The 6th World Almanac sounds amazing...too good to be true, even. Forty nations listed? I'd love to see it.

Attitude. That brings a tear to the eye to those of us old enough to remember Shadowbeat.

War. Cry havoc. I admire SR4 for having the nerve to go in a direction the game has never explored before.

Where do I put my money down?

QFT!

Grexul

Attitude sounds incredibly useful. I've never had a problem coming up with a role for my characters on the run; where I get into trouble is trying to imagine their day-to-day lives. Noir gets up in the morning after a successful job; the next run is a couple of weeks off, maybe as much as a month. What does he do in the meantime? Obviously he trains to keep himself sharp, but he's no obsessive-compulsive Batman. Where do runners go to blow off steam?

I've been getting the impression that War is a Campaign/metaplot book rather than a list of mechanics for heavy combat and military superweapons.

Maybe this is inaccurate though..

It sounds like both to me. Win/win.

So this face-&boobjob gone horribly wrong is the cover of Attitude?

It's not going to be what it could have been, unfortunately.


This is not Field of Fire. Or a campaign book. Hell, any metaplot involved is damn near circumstantial at this point.

The same thing that professional mercenaries / Military personel do now. They go perform extreme activities, go hunting, drink, go to exotic locations, read books and some visit family.

Well, what is it then? Another Arsenal with milspec gear, rules and a bit of "In AD 2072 war was beginning"?

There will be plot information, including history of the Amazonia-Aztlan conflict, the events that precipitated the starting of the shooting, and activities of the war to date. There will also be a lot of information about Bogota. So you'll get plot, setting, gear, and rules.

Jason H.

It's basically a Bogota book with some miltech rules in the back. Nominally it's set during the A-A conflict, but it isn't a campaign and you don't have any sort of timeline of events like you had with Ghost Cartels, Emergence, System Failure, etc. - at least there wasn't one when I looking at the drafts. Metaplot wise - well, let me just say that things have not turned out as planned. As in there was a plan and now there is not a plan.

So instead of an entire book covering military and mercenary work (a la Fields of Fire), or an entire book dedicated to Bogota (a la Seattle 2072), or an actual campaign (a la Ghost Cartels) you have...War. Which is about a third of FoF and the rest is Bogota.

I thought you were leaving forever and ever??? Whats wrong can't be honest even about being emo??? Or are you upset that the entire fanbase didnt fall to their knees begging you to stay because your so loved and adored??? I bet thats it.

If CGL keeps the license and Jason stays as developer, I'm done with the game. Which you would know if you read my original post. The reason is because he's pushing through books like War!, and because of the absolute shit plotline and writing that goes with it - because Jason doesn't comprehend SR, and Randall doesn't give three shits about SR, so he'll let Jason do it.

This smells like... Shadowland shit. Makes me nostalgic.

Real personalities, real conflict, all emo!

Reported.

Yep, it's the bad old days, all right....

What was it going to have been?

And that is what's so great about it!

OK, it's great for the guys watching the show...

I'm always nostalgic for Shadowland. It's too bad Dave is off quietly building Deus out of web code.

The original concept - and this is going back a ways - was a sort of CIA factbook for the Sixth World. One entry for every country (or in the case of collections of microstates, one entry for the whole kaboodle). Also supposed to be a coffee table book, a sort of intro to SR to bring new players up to speed - draw them in with the pretty maps and flags, hook 'em with the backstory, something like that. Forty countries...isn't quite what we hoped for. Like, say, Greece. That's not Jason's fault. It's another project he inherited. It just...could have been bigger, more comprehensive.

Thanks to everyone who reported this. We have taken the appropriate action.

Isn't this what the Sixth World Almanac is?

Hah! No. What did I just tell you about there only being 40 countries? That's like about a fourth of the actual number of countries in the Sixth World. It doesn't even cover the ones that the fans really want because we've never covered them in any detail, like Greece and the Ukraine. Fuck me, that's a riot. Don't even get me started on the timeline section, Jesus. Hah.

Do you know if Korea is covered?

I probably shouldn't go into great and loving detail about the book. If I start talking about Tassin and Helfers, I'm going to get mad. So ask Jason. Or wait for the inevitable preview with the table of contents.

Not this time around, unfortunately.

Jason H.

Well shucks. Still stuck in that SoA time warp.

Are there plans to ever see updating statuses for the non-40?

Not this second. But I'd say that ebook supplements are a distinct possibility.

Jason H.

I really really hope War! includes more hot spots than just Aztlan/Amizonia.

Also, rules for heavy military vehicles and ware. These have been sorely lacking in SR4.

...Cool? Not what I was hoping for, but could be worse, clearly.

I hope somewhere someone is drawing lines about what should be in books and what can be in PDF only. There should be some thought put in as to what a GM may want as handy reference and what is "fun" or "experimental" material.
Not that I doubt its happening, just a reminder.

BlueMax

Wow.

I'm really glad you're not a part of Shadowrun anymore.

Because I wanted to give you slightly more than a re-hash of old material? Or try to get a book to live up to its actual premise? Or work real hard to make sure the book is consistent with the rest of the game?

I gotta say that while I was really interested in the concept of the 6WA, the more I'm hearing about it the less interested I get. I'm at least conceptually more excited about the other two books coming down the pipe though. WAR! especially has sounded interesting even in what sounds like a dumbed down version because I was hoping more for gear and rules than campaign anyways.

... and that's a double...

I agree with you there. I would have much preferred if CGL took their damn time with the Almanac and cover everything. This is the last best chance that people have to see their specific country get covered. I don't know what CGL's finances look like right now and maybe they need the cash influx, but I really wish they would delay the almanac again to make it really great. I doubt the CBT side of things got good by pushing things out the door and I hope CGL has the presence of mind to make good long-term decisions.

The Almanac was going to be the length it is before the current difficulties--this was a decision made early last year, AFAIK (it was before I became developer). The Almanac will be full color, and that's pretty expensive--the longer it gets, the higher the cover price would have to be to cover expenses. At a certain point, the cover price gets a little higher than we can justify.

Jason H.

's a fair point. The Almanac's final form has nought to do with Jason. I just wish...well, I wish we'd gone with some of the other options. <shrug>

Well, thanks for the information. Having my assumptions blow up in my face helps maintain a proper degree of humility. That said: the rationale makes the decision more understandable, but I still don't like it. I'm willing to bet that a lot of potentially awesome setting locations will be consigned to coverage purgatory for the foreseeable future for lack of an update.

Must....have....those....BOOKS!

on a side, note, can anyone provide the catalog numbers & prices? I use a list in the below format so I can keep track:
{catalog no.} {title} {price}
like this;
26402 Dawn of the Artifacts 3: Darkest Hour $14.99

Thanks in advance.

Hardcover or softcover?

Master and Minion quality paper?(which is an awesome product from start to finish by the way)

Full color sounds awesome to me, I just hope it is the same quality of the recent Battletech books which I have enjoyed greatly.

Lessee

CAT26221 Corporate Guide $29.99
CAT26205 Sixth World Almanac $44.99
CAT26206 War! $29.99
CAT26103 Attitude $29.99

That's what I've got right now.

Jason H.

And we would all like you and your duplicate acounts to just go away.

Big ups to Jason for straight up letting us know what's coming down the pipe. All of the hints and guessing in this pessimistic atmosphere weren't really making me salivate.


As to those countries not covered in the Almanac, that's a shame, but there's plenty of talented writers around here who could make interesting 6th World Wiki entries for those forgotten countries, which players could then use for plot ideas. Just because something doesn't have that CANNON stamp, that doesn't make it not awesome/helpful.

I'd say the reason many people have issues with you is the fact that in half your posts you sound like a raving loon with a chip on his shoulder (first two here), and the other half you sound like a top notch writer (last two). A few deep breaths and a reread before posting will turn many of the former into the latter.

PS. Naught.
PPS. And why is that smiley upside down?

Edited since I was a bit harsher on AH than I needed to be (third quote was second and lumped into the Raving Loon category when it really should not have been).

I would definedly not categorize the second one into that first category. Becouse that was definedly the professeional writer in him talking, every book is always "it could have been so much more"

Okay, corrected.

-- As long as it gives a decent summary of the world situation in the "prime" countries I'll be happy. Searching for little country tidbits is getting just freakin' RIDICULOUS in Shadowrun (Tir Tairngire updates since SoNA is spread over like six books!). I'm amazed things stay fairly consistent

-- The focused epub sourcebooks sound interesting! What format would these be? 32 or 64pp?

How much of the extra cost for color is associated with development and how much with printing? I assume more of the latter than the former, but I can easily imagine color art and page formatting requiring way more time and money than black and white.