Didn't know that one – great link, thanks!

They're both broken, but at the time of SR1, what was better? What were you going to play to get your cyberpunk fix instead of SR?

The games of the era were so broken that there was a running comic about how broken they were. (Yes, complaints aren't new....)

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/kovalic/...ys/samples.html for people who want to remember 15 years of bad rules.

The simple truth is, SR4 could have been done with game balance guidelines. It wasn't. And if SR5 doesn't adopt some guidelines for it's developers then someone else is going to come out with something that does. The difference is that if we provide feedback, the chances are someone will read that feedback and learn from it. The goal is to provide the feedback in such a manner that it causes people to want to learn from it.

Errrh. Cyberpunk RPG?

Do you mean Cyberpunk 2013, the game that became Cyberpunk 2020 and in doing so nearly committed suicide? Are you trying to prove my point for me? I think everyone learned from 2020, although most of the lessons it had to teach were already being exploited by anyone who played Paranoia by West End Games.

Suicide? How so? <---- doesn't know, as he discovered CP2020 AFTER playing SR1 & 2 for some time.

CP2020, if I recall correctly had the "Friday Night Firefight" otherwise known as "the old lady with a pistol wastes you" system, a "realistic" combat system where your character, in a fight, had very little life expectancy. In doing so, it invited comparisons with Traveller (where your character dies frequently during character creation) and Paranoia (Your character is dead. Activate the new character.)

I've since heard that Fuzion was released, but I'll admit to never having played it or in fact seen it. I'd like to think it was an improvement on 2020, but simply don't know.

---

The point is, feedback is a necessary process to improving games. Well written concise feedback with examples and suggestions is better than vague rants, but that involves having an environment supporting that and the feedback starts to get a bit meta at that point.

Yeah, CP2020 has a deadly combat system. And an old lady with a pistol, by all means, kills you if she hits you in your unarmored chest (nothing wrong about that, in my book). But I understand how people may think that this is bad. I happened to like this a LOT, because I was very very tired of hacking away on lev10+ AD&D characters and, you know, being atroll that was basically unkillable. The secret to enjoy playing CP2020 was to either go "wild and wahoo" (i.e. being the nihilistic fuckup your average CYBERPUNK antihero is supposed to be, go out with a bang, then draw up the next sad excuse for a grizzled cowboy in glow-tech ) or to actually PLAN things so that your enemies don't get a chance to shoot at you.

The only thing actually and totally BROKEN in CP2020 was Skinweave.

- - - -

Your point is totally valid, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. There is always room for improvement, and errors need to be addressed. My initial point was that ... what is driving away people is neither the game systems being faulty nor the fan community addressing these faults, it is the TONE and MOOD of constant griping, flaming and bashing that drives everyone in his right mind away.

The only people lingering on are some sad old dudes full of nostalgia who hope against hope that times will change, and of course people whose hobby is NOT "Playing Shadowrun", but "Griping about Shadowrun" (a small but important difference)

You mean something like this?

I don't know. As long as dumpshockers continue hanging out here at Dumpshock, the official SR4 forums won't be a thing. Afterall, if there's one thing history has taught us, it's that publishing companies for Shadowrun come and go, but Dumpshock is eternal .

Aw, thanks. Sometimes I got it, sometimes I don't. This is one of those times, I think.

Might I add, saw your name and couldn't place it until I clicked your DA link. It's always good to contributors pop up and talk to the community. So thanks for your contributions man.

Haven't checked into the new forums. Perhaps I should.

ETA: I'm in now and, wow. That's some official company stuff there. Also edited a backhanded compliment. Apologies!

As alluded to by BlueMax, the official BattleTech forums are anything but heavily policed. Certain standards involving language and referencing real-world things are enforced, and you're not allowed to openly insult writers and devs like goes on here, but you can definitely say things like, "the transformation of Tir Tairngire from an ethnocentric police state to a generic country was unprovoked and stupid", or "The new rules for Wired Reflexes are completely ridiculous compared to earlier incarnations". Sometimes the devs even listen. It's also great to be able to clear up what writers were thinking when they wrote stuff (though on BattleTech they're not longer allowed to do so in an unofficial manner - and that's actually the fault of whiny users rather than the devs).

Ah yes, the "It's the whiny users' fault" line. I love that line. Heard it used all the time when working tech support. Too bad that it often was the fault of the admins or other people in tech support. Heck, I've even had my moments where it was *my* fault.

I have a shirt that exemplifies this attitude... "I didn't say it was your fault. I said I would going to blame you."

You can roll your eyes and be snarky about that "line" all you want to, in this instance it's pretty much true. Are you personally familiar with the recent drama llama attacks over on the BTech forums, or is this just a knee-jerk reaction to a fan -- any fan, ever -- being blamed for something?

What? Forumites taking something another says and blowing it way out of proportion?

Heavens to Murgatroyd, say it ain't so.

So far I have seen limited contact with the dev team on the new forums, particually in the rules section its no better then being here and in some ways worse.

As for openly insulting the writers and devs whilst I try not to get personal about stuff on here (its just not that inportant to me), open forums run the risk of people being a ass for a variaty of reasons and should be not taken as badly as your making it out to be.

You can either have a community and take the good with the bad or you can just do PR and leave it at that. So far I'm seeing PR but no community.

If it was me running it I would have a thread once a week with two or three questions that have come up answered for everyone all nice and above board.


And yes I am still worried about the moderation over there particually after comments from one of the mods admitting he makes mistakes but doesnt get called on it very often because when he's ban happy they cant answer back. It might have been a joke but do you really take it as fun when someone with some authority jokes about misusing it?

I have yet to be on any forum where the admin weren't perceived as misusing their admin status.

The simple truth is I can get snarky because I'm not an admin, and no one cares, but when an admin gets snarky, he's perceived as abusing his authority fore the sole reason that he actually has some authority. In short, admin get held to standards that the people who judge them never need to meet.

In all honesty, I'd support a public forum that used the ban hammer like it was mounted on a gatling gun and was moderated to be a safe space for developers, testers/playtesters, and people who could form a constructive observation to talk. I've used private forums like that but always under NDA. I'd love to see a public one that was readable by everyone but well defended.

Try here

Pretty much my favorite forum ever.

But thats the point, If your in charge you set the standards. If you dont meet the standards your supposed to be enforcing why should anyone.

No, it was commentary on how it's the 'other people' that are at fault, not the people in charge.

That sort of attitude is endemic. That attitude causes problems, fails to resolve problems, and generally creates distrust and sicontent.

Do I believe that fans are often idiots? Yes. I even dare to state that every single person on Dumpshock (past, present, and future) has fallen into that category at some point.

Do I believe the Devs / People in charge / Powers that Be are infallible? No. Not hardly. If anything, they are just as fallible (if not moreso) as the fans. Why? Because they buy into their cult of personality. They lose sight of being on the ground with the customers. Everyone who creates stuff or is otherwise in charge is susceptible to this effect.

The big trick to avoiding most of that morass (note I did not say all) is to stay humble and occasionally take breaks from making stuff / being in charge. If you cannot do that, then you must be willing to accept all forms of feedback no matter how vitriolic it may be.

I believe the saying is "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen".

When a policy lasts several years without issue, and is then ended specifically because of complaints on the parts of a small number of users, I don't tend to blame the devs. I agree that there's sometimes a tendency to blame "stupid fans", but in this case it's absolutely the case.

Because deciding if someone meets the standards or not is a judgment call. What frequently happens is that someone decides for themselves that the admin would or should have banned anyone else if they said what the admin said. Frequently the non-admin making the judgment has different knowledge and experience then the admin and therefore makes a different judgment call.

There is no objective measurement. It's all subjective.

I think you have missed the point of my concern particually the quote from the official boards. They have a mod who knows he has made mistakes but finds it funny that he cant be called on them because they have no way of questioning his bans.

If that isnt a concern then what will be.



Now I might be reading to much into a attempt at humor but I dont find it amusing when people do abuse their power and to joke about being excempt from repercussions because those who you mess up cant complain is in poor taste.

That's the problem with humor, one person's funny is another person's poor taste. Can't make all the people happy.....

1) You not finding it funny is your own problem. I'm happy that he actually understands the irony.

2) "making mistakes" is not "abusing power". It's "making mistakes". In all honesty, it's a forum for a role playing game. Being able to perma-ban someone from a RPG forum isn't "power", it's a responsibility that comes with a headache. The responsibility on an official forum is to not make customers angry (like that's possible). The responsibility on an unofficial forum is to make sure you ban the right people quickly and keep the useful people. It's identifying the useful people that's hard to do. Really, there's not a lot of power to "abuse" because it's not like the person being banned actually has a right to the forum.

I think you're making much ado about nothing; looking for something to be offended about and then joyously finding it in one moderately funny throwaway post that you can hurry and tell a bunch of other people about.

As I have said I might have read more into it then I needed to, I'm quite open to the fact that things can be read in different ways at different times. I do find the assumption I'm trying to find reasons to not like something and running off to tell people abit rich though, someone quotes me from before the forums even opened and I answered honestly.

I am still concerned as the new board have not built up any good will so far. Thats the funny thing about being concerned about something, sometimes you need to just show your not being a ass and the new board has not had time to do so. Hell I'm on the board trying to add stuff when I have something worth while to say, giving them time to show how they will behave and change my first impression.

There's a difference between being told that a place is harshly moderated and seeing a mod say, "ha! If I make an oopsie ban, no one will care!"

On the other hand, moderators are people too. But I cut a fair more amount of slack to boards run by fans than I do company boards, for anyone at Catalyst that's paying attention.

The last place I want to hang out is another hippie dippie happy feelie "the mods are supposed to be robots without souls!" crap I see on other boards. This place? Perfect for me. Most other roleplaying websites? Dead silence.

I don't know what my point is, really.

Raven: I've only kinda been following this, but did one of the mods at the SR4 Boards actually say something like that, or is that from somewhere else?

For the record, yes, it's something Hellbie said. Here's the exact quote, so everyone can see just how sinister it is:


So, yeah. There you go, kids. Watch out, the jackbooted thug admins over on that nasty over-moderated official forum are totally out to get you.

To those that insist there's no "community" over on the SR4 boards...well, number one, whose fault is that? Come post and make one. Don't be a wallflower and then complain no one's dancing. And number two? The place has had almost 6,000 posts in about two weeks. That's not real shabby, all things considered. When you consider that it's a time of year when an awful lot of people are going back to school, how many posts do you want from the place, and how quickly, in order to be satisfied it's a "community?"

Very sinister.

I mean, I don't really care, personally. I'd rather people don't come than show up over there just being all emo and angry about The Man, or something. If you don't want to go, don't go. If you don't want to participate, don't participate. Obviously.

But please don't not participate and then spread rumors and accusations, to try and keep other people from going, or participating, all while complaining there's no real "community" over there. That's just silly.

Furthermore with all due difference to the modding staff here it's not like there haven't been some abuses of power around these parts. Out and out banings are few and far between and even those are not greeted with universal acclaim.

6000 posts in two weeks? Are you being serious or is that a little over exaderation (sp) ?

Here's the current post count/member count tagline from the main page of the SR forums:

I believe the forums went live and open to all on September 3, and a glance at the "statistics" page of the forum seems to confirm that. So, yeah. Almost 6,000 posts in about two weeks.

And -- genuinely not trying to be a jerk, really -- the spelling is "exaggeration." Just so you know for next time, because knowing is half the battle!

Hmmm, maybe I will pop over there, as here has been a little stale over the last few weeks, maybe with an 'official' forum, I might actually be able to find some new players, as I've always struggled with that.

Haha, thanks, its just one of those words I cannot for the life of me, remember how to spell.

That's about 10 postings per member in 2 weeks . .
now compare this to here, where some people get 10 postings per hour . .

Until you factor in that 4 of the 18 pages of users on the member list have less than 10 posts apiece. Trust me, Stahl, there are plenty of posters over there who post just as much as the "some people" you're alluding to over here on the DS side of things. Whether throwing out quantity, instead of quality, of posts is something worth bragging about is another question altogether.



This is turning into a nitpickey, lame, argument. My overall point is that those forums are young, those forums are still growing, and that people sitting here at Dumpshock and talking about how those forums lack a "community" -- when they're a whopping two weeks old -- is a little silly. It's like calling a baby stupid, or a sapling weak.

What's more, it creates...or rather inflames...a split in the community that doesn't need to be there. There's nothing to be gained, and quite a bit to be lost, by people choosing to only visit one forum over the other, or squatting in one forum and talking crap about the other.

Seriously. If we're going to sit and make fun of another forum, lets go to war with the Cyberpunk 2020 forums or the WotC D&D forums or something worthwhile. Civil Wars are a mite self destructive.

Bull

Sorry, I'm only visiting forums where I can tolerate the signal:noise ratio.

I don't mind silly. I do mind complete lack of signal. The official forums had a shot at being a high signal forums due to access to developers and paid moderation. They chose chat room instead. It's a perfectly valid choice but I don't feel I'm losing anything by not continuing to go there.

No, don't go to war with any CP2020 forum (if there are any remaining at all). CP2020 fans have taken the worst punishment there is in the world (v3). It's not nice to hit those who have suffered so greatly.

Suoq: Isn't it a little early to judge that?

No. After two weeks it's not too early to judge it's current condition and decide that I have better things to do with my time. I feel perfectly free to not continuing to play at a table I don't enjoy. I feel perfectly free to not keep dating someone I don't have anything in common with. I feel perfectly free to not watch TV shows that do nothing for me or to leave a bad movie quietly or to go get a different job.

I'm not telling anyone else not to go and enjoy the place. I'm just not going to buy into anyone's belief that I'm obligated to go if I've been there. It's a casual place to chat. The users like it as a casual place to chat. I have no need of another forum that's a casual place to chat. Heck, if there was an elitist jerks version of dumpshock, I'd probably be reading there instead of posting here, at least until I got smart enough to contribute there.

There is no way we are going to get anyone *new* from the CP2020 forums. The refugees have already come here and pressed for a less fantastic Shadowrun. That happened about 8 years ago Bull.
Do you not read the reports that we in Counter-Intelligence put out? Through counter-intel, we can identify potential trouble-makers.... and neutralize them.

All this talk of Jack booted thugs, without reference to which boots. For my work, as a Jack Booted Thug, I choose Matterhorn
Matterhorn boots

BlueMax

This hit the nail on the head...

And for the record, the Mods over on the offical forums are not paid. Perhaps you should get your facts striaght asking questions before posting garbage.

I would so go to war with someone elses forums.

(As a side note about post count on the official forums 5,000 of those were from Fastjack....ok I'm exaggerating...alittle.)

I did go over to the "official" site and post a couple times but response was underwhelming. At least here I get responses, even if they are "your wrong", lol.

By the way, you are wrong (just so you get used to it).

I'm assuming the "paid" and getting facts straight bit is a response to
My point there is that the official forums had access to developers and access to paid moderation. I didn't say the moderators are getting paid. If that's how you read it, my apologies. I believe the company had a choice and the official forums, as they are now, are a result of that choice. If that choice was between no forums, forums they couldn't afford, and a large chat room for fans, well, they've made their choice. It's their choice to make. For all I know they've made the right choice for them and if so, then all is well and good.

As for whatever garbage I'm posting, let me know more specifically and I can either stop posting it or stop posting.

Or if it was directed my way, I was talking in general terms, not specific.

So we've got some people complaining the place has no community and the moderators are jackbooted thugs who abuse their power, and others complaining it's under-moderated and just feels like a friendly chat room. Proof, ladies and gentlemen, that you just can't win.

So, anyways. Those that want to, come on by, hang out, talk Shadowrun, discuss rules/errata/announcements, do whatever floats your boat. If you're not interested, you're not interested.

But, in all sincerity, it would be great for this whole thing not to turn into some silly "us vs. them" fort-up mentality. No one wins, when a community -- especially a community as small as fans of a given game -- turns against itself.

Observing and deciding that it's not to one's taste isn't complaining.

I love sushi. I don't insist my friends eat it. I don't insist they try it. I'm not offended if they don't choose to come with me when I go out to eat sushi. I understand why it's not for them because I don't get upset when they tell me why.

Forums are like food choices. Some forums I read. Some forums I actively participate in. Some forums I ignore, even if my friends like them. I don't feel I'm under any obligation to use or enjoy the new official forums and I don't feel they're under any obligation to change their forums to make them appealing to me.

In the words of Fastjack in Dumpshock Data Haven: "We both have our reasons for handling things as we do, and neither is incorrect".