I used a different method when making the Arsenal PDF as opposed to earlier SR4-era PDFs, btw. While the filesize is relatively large, it should be more accessible to third party readers than previous SR4-era, although I've heard some reports that some readers still flake on parts of it.

Catalyst Game Labs has yet to finalize a deal with any third party PDF vendor. There are some wacky issues slowing down progress on that front.

Interesting. My machine is reasonably specc'd (Athlon 64X2 5200, 4GB DDR2 800, SATAII, Radeon 2600HD 512MB) and it displays all of the other PDFs very quickly, resolving text almost as quickly as I can scroll through it. Even my much less powerful laptop displays the core rule book and Augmentation fast enough. But with Arsenal, my machine can hang there for more than seven or eight seconds sometimes, just trying to resolve a single page.

My reader at the moment is KPDF (which is based on xpdf). Can't comment on Windows as my housemate wont let a Windows machine on the network, but I'd say there's definitely something a bit odd with the Arsenal PDF.

Also, just checked the file sizes. "Relatively large" doesn't come close. Augmentation at 175 pages is 17.2MB, Arsenal at 202 pages is 47MB. Not even the main BBB is that large and it's got a page count of 354! (comes in at 42.3MB, for reference).

I understand that creating a PDF isn't "no work", but it seems excessive to not offer a substantial reduction in price to customers that purchase both the PDF and the hardcopy book. It seems to me that the cost of creating the PDF is really quite small in comparison to the cost of the rest of the development process. As such, I wouldn't expect to be charged an additional 60% just to get the book in electronic format. I did end up paying for the "bundle" for Arsenal, but it didn't make me feel any less "ripped off" having to pay $20 for a digital copy, or $35 for it printed.

I dunno, in the age of internet piracy I kind of think they should really try and get as much cash as they can out of each .pdf that's actually purchased as they can.

Having played 3/3.5 D&D alot, mage, changeling, shadowrun 4th, paranoia, feng shui, GURPS, savage worlds and WFRP, the strongest determining factor in combat resolution is play action declaration time which seems fixed between systems.

The other factor that tends to determine how fast combat is, is the relationship between offensive lethality and player toughness. Often this can be counter intuitive. Despite players being hugely tough, the ability of offensive actions in D&D to bypass standard defenses makes the game rocket launcher tag, whereas unless players have a wildly superior weapon by DM fiat paranoia is padded sumo. (It just appears like rocket launcher tag because people often give out rocket launchers, and then tell the players to play tag.)

Some other factors tend to make games take longer too, like savage worlds awful system that makes cover an A1 priority and combines it with a suppression mechanic that makes it very difficult to hit anything, but the effect of this stuff is minor compared to the offensive/defensive problem.

Okay, let me make myself perfectly clear. Piracy is bad, mkay? Stealing from your favorite game company is not a good idea, not if you like to see a game line thrive. No one should be pirating SR4 products, since it hurts Catalyst, Wizkids, and Adam's job.

All that being said, you do realize that pirate copies of Arsenal were on the net within hours of it being released?

And let's not forget the most basic rule in this: As long as people are buying, there's no point in cutting the price.

I'll grab the xpdf port on OSX and take a look at the file there.

Is there anyone that's having major legibility/text dropping out/extreme slowness problems with the Arsenal PDF and is using the official Adobe reader? So far I've had reports from people using third party readers only.

I was, but now I go back I'm not.

(Gotta love computers )

I think the combo cost is a little high (with the cost of shipping), but maybe I would be temped to buy them if I could "upgrade" to the combo from the PDFs at some later point.

The PDFs are well priced in my opinion, though got to admit, since the current US government seems determined to drive the dollar through the floor, the exchange rate isn't hurting me.

And PDFs, or at least some form of electronic format, are probably the future. Are people saying that the price for game books should be $5 from here on?

As to piracy - no-one should be pirating SR4 PDFs. I personally really appreciate game books being available in PDF format and I don't want to force game companies to start using DRM (which I wouldn't buy). If you get pirated copy, you've taken actual money from a small company. It's a shame that Catalyst have stopped selling through DriveThrRPG. I get most of my game stuff from there and they do a harmless watermarking process which I like.

-Khadim.

EDIT: @Adam Thanks for taking a look at the file. It's not unsuable for me, just irritating in comparison to Augmentation and the main book.

Adam, I have a strange problem with my PDFs(JHS:3072 and Arsenal only): I will click the down arrow to scroll down, and the arrow and bottom part of the window will disappear completely. Attemps to scroll using the bar, only cause teh MAXIMIZED window to slide up and down my screen. I use the latest version of Adobe. I had thought it was just my computer, until I encountered the problem on a friend's computer, also using the latest version of Adobe Acroreader.

I would like to emphasize that it is only THOSE two PDFS so far that I have run into that on(And I own PDFs of Total Warfare, Techmanual, JHS:3072, Augmentation, Arsenal, and Corproate Enclaves)

I really wish they'd do the same thing Paizo is doing with their Pathfinder subscriptions.
The way they do it:
You can buy a hard copy. You can buy a pdf (which is cheaper than the hardcopy) You can buy them both together with a discount. (So far we're exactly the same model as the SR books) The clever bit is, you can keep a credit card number on file with an ongoing subscription. A new book comes out, they mail it to you, and you get the pdf completely free. Instead of opting-in to buying a new book, you put yourself in a position where you have to actively opt-out of any new products, and in return you get a price break (as a free pdf). If SR would adopt a similar policy, then I would have a copy of Corporate Enclaves right now, because I wouldn't have opted out of buying it. As it is, I just haven't gotten around to getting it yet.

Paizo is doing a lot of cool stuff, but I'm just not sure that the subscription model is appropriate for Shadowrun in the same way it's appropriate for Pathfinder, given that Pathfinder is a series of progressive adventures, and the Shadowrun line leaps all over from rulebook to adventure to sourcebook.

Paizo, of course, has a bunch of experience dealing with subscription products, as they used to publish Dragon and Dungeon. We, really, have none [not counting the electronic-only subscriptions to BattleCorps]. However, this is an idea that's been brought up internally before, and probably merits more investigation.

BTW, if you have a friendly local game store, they should have little hesitancy towards "subscribing" you to every book in a line, especially if they're used to doing that for comics.

I can't speak for anyone else or their business model, all I'm saying is that I would subscribe to such a deal, and I believe the net result would be more money spent toward Shadowrun products.


I have an apathetic local game store, but not a friendly one.