I first want to say that the pool is not empty. I'll certainly miss those who have left, and I hope some of them will write for Shadwrin again, but there remains writing talent out there hard at work.

Second, if you want to break into the freelancer pool, the best way to do it is to get me a writing sample. You can PM me if you'd like to express your interest, and we'll go from there. What I look for in a writing sample is that it is interesting and has good energy. Shadowrun writing can be a lot of things, but it should never, ever be boring. Show me that you can be clear, get your point across (whatever it may be) and write interesting stuff, and we'll go from there!

Jason H.

So can somebody summarize who is or is not with CGL anymore?

I don't think so, yet. The situation seems...fluid.

My point wasn't that there was not going to be any commonalities between DoSW and System Failure but that there has been turnover before and will be again.

I knew I was forgetting someone, though I was mainly listing folks who were still freelancing for CGL in the last year or so. I knew you'd bowed out a while back, but wasn't sure when.

So there's a few of us fogey's around, but... we're a dwindling lot Dwindling faster now, even.



YOu know, I need to stop posting I'm apparently just an idiot

*sigh* All I know is this whole situation has had my ulcer and acid reflux flaring something fierce, and has given me a headache that's not gone away all week

Anyways, my point had been that while there was a few of us still around after all these years, that there is and always has been a pretty high turnover rate, for good or for ill.

Bull

Hi Adam,



Actually, while technically Carl Sargent had the job for a (very) short time, it's probably more accurate to leave him out of the game's history in terms of influence. I don't even remember if FASA published any SR products with Carl listed as the developer (Threats maybe?).


Take Care,

Lou Prosperi

Hey Lou

Carl actually developed Virtual Reality 2.0, and is credited under Developer as "Carl Sargent, w/ Mike Mulvihill".

From what I remember Mike telling me once, about 3/4 of the book was done under Carl when he was acting as Interim Developer while they were interiewing folks, and Mike just finihsed the project up when he got hired.

Bull

Yeah, I don't think it'll be really clear for another couple weeks yet who all is still "standing".

I can only speak for myself, I'm still here. I really despise the politics and the business side of the whole mess, honestly. I'm here because it's a game I love, it's a game I love to work on in any capacity, and it's something that I'd like to contribute to and hopefully make better. Anything else is gravy. I've been through 3 different owners, 3 different published, 4+ Line Developers, and I don't plan on going anywhere until they bury me. One way or another

Bull

Since we're on the topic, I submitted my paperwork back to Jennifer 20/7/2009 and never heard anything back....

- J.

So, do we have an official list of who left and who is still with CGL?

(EDIT: uh, ah, I lost the quote to which post I'm replying to. Ah, never mind).

This may be nitpicking, but not ALL Freelancers are leaving. I think the number of freelancers working for SR that was guesstimated here may be about right (a dozen or so). I think if I add up the freelancers who left I get ... uh ... about 1/4? Sure that is bad enough. But it ain't the end of the (6th) world one way or the other.

If we can trust in one thing than that CGL will do its utmost to solve the issue, and that paying the freelancers and getting an agreement with Topps will be their two prime concerns. Why? Because nothing else makes sense! And yes, 850.000$ is no small amount of cash, but I imagine any corp financially big enough that you can actually take 850.000$ WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING may not be THAT bad off.

And if "history" proves me a fool, than so be it. I am a dumb person. That's how I became a freelancer for RPG publishers in the first place

AAS

Just there is a slight difference between simple turnover and the whole thing going nuclear.

Yes, but as long as everyone is guessing the nuclear outfall with an oil gauge it MAY be a little bit early to call quits on CGL/SR.

Or there is nobody there in the accountants office.

The point is: All the freelancers still working with CGL will also work with a new company. All the freelancer that left will likely never work with CGL again (and i cannot blame them for doing so). So the best solution for SR is that CGL dies quick and makes the turnover to a new company as easy as possible...

cya
Tycho

No.

Who says that whoever gets the license has any interest in working with the former freelancers? Who says they're not going to gut the game and remake it in some horrible image. Before you say "No, who would do that?", stop and look at the Microsoft SR Video Game. The developers were well aware of the "real" Shadowrun game, they were well aware of the fact that the fans weren't going to like the changes. And they did it anyways.

THere's no guarantee anyone will even pick up the license. We don't know how much Topps is charging CGL, and we don't know what it's worth to anyone else. Someone might get it and redo it under their own rules set. Shadowrun D20. Shadowrun GURPS. Who knows. They could come up with a completely new system. They might reboot it. They might hack it apart and destroy everything that made it fun. They might decide to replace metahumans with Furries.

No, someone else buying it right away is not the best thing for the game. It has a very slim chance of being "The best thing for the game". It has a slightly bigger chance to be "A ok, that didn't entirely suck" thing for the game. And it has a good chance to become "Oh my god, what the frag did they do to Shadowrun??"

The best thing, honestly, is for CGL to clean up their mess, pay off the freelancers ASAP, and start getting their books out the door and new books written.

Bull

What Bull said.

Imagine, for a second, that Hasbro/WotC would buy SR (the license, yes, yes). AND turn it D20/4E. (It won't happen. But it makes my point clear)

Imagine, too, that any corp would buy SR. And than not do anything with it at all! Or just do a boardgame. That sucked. Or just hold the license so that no other corp gets it. Or that SR finally dies, so that the corps own game line gets a larger share of the market.

Imagine that the current license holder is owned by a known thief, that the freelancers haven't been paid and show no intention of being paid, that all your friends have left so you're stuck working mainly with a bunch of strangers that don't know the game, and that you don't like the direction that the line developer is trying to move the game in. I understand Bull's recalcitrance (The game must go on!), but honestly I think CGL has too many endemic problems to overcome, and at this point the ship probably deserves to sink.

ditto what bull and raben-aas said. CGL isn't the first company to have this issue and won't be the last. My 2 is let'em clean up the mess and see how the dice roll. Hopefully when its all over someone will have learned something and the game will go on.

I too will miss those who left. Hell, the wife said one time that I talk about Adam,Jen, AH and the crew more than her.(grin)

There are sure worse things than CGL keeping the SR license, but considering the events of the last days CGL keeping the license lies only slightly obove noone gets the license.

"Cleaning up the mess" involves consequences for the "co-owner" who "mingled" with the company's money. At least kick him out and if possible take legal actions against him. But following the PR release if you steal money at CGL its not such a big deal, you can still work there and do it again in the future. The people who felt, that there is something wrong with this that behaivor, seem to have left the company (which I totally understand). To make that clear: If your your boss steals money from the companys accounts, you dont say: "Sure, but he is now trying to put it back, so he is trying to fix the problem." This man is the problem himself.

Also according to some statements made here and in the other threads, the fee for the freelancers for about 50pages of text is about 1500$, so I can asume, that on sourcebook with the typical lengh will be about 5000$ of Freelancer fees. If CGL does not even have this ammount to pay for Vice, DotA, RW and the Sourcbooks currently in the pipeline, how should they even pay for the licence?

Too many good freelancers are allready lost and I hope they try to pull something of to get the license themself and found a new Gaming Studio. If they do, I will do my best to support them and I hope the rest of the community will do as well.

CGL is like a car manufacturer that does not pay his supliers but want to sell cars. The Freelancer can survive without CGL (since most of them work for a living and write for SR by passion), but CGL can not survive without freelancers.

The ones that left since Peter was forced to leave CGL were frankly the foundation of SR4 writing. If they do not come back, SR will not be the same game...

cya
Tycho

Slightly OT-but as an example: One of my favorite table top minis game (Warzone, the Mutant Chronicles IP) got picked up by Fantasy Flight Games (originally Target games-then a smaller US based company). They basically dropped warzone (pweter minis) and started a whole new line of prepainted plastic minis in a different scale (35mm). One of the biggest disappointments ever as they did not even try to incorporate the old models and scrapped my favorite faction (Cybertronic).

I'm cross-posting this from the Future of Shadowrun thread, since the two threads have a distinct overlap:

So I see at least two ways this could continue. One is to go down the path where we try to characterize the freelancers who continue to work on Shadowrun. Are they knowledgeable enough? Skilled enough? Love Shadowrun enough? Love [x] style of Shadowrun as much as I do? And we could go back and forth on that a while.

Or we could decide that the only accurate way to judge the future of Shadowrun is to base our theories on reality instead of competing characterizations of people whom we may not know. So we stick to three main criteria:

1) Does Catalyst still have the license to publish Shadowrun books?
2) Are books coming out?
3) Do I like the books that are coming out?

I know it's not as immediately gratifying as speculation, but that's the only way we we'll know if Shadowrun has a future at CGL. I have my opinion about the freelancers I'm working with, and I'm very excited about the text they've turned in. And our art director loves Shadowrun and is doing awesome work. But I don't expect anyone to take my word on those points. Watch what comes out, see if you like it, and then you can better decide if Shadowrun and CGL have a future together.

Do I expect everyone on Dumpshock to like what will be coming out? No, but then I can't remember any product ever than met with unified praise across all of Dumpshockia. Indeed, if Dumpshock ever unites in praise of anything, I believe the Seventh Seal will open, and many of us will be sitting around wondering why all those nice people we used to know have suddenly disappeared.

Throughout the past seven months, including the previous eight days, I've been working to produce quality products for Shadowrun. That work hasn't stopped. And as I said, those products are the best indicators we'll have of Shadowrun's future.

Jason H.

What Jason said. Especially the bit about the Art Director of SR doing an awesome job (and this I DO know by 1st hand experience).

(BTW: LOL about the seventh seal. )

For the time being yes, after Mai: Who knows?

Seems to me, that at the moment it is more like "books are disapearing from the stores" and it has been a while since the last book.

sure, but all the books out there (or not any more as for Vice, RW and DotA) have Peter's name under development and many freelancer, who just left under writing.

cya
Tycho

Topps is stealing?

The last book, Vice, had a street date of February 23rd. So it wasn't that long ago, and I know people in Catalyst are working to get it back on the streets as soon as possible.

Jason H.

Presumably CGL's accounting practices have been updated, to use the language of the press release, which would include changing things so that no one owner can do this again.

I think you're also perceiving problems that might exist in the handling of Shadowrun and believing they exist throughout the company. As I said previously, Battletech, which is probably the core brand and money maker at CGL, is still very strong, and aside from being under the same owner, is not having the same public issues as Shadowrun at the moment.

So this begs the question. What is the direction you see the current line moving into? And if you had your say what direction would you prefer it move in?

No one here, that's for sure. The theory of Topps taking the license elsewhere is a question of anyone making a better offer until May/June. And chances for this are rather slim. This is not a question of ANY other offer, but a BETTER offer. Now think hard: Given the fact that the SR brand has some value, who is there to make that offer?

If the hypothetical 3rd party has great freelancers on board and SR enthusiasts in their team, in all likelihood they don't have the creds to make an offer big enough for Topps to risk losing brand value in "giving the new kids a shot".

If the hypothetical 3rd party HAS the money to make a better offer, in all likelihood they are a giant like Microsoft, who says "aw what the heck, I buy the rest of that brand anyway and make a TCG or browser app out of it".

Seriously: The best hope (and bet) for SR is to stay with CGL.

AAS

And burning bridges is always a good idea...

'Known Thief' You know something we don't?

That your 'friends' left is your problem. There are hordes of folks that know a lot about the setting and would jump at the chance to write for it, where the heck do you think they got you from? I really didn't like the direction SR 4e went, that doesn't mean it's publisher should crash and burn or the folks that made it that way should be treated badly in public fora. Say weren't you part of the 'team' that worked on SR 4e...

What do you want? Street Samurai: Dark Ally's, a clicky version or boardgame of Shadowrun? It might be nice if it was in addition of the books, but what if it was instead of. Or another couple of years with no new books, like when FASA went belly up and FanPro eventually took over. And just because CGL went down (or doesn't get the license extension), doesn't mean someone else will pick up the license. As I mentioned somewhere else, AEG lost the Stargate SG-1 license, there still isn't a new SG game after years. While Stargate SG-1 might be a television license, SR has multiple computer games to it's name and many novels, that isn't a crappy little license.

edit: Just noticed the moderator post. Have redacted to avoid further thread-jacking.

No matter what language Randall Bills or Jason Hardy or anyone at CGL chooses to dress it up in, the very basic assertion is that there was corruption at the very top. While they may say that steps have or are being taken to address that, it is very clear that no one has lost their job over this, which at minimum would be the appropriate consequence for their actions. Several employees of the company have left because of their personal ethics over this issue. Most freelancers, who have not been paid, are rightly upset not only a the "financial mismanagement" but by the apparent acceptance and lack of action taken by other senior members of the company.

So yeah, I don't feel that I'm wrong to call Loren Coleman a thief. That's my opinion from my understanding of the facts, and nothing the company has posted so far has corrected that view. I believe that the correct course of action would have been, at the very least, to remove him from the company, not keep him on as president. Instead, CGL has attempted to whitewash a situation which has been getting steadily worse for freelancers and fans, which I see as dishonest. I personally feel that Jason Hardy was dishonest in some of his statements to the freelancers, and this directly led to my termination of contracts with IMR/CGL.

Yes, I'm bitter. I never particularly cared for Jason Hardy as a line developer and this probably biased me against many of the statements he has made. Yes, these are my opinions, I do not have all the facts, and I could well be wrong. I have no proof to back up my convictions, only the information that has come trickling through the freelancer rumormill. However, I have greater faith in the integrity of those people that have left CGL's employ than those who remain, and even based only on the public statements CGL has made, I do not feel that CGL has taken the correct actions. I think the company is essentially done for, or should be barring a miracle, and that all the efforts at public ass-covering are only making the ending more confusing, drawn-out, and painful for everyone.

So, that's my 0.02 on the subject.

Three Strikes and you're out!

Careful analysis of past performance provokes interesting thoughts.

Shadowrun survived that once, it'd survive it again I wager.


P.S. Some fans/writers *cough*Jong*cough* enjoyed it I might add.

Ents for SR5!

Vampires and werewolves are the current big thing, so think major HMHVV breakout, turning most everyone in the sixth world!

OK. Vampire Ents for SR5!

http://rabenwelten.files.wordpress.com/201...byaas.jpg?w=455

crap when you cant tell if its AH or FT thats posting, its time to grab the bag and leave town...

I want to add my voice to the chorus of folks who still support Catalyst. Catalyst has proven that they can handle Shadowrun with the respect, care and the attention that it deserves. The anniversary edition is evidence of that. That in itself, for me, gives me reason to feel that Catalyst deserves a second chance. I don't think any other gaming company would be able to put out that quality of product any time in the near future. And true, good people have left Catalyst; people that were responsible for Catalyst's success. And that is a damn shame. I deeply respected the people that left. But at the same time, I have faith that Catalyst will find good people to continue the work that they started, and will not have to start over from scratch like another gaming company would. I have faith that new freelancers that are brought in will treat the property with respect, and will rejuvenate the line with new ideas (whether or not those ideas will be good in the long run should be left for the dumpshock folks to debate ). That is my opinion on the matter.

I'm not going to pretend to know what's best for Shadowrun's future. I don't think anyone can really know that at this stage, including CGL staff. Fortunately, since my personal fallout with CGL was over a year ago, I'm a bit detached from the current drama. I don't know the whole truth of what is going on with Loren Coleman and CGL's finances. What I do know is that CGL was treating freelancers poorly long before that. And while I'm certain there will always be freelancers to fill the vacancies, that doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the game. But that's for the fans to decide, not anyone else. If it turns out to be worse for the game, sales will decline.

I am just sad that Shadowrun has lost a lot of great talent and that new freelancers are telling me they are running into the same disappointments that I faced a long time ago. It just shouldn't be that way.

QFT. I'm trying to move Shadowrun forward, but I know plenty of mistakes have been made that shouldn't have happened. However, I should point out that I wouldn't be still trying to move forward if I did not think people were working to address those mistakes.

Jason H.

ummmmmmmm

Yes! Lets move SR forward. With VAMPIRE ENTS!
(Sorry, its getting late here, and I'm headed for home)

AAS

I'm new to posting on this forum but have lurked for quite some time.

In a prior life, I helped several local (and rather large) publishing companies deal with "distressed" acquisitions. CGL would fit in such a category.

Here is how it would work:

The new owners would approach Topps first and negotiate the new license agreement. Topps and the new company would approach CGL and basically offer to buy them out. If CGL refused, Topps would not extend the license, or Topps would terminate it for cause (embezzlement and "going concerns" issues would usually be grounds, but I have not read the terms of the CGL/Topps license). I imagine the continued activities on the parts of the CGL staff to produce books is directly related to wanting to keep the license.

Once the new company had CGL, they would fire all the management they did not like or want to keep (this was often my job, and generally, people like me are ruthless fraggers), they would pay all the outstanding bills, and, in this case, if criminal charges were warranted, they would see what they could do about those. To the public, CGL still exists, just a new management team.

Over the course of a year, the brand would change to the new owners, and life would go on.

Why someone would do this, specifically in publishing is very simple, money. CGL obviously made money, and if a larger publishing company, especially one that was used to publishing multiple book formats and had both digital and print facilities, were interested, the cost of printing would go down, which means margins would go up.

One of the people I used to work with made the point that he was still kicking himself for not having bought other firms when they were available, and he likes Shadowrun.

Do I know if anything like this is going to happen? No. Will I be talking to my friends to see if they have any thoughts? Absolutely.

Bottom line - if CGL rights their ship, pays the freelancers, and produces products that the fan base like and buy, they will survive. Even some of the old timers may come back. If they don't, then there is no telling what will happen. In an ideal world, someone buys it up and things keep moving, but there are no promises. Our best hope is that CGL clean up their mess and earns back the trust of the community.

Would labeling anybody Excommunicate Traitoris be going to far?

I would say thats true now that the Cthuhlutech guys are talking about taking CGL to court over non-payment and breaking a cease and desist agreement they had back in January. Its not just Shadowrun that has problems.

Do you have a source for that, can't find anything on the Cthuhlutech forums.

Where did you get that info? Over the weekend WildFire had a very 'wait and see' attitude.

Or is this conflating the partially incorrect ICV2 news item that CGL responded to and ICV2 ended up pulling?

Edit: And has since been reposed with more correct information and CGL's response to the original, "there has been no halt to sales of any Cthulhu Tech products."

Begins to make you think that Frank was right all along, eh?

Already in SR4: Plant-Blood-Spirit.

CthulhuTech says: