Now now. You are perfectly capable of doing everything you can do sober stoned. You just realize its not worth the effort.

There you go.

A cover and previews ... hoping payday arrives before pdf availability.

YES!!! Very nice cover, fits the theme.

ugh, my poor poor bank account...

I like how the cover tells a story. There's a lot of information there, but you can piece together the situation by reading the AR display.

Ugh, just when I thought they couldn't come up with a more hideous cover than Augmentation, someone has outdone themselves.


Someone could make a lot of money selling slipcovers for these books that have actual, decent cover art on them.

Meh, I just want to see a cover done by Omen2501

Well, thank whatever powers you might pray to (or might not) that personal taste differs from person to ...welll... person. I actually really like what Klaus Schwerwinski pulled off again!

EDIT: @Matsci: That sure is some great artwork - I'm pretty sure Synner is watching this thread - if not, I'll definitely point him towards the artist's page.

...I agree. Hope the cover art is equally as good. The best covers so far have been Street Magic and Runner Havens (only because the troll on it rocks).

There are some Shadowrun books that if I leave out, I lay them facing down. Unwired will not be counted among their number.

I love the interior art they demonstrated, but that cover...poorly drawn, bad layout, too much random crap all over the place...just awful. I don't see how anyone could say that was better than, say, Street Magic, or even Arsenal.

"Could actually look that way" and "does not look like a comic" are my personal reasons.

I´ll judge the details when I´ve access to a version that is not at 300% when filling my screen.

I'm really hoping we'll see art depicting an individual's perception of an ARed street. There was the one in the BBB, but I'd still like to see more. Also, I'm really excited for the Topography chapter. Hopefully we'll have some examples of a corporate network with an actual hierarchy.

Unwired cover art is easily better than Augmentation & Arsenal, but below Street Magic. I would rate it on par with the Core book cover.

Ephatically & wholheartedly seconded!

Yeah, I'm chewing my teeth out. But I've been chewing my teeth out for the next SR book since 1989, so, what are you going to do?

Ah man, I am DIGGING that interior art!

I am really, really interested in reading that Matrix Topology chapter! I've been wondering for quite a while about the exact nature of that.

Wants it, we does!

THE PRECIOUS!!!

Hey, I really like the cover, and it is far better than Arse and Aug; now that is not really difficult.

This is probably the book I have expected the most since core SR4 was announced. I really hope they did a good job with this one!

Cheers

Max

I'm enjoying the art previews so far.

-paws

spotted a new one, TMs this time. but im not sure i like that virtuakinetics will be a "official" name for them...

God fucking damnit! Nexi is not now and never has been a word.The plural of Nexus is Nexus (in Latin) or Nexuses (in English). It's 4th declension, the U becomes long, it doesn't get a fucking i.

-Frank

Lots of people mix latin and greek plural suffixes. A classic example is octopus. It may frustrate the grammar nazi in all of us to one extent or another, but people will never stop doing it.

Please don't let it upset you Frank, or you'll drop dead with a coronary before posting your review of Unwired, and any house rules you subsequently deem necessary, which I'm rather looking forward to.

Nexi are close to sexi!

Hmm... not bad, not great. A little cliché when it comes to Shadowrun action-scene art (ie: runners dodging bullets as someone pokes at floaty, glowy circles in the air). I like the interior spot art a lot more. I would have preferred something a bit more abstract but it isn't a horrible cover by any means.

abstract covers for matrix related books have become cliché

Zing! True enough.

Actually, looking at the Virtual Realities books, they were all low-rez computer renderings of metal angel figures and robot-looking things with floating cubes, pyramids and rhombuses.

If that's the sort of cover you want, I'm guessing you'll have to start shouting louder than all the folks asking for illustrations of AR and how it might be used during a run.

And I have you know that my lung volume is rather well developed

And that is now my favourite Neuromancer cover, ever.

Actually beats out the Classic edition (the one with just a silver circuit board on a navy cover).

This thread makes me drool too much.

If the cover is attempting to show Augmented Reality it's not doing it in a very interesting way. It just looks like a sci-fi-style HUD. I thought AR was supposed to be like VR without actually jacking into the Matrix... so if I wanted my coworker to look like a giraffe or Carrot Top in my eyes he would. It's not fun if it's only used as a glorified digital GPS and ammo counter.

AR can be both...

it can overwrite as little or as much of the sensory input as the user wants to (up to going full VR that is, as that would require turning on the RAS).

I'd consider the context. I mean, in the situation given on the cover, I probably wouldn't want to make my co-workers look funny. Maybe later, but not in that snap-shot.

If people are having problems grasping that concept, they need their head checked. It's way more simple to understand than VR.

However, overlaying all the Corporate Security Forces wearing just their underwear could be a major psycological advantage.

And to think, back in the day, you could only do that with your mind.

ugh, not if they are hiring orks or trolls. then i much prefer target data and hit probability calculations

Which is the point I was trying to make. The situation on that cover is the same situation on the cover of 75% of Shadowrun products (yes, I own the Art of Shadowrun). Catalyst has been great about introducing new concepts into the game and the Unwired cover illustration feels like a step back (I still like the interior b&w's). Say what you will about Arsenal, the cover gave me a chuckle what with the female runner posing out with all of her guns and toys neatly displayed around her like a high school senior photo. Street Magic had a bit of a heavy-metal album cover feel. Unwired's cover is the same old bang-bang-bang-ork-tech concept. Well-painted and professional, but same old. I would have liked to have seen something a little more clever and off-beat... maybe (and this has probably been done before but whatever) an AR POV of a meeting with a metahuman Johnson in an ethnic restaurant. I'm picturing little AR display windows showing various stats about select patrons, weapons scans, a combat bike game, and the Shadowrun MMORPG. Multitasking to the extreme and you get a nice little setting piece instead of the typical industrial background.

But in the end I'm still going to buy the book so this is just me being an Internet nerd and spouting my worthless opinion. Unwired will be a tool for my games... it's not like this is going to sit on my coffee table.

Thanks. I really appreciate that.

AR is all-pervasive in the Sixth World of 2070+, and I for one do tend to have trouble picturing just how integrated it actually is. I wasn't aware that this simple desire for more information on the concept qualifies me for the loony bin.

It's ok.. I'm sure that you will have plenty of company... I for one intend to be there.

And a -3 AR penalty on called shots to avoid armor. Just sayin'.

hmm, do that penalty also apply to resist pornomancer advances?

I usually picture AR as looking like the usual MMOG screen. With the way mods are getting popular in MMOGs, it even covers the custom AR experiences. And multiple feeds are there as well - chat window, messenger, etc.

OK Fuchs, I'm stealing that description!

New Preview section up, some of it looks interesting



So, who called Toxic Spirtes?

Now that I have seen a high-res version of the cover art, I am beginning to like it a lot more. Still doesn't quite fit for Matrix 2.0, but it is not at all bad.

How doesn't the artwork fit the AR matrix? The only major use of artistic license is that YOU can actually see the AR display, which is necessary to show what the hacker is doing via AR.

I'm genuinely confused -- I consider the Unwired cover to be one of if not the most accurate representation of how AR works in the Sixth World. Klaus did an awesome job on it.

i see botnets in the hacker handbook

While the cover does give a good view of an AR overlay, the background combat is to prominent, giving it less of a Matrix feel. I do enjoy the art, it is well done. It just doesn't convey the same Matrix feel as, for example, the top picture of the June 12th preview does.

The Unwired cover, unlike the Media piece, illustrates something very, very important about hackers in SR4: "Holy shit they can do cool and useful stuff in the middle of a firefight!"

You may not like is as much as the Media piece due to the placement in combat, but to say that it "doesn't fit" the modern AR Matrix is a bit misleading, I think. Every character illustrated on that cover could have their own POV shot with their own AR overlays; it's not just the realm of the hacker anymore and he's not stuck offsite anymore. The "matrix feel" is everywhere now.