This is too big to fit in my sig, so I have to give it its own home.

[rant]Admittedly I haven't frequented other RPG forums much, but this is the only forum, the only game, I've seen where people come out of the woodwork of piss and moan about EVERY SINGLE BOOK that comes out to the people that did the work to write, develop, and produce said books. I'd said this before, it ain't new. And it's directed to everyone that sits here on DS and complains about minute flaws, or whines because they think something should be different, or tells a writer that a concept - a piece of fiction - they wrote is wrong. Take a moment to consider the simple fact that they did the work to bring this game to the market, not you. If you have issues with their work, I suggest that instead of trying to tear them down for not reading your mind as to how "it" should be done go out and write something yourself. It's easy to be a damned critic, but that doesn't mean that all the noise of all the critics in the world amounts to more than a single pile of crap. Ask questions, get clarification, give feedback, hell that's all good. But don't sit there and tell the writers and developers they did it "wrong" - for EVERY SINGLE BOOK that comes out - when you haven't done even a fraction of that work yourself.[/rant]

(Please do not respond to this thread. I don't want a huge debate. It's only here so I can link to it in my sig.)

i don't care that you said not to reply, but the creators DO get it wrong sometime. that's why we have errata

Seems he covered your point already, shuya. That's part of the "ask questions, get clarification" that he mentioned, I think.

Every RPG has this - if you look, you'll find them.

As for the 'official' writers doing more work than the critics, that's not necessarily true. I've seen critics that spend a great deal of time crunching numbers after a playtest shows that something is off, and I've know gamemasters - myself included - that put a great deal of time into their games. No, I'll avoid putting the 'official' writers on any kind of pedestal. If they do something I like, I'll praise them, if not they'll hear about that too - they get paid for what they do and that means they get hear it when their product is craptasticly bad.

And I feel that when the developers pick the use of a point-based system with the various checks and balances that such a system requires (and they did a good job with on the whole, IMO) then they should keep those basic designer notes handy so they don't print new stuff like "half the bonus for over twice the price" costing the same as "Aiming is a free action".

Let's see here...kinda lame for the points but semi-Ok if you really want that +1 die in dodge vs a specific attack type and your base skill is over 5 already in one hand...possibly the mostest broken 5 pts EVAR in SR 4th in the other...

I just can't decide!

I think it's a variation of Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem

well color me surprised, penny arcade can be useful...

so, whats next. someone going to tell me that south park can teach kids to behave?

I guess that could be used to explain the actions of the writers, but it's pretty harsh.

Well, that sociological theory doesn't apply to me. I'm a fuckwad in person, too. :winkies:

Criticism is necessary for the artist to improve. It is the natural manure of the artistic process.

When you don't have people who are willing to tell you about the flaws inn your work, eventually you'll come to the silly conclusion that it is a good idea to invade Russia while still fighting Britain and that your troops don't need winter gear because the fighting will be over before it gets cold. Or worse, you'll think that its a good idea to write and direct the Prequel trilogy yourself. And if people had pointed out the flaws of Batman Forever more vigorously then Batman and Robin might not have been such a disaster.

there is also the question about how the criticism is worded.

i think we have more then one example here on the forum alone where it basically ends up as drek throwing primates on both sides, as the opening posts are way to aggressive for the message one attempts at delivering.

And they get paid to do this, particularly the line developer. It's not like they are giving the books away.

I'm generally satisfied with most of the SR rules, myself, but critics have a right to complain all they want to. Especially when, as kzt pointed out, they are customers who have paid for the works in question. And they don't have to "write something themselves", any more than I need to become a chef to be able to complain that my steak is underdone. That's a fairly common logical fallacy, and an annoying one.

Some of the critics do need to be more civil, I agree, but they're not always the only ones being rude in these debates.

I'd think the praise/criticism would be highly relevant to the writers. After all they aren't doing it for a warm fuzzy feeling. They're doing it to sell books, and we're the ones buying them.

When the community isn't happy with a book it's better to know that, and to know why, than to have people buy a copy of Cyberpunk v3 or whatever instead of the next Shadowrun book.

Plus it isn't all doom and gloom. I don't think I've seen much crap spoken about Arsenal, but there are a number of threads where people are having fun with it. I think Augmentation was very well received as well except maybe for the cover art.

Ook ook.


This is actually a general misconception. Freelancer writers do their thing because they want to write the books. That's not to mean that selling the books is purely a happy coincidence, but speaking just for myself and the people I've talked to about it - we don't do it for the money (okay, not just for the money - the money is the happy coincidence), we do it because we want to write. You can tell the people that absolutely don't care a whit about the game and are just writing for a cheque in a few months' time. It shows, no matter how technically proficient their prose may be. Shadowrun freelancers and developers try to write what we think people want, but we also write what we want to write too! I couldn't begin to tell you the kind of blast I've had writing a particular restaurant or collaborating with a couple of the other freelancers to lay a plot thread between three books.

Further, I'd like to reference Scott Kurtz' article on criticism for a moment, Why We Insulate. Of course, I'll add sometimes the critics are right and sometimes we engage in elaborate, desperate face-saving measures (heh). Less often than you think. It's actually very rare for the entire monkey pool to play "Point the sticky finger," though you'll still hear the writers bitch about the devs and the playtesters and the editors and the poor overworked layout artists, as if it's their fault.

Edit: Post length may not suggest it, but AniH answered while I was (occasionally) typing.

Oh, quite to the contrary I think the writers do it for the warm fuzzy feeling. I don´t believe that RPG writing pays that well.

Praise is only worth something if it comes with criticism. I´d rather discuss something I´ve produced with the person who, like me, knows the limitations of my work, and prefer to speak of those (no, I have contributed nothing to SR. Just the principle). The book-club threads suggest that at least a few authors care very much about qualified opinions.

Waa waa waa waa, you can criticize the whole forum but then ask people not to respond in kind. And at the same time you criticize critics in general, even though you're being a critic now.

Also, I'd argue that some people have written enough free and excellent SR material on this forum, or on the internet, that your logic that their opinions don't count on the basis of non-production is completely defeated. For example, have you seen Raygun's amazing Shadowrun gun house rules? He basically explains why the generic SR gun rules are flawed, explains about the history of various firearms, silencer technology, and so forth, and gives a whole bunch of rules to make the weapons more analgous to reality. So you're factually wrong if you are trying to establish that critics never produce work superior or at least comparable to what is in the "default" SR sourcebooks. And this example is not even speaking of the heaps and heaps of SR fiction that has been posted on this forum by various posters.

Criticism, whether it is specifically incorporated into future works or not, matures self-expression. Any viewpoint which must be shielded from rational debate and criticism is not a viewpoint worth holding. But the idea that anything can be above criticism amounts to death of the active vibrant mind and opens the doorway to meaningless fanaticism.

Hurm. So the current SR writers aren't so much focused on making a competitve product and more on enjoying putting out the work.

That would actually explain a whole heck of a lot. Specifically how SR4 can have some much stuff that is awsome but has issues in the details.

Though, actually, do people really critque the devs much around here? I think I've only seen Frank do it. Otherwise it seems that we're just chattering away as a one would expect in a SR forum. If someone complains about something it's not that they're making up some kind of critique for the devs to read. They want some help and are hoping to get it here, they went to the effort to houserule something in their game and can't resist sharing, or they're the first kid on the block to get a new book and the rest of us want to hear about it.

Ye gods and hairy fishes, who pissed in your cheerios? Who said we're not looking to make a competitive product? I'm just saying that our three-to-four-cents-per-word isn't the only reason we type until we go all tingly in the extremities.

People almost always tend to produce better quality work if they're enjoying themselves. So if they enjoy making it then chances are the work itself will be better. Which is always going to be a good thing for people who buy the books.

Easy there. Hurm. Maybe I'm unintentionally falling into Kurtz's "mean without meaning to be and really loves the comic" catagory from the earlier link.

Though now you've got me curious.

What are you generally thinking/focusing on when you're hammering away at your keyboard? I mean among things like "will they be able to pick this up right away and run with this", "will they think this is cool", "do I think this is cool". "how will this affect the speed of gameplay at the table", "is this easily exploitable", "will this make them more likely to buy the book" etc etc.

I'm not going to point any specific fingers, but I have noticed a significant amount of virulent mudslinging directed towards the writers from multiple posters. As a long-time player I appreciate those posts that explore gaps, and errors in the rules, but said posts do not need to shit all over the work we are here to enjoy.

Depends on the product and the person, but for m'self...ah, how to put it in words. There are books you open up that start out perfect, and from then on there's a kind of a zen quality to them - everything that comes after just seems like the natural thing to follow. I'd be lying if I said I hit that except for maybe a couple of bits here and there, but if you want to know what I aim for, that's it: perfection.

Of course, there's different views on what's perfect. I try to be inclusive rather than exclusive on rules and material, but SR has a couple of absolutes that I really feel need to stay that way - and you wouldn't believe the arguments the freelancers have on mechanics and fluff. On top of that, there are requirements that come down from the devs, and anybody that I'm partnering up with on a section has their own input on the matter. Personally, I'm fond of metaplot for metaplot's sake as long as there's room for it and it fits - I don't care for retcons at all. We can't exactly poll the community for what they want to see when we're making the books, so a lot of the incidental fluff and details is just us making clever, but we also keep in mind what the players and gamemasters would want and need, or at least I think I do. We were all players, once.

There is also the simple fact that a fandom is rarely united a fandom is never united a united fandom is a sign that hell has frozen over the its demons have escaped into the world to begin the apocalypse. There will always be people who are ruffled the wrong way be a particular plot decision or development, even if it is a perfectly valid one. Having fans run things in some way exacerbates this, due to the mere appearance of them favoring their own prefered interpretations above hundreds of other fan interpretations if nothing else.

Personally, I'm more concerned with actual technical decisions rather than plot direction. If I don't like the metaplot, I can ignore it or dump it altogether. It's about as much trouble to keep up with metaplot details as it is to make up new ones, often more. If I don't like the mechanics, particularly if they're inconsistent, that requires a great deal effort to create balanced houserules. Even if I understand the reasoning behind some rule design decisions, I don't have to agree with them, particularly when their results are contradict other rules.

I don't think the criticism is the problem per se, it's the vitriolic "serious business" rage that it is conveyed with by many posters.

And those who clearly go beyond reasonable language use and rational intent don't initiate anything constructive. Imagine you had a child who dropped a hammer on your favourite toe. If you say "Fuck you you little shit! You're a moron! That fucking hurt and I hate you", it certainly gets the message across not to drop any hammers on daddy's toes. However, you also teach it resentment and fear.

To finish this hyperbole, if you're going to criticize, make it constructive, because you're not doing yourself, the devs, the writers or the game any form of service by telling the devs that their rules make you want to vomit all over yourself.

If only the writers responded so well when our criticism ('hammers') fall upon their work ('toes'). They've certainly brought the resentment out in some...

First of all, I must say - what part of the simple request "please don't respond cause this is just for my sig" is not clear? That's why I PMed and asked Bull to lock this ASAP but in retrospect bad timing on my part I guess.



Did I ever say anywhere in here that I'm free of guilt here? No. I've been disrespectfully critical in the past and I regret it. The reason disrespectful criticism has become such a pet peeve is simply because A) there is so much of it, and B) I've realized that I cannot do the job the writers/devs do because I can never seem to get anything done (call it lack of discipline).

As to my request not to respond, that has to do with the simple fact that this would be in my sig but it's too damn big. That's the only reason I made it into a thread. Thanks for understanding that



I've seen virtually all save the newest SR sites over the years, and love most of them. These people - as I implied - can be as critical as they want though I would hope that they too are respectful about it. By critics I implicitly meant "critics who produce nothing but criticism". Y'know, like me.





Thank you both of you though - you two actually got my point exactly.

*WearzManySkins Moe Slaps NightmareX, followed up with a Moe Eye Poke*

WMS

Obviously the "don't" part.

Seriously though did you even really mean it? I mean if that's what you wanted why didn't you drop this thread in the Dumpshock News, Bug Reports, Feature Requests, & Discussion board instead of the 500 posts a minute or whatever main board? Besides not being swarmed it actually kinda fits there as it's sort of like a Feature Request (locked threads for sigging).

LOL



Cause I'm dumb. Seriously, I didn't even think to put it anywhere else, it never occurred to me. And yes I did really mean the request. This wasn't my intention at all.

So not only do you not want people commenting on the shortfalls of the game, but you say so and then say you don't want any comments on that either. Sorry, this is a forum and that means everyone can post-and-play so long as they follow the rules. If you post it, we will comment - like it or not.

I never said you (collectively) can't comment on the shortfalls of the game - and yes I agree there are a number. I said basically "don't do it in a disrespectful manner".

Further, if you had a sig, would you want someone making a huge thread out of debating every letter of it? I would guess the answer would be no, since that's not what sigs are all about.

What is so hard to understand here?

Your link still goes where you want, it just has extra baggage. I don't see an issue, but I think that sigs are pretty pointless and exist primarily for ego-stoking purposes.


For me, right now, it's why you think it's OK for you to claim a part of these forums as your own private playground. If others want to comment, you should appreciate that you've contributed to the exchange of ideas - that's far more important that having a b&m session to link in a silly sig.

Yes.

If you don't want to get wet then stay out of the water, that's pretty obvious. You could have put it up on your own space fairly easily. There is certainly enough free hosting around.

There is also the amusement angle, and the "this is my general opinion so I don't have to repeat it a million times" angle. The latter was my intention.



One thread? One tiny thread? I'm sorry but that seems like a huge accusation to make over one thread. People post threads dedicated to their own purposes all the damn time. But I guess it's wrong when I do it huh?



I would appreciate it if it actually accomplished a contribution to the exchange of ideas. This however seems to have turned into a "your an asshole cause you have an opinion" session that is unintentionally disruptive to the forum and thus borders on (me) trolling. And in that the entire original point seems to be lost to all but a few. That is why I regret posting this thread.



As I said Hyzmarca, I'm dumb. I wasn't thinking. And for that I apologize.

No, by all means dedicate this thread to whatever you wish - but I think you were wrong for trying to prevent others from commenting on it.


Once again, you misunderstand - it's really more of a "You're an asshole for thinking that others should not reply with their own opinions" session. But hyzmarca said it a bit better and pretty clearly a few posts up.

Geez guys lay off on Nightmare. Just enjoy drinking down the sweet irony of the situation, which by now exists on multiple levels.

At any rate it is an interesting topic that probably should be discussed. The kurtz link a while back is worth a read and there has been some interesting insight from the writers themselves.

Actually on that note if one of the writers who worked on anything with hacking is around and feeling abused because we rag on it and our troubles with it daily there is a bit of a love fest for it at the beginning of the "why shadowrun" thread.

Thank you (sincerely).



The only reason I didn't want comment is because I didn't want it to turn into turn into some big disruptive mess that seemed like/bordered on me trolling. That wasn't the intention, but rather to just state something once so I wouldn't have to keep repeating it. Truth to the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" I guess.



Thank you Sunnyside *bows* but there is no need to defend me. I'm of the belief that stupidity should be painful and this is entirely the result of my own stupidity, thus gotta take my medicine and hopefully learn from it.

Aw. He removed the thread link to this from his sig, which was the whole point.

Still nightmare you can salvage your rant in pristine form. You could always put the rant up again over in the features board or what have you and ask a mod to lock it.

PS. Do not link to it until it has been locked.

Yeah, to reduce the profile of this (embarrassing) mess a bit. Selling out to negative feedback I guess.



I doubt I will. Depending on continuing reaction I may relink this, but I'm not gonna take up any more board space with this.

Ok how can I put this... From what I gather is that people have a problem with the wording when you went off on people criticizing the rules/books/creators of Shadowrun. First off there are many different types of gamers who play SR. Some just take everything at face value and skip over things that don't fit into their view of the SR universe. There are those who take the book word for word, and there are those who try and find flaws in the rules.

Why it feels like a slap to the face for quite a few people reading this, is that when you posted your rant you might have forgotten is that many who complain about the books, or a rule, or a "something" on this forum are generally big fans of the SR universe. I myself enjoy Shadowrun and play it with a group of friends for 6 hours every week (or every other recently since we are all pretty busy with RL.) The problem I had with the overarching statement that was made in your rant was that there are some people who are just annoyed at certain parts of the game. For instance our group tried for months to make hacking a viable option before Unwired and eventually gave up and passed it over to some NPCs to avoid the headache. Our group was not the only group having this problem and that suggests that there is something seriously wrong with the rules if players are having such a hard time using it. I felt that after we play tested it for quite some time we came up with the conclusion that the rules were poorly written, and we didn't want to spend more time on something that we found annoying. I love Shadowrun and have bought the BBB just for myself, and the group has pitched in and bought every book but Unwired and Runners Companion (haven't decided if Unwired is worth the purchase, and RC has not been brought up as it is still quite new.) Just because I love Shadowrun still does not mean that I won't complain if I feel that a certain part of the rules are broken or need further clarification. It would be nice to close down some loops in the system and allow for more interesting gameplay.

In the long run though I always thought it is a good idea to gage the amount of bitching and/or complaining about certain rules/items to see if a system needs tweaking. Some erratas are there specifically because someone was nitpicky enough to spot a flaw where a few editors might have missed it or something was supposed to be added, but they forgot to in the final editing. In the end having people complain is just going to happen, and it's not always going to be civil, but I view it as an evil that needs to be there.

In the end it is harder to convey your point through words then it is when you speak them out loud. I'm sure it sounded less harsh in your head, but when you typed it out it seems a little too harsh. Maybe not your intention, but it did rile me up a little bit when reading it for the first time.

I've noticed that's been the case in a couple of threads here. I think it may be due to the fact that I simply don't post here enough, and thus people are unused to my style (I don't have this problem on other forums generally). Or maybe I'm just not being clear enough.



Perhaps. As noted I tried to imply that complain (feedback) = fine, disrespectful bitching = ungood. So yeah, a definite case of not being clear enough.

How can I put this gently?

Lack of criticism, in whatever form, is what killed TSR; and almost took the gaming standard of all RPG's, Dungeons and Dragons, down with it.

This is an internet forum, and things don't always stay polite. But each and every one of us is here because we enjoy Shadowrun, in whatever form. That makes us an important part of the market: the consumers, who actually shell out money for the product. If your customers are mad enough to rant about something, you should at least listen to what they have to say, even if you don't agree with it. You may end up with a better product as a result.

I know that in the early days of SR4, some of us Dumpshockers ranted hard enough about rules problems that we got fixes implemented in the errata. That's an unfortunate reality of modern-day internet forums: in order to be noticed, you have to be something of a troll, and rattle enough cages to get noticed. The early flamewars about SR3 vs SR4 were brutal. But you know what? You got a better game out of the deal.

In the internet age, flamewars are the equivalent of letter-writing blitzes, and intelligent trolling is the equivalent of a publicity campaign. In short, the arguments here serve as a new form of customer feedback. Customer feedback isn't always constructive-- that's just the way it works. But it is no less valuable than carefully-worded, politically correct, overly-polite, "constructive" criticism.

We all know the SR4 team hangs out here. What's the best way to get attention on an internet forum? Well, start a thread, and get about a hundred replies in one day. The easiest way to to that is to start a controversy. Some mistake that for trolling and flaming, which isn't the same thing. But unless you start with a harsh stance, and defend it voraciously, it won't go anywhere and no one will read your thread. By causing controversy, you attract the notice of people who can do something about it, and even convince them that they're wrong. It's worked in the past, both in the real world and here on Dumpshock.

Be fair, bad business practices in general is what killed TSR.

I've read a few articles on the subject, so you're kinda right. They didn't make a lot of sound business decisions in many areas. But the root of all their problems was that they didn't do anything resembling market research. They just jumped at trends, and did whatever they felt was right, confident that their large fan base would support them no matter what.

The Spellfire debacle is a good example. TSR saw that CCG's were a goldmine, and decided to release their own. However, they didn't playtest the game very well (IIRC, at the time, there was a no-gaming rule at the TSR offices) and they overestimated the amount they'd sell, and vastly overprinted their product. As a result, they had pallets of Spellfire cards collecting dust at warehouses.

Another problem was that they saw that new settings were becoming popular, so they pumped out a bundle of new settings. However, they didn't playtest the rules, and didn't bother checking for compatibility between settings and other published rules. As a result, chaos reigned at the gaming table. Just try counting how many different versions of "Gladiator" you could play under AD&D for an example. Planescape was probably the death knell, since you could combine characters from all the different settings there, all of which operated under different rules. They might have all shared the same basic mechanics, but the resulting applications were wildly different. Also, they still had massive inventory issues, consistently printing out way more product than they could sell.

The lesson here? Don't jump on trends. Check your market carefully. Playtest your product to destruction; if you don't do it, your players most certainly will. Don't radically change your product without a lot of careful considerations as to how it all fits together. And most of all, listen to your players!

And don't forget to pay the publisher of the the crappy fiction you overproduced and allowed to collect in their warehouse. Because someday they will want to get paid....

That's another problem stemming from bad market research. Their market research was basically: "Hey, novels sold well in the past, let's pump out a lot more!"

If they'd been doing proper research, they would have been able to get a better estimate on their market. It wasn't that the novels were *that* crappy; some of them, like the Drizzt works, became quite popular. However, they just pulled target sales figures out of their collective asses. As a result, they printed over a million tie-in books which never sold. That's right, over a million books were returned as unsellable, IIRC.

I don't have actual print run numbers to compare, but I'll bet you that D&D 4E didn't even print a million copies of their core rulebooks for initial release. In fact, while the only numbers I can find are from Wikipedia (which is suspect), they suggest that there's only 4 million D&D players worldwide. So, they overguessed their market by hundreds of thousands.

If they'd done some market research, gotten some feedback from players of all stripes, they would have discovered that a million-book market didn't exist for their product. They didn't need constructive criticism, they just needed a realistic number as to how large their market really was.

Particularly when combined with the public forum part. Doubly so for the most active part of that Active forum.

Also, is it somehow less bad when the pissing and moaning is done towards the people who do constructively criticize? Lets face it, there is always plenty of personal attack to go around for fans and critics alike. It is why I can usually only stick around dumpshock for so long every time I take up posting again.

It isn't even nearly as bad now since the lounge is gone where things really got heated and nasty.

A couple of big lols in this thread.

A) Starting a post in a dicussion forum, then asking people not to discuss it.

B) The old trope of 'KRITISM IS OWNLY OK IF U RIGHT IT URSELF LOLOLOLOL' (sic). I guess you better start an e-petition to take ebert's Pulitzer prize away from him because he has neither directed or acted. Clearly one is unable to present rational criticism of anything without being a professional yourself. Medical malpractice suits will no doubt cease overnight, or maybe rational thinking customers are capable of assessing whether the product they paid for and use is badly produced.

The total inanity of those points aside, while the developer presence is a good thing in general, in can be a bad thing in specific cases.

Take rarity based racial pricing. When this was noticed (orks vs elves) Several People ™ complained about it. When it was rehashed for great stupidity in runners companion (meta varients), the maths of its operation became even more painfully obvious (If I just take an ork and add these qualities...) lots of people critised rarity based pricing as the worst idea ever.

Then Synner came out and stated that this policy will not change while he is editor, he stands by it, and thinks its a good idea.

Rational discourse has just evaporated. The argument has been made, and the writer who controls it thinks it is stupid and that the other team are idiots. The same think happens constantly with the matrix rules and Aaron.

This leads directly to complaining and trash talking because rational debate has been exhausted and there is no third party to appeal to. Where else can you? I suppose you can produce an alternative ruleset (thus filling step B) and then keep trash talking until you get banned, but this isn't really a satisfying option.

It's interesting that I haven't heard of anyone who was involved in the process of putting of 4th ed who felt that playtesting was actually effective. Comments I've heard from playtesters were that their feedback was totally ignored and from freelancers that the playtester comments they saw suggested that the playtesters were illiterate idiots who weren't actually reading the rules. I'm not at all sure that they were referring to any shared experiences, but it sure feels like large parts of the rules were never actually played by people who had to figure out how the game worked by reading the rulebook.