So what do people hope to see in Unwired. and What do people expect to see?

Apologies if there is already a thread I should have searched/necroed

The righting of all wrongs, the end to indecision, stipper elves, and a low cover price...

But I'll settle for a few chapters of nothing but Technomancer goodies.

Anyone know if technomancers will be getting equivalents to magical groups and/or ordeals?

Hell, I'd settle for second echo worth taking

Amen Brother!

I wouldn't mind seeing an increase in karma-to-value return either

Mmmmmmmmmmm... Stripper Elves...

Er, sorry, back on topic. Personally, I'd love to see rules on P2P systems, Copyright Programming and issues therein, and more security goodies to torture my group with!

So far, noone's mentioned an interest in Magic, but I do have a few that are thinking Hacker/Technomancer.

Hardcore AI porn!

But would you know what it is if you saw it? Matrix Perception threshold test? Does realizing what you are seeing cause brain trauma?

What do you think Echo Mirage was really doing in those tanks?

NOOOooOoooooo....

My neurons burn with hot simmed AI pr0n!

But seriously though, AI's making babies? Creepy but awesome, particularly if AI's and sprites start... meshing.

OK, I think this has gone on far enough.

As the SysOp on the From The Shadows Blog put it: Someone think about the ShadowBrats!

What I really want from Unwired, apart from any crunchy numbers stuff, is lots of fluff about how AR affects everyday life.

Absolutely, and I want them to make TM's cooler.

I really want to play a TM rigger one of these fine days.

But yeah, I'm all about fluff kinda like an updated Target: Matrix 2.0 book. Lots of descriptions of sculpted systems, IC, and so forth.

Yeah, a good, hardcover Fluff book would rock!

(Hint, Hint, CredStick in hand!)

I think I'd even buy that one on PDF just to make it appropriate.

I like to see a little more interaction between programs, IC and PCs. They give the rules for everything in the BBB, but how they all mesh together is left up to the GM to decided, so it can be quite daunting.

Not sure about ordeals, but they're confirmed to be getting totem equivalents called "Streams".

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo want shiny book now!

Expectation: Agent Smith will cost more, which means that Peter Taylor will call it fixed and a non-zero percentage of groups who would have hit the wall on that won't. But the essential problem will remain essentially intact as far as the world is concerned.

Expectation: Technomancers will get a bunch of new stuff that will be massively better than the core book stuff. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the new Technomancer options are the equivalent to the Cyberlimb Options from Augmentation compared to the frankly useless core book cyberlimbs. I definitely expect Technomancers to get better and yet have the honestly terrible technomancer ability costs from the basic book stay unchanged.

Expectation: The Hackastack will be nerfed slightly in a way that doesn't especially impact its performance.

Expectation: Script Kiddie and Opt Out will be unchanged - there will remain essentially no reason for "you" to be any good at hacking.

-Frank

Ah, there's the big bucket of hot steaming pessimism I was waiting for.

Personally, I'm hoping and fearing, somewhere between the two extremes. Hoping for a great book, but prepared to be dissapointed.
Stuff on AR in real life, and a general sense of how the Matrix works would be fantastic.
Echoes, groups, and "totems" would add something to Technomancers at least.
More uses of Electronic Warfare would be nice.

I'd like to see beautifully thought out fixes to all the existing problems, but I really doubt it will happen.

I'd settle for the damn thing just coming out.. Catalyst said it was on "final approach" what seems like forever ago. Did someone turn off the runway lights?

Maybe Terrorists took over the Aircraft Control System.

My guess is we need to wait at least until Adam get home from his trip.

Since only he is manly enough to defeat the terrorists.

Actually no. "Streams" are the technomancer analog of traditions. Technomancers will have "paragons" rather than mentor spirits.


Limitations will be introduced on Agent Smith (well, actually on Agents in general), but Agent Smith gimmick will still be possible for the dedicated hacker (as will botnets) willing to put in some extra (not-insignificant) programming time. But cracking an Agent and copying them ad infinitum to aid you in hacking a particular system will no longer be a viable tactic.


Technomancers will indeed get a bunch of new cool stuff, including the aforementioned "streams" and "paragons," as well as new echoes, new sprites, and some surprise twists. Technomancer costs will indeed remain unchanged.


Since according to the SR4 core book all Matrix communications and connectivity is subject to a hardwired Access ID and each commlink/persona you use has a separate one—requiring you to separately log on to the local network and nodes being hacked with the new Access ID every time you switch commlinks—I believe Hackastack (to the best of my understanding) is nerfed enough. However, other clarifications on connectivity in Unwired will undoubtedly clear things up further.


There will be Tweaking the Rules variants for those who want them, but the core Matrix mechanics in SR4 remain in effect —meaning your Matrix skillz will remain hardware and software dependent. We will be visiting the limitations on Agents/Pilots/IC's "creative intelligence" and "tactical decision-making" that make them inferior to human hackers and how gamemasters can apply such limitations in play. That said, the roles and options available to dedicated hackers (as hard core programmers, spoofers, exploiters, crackers, etc) as well as the "offline" uses of skills will be greatly expanded making the role of hacker much more specialized during chargen and time and skill demanding during in game development.

I have no issue with the costs remaining stationary, if the value I recieve is greater.

That said I don't know anyone running a game who hasn't house ruled them atm.

Like a MAC Address on any network device. Actually, this can be worked with, however, those would also likely be easy to Spoof...

Damn I'm good.

-Frank

Yeah, you'd be perfect, if only you weren't so modest...

I'm not working on Unwired; Jason Vargas is handling the layout portion of it, so it's still in progress while I'm in Seattle and Vegas working on business stuff and future games.

"Working" on "Games" in Vegas. Gotcha.

Nah man, I'm betting there'll be little time for that.

If technomancers are getting tradition-style selections of sprites are those sprites also gaining associations of some sort to groupings of CFs?

Any ETA? Even a month would be good.

You know there's a really bad tongue-in-cheek joke here, but.... I'll just say I'm looking forward to Unwired. Yup.

(I couldn't help myself, it's just one of those kinds of days.)

As usual, we will announce a Street Date when the book is in our warehouse.

As an impatient man I'm more interested in when you typically release PDFs? Presumably well before you are able to ship the books physically?

Hope to see an official preview of Unwired on the official homepage soon, so we can see what it will cover.

On top of that previews of some of the other books that are coming out after Unwired, like Ghost Cartels and Feral Cities would be very nice too. But Adam is a busy man so im trying my best to be patient......

Indeed. I could care about the hard copy.

How about a warehouse date?

I would like to see example nodes for misc systems, furthermore a few images of a raw node would be nice too.

Is something mechanical going to stop corps bringing down the storm worm black IC loaded hammer down on every hacker that floats by?

Stealth rating 6+

How does that not stop them finding you virtually instantly with a teamwork test? with three R6 agents and R6 programs (for you to run R6 stealth) they'll be rolling sort of 20 dice?

The storm botnet in 2070 would have billions of nodes. If they find you, next IP you are dead.

Two words: Toxic A.I's!

Option 1: You're hacking one node, so only one node resists. 1a. You're authorized login is replicated by the trusted node across the other nodes, you do not need seperate tests to hack each node. 1b. Make a new test for each node. Don't screw up.
Option 2: There is no hacking in Shadowrun 4.

Security level of the system can be reflected in the option chosen.
Low end "secure" systems - Option 1a.
High end "secure" systems - Option 1b. (Note that legimate users would experience significant delays while handshaking with so many nodes unless they only had access to a select subset)
Zurich Orbital - Option 2.

Hey, maybe there'll be blood technomancers, too!

Would toxic technomancers be Luddites?

Nooo! Toxic technomancers would want only technomancers in the matrix! DEATH TO HACKERS!

Actually, I suppose the followers of the Dissonance would be "toxic" technomancers ... so I think there's a fair chance of seeing "toxic" technomancers.

But what about blood technomancers?

And what about Insect Technomancers, putting Bugs into code?

As software has no incremental costs, there is no reason for every corp node not to be bristling with black IC of death.