Maybe the official announcement:



Lars

Catalyst Game Labs News Releases for 2010

Yep, I sure missed that.

Yeah you might have missed the link. It was hidden under Otakusensei's "Well fuck".

Anyway, sounds like good news for CGL. And IMHO, good news for Battletech & Shadowrun. You know, because I still don't believe people interested in making a quality AAA RPG product were lining up to throw the money needed to buy it.

Late Addendum:

These two posts amuse me.







Lehesu totally called that one. It seems to me from reading it that we're talking about the great big "license renewal" we've heard so much talk about. They're already running on an operational extension which the contract allows for, probably for the purpose of allowing things to run smoothly during contract negotiations, so going through all this negotiation for a short-term extension would be redundant. It's probably at least for a year minimum, and considering they've had the license for a while now, and it looks like it's going to be extended, it's likely to be for longer.

its in the pushdown sticky , yes? Or maybe not, as this time it is actually CGL news...

/me ducks
/me zigs
/me zags

BlueMax

Yeah yeah, I'm trying to update the Official Announcements, but its lagging for some reason...

There we go.

They're on probation now. Still, things are looking up for them. Well, so long as there are releases, I'm happy enough. I certainly can do without another three year gap as after FanPro's demise.

Jason and crew have a long way to go on making this good news for Shadowrun. I don't give a deputized unicorn shit about Battletech, but apparently it means a lot to the folks in charge at IMR. That's great, I just wish there were different people working on Shadowrun.

Oh, but there are.

*changes over to a bad wavering ghostly voice* WhOoOoOoOoOo... Catalyst is going to keep making Shadowrun with all the same old people in charge, they're going to do everything you hate, and 90% of gamers will like it and won't even have realized any dispute happened in the first place. WhOoOoOoOoOo...

Want a night light?

Yah, well...
...Most new SR players and Refs haven't had anything better, so they'll not know how good it was/could be >shrug<

Keeping the same people at the top is hardly a good recommendation for the future of the game.

Hopefully some of the anecdotes about Synner blocking stupid ideas from higher up the chain will catch Jason's notice... we can hope, right?

hope dies last.
innocence dies first.

From they way it reads, especially the quote from TOPPS, it sounds like they're keeping you guys on a short leash and looking over your shoulders to make sure you behave.

-M&P

I imagine that will be the case, which I think is a very good thing. The only way to rebuild the fanbases trust is if they know that there is some oversight to ensure these things don't happen again.

I'm speculating here, but I would imagine the new contract will have more specific controls spelled out in it, and possibly penalty clauses as well (I don't know if the prior contract did or not, but I imagine this one will). It will be interesting to see how the ownership and Loren L Coleman issues are resolved. I'm also curious as to how how the current and former freelancer communities will react.

-M&P

This one has a simple. There will be much gumbling, yelling, and dissention. Some will love it; others will hate it. Some people will get disgusted with the commentary, others will get popcorn and watch. Others will simply sit quietly on the sidelines.

In other words, they'll react just as they have all along.

Cute. Betting on most of the people who would pick up a book not knowing that the people who put it out are hacks and crooks is a solid bet financially. I just want something a bit more for Shadowrun.

Bah, compared to the leash that Herb and Jason have me on, CGL/IMR is on a space elevator.

*claps* Begun, the time of sour grapes has.

I'll try not to take either of those epithets personally.

Hey, when it's signed it's signed. It's not over until the fat lady sings!

Begun? Where have you been?

To be honest, that wasn't personal to you. I've liked your work up to now and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. That said, I think I stepped over the line there. My beef isn't with freelancers.

My problem specifically is with Jason and the general disregard I see toward Shadowrun. Maybe I'm asking too much, but I'm reading Spells and Chrome and I haven't had a single story yet that doesn't have a glaring typo. Stuff that someone would have caught if they had read it. That's pretty slapdash. Seattle 2072 had a damn typo on the back cover. But that's not even addressing his grasp of the material.

Because even more to the point is Jason's fiction. If his Shadowrun fiction is an indication of his understanding and commitment to the setting, I have to wonder what game he's playing. His piece in SR4A was uninteresting, convoluted and aside from some dropped refs it could have been set anywhere. His piece in Spells and Chrome is even worse. There is such a thing as too many twists; internal consistency breaks down and the reader is left holding the pieces. His characters were uninteresting, unlikeable and to my understanding unrealistic to the setting. Maybe the metagame at his table is different, but it seemed like a bad story to me. He's got a noir hang up that he neither needs to scratch on his own time or develop into something interesting and intrinsically Shadowrun. Magic Cyberpunk Noir is worse than crap, it's wishful thinking.

I think everyone needs to spend a few moments thinking before they post. Everyone has a personal connection to these events and a different perspective about what it means. Lets try not to troll (ahem, night lights and sour grapes) or hurl insults (hacks and crooks). The last thing we need is for this to blow up again, especially since all the speculation is nearing an end.

As an aside, this thread will respawn when it hits >725 posts (30 pages by default settings).

edit: errr... I guess that will be momentarily.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Please continue the discussion in CGL Speculation #9.

Thanks.