I Think we allready had this discussion on Page 4
(Jul 29 2010, 09:55 AM )
When everybody considers D&D as the Game that causes Cancer and asociates 3.5 with D&D (and
henceforth a Game that causes Cancer) than the Asociation with 4.5 as a Game that causes Cancer also.
But Its not for me to say that. The Devs should speak out, but they didnt back than end of July so I don't really care anymore
(and whats rather Ironic is that I like D&D 3.5 (not D&D4)which we are going to Play in ca 1 Hour and I seem to be very much alone here with that impression that Caine calling SR4A something like 4.5 is meant with said negative undertone)

with a final Dance
Medicineman

Seems like it depends very much on the context, if I regard Cain's usage of SR4.5 as having a negative undertone or not.

And I'll try to focus on sth else
It's of no use "loose some Nerve"(German saying) to something like that

HokaHey
medicineman

Take a look at my sig for a difference in facts and opinion.


Waving a magic fairy wand is a bad ending, which may or may not be worse than no ending at all. The effects of SF's storykilling are naturally felt by the beckstory, since they were tacked onto it rather than a natural evolution.


Dankwalther was just hitting his stride when he was hit by an orbiting cow. You get a lot of pointless name changes and an excuse to tack a wireless network onto the world that the designers were going to shoehorn in anyway. Now, I have no trouble with the wireless network in concept; I would have loved ten years of runs as shadowrunners vie to protect/sabotage the new, nascent matrix. But just tacking it on seems very poorly thought out, and it shows in the beta-test feel of many of the matrix rules.


But that's the point. Another major plotline got the shaft. Another magical fairy wand was waved, and left people shouting "That was it?!" As far as Pax goes, every plotline to do with Otaku got the great big purple shaft, in favor an an Awakened replacement with the ability of US1 to broadcast radio signals with his brain.

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.

No, I think you should keep going on, because to me all it seems like you're just bitching about things. I think you're wrong, and I'm not afraid to say it.

Well, you can consider him wrong, but I think the rest of us realize you don't know very much about good writing and/or storytelling. /shrug


Too much of 4e feels like that. The hand waving or magic wand waving at different concepts. The wireless Matrix is by far the worst of it, because it doesn't even make any sense how it supposedly came to be. I don't care as much about the other story lines because they were irrelevant to the bigger picture world of Shadowrun, but that doesn't make the way they were handled feel any less amateur.

Excuse me? I didn't insult Caine, I didn't question his storytelling or writing ability. I just thought he was wrong. That's all Kruger. I think that was completely uncalled for.

Perhaps you simply used weaker language, but in the end, you chose to tell him he was "wrong" as opposed to saying that you "disagree". That's pretty straight up. I was just less evasive and more direct and specific about telling you I thought you were wrong.

don't worry, most of us in here are not as sensitive any more . . you just have to know who to look out for, and otherwise don't curse too much, especially not at people, then you can basically be as asinine or sarcastic as you like and you will fit right in with the rest of us . .

and because of a ninja edit, this is now completely out of context and impossible to understand @.@

Yeah, I felt that dripping sarcasm was perhaps not the best tactic for this forum. I'm far too used to telling people how things are. That's the Marine Corps for you. It does things to your concern for peoples' feelings. You civilians place so much importance on external positive reinforcement sometimes.

No, you took it as I was insulting his writing ability. I think you can soak your head frankly, Kruger. This isn't being over-sensitive, but you had to go for the jugular when Caine hadn't even reported if he took offense or not.

This is where I choose to respectfully disagree, but completely and totally support your right to have your opinion.


I am confident you can pretty easily guess how pained this rebuke leaves me.

All right, since you wish to act that way... I respect your opinion, though I disagree with it as it pertains to the actual topic, that of the System Failure handling of the end of 3e. I will retract "I think you're wrong" to Caine if he finds fault on it. As to your opinion of me, Kruger, I think you can go to hell.

This thread is dangerously close to getting closed down. The personal attacks & baiting are driving towards a brewing flame war. Some of you are also on the brink of suspension.

What I dislike the most in 4e is the sudden switch from cyberdeck technology to mass product commlinks. Cyberdecks used parts of your brain to work so fast. Now we have ultra small commlinks that apparently have more power then a human brain. I dont know, but somehow I dont like the idea that of that, it feels illogical and took some part of the fluff too.

It's easy to dismiss counterarguments as "bitching", but I think there's room for logical debate on the topic. You made your points, I countered them. Do you have counterpoints of your own for my arguments?

@Kruger
The wireless Matrix is by far the worst of it, because it doesn't even make any sense how it supposedly came to be.
The Wireless Matrix has been around in SR3 it was only in the Background.
in SR4(A) it just lept on the "Frontstage" (thats the right Word ?)

with just a Jump to the left
Medicineman

Um, no.

The "Wireless Matrix Initiative" was mentioned about three times in various books, but it didn't actually exist. It wasn't in the background, it wasn't even hiding behind the curtains. It went from theory to full-fledged worldwide implementation in less than ten years.

If i remember right there was a lot of wireless even in SR3... but not really that good for hackers. It limited upload/download and your initiative like hell. And nobody would use it because it wasn't secure (just like in SR4). BUT if you were in the desert/rainforest you needed your satelite uplink just the same as in SR4.

As far I know a satlink connection aint the same like a wifi connection. Just my 2 cents.

I'm fairly certain that the Sprawl Survival Guide mentions the Wireless world. (f.E. Wireless payment with Credsticks, Wireless funcions of the Pocket secretary,etc)
It was allready there ,but hardly anybody used it.

BUT if you were in the desert/rainforest you needed your satelite uplink just the same as in SR4.
exactly one more Point
Enter the Matrix via Satelite --> Via Wireless

HokaHey
Medicineman

Before going too much offtopic, a wifi connection aint the same like a satellite uplink. Getting online wireless requires a network access device - in other words a commlink - which then connects thru a router - earth-bound access point - into the matrix. Try getting wirless online on the top of a mountain, nah, wont work cause your commlink wont find an access point. A satellite uplink connects your device thru a satellite with a server. The drawback is that a satellite uplink is slower than wireless broadband cause data must travel greater distances to satellites.

Again, a wirless payment with a credstick aint the same like a wirless matrix connection with a commlink. Based on creditcards, a credstick uses another wireless protocol. It is "wireless" but on a diffrent basis. Therefore saying that back in previous editons wirless elements was used already, does not explain where this technology boost comes from.

You know Cain, I honestly hadn't really noticed that before. I mean, I noticed that the transition to SR4 was rough. System Shutdown was basically 'a virus destroys everything, new world'. The book was technically well written, but the actual plot change makes it easily my least favorite SR book I've ever read (especially when combined with the untenability of the premise). But I figured it was just a bitter pill for a new edition. I had completely forgotten how SR2 transitioned to SR3, with a few characters growing older, plot lines like Bug City getting wrapped up while still being threats, characters carrying over and so on. Really, there was no 'transition' from SR2 to SR3 at all, because everything was so smooth. An extra book or two to address those plot holes and transitions might have really won me over to SR4.

I have to agree with the abruptness of the edition change. It was the first time that an SR edition had ended so abruptly and it was done with a jackhammer instead of a paintbrush. UMT and VCRs were another two that pissed me off. In the span of 5 years we suddenly have every single Awakened on the planet adopting UMT without bating an eyelash. Sure UMT was hinted at but it is almost up there with calling a symposium of physicists today, telling them all that Aristotle was wrong and Plato was right, and that they all have to change the way they are doing things in the next 5 years. You also had all these Riggers who used to be unrivaled gods in their vehicles suddenly being chumps with a 2-5 essence hole for no extra benefit. No clarification for either one or exposition on how the affected people coped with the change. Oh, and also that they PHYSICALLY CANNOT GO BACK TO DOING THINGS THE WAY THEY USED TO NO MATTER WHAT.

Please remember that the UMT is still only a Theory, and nothing more... Mechanically, the Traditions were streamlined so that everything used the same mechanic, but if you are still using the flavor from previous editions, arguments will still crop up about the nature of magic, regardless of UMT. Yes, now spirits work a bit differently, but that can also be explained away by the rise in Mana Levels.

As for Riggers... you convert the technology from 3rd to 4th and they are still gods in vehicles... VCR becomes Wired 1, 2, or 3 and then they add Simsense Boosters and Acceleration... Pretty easy in my mind.

Every once in a while, technology takes great strides forward, while other technology stagnates and dies... 4th Edition is the result of that paradigm shift...

Anyways...

There is a fair bit of wireless/augmented reality in the SR3 matrix book. pgs 18, 19, 33, 34, 44, 46, etc. So you have maybe one page in ten dealing with something 4e ish. Its certainly not the main topic (which is why is forgotten) but it is there.

So, we can establish that the Wireless matrix not only existed in 2065, but it was in Beta. I'm not surprised that the tech went from Beta to implementation in only a few years. That's sort of what tech does.

Five years are enough to establish a technology with massive user benefits...

Edit: I didn´t read Matsci´s post before posting.

Well, your arguments are sorta the same though, Cain. "It's all just a fairy wand waving things away."

Is it? One could argue that they've been setting things up for a while with this- the escape of Deus into The Network, the slow ramping up of Winternight, Dankwalther's activities in picking apart Gunderson and then looking at Novatech. They'd been in the fiction for about 5-6 years now and now they could have effect on the backstory instead of just being out there and doing nothing, much like the Great Probe Race. I might agree that they tweaked otaku a bit much, but I think they balanced them. They were often way overpowerful, and even with the Fading it was still a pain to run them. There's not really much difference between otaku and technomancers though, as ostensibly they're still powerful hackers that don't need cyber in order to get into the Matrix and affect it.

And to be honest? I'm still of the idea that it's better than how major things got solved in the past. The UB got taken down off-book. Bug City ended off-book. Renraku ended off-book. Granted, they were huge events that the players theoretically didn't have a chance to effect much but I always felt that them dumping big plotlines like that off book was much more abrupt than SF. At least in SF you actually saw plotlines wrapping up instead of picking up a random book and going "Oh, really, Ares just bugbomed Chicago? That's it?"

Mind you, I'm not knocking the idea of wireless Matrix access. It only makes sense. It was the implementation that was shitty. In the span of five years, the Matrix changes in a revolutionary manner . So much so that it doesn't even remotely resemble anything it was before. None of it makes sense either. They took the entire premise of Deckers using their brains to achieve incredible integration with the Matrix and replaced it with beefed up smart phones which somehow can do the same thing.

Realizing a wireless implementation of the Matrix only makes sense. Of course there is going to be WiFi in the future. But instead of weaving in the wireless Matrix into the existing scheme, it completely supplanted the existing technology. I mean, I understand we're dealing with game designers and not network engineers and economists, but this is common sense kind of stuff here. It really seemed like with 4e the designers wanted to have their own version of Shadowrun, and not move the game forward. Like it has been suggested, a clean slate or game reboot would have been more palatable than some kind of half-assed near-total concept shift with all the subtlety of a tractor trailer crashing into a building.

But we're not even talking about whether the changes were fluff supported from 3e. FASA certainly wasn't known for their flawless world sculpting (wait, why all of a sudden do Elves remember their old language and form a fairy land in Oregon? And they live to be hundreds of years old like D&D elves do?). But with their story lines progress was slow and continuous. Really, Crash 2.0 remains the crux. It's so patently absurd that it defies all logic. And you wonder if nobody in the writing process didn't suddenly say "Um, wait. This doesn't make any sense. The whole world's economy and infrastructure is based on, and controlled by, the Matrix. If we suddenly crash the whole thing, it will essentially mean the collapse of all modern society. Not to mention the fact that a system this essential and integrated would have to have endless fail-safes and a decentralized structure to prevent such a thing... uh guys?" This is George Lucas style writing here folks. All SR4 needed was Jar Jar Binks.

There were certainly changes that needed to be made to "modernize" the world of Shadowrun. I like a lot of the changes actually. But when you remove the uniqueness of things, you lose a lot of the flavor. The changes to magic and the dissolution of Shamanic paths vs Hermetics took what were once cool and unique characters and made them generic. They turned the Matrix into the Wii, and took decking away from deckers. Like I mentioned in the thread about creating the ideal team, when everything in Shadowrun can be accomplished by a team of all mages, it starts ceasing to be Shadowrun.

I love commlinks to bits. Cyberdecks were actually very anachronistic and illogical pieces of gear. I'm sure that, by now, all of us have heard of how William Gibson didn't actually know anything about computers when he wrote Neuromancer . Cyberdecks hail from that mythical time known as The Eighties, when 32KB of RAM was a lot and windows were something you only found on buildings. The very idea of a computer which was "only" the size of a keyboard but could (gasp!) display 3D graphics and connect to networks, and run as many as five programs at the same time seemed like, well, science fiction. Even in the far-off future of 2050, such a thing would certainly be a highly specialized piece of gear and cost from tens of thousands to millions of dollars!

That's the same line of thinking that got you cellphones which cost thousands of nuyen, weighted 5 pounds, and did absolutely nothing but handle voice calls with spotty coverage. Shadowbeat had you spend enormous amounts of cash on specialized hardware mixers if you wanted to do sound editing on your home, because it was "obvious" that no computer would be up to the task!

While I'm sure SR's information technology looked impressive in 1989 and 1992 (which was early enough in its decade to still be part of the Eighties...), it was starting to look a bit dated by the time SR3 rolled around. Today, well, that's all fine and dandy if you want to play in a retrotech setting, harking back to The Eighties the same way steampunk fashion recalls a similarly mythical Victorian era, but I guess the people who wrote SR4 didn't actually want to publish a retrotech setting, so they decided to update it a little. However, they didn't actually want to throw out the retrotech-soaked backstory of the previous editions, so they had to come up with a few radical events to allow for a radical update of technology.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to say commlinks and wireless networks have always been around, rather than have Crash 2.0 be the point where everything changed. Not because I don't like the idea of Crash 2.0, but because cyberdecks are goofy .

I always thought of cyberdeck as what is today a netbook (ie an incredibly small laptop). I cant easily set up routers, servers, and printers via iphone but I can via netbook and a couple usb adapters.

SR1-3 also had the concept of "normal" computers, which were probably closer to what people thought of as computers in The Eighties. They came in "desktop", "laptop", and "wrist" flavors, and were rated for their memory capacity, but couldn't actually do much other than store data. I don't think they even connected to the Matrix by default, in earlier editions. A wrist computer would probably be the closest it got to a netbook, though it was still much more expensive.

Cyberdecks were in no way "standard" computers. They were always depicted as being the size of a large keyboard, with only a datajack cable instead of a monitor, had most of their operating system hardwired into special purpose chips, and were horribly expensive. I think they got past the 10.000 nuyen mark very quickly. Their cost and complexity was balanced so that they would be the exclusive province of deckers. A real, dedicated decker would spend most of his starting money on a cyberdeck and programs, and he'd have to prioritize Resources above everything else if he wanted them to be any good. The mythical Fairlight Excalibur was the dream of every decker, and it cost 5 million. I wonder if that thing had any legitimate uses (outside of "equipping security deckers"), and, if so, who bought it.

The original computer terminals would connect to the Matrix. It was just that sometimes the fluff from adventures and other books weren't very clear about how many terminals were lying around connected. I think it was often assumed that the players would have no interest in using them (since they should have a decker, and typical desktop/laptop computers were so epically slow and weak as to be useless for any legitimate hacking) so they weren't mentioned. After all, that was the province of the Decker. Other characters (and NPCs like wage slaves) just used the Matrix for mundane stuff like, well, boring spreadsheets at work, surfing porn, and discussion forums. You aren't going to crack that Mitsuhama mainframe with your iPad.

And Bira is right, cyberdecks were not some kind of silly, old hat garbage tech of the 80s. They were absurdly expensive (though originally the Fairlight only cost a just shy of a million ), often custom made, and extremely rare.

"Cyberdecks hail from that mythical time known as The Eighties, when 32KB of RAM was a lot and windows were something you only found on buildings. The very idea of a computer which was "only" the size of a keyboard but could (gasp!) display 3D graphics and connect to networks, and run as many as five programs at the same time seemed like, well, science fiction."

Atari ST

Nit-picking here, sorry, but the 80's definitely had a "computer which was "only" the size of a keyboard but could (gasp!) display 3D graphics and connect to networks, and run as many as five programs at the same time". Spent a lot of time on that thing, yessir...

OH my God.... I used to have an Atari ST. Did lots of Basic Programming on that thing!!!

Actually, it wasn't. System Failure made it clear that the Wireless Matrix didn't exist. Limited wireless sites did exist, which were basically cellphone computing. Nothing of substance.

As for how fast technology goes, let me remind you that it's taken 30 years or so for cellphones to become popular. Techy and trendy don't go hand-in-hand.

Hmm, but wait, there are fluff mentions in books (Even quoted by a poster) that say that work was being done on the Wireless Matrix. One nation was working to go completely wireless and that is Japan.

The wireless matrix has several mentions before 4th edition. Not hard to see really.

wut



From page 125 of system failure.

Read the bold part again.

How can you have a wireless matrix backbone before the crash 2.0 unless there was a Wireless Matrix project before System Failure?

I quotes a book at you where they were developing the wireless matrix. It wasn't a finished tech, and even in the quote, they said it was in beta, and not quite all the way there, but you could deck wireless. How is being able to access the Matrix without wires not the Wireless Matrix?

Also, your 30 years for cellphones becoming popular implies that just now are cellphones becoming popular. I seem to remember that almost everyone had one back in 1999.

Also, cell phones aren't a very good analog, as they wern't having to rebuild most of the entire planet's communication system, are not necessarily to access the newly rebuild internet and conduct transaction with.

Work being done != A functional wireless matrix.


Isn't that what I said? It wasn't finished, it wasn't even close to finished, and it wasn't even fully up and running. The quote said that they couldn't deck wirelessly just yet.

As for cellphones being popular in 1999, I certainly didn't have one then. I was still using landlines. Even then, cellphone market penetration didn't become ubiquitous until fairly recently.

They weren't garbage in the setting, and probably didn't look goofy to players when Shadowrun was first published. Cyberdecks were what The Eighties thought the Computers of the Future would be like, as foretold by William Gibson, who didn't actually know anything about computers when he came up with them.



Well, I was using a bit of hyperbole in my post, as you may have noticed . But the fact that SR1's Computers of the Future couldn't do much more than this in 2050 (neural interface aside) should give you an idea of why the old metaphor was in need of an update .

By 1999, there were ~100 million cellphones in use, with the majority in the United States. So, I guess it depends on what you call popular. In SR's world, the boom probably would have happened quite a bit faster, since the FCC ended up being a major roadblock to adoption, with some experts estimating it added 10-15 years to development time.

Then again, it only took one country having widespread adoption, and by 2005, there were over 2.5 billion cellphones world-wide. Now there are over 4.6 billion - sometimes tech can explode like that. Given a scenario where one country has made significant progress, and then there's a need to completely replace an entire sector's infrastructure, and with no governments to tie up things with regulations, I can see a leap like the wireless Matrix being feasible.

And not to mention that the mentions of the beta-testing and implementation were in August, the other mentions that Neo-Tokyo was already being setup for Wireless. The Crash happened in November, so that's three months there for the advancement of the tech. The Second Global Conference happens three more months later when Erika/Transys lays out their plans to start revamping the wireless matrix. So that's six total months of implementation. And it's not like the wireless happened overnight; hell, in the very same book, Seattle doesn't get it's full wireless conversion started until June '65. Another four months beyond the conference.

If we want to continue the cell phone analogy, Apple only took about a year to go from the iPhone 3 to the brand new 4, and that's a severe leap for technology.

Sorry Bira, totally missed the hyperbole. My nerd-rage kicked in when I felt like the ST was being slighted...sorry for the confusion!

I do agree that maybe the whole "deck" idea needed a...refreshing. But to turn the deck into a commlink, which appears as a very generic, semi-boring piece of tech...well, it seems less of an update and more of a "relegating this to unimportant" territory.

well, but given what an Android or an Iphone can do today.
it is not beyond the pale to imagine commlinks as they are in 2073.

I've been saying for 3 years that smart phones are going to become your 'computer'.
People might have dockingstations.. but the core of the computer will be the smart phone.

Combine that with imagelink and DNI and it seems likely to me that you could have a "computer" the size of a modern day cell phone, that has the horse power needed to do what commlinks do.

Also, remember that commlinks can only have 3-9 programs running at the same time.
My computer today has as I type, has 10 major things running. Not including Firewall/Antivirus, truecrypt, encrypted remote connections.

You don't start building a wireless matrix infrastructure (which costs money), unless you have functioning technology. I quotes shadows of Asia, where it said, in SR3, that you could deck wireless in some places. That sounds like section of the wireless matrix up and running. It wasn't widespread, it wasn't common, but it existed and was fully up and running. It doesn't take very long to go from G1 to G2 tech, when you have 90% of the worlds researchers and engineers working on it.

Especialy when the entire old network had broken, so you might as well finish off the Wireless stuff you were building.

I still say theres nothing special in a cyberdeck. The fairlight was over 5 million to. Personally I just see it as the development of server technology. I never installed the mainframes but today we have 1U systems that cost tens of thousands (possibly even hundreds of thousands, though unlikely) of dollars because the job is that critical. Maybe its not what the devs meant but thats the way I always thought of it from day one.

This whole argument about the transition from cyberdecks/wired to commlinks/wireless seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. The SR4 designers made the decision to update Shadowrun's vision of the future to something projected from 2005 rather than 1988. Because communications technology changed so much from 1988 to 2005 it was never going to be possible to cleanly transition from the SR1-3 vision to the SR4 vision; the starting points are just too divergent. So what did we get? A fairly clumsy explanation for a switch to wireless that would have happened half a century before 2065. Could it have been done more cleanly and with more respect for ongoing meta-plot-lines? Probably. Does it really matter? I think not.

I agree that the vanilla SR4 implication that no ones uses wired connections anymore is overdoing it. Unwired seems to dial back on that, presenting a more nuanced view of Matrix architecture. As a SR4A GM I and my players find it very easy to just accept SR4's vision of the future and ignore the clumsy transition. We don't ever talk about or reference Crash 2.0, System Failure, or Emergence; there's plenty more metaplot floating around to keep us busy. It is easy for my players and I to envision a Matrix where wireless access is ubiquitous in personal and civic life but wired systems are the norm in higher security facilities. It's just all so easy for a GM and his/her group to make these judgments and move on.

Then again, that would deprive people of the pleasure of complaining about it.

I don't think they're unimportant. They're just much cheaper, more accessible and simple to use than cyberdecks, which is a necessary condition for them to be in general use. This is also realistic, as today's computers and smartphones are also much cheaper, more accessible, and simple to use than computers from The Eighties . From a rules standpoint, you don't really need detailed rules and descriptions for the functions of every single chip inside your commlink (Like Virtual Realities 2.0 had for cyberdecks).

The transition might seem a little abrupt to some, but that's what you get when you're tied to 20 years of stone-chiseled backstory from a setting conceived 20 years ago. Like Semerkhet, I usually retcon cyberdecks out of existence for my campaign, saying it all worked just like it does now for decades.

Sorry but if I be honest, I really really dont need a realistic reflection of a possible future in Shadowrun. The old matrix was indeed very complicated, and it needed a major update, but cuting the whole chapter out and replacing it thru commlinks and a overarching augmented reality. I dont know. Maybe the old matrix was retro, and like i said, it was definitly buggy, but it was part of the shadowrun universe. The point is instead of doing an update that fixed everything the devs have gone for a new shadowrun, or lets better say their own shadowrun. Fasa wasnt perfect too, but they kept the shadowrun spirit alive. CGL on the contrary got a fantastic fantasy-scifi universe called shadowrun, created a new edition, which needed to be done anyways, BUT cut off so much of the old game that this new thing aint the same anymore. And anyone who says "nah it is the same" is definitely wrong. Shadowrun aint the same anymore. New generations of rpg-players may not feel the difference because they never played 1e/2e. But my friends and me didnt play shadowrun for 17 years cause we had no other options, we played because we loved the setting the way it was. From the new edition we expected improved core mechanics and new stuff, but not a gamesystem that tries to project a realistic future. What if CGL says the next edition will drop cyberware cause in reallife the trend seems to go more and more into gentechnology? Will you all applaud and say, "dang, this is right, back in the 90ies mankind thought cybernetics would be the thing. but it has to be genetics, cause we see it all over the news". Sorry if i offend anyone of you, but all i wanted to do is to show my point of view.

Long live the king, long live 2e!