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Ok to be fair many settings do have a step back involved. Though honestly as often as not I think it's because they don't want to bother with all of that. Adding that detail takes extra time and money. Sometimes there is a reason for it (Battletech comes to mind) and sometimes there isn't.
Actually, it's because the settings work perfectly well without updates, and sometimes updates totally screw things up. Star Wars works perfectly well without midoclorians and Jar Jar Binks.
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I guess could you elaborate on why you think wireless talkie toasters and underoos with dynamic fit and temperature controls are a problem.
They are certainly doable with SR4 level technoloy, and people would certainly buy them if they were availible. Hence they would be made. They are part of SR4s vision of the future and this aspect comes off as self consistant and fun to boot.
The problem is that everyone got one within five years. After the Crash 2.0, new wireless standard would have to be developed, implemented, designed, manufactured, and marketed. That all takes time. So, we're looking at less than five years for total integration of every last item in your household. That's like saying that within five years, everyone will own an iPhone or clone, only more so.
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Wireless... When you look at shops nowadays, there's an RFID tag in just about everything more expensive, just under the prize tag. It doesn't mean that you got a computer in your underpants, just that it has a tiny transmitter that can give out something if asked for, like prize, size, washing program or whatever.
Not quite. RFID was a big idea for a while, and Wal-Mart was considering switching to an all-RFID model. However, they quietly abandoned the idea. The anti-theft tags you see in some stores and SR4 RFID tags are a totally different concept.
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First drones were already wireless and a toaster can be considered as one. And actually wireless matrix was already in SR3. It just wasn't good enough for decking and as nobody bothered with the Matrix outside decking, nobody bothered to think about the common uses of wireless Matrix.
The "Wireless Initiative" was in SR3, but it was far from ready. In fact, IIRC, it didn't appear until after SR4 started development.
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To the people talking about technomancers? Neither I, nor my GM see the need for a complete overhaul of them.
My GM has told us all, right at the start, how she saw technomancers, and how she interpreted the upgraded rules from unwired. We have found these to be fairly well balanced and fit into things fairly well.
The imbalance can be shown with the various character builds. You cannot have a starting TM who's as good at the matrix as a well-built decker. And with the fact they need tons of karma to raise their abilites, the other deckers will be getting better as well; raising basic skills and attributes while the TM is forced to raise their Resonance skills in order to keep up. And money factors in as well; deckers can always add/upgrade cyber for a quick boost to their abilites, while TM's cannot.
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A2 I don´t mind. It was cool when I was half my current age.
Oh, come on now; slang is part of what makes a setting cool. The new Battlestar Galatica wouldn't be nearly as fun if they hadn't added the word "frack!" Star Trek wouldn't be the same without the technobabble. Shadowrun just isn't the same without the shadowslang.
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B1 The wireless paradigm... you are free to have as many old devices in your game as you like. Disabling wireless is in the rules, wired connectivity is in the rules. If this point disturbs you, talk to your GM.
B2 I´d love to help, and I´m sure there are others. I´d rather talk about rules application than be part of the current complaining.
B3 No issue if your GM has a spine, no issue if your group doesn´t like PC death.
B1: You're actually not free to have as many old devices as you like. If the PC's come up with a plan that centers around a wi-fi attack, it'd be hideously unfair to spring an old device on them.
B2; The vehicle rules are a complete mess. There's actually two sets of vehicle combat rules, which are mutually incompatible, and don't do a good job of modeling situations that involve more than two vehicles, or mixed vehicle/pedestrian combat. There's also half a set of vehicle rules in the rigger section, which don't seem to fit either one perfectly well.
B3: It is if you're playing by the rules. Edge has a lot of issues with it; the "extra lives" thing is just one among many.
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C1 "Fantasy fluff": Diversity is king. Technical-inclined players will play hackers anyway. Balance-wise I have issues, too. Solveable issues.
C2 I´ll personally start from misunderstood semi-autonomous knowbots. As relevant to individual campaigns as IEs.
C3/C4 Ended plots and dead people after two decades - things change, things stay the same.
C5 Is not a valid complaint, because it can´t be addressed this way - too unspecific. I´ll also say that a good game depends on a good GM anyway.
C6 Flavour is IMO not a question of different rules. You need certain differences to be arbitrarily written in the rules? Should not be necessary, and will not really help if it is.
C1: As I said before, it's a game balance issue. What's the point of having an archetype, if no one wants to play them? You can't pass it off as a fluff issue.
C2: Yes, that does depend on the individual campaign, but what happens if a player decides to try to bring one into a game?
C3/4: Even in the past, when things changed or storylines ended, there were still things you could do with it. If you worked for Dunkelzahn before he died, you could switch over to working for one of his Watchers, or the Draco Foundation. SR4 didn't change or wrap up plotlines, it murdered them and burned the corpse.
C5: Oh, yes it is a valid complain. Just count how many times in the BBB it says something like: "Up to GM discretion." That means you're not just depending on having a good GM, you're depending on the GM having the same idea about the rules you do. The second half doesn't happen very often. Also, you're forgetting Shadowrun Missions. With the vast amount of GM fiat needed, you can't be sure that the same rule will be used the same way in a different SRM game, regardless of how good the GMs are.
C6: While I personally like the more unified magic system, it came at the expense of flavor. In SR1-3, shamans and hermetics each got about a page and a hlaf of fluff, describing the traditions. In SR4 they each get about a paragraph.
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Plus you get something else for the BP you don't put into edge. That something should be fairly significant.
It should be, but it isn't. I'm not allowed to get into it, but let's just say that it's possible to build a well-rounded character, with 20+ dice in a specialty pool, who also has an edge of 8.
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In the Missions games we play strict cannon rules and it works fine.
I played a lot of Missions games as well; and it all depends on the players agreeing to not use game-breaking combinations. I saw an Agent Smith army unleashed in a Missions game; it was ugly. Also, sometimes (fairly often, actually) the vast amount of "GM fiat" required by the rules means that certain things can end up being radically different between Missions GM's, even when they're both good at what they do.