatley, at Fanpros own convention, the RatCon, it was very hard to find SR4 Groups.
I'm not trying to say there isn't any old blood, I'm just wondering what the potential market is for this. There's no such thing as a free product to produce, and if there isn't a big enough market to warrant the cost and the self competition it can't even be a sparkle in someone's eye.
...I am one of the 'Old Blood" (even predating SR) and yes SR4 has taken some getting used to, but I am adapting. Given the choice, I would prefer to remain with the "classic" RPG format as opposed to gaming on line.
First, with a P&P RPG, the cash outlay is a one time thing, I buy the book, I own it, I don't have to pay any more to use it. I also don't have to pay to upgrade my ability to use it until an expansion supplement is released, but, even then, once I have it, it is paid for. I also don't need to upgrade my coffee table in order to handle the new material. For most online RPGs, there is usually a monthly fee (in addition to ISP provider and connection). Second, I'm not online enough to really take advantage of the subscription cost or develop my characters. Most of my web activity is via WiFI which for now is limited to the hours my local coffee shop is open. I also have other interests outside of gaming for which I use the web (like sports, history, and technical research). Third, I still enjoy the direct social interaction a live gaming group offers and as Kesslan alluded to, the spontaneity that can only occur in a live sesion.
Yes splashy graphics and sound effects are nice and all but mechanics, like conversing with other characters is a lot more cumbersome and lacks colour since it is usually done via text messaging. It is a lot quicker (and more fun when, as I do, get into character voice) to say what my character is doing rather than typing it. I also like leaving things more to imagination for I find it makes the game more interesting when I have to conjure up the vision of a scene or setting my character is in rather than having it fed to me.
Yeah, I probably am a dying breed. One of those old ex-college gamers who found getting together with a few friends around a table to raid a tomb, explore a new planet, or save the Mayor's daughter from the Supervillain's clutches preferable to mulling over "Who Shot JR" or getting pissed down at the the corner pub.
First, with a P&P RPG, the cash outlay is a one time thing, I buy the book, I own it, I don't have to pay any more to use it. I also don't have to pay to upgrade my ability to use it until an expansion supplement is released, but, even then, once I have it, it is paid for. I also don't need to upgrade my coffee table in order to handle the new material. For most online RPGs, there is usually a monthly fee (in addition to ISP provider and connection). Second, I'm not online enough to really take advantage of the subscription cost or develop my characters. Most of my web activity is via WiFI which for now is limited to the hours my local coffee shop is open. I also have other interests outside of gaming for which I use the web (like sports, history, and technical research). Third, I still enjoy the direct social interaction a live gaming group offers and as Kesslan alluded to, the spontaneity that can only occur in a live sesion.
Yes splashy graphics and sound effects are nice and all but mechanics, like conversing with other characters is a lot more cumbersome and lacks colour since it is usually done via text messaging. It is a lot quicker (and more fun when, as I do, get into character voice) to say what my character is doing rather than typing it. I also like leaving things more to imagination for I find it makes the game more interesting when I have to conjure up the vision of a scene or setting my character is in rather than having it fed to me.
Yeah, I probably am a dying breed. One of those old ex-college gamers who found getting together with a few friends around a table to raid a tomb, explore a new planet, or save the Mayor's daughter from the Supervillain's clutches preferable to mulling over "Who Shot JR" or getting pissed down at the the corner pub.
I think I need to figure out a way to play Shadowrun online . I'll be pulling a lot of babysitting duty in the future, and TV brings mostly crap.
The hardest part will probably be finding people who wants to play when you need them. A setup with webcams would be really cool.
. I'll be pulling a lot of babysitting duty in the future, and TV brings mostly crap.The hardest part will probably be finding people who wants to play when you need them. A setup with webcams would be really cool.
How would webcams help?
| QUOTE (Sir_Psycho) |
| How would webcams help? |
He didn't say it would be helpful, just cool.
| QUOTE (Sir_Psycho) |
| How would webcams help? |
There are several groups that use a webcam/virtual tabletop/chat client/VOIP setup to keep playing together after a member moves, etc. I would be in one of them, but the other guys got too busy with RL junk.
The webcam lets you share a sense of everyone being together, and allows you to show stuff like the map (and pizza in order to mock the person that can't reach it through the monitor
).
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