Ok then, if no one but me wants the official answer about that issue, I'll e-mail the devs.

Anyway, the debate can't really take place. We only have 2 or 3 RAW sentences to argue with, and these don't state anything about what matters to us.

Oh, and by the way, for those who said that we don't have agents today, we do... But I don't think we can compare 2007's agents to 2070.

Your Persona runs on your commlink (unless you're running through a terminal or a coffee machine). If you want your Agent to operate independently, it has to run on a different node from your Persona.

And that different node would be... not your commlink. By definition.

I'm starting to think that the problem lies in if you think of all or just some aspects of this setting to be fantasy. If it is all fantasy then you don't really need to think about it. You just need to prevent or allow things based on if your PCs figure out something. If you are thinking of the scifi parts of the setting and find those actually thought provoking then there is a good reason to have a basis for the matrix in modern computing.

There is no reason to assume that the basic ideas of computer archtechture haven't been worked out. We have a new idea or two now and then but we haven't gotten the basics down I think. We can figure out the matrix based on projections from futurists and our own understanding or we can cling to the system that was written because we paid good money for it.

My point of view, since I almost never share my feelings about things, is that I think that we know enough to come up with a logical matrix based on what we understand and project forward. I think that we can come up with a system that allows for most of the things that the setting needs from the matrix. We can come up with somthing that makes sense for normal users AND for hackers. I think that it can be fairly simple and not slow down game play.

And I think that keeping a Tron like VR system where the metaphor is anything but a metaphor is inimicable to these goals.

Matrix in the cyberpunk genre is born when the Internet was just some kind of military/scientific project... If you read some older cyberpunk novels it's closer to the old French minitel (where you more or less directly dialed the server you wanted to connect to) than to the Internet.

Of course, things have evolved in Shadowrun, but replacing the Matrix with a realistic computer system will have most of the VR aspect drawn away and replaced by command line hacking... You'll lose all the fun and "poetic" (for lack of a better word) aspect of the Matrix to get something as exciting as cracking a keypad.

well I think that the game can be just as fun without that part. I never got into the decking rules before because I thought that the system was overly complicated. I guess that is why I am not all that attatched to the idea.

I have seen and read plenty of stuff in cyberpunk. Not all had a matrix and not all got VR confused so I don't think of it as a necessary part. My favorite cyberpunk novel was "When Gravity Fails" by George Alec Effinger. It was gritty and dark about how technology was degrading people but the most advanced communications system in there was a cell phone.

The problem is that people seem to want to hold on to a very specific set of things as fun and they don't care if doing so takes the fun out if it for others. I think that having a silly VR Cybercombat system is insulting to my intelligence and drives me to distraction.

That's a motion-tracking paintball gun automatic security system is for.

Or a motion-tracking automatic ranged taser with an automatic rewind reel. That's a much more fragile system, though...

Odd statement, that. I'd rather see handwaving in a fantasy setting but would want crunchiness otherwise. Perhaps we're using handwavery in different contexts. Either way, not sure we want to start the genre debate :swirl:

@mfb: I'm not sure your quote means what you think it means. It says persona icon which to me indicates to me that the icon of your person can be crashed in a node other than your commlink (or within your commlink for that matter) and if (when) that happens, you're disconnected from the Matrix. That rule is to avoid people saying that their icon was crashed in Node X but that they're still connected to Nodes Y and Z.

@Cetiah:

Hopefully we all agree that agents and hackers should work as similarly as possible for simplicity except when explicitly stated to be different. Otherwise this all goes out the window.

Remember, agents are legitimate bits of application used by power users the world around, not just hackers. Agents don't work if they have to upload themselves to other servers to get anything done. If I want my agent to go do a datasearch for everything on GlobalDynamX there is no freaking way that Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, and GlobalDynamX are going to let my agent load onto their system. Not happening. The section on IC states pretty clearly that IC are agents with special payload. No way anyone is going to let roaving IC load itself to their system.

An agent is a potentially autonomous program. It is a virtual machine, emulating a hacker and their comm, complete with its own firewall rating. The agent's rating acts as Persona rating in many cases (see matrix combat sections). The quality of that emulation is based on the amount of processing power available, hence the fact that an Agent uses the Response of the node it is running on.

It is potentially autonomous because it can either be loaded as a regular app or, as stated on page 228, it can be independent and be loaded on onto "a particular node separate from your Persona" and operate even when the hacker is offline. The "separate from your Persona" bit does imply it needs to be a node other than your in-use Comm however nothing says this can't be a spare comm that no one is using. Could be a corporate server. Wage slaves use agents to handle tasks while they are busy, which would justify them loading it up to a corporate server.

On page 227 it says that "Agents can also access other nodes independently if instructed to and if they either have the passcodes or
are carrying an Exploit program and can hack their own way in
(as independent icons)."

The key word there is "access," a word that sees use with hackers. If you look on P.118 titled "Accessing Multiple Nodes" it says "It’s common practice for Matrix users to connect to more than one node at the same time—this is just a matter of switching between open windows. Th ere is no penalty to switch your attention between accessed nodes, but you can only act in one node at a time (meaning each action only applies to one node)"

It even has an example of someone playing a game while doing a data search. Page 232 even states that you can be in matrix combat on different nodes simultaneously.

So what I see is that Joe Wage Slave is being slammed, he's got a conference call to be on, some numbers to crunch, a plane to be on and needs to track down some data that the system backup failed to capture. Joe loads his agent onto CorpServer2 and tells it to find the missing data. Joe then hops on his plane and does his conference call while crunching his numbers.

The agent, using Joe's passcodes (or possible passcodes assigned specifically to the agent by the corpsec team), accesses dozens of systems throughout the corp, looking for the files. It does NOT bother to migrate from server to server, instead ACCESSING the other systems while residing on CorpServer2, much as a hacker's Persona accesses multiple systems while residing on their personal Comm.

Now lets say the agent realizes that this is going to take a long time, in part because CorpServer2 is only an Response 2 system. The agent checks to see if CorpServer5 is available (the passcodes it has give it access to CorpServer5 but only if it isn't busy) and transfers itself there to speed up the work.

Here's a shadowrunner example. Hacker Dave is contacted about a meet and given some limited tidbits of information. He wants to know more so he fires up his agent Hal to go do some public data trawling. Dave doesn't like the idea of limiting his active software choices at a meet so he puts Hal on his spare comm and tells Hal to email him the results of the data search. Hal proceeds to make a number of extended data search rolls to compile a basic dossier that is emailed to dave.

At the meet Dave is given the passcodes for a user-level account of the target. Dave decides to do a quick data index of the data available to the account. Because time is of the essence (the account is deleted at midnight) Dave loads Hal into his persona when he connects to the server. Dave and Hal both begin trawling the network as quickly as possible for information.

At 11:55 Dave figures out where the data he needs is but it needs a security account to access it. He decides to split his forces up. He logs off completely, loads Hal onto the spare Comm with some combat utilities and sends Hal back to the target using the still-valid user-level passcodes. Dave, alone on his comm, begins an On-the-Fly hack of the system. He gets in, but triggers an alert.

Dave manages a couple rounds of data theft before the IC finds him and launches its assault. Dave yells for Hal, who begins its own assault. Since Hal was using legit codes, it hadn't been targeted by the IC yet so Hal's attack was a complete ambush. Of course, the system immediately begins to counterattack but the distraction lets dave finish the theft. Hal "sacrifices" itself to let Dave log off. Dave then reaches over and turns off Hal's Comm, breaking the connection.

Dave fires up his car and quickly drives away, not knowing how far the traces on Dave and/or Hal got but since both Comms were sitting side by side either one being successful would be bad.

@Frank

ugh. the insistence of people on accepting the more more complicated, less realistic, less usable explanation for how things work over the simpler, more realistic, more usable one never ceases to amaze me.

you want to believe that your persona is magically separate from the node that it's based in, go ahead. have fun making an entire new ruleset to support how it works.

yes. which, the way i read it, links personas to the nodes they are based in.

oh, gosh! you're right! a persona isn't a node, i've been wrong all al--wait, i never said a persona is a node! nobody said that. nobody said personas can be exploited, or that nodes can move around. i think you may be unwell, cetiah, for you are clearly seeing things that are not actually there.

what i said, and what the rules indicate to me, is that if your persona gets knocked offline, the commlink it is based in--the one that its stats are based on--is also knocked offline.