Well, you are. You're afraid of undeserved criticism, maybe, but it's criticism all the same.

Part of writing is having your name put in a book, and standing up to say that you were a part of creating something that you hope other people will enjoy. If you're not proud to have your name in that book -- for all the good or bad that will come with it -- why are you doing it? Here's a hint: it sure ain't the three or four cents a word.

EDIT TO ADD: "Psychological abuse," really? Jeeze. It's just Dumpshock, man.

Freeze it ??

If you didn't write them, why would you be worried? I may be fortunate in that my self image is entirely independent of other people's perceptions of me, but if people are jumping on me for stuff I didn't have anything to do with on an Intardweb forum, I'm not much going to care.

You all seem to think I'm equating "getting jumped on" with simple criticism. I've seem the severe hate some people seem to have in some of these threads. Whether or not that's deserved, I want no part of that. That's what I'm talking about when I said I wouldn't reveal myself. If I was a current writer, technically I'd be a representative of 4e and the company. Oh, I'd be proud of my work for sure, but I'd still be open to getting jumped by people who've got an axe to grind on CGL and 4e. Whether or not that is true, well it's a perception I have. That's all. Hell, I'm not shying away from having this discussion, so that proves I'm not shying away from normal criticism.

I'd just like to jump in briefly to say this: The existence of official forums is not a reaction to Dumpshock, or an effort to undermine Dumpshock. In fact, it was almost the other way around--I would have been willing to pull the plug on the official forums if I had an indication from various Dumpshock people I spoke to that they thought official forums would have a significant negative effect here. I don't want to hurt Dumpshock, and I don't plan to stop posting here.

I thought official forums might be a good idea because it's nice to have official forums. So that if people come to the shadowrun4.com page and want to talk about the game, there is an easy link for them to talk about the game. That's about the size of it.

Jason H.

Could someone translate that for me? I'm not fluent in spin.

I'm just kidding though Jason

See, how could I consider leaving when I get this kind of love?



Jason H.

Me to hes a good friend, I was so happy to get to play Star Wars with him (as for years I had only known him on dumpshock). Then he goes and moves away! Come back to Seattle!

[edit] @ Jason, I wish you guys the best of luck on the official forums! Myself I tend to hate official forums (they tend to be full of people who love the company and the current edition and wont hear any debate or talk of other games)... Dumpshock, RPG.net, EnWorld, PenandPaperGames... yeah none are official and thats where I hang out. I will give it a fair shake though

That pun could have been so much better if you had written Spinish instead

This all smells of corporate back-room deals. All I got to say is my team is prepped and ready to go. Wetworks or structure hits?

why chose?

No kidding, with enough explosives you can have both.

As a writer, it's not fear sometimes...

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go
Where no one at all knows your name,
And they don't think you're to blame;
You want to be where you can be,
Just someone who plays the game;
You want to be where nobody knows your name.

---

Due to a mistake one Gen-con, many many years ago*, I got a regular badge instead of a dealer's bade, and once that was fixed I found myself with two badges. I could just take of the dealer's badge and be... normal.

That was so good.

Explosions! Music to my ears!

+1 Point. I think suoq at least gets what I'm talking about.

Much as I thought. It sounds good to me, Jason. I look forward to seeing what you guys do.

Tell Bills to respond to my email, too. Busy fellow.

It just occurred to me that I'm part of a similar conversation over on Bolter & Chainsword, where some of the Black Library authors have been known to post. Some hide their identities, but reportedly not because they're afraid of the unvarnishable vitriol directed their way, but simply as a way of avoiding the inevitable brush-with-fame type emails, PMs, and fanboy posts that come along with the territory. I'd love to meet Randall Bills or Jason Hardy or Dan Abnett or Phill Kelly or any of a hundred other members of the industry whose salaries I help pay every year -- but I also believe in a person's right to privacy, so while *I* wouldn't behave like Acme would, I can at least understand where he's coming from.

And Jason's post almost -- almost -- suckered me into a positive view of official forums. This place must be strong with the Dark Side of the Force.

I just called to say I love you.
That aside, you hit the nail on the head.

QFT & signed.

I do understand where you're coming from, and the fact that you put it into song is even more awesome. I think that's an entirely valid point. My position was largely in response to this idea that freelancers, writers, and developers should for some reason be afraid of this forum, when it's really not a scary place. And that somehow official forums are "safer" for those who work on the game, because they are internally moderated by the publisher's staff.

I'm a very strong supporter of conversation between the fans of the game and writers/developers of the game, though never to the extent that I feel every writer or developer has to do it.

I will also admit that I'm deeply suspicious of things like Herb's social experiments with writers on the official Battletech forums. Official forums are not bad things, but that kind of thing bothers me. I appreciate that here on Dumpshock, I am not held to a different standard than the fans, I follow the same Terms of Service and I'm subject to the same moderation. I am not held to a different set of rules because here I have no "yellow star." I am not a spokesperson for the publisher, I am just a spokesperson for my writing.

you know , when I google " shadowrun forum" , dumpshock is not amoung the first results - but I found this forum cause there is no official one . I think once the official forum is made - and placed first in google - nebies will go there

i still don't understand why dumpshock isn't way up there in the search results either . .

Probably needs some solid search engine optimization. I have no idea if the administrators have set up a robot.txt file or registered the site with Google Webmaster Tools or anything. But they probably should!

And there won't be a sticky link or references back to dumpshock?? Considering how many posters from these forums will peruse and comment on things or bring up threads that are here. I am also assuming DS will include a stickylink back to those forums as well (why have an errata on DS when there is one on the official site).Also, while many SR fans post here. I don't believe they are the majority of SR fans.

In all honesty, it may be a win for DS.

When I did a google search for shadowrun forums I get dumpshock forums and dumpshock.com at the top of my list.
.

same here dumpshock was first on my search as well long may it stay that way

which i don't get EITHER . . seeing how dumpshock IS right now the biggest shadowrun community . .

Are you serious? The number of users that are active at dumpshock is a few thousand, which is far from being the majority of SR fans worldwide.

Having a forum is about building community. Operating those forums allows you to control the message that community reads and produces. If you're goal was community building, you already have that; we already have that. If your goal is controlling the message, it's naturally suspect given the recent history of IMR.

Even with the best intentions it still appears suspect. Personally I'd like to hear about you working to get Shadowrun caught up and improve the line, rather than dicking around with building a new community. New and better content would be a lot nicer than an official forum.

Whilst I would have tried to say it slightly nicer I have to agree with the basics of it. The use of resources to introduce a whole new part of the company website when things look like there is more important work to be done seems foolish.

In any communication medium, someone already controls the message, and that someone is either the writer or it's the publisher.

In a closed forum, the publisher controls the message. You may not hear all the messages. You'll only hear the messages the publisher allows you to hear.

As the forum gets more opened, the publisher relinquishes control of the message. However, this release of control is not an indicator of an increase in accurate signal. Frequently the additional messages are often:
1) Noise.
2) Mistruths.

As a new user, I've tried to stay in the habit of attaching book and page numbers to my comments because I've learned the words "by RAW" are, at an incredible frequency, a total lie, at least on this forum. They may not be a deliberate lie. They may be a misunderstanding or a belief based on incomplete facts or even a belief based on the fact that the source material doesn't agree with the rest of the source material at times and only having part of the source material leads to issues. That doesn't change my observation that "by RAW" (on these forums) is often a sign the poster is trying to appear that they know more than they do.

For unofficial forums, I prefer a more open forum, moderated for behavior but not necessarily for being accurate. Exploring the misunderstandings allows us to get a better grasp of the game and the world and it allows us to learn from other people who play the game.

For official forums, I prefer a closed forum, moderated for accuracy as well as behavior. The clarity of heavy moderation allows me to get a better grasp of the intentions of the writers without the distraction of noise and mistruths.

Can I be honest here for a second? No ha ha jokes or sly asides or veiled potshots at anyone or anything (much as I try not to anyway, but...)

Dumpshock has always been really good for communication with the writers and developers of Shadowrun and the fans. I'm post-Fanpro days, so I only really know the dudes who ran or wrote for Catalyst, but still. There was always an open policy of "talk to us, we'll talk to you." Fans were promoted up into freelancers and were promoted up into line developers. While there was conflict, there was always resolution - and if the conflict grew way too much, the people involved either got put in place or walked away for a little while.

That's how a fan community should work. We should respect the people that we're fans of, but we should always be willing to call them out when errors arise or boo boos are made. Critique is not in itself a bad thing.

On the other hand, I don't know if it's due to the changing nature of the internet or Gabriel's Internet Fuckwad Theory (probably one leading into the other), but the culture has gone from one of respect to one of hostility. And I'm not talking about the CGL Crisis thing either - that I'll bring up in a sec - I'm talking about the out and out French Revolution that passes for critique and discourse nowadays, on here and other boards, in the roleplaying community.

It's no longer, "this writer didn't check his math. Gun ranges should be XYZ." It's, "Quite obviously, this writer has the math skills of an orangutang stuck in a zoo wiping feces on the walls." Or it's, "Hey, y'know, if you toss this together and this, uh, you can reach some pretty high damage, is that right?" Instead, it's, "WHAT THE FUCK YOU FUCKING MORONS, DON'T YOU KNOW TO GET THIS SHIT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME? I'M NEVER BUYING THESE BOOKS AGAIN. NEVER NEVER NEVER."

Recently someone started an errata thread on here with the, "obviously Catalyst is trying to sneak nerfs into the books without us knowing! How dare they! Don't they know we're watching?" I mean, shifty paranoia jokes aside, that's just kind of rude.

Like Demonseed said, writers and developers should be willing to stand by their rules and accept honest criticism of them. Best example I can think of off the top of my head? When the new HMHVV rules came out in Runner's Companion (or was it Running Wild?) and people saw how nasty picking the virus up could be. I think Stahl nicknamed it the Zombie Apocalypse?

And the moment people started raising concerns, I remember Jennifer coming in and asking what people would want them changed to. No wishy washiness, no wringing her hands and trying to explain things, just a straight out, "okay, yeah, these are kind of wonky. How should they be changed?"

Interaction with the fans is a very important thing, but it needs to go both ways. The developers and writers have to respect that we, the audience, want rules and fluff that make sense and are articulate. The fans have to understand that a lot of the time, these people aren't being paid a whole chunk, any time they give is time taken away from making money, and hey, they're people too.

The above crap is why I've mostly fallen out of the roleplaying hobby / community, by the way. I'm sick of dealing with gamers that think that arguing with you about minute rules or just rules systems between editions is the most important thing ever. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to talk to my DM about how his Gencon went...

Now, I said I'd discuss how this is different from the Catalyst Crisis, and now I shall -

The reason that things got so crazy and overheated in here was that the majority of people involved wanted the best for Shadowrun. And with what LLC did, he put Shadowrun in serious jeopardy. It also didn't help that we had management that was looking more to cover their own ass and tracks than it was at allaying our worries about the game and the company.

Look: lying or spinning things to try and cover the fact that things are seriously screwy is a bad thing. Lying does nothing but make you have to keep lying to cover up the lies you've already told. Remember when America first invaded Iraq, and Bagdad Bob was trying to convince everyone that there were no Americans in Iraq and meanwhile there's actual footage on the television screens right behind him? Kind of the same situation.

That's why things got crazy around here. And yeah, things did go a little overboard. Patrick probably shouldn't have gotten as much shit as he got. Several things got spilled that maybe, possibly, should have stayed personal. But it looked like Catalyst was a sinking ship and it was taking Shadowrun along with it. And people took that personally.

It's for precisely that reason that I don't want anything to do with CGL. They broke my trust. They lost several writers, artists and developers whose work I respect, over the course of years because one guy had his hand in the piggy bank. That does not engender trust in me.

So I gotta agree with otakusensei. It looks fishy. All the more power to Catalyst for creating their own forums and place to speak. It'll be "safer" for the writers and developers to talk over there. Go for it. I'll hang out here with hopefully a few members of the old guard coming back around, and we'll see how Shadowrun progresses from there.

But again: I don't have much, if any, faith in CGL.

(No, I can't write a reply that's less than 1500 words. What are you talking about?)
(ETA: Actually, according to my word processor, I only wrote 998. WTF, me?)

and still, dumpshock is the biggest dedicated to shadowrun community . .

No question about it, but it's still not representing the majority of SR players. Not even close.

The majority of those who matter.

ENworld does pretty well for itself in spite of the Wizards boards.

I'd say that there's a difference between players and fans.
Fans being the ones who spend time on their chosen hobby like it was a second job.


As to the official forums, I can't wait.... to register as Tranq Frollman.

A good example of forums split according to that might be the World of Warcraft official forums and the Elitist Jerks forum. Let the official forums have their mob of players. If you need real information and real discussion, you go to the best fan site.

went to EJ for all my talent spec builds they were very good.

so i'm thinking (in my beer induced haze) that this offical forum goes live, this one might lax up on some things maybe?

mayhaps our own avatars?

or a lounge forum?


hmmmmmm?

and by the by. forum decorm has long gone. not since 95 were you able to see such urbane and avuncular repor among people. kids today (any one under 30) just aren't refined and cultured like they used to be. Shame really

And I can't wait... to register as Lorin El Stoleman.

Cent13

I was worried about the official forums destroying Dumpshock myself when the announcement came out (and even said so on the Facebook comment about it), but now that I've thought about it...well, I'm currently of two minds.

First is that the "official" forums will draw all the new players asking rules questions and random metaplot stuff they missed from 1st-3rd ed and the same old questions asked over and over and over again. Meanwhile, all the Dumpshock regulars are going to stick around here and, since there will be some cross-over, their forums will feed into Dumpshock increasing our membership in a sort of "graduation" from noob to true Shadowrun fan sort of way. This is where people will discuss the minor nuances of the rules, grand overreaching theories of the metaplot, speculations about future developments, etc.

Second is that it seems like every single time the licensed company for Shadowrun attempts to create an "official" fan community, it seems to fail miserably. Missions is the ONLY thing I've seen from FASA, FanPro, or CGL since I've been playing Shadowrun (almost TWO DECADES at this point) which lasted longer than a handful of years. Mailing lists, fan clubs, street teams...all of them fall apart. Dumpshock's been around a nice, long time.

And I have two more things to say based upon the discussion in this thread...if any writer posts online, they're READY to get hammered by trolls. No "official" title is going to stop it from happening and all whining and banning is going to do is make the trolls rebel harder and kill the official forums faster. Being a writer means you are a professional dumping ground. Between publisher rejections, fan reactions, reviews, and everything else. If you don't have a thick skin, you're not going to last long in the business. Period.

Finally, for those who think that someone's opinion matters more based on their sign on date or post count, look at mine and do the math. I've been a member here a VERY, VERY long time and I have stints lasting years where I almost forget this place exists. It has nothing to do with the forums themselves or members or getting sick of anything on here (I've NEVER had that problem), it's because I get burned out on Shadowrun and want to pursue other interests. But I've seen people around for years sound like blithering idiots (a problem I've had at times after posting four martinis into the evening) and people making incredible sense on a single post who never show up again. Judge not on post counts or sign-up dates, but on the quality of the words. And I know what I'm talking about, I'm a seven year veteran with a 4-digit member number

What he said! Get off our lawn!

NO! GET OFF MY BRIDGE!

I just wanted to take an extra moment to explain me throwing out my post number and join date. I did it simply as a way to show that the angriness on this - and other forums, most especially rpg.net - leads me to taking off for extended periods of time. I'm not doing it toss around my weight and I don't want anyone to do that either. I just wanted to give an example of how to walk away if something is bothering you that much.

I've said my piece, and in under three hundred words!

Wow, this is good to know that an official forum will be activated. I'm just getting back into SR after a very long hiatus (originally played 1.0) and now playing catch up. I've lurked here a long time and decided to join after seeing the dust settle after the detonation from earlier this year concerning CGL.

That said, after picking up SR 4, what do you recommend I get to help flesh out the universe and bring me up to speed without breaking the bank? Thanks!

If you can stomach the typos and general editorial sloppiness, the just-released Sixth World Almanac is a good one-stop book to get caught up on what's been going on in the world of Shadowrun.

<shrugs> Typos and editoral sloppiness is easily overlooked. I'm more concerned about content and how it flows. However, it sounds like Sixth World will do the trick. Thanks!

And possibly Seattle 2072 as well so you can get caught up on the old city.

Yeah, it really depends on whether you want to run a Classic Seattle game or an Ocean-Hopper/Local-City game.

Your GM resources concerning Seattle are significant.
Not to say that the world at large doesn't have its own resources for history an whatnot.

I don't think anyone said afraid(though I may have missed it), I think you are trying to turn it into a fear thing. There is a difference in being afraid of a place and avoiding it, and thinking the vitriol has hit a moronic level and it is pointless to waste your time there. Think of political discussion boards, some people like them, some people avoid them. You probably aren't avoiding them because you are afraid(except maybe afraid of seeing too much idiocy in one place), but you realize that moronic reactionaries are all too frequent and it isn't worth your time.