When do the NY missions start?

like real life time? They started at Gen Con and also will be at Dragon con,

or do you mean in game date?

I'm guessing the OP is asking when will they be available for download. The answer is "soon."

Yeah I can't wait to run the adventures with my players... I run a campaign in NY and the corporate enclaves book was more than a little dissapointing. (NY is THE corpate enclave...more important than neotokyo and LA put together)

(note: I am just a SRM GM at the CONs for CGL... I dont have any special/insider knowledge!)

Orgins 08/GenCON 08/Dragon*CON 08 all have the SRM03 missions run at them. First places to be run at.

As "the dunner" stated the downloadable versions will be released soon (I dont know when since I am not part of that loop but that is what I heard since I run them for CGL at GenCON * Dragon*CON). I believe that there will be a nominal charge for the SRM03 (aka Missions NYC) adventures (missions). Or that is the rumor I have heard. Dont quote me on that. As for someone that has run the SRM02 (Denver) and SRM03 (NYC) missions, I can say the SRM03 are better quality (not knocking on anyone's writing/design).

that is my 2 cents worth.

I am quoting you on that... because it had better not be true... LFR (Living Forgotten Realms) and LG (Living Greyhawk) are both two examples of FREE living campaigns... As much as I like Shadowrun... if I have to pay for living campaign type of SR.. .I'll just give it up and find a different game to play for my persistent world fix.

What would be better would be if Catalyst were to publish adventures in nice glossy style, and treat those as adaptive adventures like LG did with published DnD 3.5 ed adventures. That would be understandable... the Adaptives weren't required, but they were nice if you wanted to do them.

There will be a fee for downloading them.

The first scenario of the SRM03 campaign will be free, as a visible demonstration of how we're upgrading things. The remaining scenarios will be free for GMs who schedule a public game at a convention or game store as members of the demo team.

GMs who just want the game for home use will need to pay a nominal charge.

A great deal of time and effort have gone into creating these scenarios. It's simply not fair for the authors and artists to go uncompensated for their efforts. If you don't think they're worth paying for, and you're not willing to run them publicly, then you'll be missed.

Obviously I must be the only one.

Wotc via the RPGA gives away their Living modules for the simple fact that it encourages additional sales of their rules system. How they compensate the adventure writers I have not a clue, but I don't pay for the adventures. In comparison to the Verbobonc, Highfolk, and Core adventures I have participated in, both the Denver missions which I have read and the missions that I played through at Gencon for NY, I haven't seen one that is so superior to the D&D living campaigns that it would make sense to pay for them.

Again, FASA used to publish actual adventures, WOTC does the same thing with what they call adaptives, where I get to play in a published hard copy adventure and use my living characters to get adventure records from them. But the Regional, Metaregional, Interactive, and Core adventures were always free.

I don't want to be rude, but I'm pretty sure Wotc has a far larger volume of sales in comparison of D&D to Shadowrun (sadly), perhaps emulating their business model would be best? Encouraging Shadowrun game play by giving away adventures would IMHO encourage more players... Charging doesn't seem like the right way to go about getting more people in to Shadowrun.

There was a survey done in recent past (2 months-ish ago if my bad memory is correct) about the missions missions (no I didnt stutter). One of the questions (or maybe more) was about paying for the rights to download the missions. And it was overwhelming positive for people paying to download the missions.

There is a difference between CGL and Hasbro. Yes Hasbro. Hasbro owns WotC which owns TSR. Hasbro has developers/writers on staff to write the books and adventures. Their pockets are a little deeper (okay a lot deeper) than CGL, WhiteWolf, Steve Jackson Games, etc. Hasbro could just give away DnD and all the books, modules, adventures, etc for free and still not operate in the red. They be close but not in the red. Where as most all of the other RGP game publishers have a much tighter budget.

Now the first time I heard about paying for the missions missions, I was take off guard and was not too positive about it. Until I sat down and thought about it. You get to buy which ones you want. Dont have to buy a whole set as you would if it were a published hardcopy adventure set. if you go to the cons, you can play them for free and which ever ones you like you can then pickup. My attitude about paying for them changed 180 degrees pretty quickly after the initial shock wore off.

Now I have seen a couple of the new missions (prior to final layout/polishing) and the quality of them (material wise) is superior to the SRM02 series. Not to say anything bad about the SRM02 series writers.

Once the first module is posted for download. Check out the quality (or layout/writing/handouts/maps/etc) and decide if it is right for you or not.

</jaded rant>
dog

Of course you might wanna file their plan off attack in the "why they are currently laying off hella loads of folks". I'm going to guess that the freebies that they paid for might fall under stuff that WotC won't do now as well.


Actually there's a lot of the same folks involved in both sets of Missions, writing and art wise (with a few new faces). Overall I'm going to say, we're just stepping our game up to the next level

I should also note taht while WotC may give away some stuff for the Living D&D games, do they pay the people involved with those? I know they didn't, once upon a time. They were strictly a fan production, by the fans, for the fans, with all the irregular quality taht brought with it. It also had a very high rate of turnover for the volunteers who worked on them.

Granted, my info is years out of date, so I could be wrong here. <shrug>

And of course, while they give those out for free, they also are charging as much as a full sourcebook these days for their officially produced modules. The prices for their new H-series of modules is a bit crazy, though the production values are really nice.

Having seen a little bit of what CGL and the Missions guys are doing with the new adventures, I'm really impressed. Don;t look at it like you're no longer getting free adventures. Look at it like you'll be getting high quality, officially produced quality material for really cheap.

Bull

In the interests of trying to not have this look like a fanboy pile on (too late?), I did want to note, that I agree with you that we may see fewer people playing NYC Missions games at home. That does disappoint me, but the only way we can know the real impact is looking at the numbers after we start releasing the scenarios. Some of the Denver Missions have been downloaded upwards of 20,000 times. I certainly don't expect to see that many sales of the NYC scenarios. (Though, if we did, I can assure you that the nominal fee would become a whole lot more nominal. )

With fuel prices doing what they are, money's tight right now for everyone. I appreciate that this means everyone needs to be much more careful about every dollar they spend - especially those earmarked for entertainment.

Conversely, though, IIRC, a ticket for playing in a Missions game at GenCon was $3. Times six players (and there were usually more than that) that's $18 (ignoring the cost of the convention badge). We're talking about charging $5. If players are willing to chip in $1 towards the purchase of the scenario or just bring food for the GM to gaming night, then that's still an awfully good value. YMMV, of course.

I do want to reiterate one important point: The old scenarios are not going away. We'll continue to offer the Seattle (SR3) and the Denver (SR4) scenarios for free download from Shadowrun4.com indefinitely. Those will remain as freely available scenarios for anyone whose interested in starting to play Shadowrun. There are 25 Scenarios in the Denver campaign for around 100 hours of gaming time. That's, IMO, enough to keep just about any group occupied long enough to show some significant wear and tear on their Shadowrun books.

They were $4 this year. *grumble 'inflation'*

$4 at origins as well.

Of course, it's actually $2/ticket, but tickets are for 2-hour blocks, and it's rare you only need one ticket for any event...

Actually some of us bought actual tickets for a 4 hour game and those tickets were $4

Well, true. I don;t like locking myself into an event ahead of time, so I just get generics and try to get into whatever games I can find the time for

Bull

The 2 hr block is the norm if you're there to play boardgames.

what?????? a nominal charge???????? NY was finally gonna get a write up!!!!!!!!!!!!! I payed $20 for a handfull of paragraphs! What the the Frag?!!!!!!!!!!!! son of a slitch mother fragger....long ears...trog.....dandelion eater....dreck ...vat job....drekhead... breeder ...trog covered in slitch drek Frag Salt!!!!!!!!! :sigh: I'm sorry....that was uncalled for. It's just my players have been wanting to play a different game and the only reason I convinced em to keep going was that we've been waiting for the NY campaign! maybe I'll try another game for a while after all....

That first missions better be hellah good if you expect me to pay for the rest!

and for the record I just wanna say I am not a complainer I'm a good little fan boy. When you guys: drink the coolaid I ask for fruit punch! I love what you guys did with 4th edition catalyst is a great company but how could you?????

btw in all seriousness dunner I find your response of "you'll be missed" reads more like "frag you, I don't care if we loose your business" than a sincere goodbye. I'm not saying you meant it to come off that way but sometheing along the lines of "I understand how you feel or we have no choice and we'd really like you to stay anyway.....maybe something like yes this is happeneing but we're planning all of xxxx" would have been far more diplomatic. Take this as constructive criticism rather than an attack.

Just a little friendly reminder...

Responding with venom and vitriol under any circumstances is not allowed, and the overall tone in a number of threads on Dumpshock the last week or so has gotten a bit nasty.

Remember to play nice and play friendly with your fellow Dumpshockers.

I've already figured out my solution to this problem anyways...

Seeing as I run the Table top Gaming department for a convention.. I'll just request all of them and try to fit in as many as I can.

Then I'll still have them for my home game... no sweat.

Hasbro also requires a far greater rate of return on sales. Where selling out 100,000 copies of DnD 3rd Ed was considered a minimal print run when Hasbro compared Wotc's DnD edition vs their other games divisions and games like Stratego, Risk, etc.

Hi, I know nothing and I'm no one of general importance, nope, Just nosy and opinionated. ((<--do to some reassuring pms Thanks guys hehe, I thought to point out that this comment was sarcasim))

yup,

and its my opinion that this thread might of gone a bit off the tracks and the tone all in all is considerably out of line again in my opinion, I mean, Their SRM missions, its not like the whole system hinges on how good they are, there an extra, And I say that knowing that I go to cons for soul reason to play them, But at the same time they have no effect on my enjoyment of the game, story, or anything even remotely, I have a weekly to bi weekly game with 5 people counting GM and it has nothing to do with these missions what so ever,

Ok so they are charging a few bucks for them, My god! Something they are making and putting a lot of effort into and they have the NERVE! To charge money? I mean let us some conmen sense here please, we are all adults and more then able to talk about this with reason and respect to all parties with out flying off the handle, the first mission isn't even out. Let hold judgment till we at least see what all the noise is about before we declare the horrors or joys of this event,

Any how, thats just me. Back to lurking I go. *puts to pennys in the jar*

With the six players and GM chipping in I'm confident in saying me and the crew I run with find an SRM session worth 72 cents per person.

[EDIT: I originally posted my circle had 100% turnout which at D*C 2008 stopped being 100%. /Sigh. I also said we had paid $4/ticket at Dragoncon for years and I was mistaken. It was.... awkward... having bought the tickets for the 11 sessions of SR gaming and honestly believing that at pay-up time they cost $4 each it took one receipt and one very embarrassed Wasabi to realize what I had posted was wrong. Apologies.]

I have no problem, in principle, paying for the scenarios. The main drawback from my perspective is inconvenience - it's nice just to click on a link and download a free PDF without having to go through the hassle of entering card info or clicking through paypal, then maybe waiting for some approval code to be emailed, then clicking through again, etc, etc.

My major concern is impact on the SRM player base. Historically, fee-based "living" campaigns haven't fared well (look at the Organized Play/Living City fiasco), and reducing the population of home-players will reduce the population of people playing at Cons... which leads to tables not making, table cancellations, and it just snowballs from there.

I predict what you'll see is a dramatically reduced player base for SRM-NYC; probably the fee thing will last a year, then go free again, just out of necessity.

As to comparisons with the WoTC/RPGA "free" Living campaigns - those too are fan-driven, fan-written, etc. At one time (years ago) authors were paid $100 for writing scenarios (an artifact of the time the RPGA sold mods), though I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case. Other Living campaigns - Heroes of Rokugan, for example - are purely fan-driven and free, or at best have "swag" for compensation.

Several of us here in Atlanta are planning on getting a weekly 1 or 2 table game going to vitalize the campaign here (we did it recently for Heroes of Rokugan, bringing Atlanta from a zero playerbase to 30+ and running about 2 tables weekly in less than a year) so we can sustain conventions, etc. We're all 30+ professionals who can afford to pay for scenarios without even thinking about it, but somehow it's just *irritating* to have to do so.

Inconvenience is very bad for "living" campaigns.

Anyway, we'll persevere through it, and I just hope it doesn't damage SRM too badly. It IS a fairly poor decision to charge for the scenarios though, in all honesty.

Phantastik

ps. In my efforts to do things "by the book" in terms of demoing in game stores, I hit two snags. First, nearly all of the game stores are gone now. Second, I applied for "Commando" status and never got any kind of reply from Catalyst. If you offer an infrastructure for demoing games, make sure the infrastructure actually works!

If you ran into a Commando problem, drop Dunner a line here or Paul Sjiardin on the Commando site. Depending on when you put in your application, there was a big hurdle as the commandos became Catalyst Demo Team members. It may have been sucked into the black hole of that mess. Now the site works and is fully operational.

As a bonus, running events in public forums earns you PDF credits for downloading sourcebooks. They don't have to be spent immediately if you already have the PDFs and want to get new ones as they are released. Those free PDFs are, of course, in addition to getting the Missions for the cost of running them once.

Well you need to support what you want more of.

It is no skin off my nose to see the writers and artist get a decent pay day for their work, so I'll be buying them.

The Denver campaign is a nice spring board and plenty large enough to get a new GM started.

Hopefully if they are getting some money for the New York Missions, they will take advantage of the electronic format (no printing cost) and expand them a little bit.

Just some extra text, maps, and illustrations would be great. The Denver missions were not skimpy so just a page or two or three would really add a lot.

I would like to see some of the maps (Warehouse, Bar Scene) set up to be printed off full size (perhaps with a grid, letting you tape them together for miniatures use).

Finally any news of the ETA for the first one being put up for download?

Any updates on a release date for New York Missions?

When they're ready.

Should be more word on this soon.

Yeah, basically what Caine said. A snag has been hit. Personally, I'd like to keep up the inertia that the campaign's been enjoying for a while now. We'll know more in a week or two, maybe less.

I understand your point of view. But from what I have seen now running SRM games for 3 years running at GenCON/Dragon*CON, the numbers of players is growing. Even this year under the new system. As for them going back to being free again, only time will tell.

have a good one..

Up until the NY missions came out in June, there weren't any for sale. The NYC missions are still not available anywhere.

When Denver missions people complete the arc and want to come play in NYC... they may balk at paying even $5/mission... that's where things will start to shrink... Everybody I sat with at Gencon had been doing missions as a home game... they may not like paying $5/mission to play them. Instead they may start puchasing that other 4th edition product that came out this year and play the free RPGA missions for it.

While I suppose some sort of migration is possible, I tend to doubt that would be the majority response to having to pay for SRM. Shadowrun, in my experience, tends to have a pretty loyal following.

More likely, I suspect people will either suck it up and pay, get off their butts and write their own material, or find "alternative methods" of acquiring the files.

Fortunately, my group has a long way to go before we have to make that decision (I think we're on teh 5th Denver mission ). However, judging from what my wife and I saw at Origins, I'm probably going to be writing my own material.

-paws

RPGA use to charge for membership for the longest time (from 1980 to 2002), and the cost was really high for several years. I don't remember the price but it was a lot more than $5.00 a month for an adventure for a year, and this was during a time when $5.00 had more value than it does now.

Seriously people if $5.00 is a problem than skip a meal at McDonalds for the month or instead of seeing a movie at the theater wait for it come out on DVD and rent it. Right now I am not doing well financially but I will be paying the $5.00 for the missions because they provide a few hours of reading and entertainment which is a lot of bang for the buck and possible some good laughs with friends.