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augmentin
The first poll was CGL vs. the unknown. This is a follow up poll based on opinions voiced in other Dumpshock threads. I'm pretty sure this won't have any effect whatsoever on Topps' decision, but it's a fun exercise...
fazzamar
Oh God, not WotC.
Minchandre
I think Catalyst is doing a bang-up job, myself. In fact, the biggest problem, I'd say, is that it seems like many of the writers are themselves fans, which can inject biases.
Bull
I'm not touching this list except to note one thing...

Jordan Weisman already bought the Shadowrun proprty once from FASA. He didn't really do much with it beyond licensing it out to FanPro, then sold it (along with Wizkids) to Topps. Jordan is involved in two other copmanies right now, Smith & Tinker and Wells Entertainment, neither of which is a publishing company.

I would also note that Jordan is, or at least was, good friends with Randall and Loren, and has been for a long, long time.

His name keeps getting thrown around a lot by folks. So the above is just something to keep in mind.

Bull
OneTrikPony
And in a game with this much history, 20+ years IRL and 70 years in game, Writers who are not fans would inject massive amounts of bullshit, conflicting information, and setting contradictions.

Ever heard of Rifts? That game fucking SUCKS. Not for the crappy antiquated and incomplete game engiine but because so many writers have completely ignored or been unaware of what has come before. Rifts also has 20+ years of history and it's become a god damned train wreck there's no consistency major points of the setting get entirely screwed up from one sourcebook to the next. It's a fucking nightmare to GM or write for. And it's been under the "supervision" of the original designer Kevin Seimbeda for it's entire history.

Now think about shadowrun. Through 4 editions you have almost no setting conflicts, very little retconning(sp?) and only one slightly cumbersome setting upheavel in the transitin from Decking to Hacking and the WMI. That's an astounding feat considering how many owners and developers the setting has gone through. The realetivly smooth flow of the metaplot, setting locations, and major characters from edition to edition, from License to license, from developertodevelopertodeveloperto... is entirely due to the efforts of people--the freelancers-- who know their SR backward and forward.

This is why it terrifies me that JM Hardy might be scrambling for any monkey who can write prose to patch books together and pump out product. There has been a serious Brain Drain at CTG. And I know there are some good people left but I'm worried that the remaining SR knowledge is spread way too thin to maintain the quality of the past 20 years.

I have over 4 linear feet of SR material sitting on shelves cheek-by-jowel behind me right now. You can read straight through it all and never find a major conflict or contradiction and most of it is fairly good read. That happens when writers know their shit.

There are people who are good SR writers who will never work for catalyst. There are people who work for catalyst who are good SR writers. But those people who are working for catalyst could just as well work for Posthuman.

So Posthuman would be my vote. At least we'd get a known quantity with proven ability doing layout again. Maybe they'll take a shot at getting the IP next round after thisone. But that won't be any use if JM doesn't keep his eye on the prize and lets some hacks fuck things up.
Bull
QUOTE
This is why it terrifies me that JM Hardy might be scrambling for any monkey who can write prose to patch books together and pump out product. There has been a serious Brain Drain at CTG. And I know there are some good people left but I'm worried that the remaining SR knowledge is spread way too thin to maintain the quality of the past 20 years.


Couple of points here...

1) Not all the freelancers are new. Despite appearances, there's only been a couple active freelancers who have left. There are a number of others who are unhappy with things, but have said that is payment issues get straightened out, they would still write for Shadowrun.

2) Just because someone is new does not make them bad. Honestly, when Bobby first got involved? I thought "Jesus, their letting this kid uberfanboy write for the game? WHat kinda crack are they on??" Hell, Mel Odom didn't even know what Shadowrun was a couple months before he wrote his first Jack Skater novel, and I maintain that it's one of the most faithful books that relates the feeling of a team of average Shadowrunners.

3) They are scrambling, mainly because Bobby pulled his contract on material that was finished and was on the next track to being published. I don't blame Bobby for his choice, but it puts Jason in a bind. So he's working to get a new writer. I know exactly who and what Bobbby's referred to (which is the situation you're referring to, indirectly), and yes, the writer is new to Shadowrun. They are not new to writing, from my understanding. And whatever they do write will be proofed by people who know the world.

I'm not saying that Posthuman couldn't handle Shadowrun. Considering they're the core of FanPro US that took over from FASA, obviously they could. ANd they'd do a damn good job. But Adam has basically said flat out that they're scrambling to get the funding together so they can get back to producing their own game, Eclipse Phase. If CGL doesn't get the license renewed, they are definitely my first hope for the license, but considering how much the license is rumored to cost, I can't see them pulling it off without a LOT of outside help.

Bull
Delta
I think we can leave West End out of the poll, considering that Eric Gibson has already announced the selling of most properties of WEG yesterday, I think this much-kicked dog can finally rest in peace.
Grexul
I voted for CGL for continuity’s sake, although if I thought the Tom Dowd and his Columbia College graduate assistants were legitimate I would go with them in a heartbeat!
After that I would like to see either Posthuman or RedBrick get the license since their products convey a similar atmosphere or tone.
Piazo did a good job of picking up the D&D 3.x pieces with Pathfinder, but they were already producing material for that edition already.
WotC… no… just no.

Grexul
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Delta @ Apr 21 2010, 02:43 AM) *
I think we can leave West End out of the poll, considering that Eric Gibson has already announced the selling of most properties of WEG yesterday, I think this much-kicked dog can finally rest in peace.

Ooh. Maybe we'll get a rebirth of Torg.
Patrick Goodman
Oh, man, not this again....
Mesh
I voted for wotc to spread community warmth and fellowship.
Ascalaphus
Did CGL forgo renewal of the license then? The constant speculation threads were getting a bit too long to keep up with, but I'm curious if there's any real news.
Patrick Goodman
QUOTE (Ascalaphus @ Apr 21 2010, 06:36 AM) *
Did CGL forgo renewal of the license then? The constant speculation threads were getting a bit too long to keep up with, but I'm curious if there's any real news.

No, some people just appear to like spreading FUD.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (OneTrikPony @ Apr 21 2010, 02:47 AM) *
Now think about shadowrun. Through 4 editions you have almost no setting conflicts, very little retconning(sp?) and only one slightly cumbersome setting upheavel in the transitin from Decking to Hacking and the WMI. That's an astounding feat considering how many owners and developers the setting has gone through. The realetivly smooth flow of the metaplot, setting locations, and major characters from edition to edition, from License to license, from developertodevelopertodeveloperto... is entirely due to the efforts of people--the freelancers-- who know their SR backward and forward.

Someone has apparently forgotten the tendency of the USSR to blink in and out of existence.

~J
Bob Lord of Evil
I can answer the title question.

The company that deserves to publish Shadowrun is the one that has been granted the rights to do so. nuyen.gif
Patrick Goodman
QUOTE (Bob Lord of Evil @ Apr 21 2010, 07:50 AM) *
I can answer the title question.

The company that deserves to publish Shadowrun is the one that has been granted the rights to do so. nuyen.gif

QFT.
Doc Byte
RedBrick would be my favorite, considering they already do the 4th and 8th world.
Robineng
My favorite would be anyone who can keep up consistency with the previous editions and can keep up the same quality in publication as there has been.
Fuchs
If the quality is in the same ballpark I'd like to have a company that pays its debts and other obligations without being forced to hold the license.
Thanee
QUOTE (Bull @ Apr 21 2010, 08:38 AM) *
Jordan Weisman already bought the Shadowrun proprty once from FASA. He didn't really do much with it beyond licensing it out to FanPro, then sold it (along with Wizkids) to Topps. Jordan is involved in two other copmanies right now, Smith & Tinker and Wells Entertainment, neither of which is a publishing company.


AFAIK S&T got the FASA Interactive licenses from Microsoft...

The last thing I have in mind from Jordan Weisman was that tabletop... name eludes me. smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
LurkerOutThere
QUOTE (Doc Byte @ Apr 21 2010, 07:55 AM) *
RedBrick would be my favorite, considering they already do the 4th and 8th world.


Funny, they'd be my least favorite for just that reason.

I'll give my thoughts in orders of company based solely on my own experience with their products.

AEG - No, oh please god no. Do you like well produced well edited books that are internally consistant and mechanically play tested? Do you your company to give your RPG the resources it needs to succeed rather then just seeing it as a courtesy to fans while at the same time admonishing those fans to pick up the the latest revised copy of the main edition book which introduced on average 1 problem for every 2 corrected. Then two years after milking you for said book a new edition will be released. In short if you like all these things AEG is the publishing company for you but you also may need the railroad spike removed from your skull.

CGL - My preference, good quality certainly beats fanpro to death in a lot of areas, I like a lot of the direction they've taken the game in.

Mongoose - Lets be clear I like Mongoose, I've liked a lot of what they've done but they more then anyone in my mind they are a jack of many trades master of none organization. That's not to say I don't think they could handle it, just that their focus is bit spread out.

Piazo - Havn't read their stuff, can't comment

Posthuman - I'm still working through eclipse phase but PH basically suffers from association with fanpro for me. WHat didn't I like about fanpro's tenure? Well there's a few things but lets sum it up generally as Year of the Comet, what was one of the things that YOTC inflicted on the gameworld? Catgirls and other misc. furries. I'm 10 pages into EP and i've already hit my first furry, wonderfull.

Redbrick - Personally I've always felt Earthdawn was like the corpse that Shadowrun is chained to. I understand that others tastes differ but I'll just flat out state that it doesn't make any sense for all the sixth world's ruling powers to be holdovers from the fourth world, obviously this tends to color my perceptions of Redbrick.

SmithandTinker - As others have stated ST's got their hands very full and last I was aware were trying to get capital together for their electronic game related products.

Tom Dowd - Errrr sure I guess.

West End - Not familiar, can't comment

WoTC - I guess however i don't think SR would get the attention it deserves and the D20 Mechanic that everything WOTC makes is banged into will make the game clunk something fierce. Other then that I have little experience with them.
Drats
Like others here, my allegiance lies with the setting, and therefore with the freelancers, authors, and designers that have thus far done such a wonderful job of guiding it. Should the bulk of them continue (or resume) working with Catalyst once things iron themselves out, then Catalyst gets my vote. If not, I'd like to see the license to go whoever is best capable of assembling the greatest concentration of established SR talent under one roof (without gutting the game and turning it into a sanitized, 14-sourcebook-per-year commercial venture suitable for marketing to junior high kids, thank you very much WotC.)
Ancient History
QUOTE (Bull @ Apr 21 2010, 08:01 AM) *
Honestly, when Bobby first got involved? I thought "Jesus, their letting this kid uberfanboy write for the game? WHat kinda crack are they on??"

T'be completely honest, I thought the same thing. We can't all be Don Rosa.
Stahlseele
And yet, your stuff is awesome O.o
Also: AEG? @.@
Isn't that, like, a German Electronics Company? x.x
I say Pegasus Spiele. They do the german part of Shadowrun, simply have them expand to take over the english sector as well . .
TomDowd
I have graduate assistants??

Son of a....

:::goes off to find them and put their sorry asses to some good use:::

TD
Kazuhiro
I don't even know who these companies are, except for WotC. What would they have done that a mainstream shmuck like me would know?

EDIT: I know Paizo did Pathfinder, and Pathfinder is cool.
Penta
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Apr 21 2010, 09:14 AM) *
And yet, your stuff is awesome O.o
Also: AEG? @.@
Isn't that, like, a German Electronics Company? x.x
I say Pegasus Spiele. They do the german part of Shadowrun, simply have them expand to take over the english sector as well . .


Um, no. One thing the whole FanPro experience taught me as a fan is that a game line should properly, authoritatively exist in one language.

FanPro had the annoying as hell idea of forcing their customers to know both German and English to get the full SR storyline, the way I understood it.

IMHO, SR stuff should be English-only, or at least "English is the authoritative version".

Canon, too, should be the English line - not the stuff published in another language (which may or may not work with what's published in the line's native language).
---

Those are just my artistic/creative reasons why giving SR to a company across the Atlantic might be a bad idea.

Reality is, from a business perspective, it's also a bad idea.

Pegasus would basically have to set up a US subsidiary, like FanPro did.

Risks exactly what happened to FanPro. Out of sight, out of mind, after all.
Stahlseele
Well, over here in germany, English is a school subject like math or physics and the such.
Most everybody who went through school over here knows at least a modicum of english.
So FanPro basically forced people only to work with what they usually should allready know.
The english speaking people on the other hand did not really miss out on all that much i think.
Bob Lord of Evil
QUOTE (TomDowd @ Apr 21 2010, 02:44 PM) *
I have graduate assistants??

Son of a....

:::goes off to find them and put their sorry asses to some good use:::

TD


LMFAO!

Tom, I always loved your sense of humor! If I see you at GenCon I will buy you a beer or at the very least let you have a wee bit from my flask.

It has been said, "that I may be a wee bit of a drunk." biggrin.gif
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (TomDowd @ Apr 21 2010, 09:44 AM) *
:::goes off to find them and put their sorry asses to some good use:::

Whoa. Old school multi-colon action indicators. Haven't seen that in a while! Awesome.
Tycho
If you want to have all the SR Material today, you have to speak German, English and French wink.gif

cya
Tycho
Wesley Street
No "other" option?

Like BLOF mentioned, whoever ends up with the license is going to be whoever ponies up the dough. It could be an established publisher, it could be a start-up. But I too enjoy the speculation game. So my preference, if the license moves away from CGL, would be:

1) A publishing company with a bit of diversity in its line and a solid and established history of high-quality products.
2) A publishing company that has the skill and cash to convince Topps to actually part with the Shadowrun license. Be it through a big bag of money with a dollar sign on the side or a structured payment plan over time or whatever. Something kind of bugs me about a baseball/trading card company owning the rights to a pen and pencil game.
3) A publishing company with reasonable transparency in its production and finances.
4) A publishing company that continues the good work that has come before it.

If someone of influence lost their mind and through random circumstance I was given the choice to hand SR over to a new company, I'd be inclined to go with a publisher like Fantasy Flight Games. P&Ps aren't their bread and butter but they are one of the best table top game production houses currently unshackled to a larger corporation. They actually made Battlestar Galactica not only a playable table top game, it's actually good! That's some skill right there. And while I'm not a WH 40K fan, their P&P version of the game has some of the best production values I've ever seen.

PS: RIP WEG. Though it's long gone, in my heart, I will always love your Star Wars.
WinterScale
True enough. And really, us Americans miss out from being mono-lingual. I've dabbled in a couple of other languages, but never managed to get fluent in anything. Cause I'm a dirty backwoods american moron. smile.gif Yay Stereotype!
Penta
QUOTE (Tycho @ Apr 21 2010, 10:51 AM) *
If you want to have all the SR Material today, you have to speak German, English and French wink.gif

cya
Tycho


And probably other langauges, too.

See, in my case: It's not that I'm trying to be a redneck or something. It's that while I'm a damn good readerand writer in English, I don't have the skills to speak or read (or write) in multiple languages. I've tried learning foreign languages. Tried and failed.

That's most people, I suspect.

Add on to that that RPGs (especially one like Shadowrun) can sometimes produce drastically different results based upon the interpretation of a sentence, I'm not sure having things in multiple languages with equal authority is a good idea. We already have enough arguments with one language. Going back to having to know two languages to keep up with a game is a bit much.
augmentin
QUOTE (Bull @ Apr 21 2010, 01:38 AM) *
I'm not touching this list except to note one thing...

Jordan Weisman already bought the Shadowrun proprty once from FASA. He didn't really do much with it beyond licensing it out to FanPro, then sold it (along with Wizkids) to Topps. Jordan is involved in two other copmanies right now, Smith & Tinker and Wells Entertainment, neither of which is a publishing company.

I would also note that Jordan is, or at least was, good friends with Randall and Loren, and has been for a long, long time.

His name keeps getting thrown around a lot by folks. So the above is just something to keep in mind.

Bull


Didn't realize that. Very good to know. Glad I didn't vote yet...
Bull
A ouple things to add, since it was late and I was tired when I posted last night, so I should clarify...

1) Jordan, from what I know, does really love the Shadowrun universe (and Battletech). Rereading my post, it may have sounded like i thought he didn't care about it. That's not the case. He's just not currently creating publishing companies. He's got a computer gaming company (Which is currently doing Nanovor and partnering up with another company to produce a new Mechwarrior game), and is involved with Wells Entertainment, which is doing a miniatures game (Arcane Legions). He would have to either start up an entirely new company, or open up a new division in one of the current companies he's with, if he licensed Shadowrun from Topps.

Possible, but seems unlikely.

2) Lurker: Just as a note about YotC... FanPro cleaned it up and Published it, but it was about 95% produced by FASA, including the Catgirls and Furries. FASA had been a couple months away from publishing Year of the Comet when they closed down.

Bull
Shinobi Killfist
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Apr 21 2010, 09:08 AM) *
T'be completely honest, I thought the same thing. We can't all be Don Rosa.


Okay, you just won with the Don Rosa reference. IMO he is the best of the besties.
Ancient History
Don Rosa is the archetype for Promoted Fanboys. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck!
Shinobi Killfist
I've very slowly building up my Scrooge McDuck collection I prefer Rosa but Burks is a genius as well. The life and times is some of my favorite comics ever. I'm dumb enough to buy the comics they came from, the graphic novel, and then the special edition of the graphic novels.
Bull
Seriously? 3 votes each for WotC and Paizo? I guess there really is a market for D20 Shadowrun. wink.gif

And Life and Times is fantastic. I read over parts of it a while back. Some very fun stuff. I always kinda thought an RPG based in the world of Scrooge McDuck (With some of the 80's Disney Afternoon cartoons like Darkwing Duck and Tailspin mixed in) would be kind of fun, with the right group. smile.gif

Bull
TomDowd
QUOTE (Bull @ Apr 21 2010, 02:22 PM) *
...but it was about 95% produced by FASA, including the Catgirls and Furries...
:::facepalm:::

TD
Method
My thoughts exactly.
LurkerOutThere
QUOTE (TomDowd @ Apr 21 2010, 07:35 PM) *
:::facepalm:::

TD


Yep!

Bull: Really, i guess all these years i'd just splattered the not inconsiderable amount of hate I have for that book, much of which between Ghostwalker and Surge I felt was deserved, onto that outfit. Huh.
Bull
QUOTE (TomDowd @ Apr 21 2010, 09:35 PM) *
:::facepalm:::

TD


As someone who's name is in that book for both writing and concept design, I echo that facepalm. *sigh*

I take no responsibility for the Catgirls, and instead of SURGE, I wanted to bring "back" the Obsidimen and/or T'Skrang.

QUOTE ("Lurker")
Bull: Really, i guess all these years i'd just splattered the not inconsiderable amount of hate I have for that book, much of which between Ghostwalker and Surge I felt was deserved, onto that outfit. Huh.


I liked Ghostwalker, and am pretty happy with how he turned out (Not that I did any writing for him, just saying, I think he was a cool addition. Big-ass, old school feudal Dragon that initially isn't interested in playing games with the modern "lesser" races the way the other Dragons did).

Surge, well, see above. I've talked before about how SURGE started out as a smaller scale parallel to UGE and Goblinization. Some ideas were thrown around initially about simply having a second wave of Goblinization, bringing in "new" races (the "missing" ED races), and the idea of "Partial Goblinization" (aka, half-races. Half-trolls, half-orks, etc). The idea behind teh latter was what eventually morphed into Goblinization. The idea of someone only getting a few of the Awakened genes, so they might get just the Trolls dermal plates, but be human otherwise. Stuff like that. I think eventually it was deemed too limited, so they expanded it out into, well, what SURGE became.

Bull
Banaticus
Posthuman, Smith&Tinker -- who the heck are these people? What game systems have they already published, anything big name?
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Bull @ Apr 21 2010, 10:25 PM) *
I take no responsibility for the Catgirls, and instead of SURGE, I wanted to bring "back" the Obsidimen and/or T'Skrang.

I really don't see any reason why either of those races can't be reintroduced. The T'Skrang can easily be introduced through a new 'goblinization' event as the dormant genes finally express themselves courtesy of the increased mana levels, at which point they would begin reproducing normally. I mean, the SURGE rules already allow for a close approximation. But that doesn't really help that much if they're all considered sideshow freaks. I want to see them in large enough numbers to actually be considered a distinct metatype all their own.

The Obsidimen could have ended the 4th Age by making a deal with one or more of the Great Dragons, asking them to protect their Liferocks through the down cycle within their lairs in exchange for... well, all kinds of deals spring to mind. Greats like Dunkelzahn in particular would have jumped at the chance, I imagine, and with the whole will thing, I see all sorts of different possibilities of how it could be handled. Of course, I also recall hearing rumors that one or more of the freelancers wanted to reintroduce the Obsidimen as flesh form earth spirits. While that's certainly what they were, it just feels too awkward to me, and opens up for way too many other races simultaneously. I mean, if spirits of earth can do it, why can't all the other spirit types? And why would spirits of the earth have been the only ones to do it enough to count as a fairly common metatype?
Dread Moores
QUOTE (Banaticus @ Apr 21 2010, 11:51 PM) *
Posthuman, Smith&Tinker -- who the heck are these people? What game systems have they already published, anything big name?


Posthuman - the company with split ownership by these two utter unknown guys named Rob Boyle and Adam Jury (excuse me, as I realize there's a third owner out there, but I'm having a completely boneheaded moment and forgetting his/her name). They produce the super fantastic game called Eclipse Phase.

Smith and Tinker - As Bull mentioned above, Jordan Weisman's company that is currently producing the video game Nanovor and supposedly still looking to create a new Mechwarrior video game, along with some other things.
Banaticus
I imagine that the T'Skrang and Obsidimen would be difficult to bring back as they're technically part of the Earthdawn license which is now owned by some other company.
Adam
QUOTE (Banaticus @ Apr 22 2010, 12:51 AM) *
Posthuman, Smith&Tinker -- who the heck are these people? What game systems have they already published, anything big name?

Posthuman Studios is myself, Rob Boyle, and Brian Cross. We created Eclipse Phase -- www.eclipsephase.com -- and all three of us worked on Shadowrun to varying degrees from 1997 onwards.

Smith & Tinker is one of Jordan Weisman's new companies. Their primary project is Nanover -- www.nanovor.com -- and they've also done some transmedia books [such as JC Hutchkin's Personal Effects: Dark Art, which I also worked on.
Bull
QUOTE (Banaticus @ Apr 22 2010, 01:18 AM) *
I imagine that the T'Skrang and Obsidimen would be difficult to bring back as they're technically part of the Earthdawn license which is now owned by some other company.


At this point, yes, probably. It would depend on how the licenses were worded, but with the properties being owned by two separate entities now, I imagine that it wouldn't work without some wrangling.

It was totally doable back in the FASA days, and as I said, something that got talked about a bit during the YotC brainstorming. The T'Skrang we didn't delve into much, but the Obsidimen we talked about basically just having them "Wake up" from a dormant state, where until now they had appeared to be lifeless rocks. I actually thought that could make for some interesting storytelling, having one wake up in a Quarry right before a mining drill bit into him, and seeing the shattered remains of his friends around him...

Ahh well. smile.gif

Bull
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