Even in 1e you could run an implanted smartlink off of normal eyes. And goggles could be fitted with all the normal low light, thermal, etc upgrades.

It didn't always make much sense, but then again, neither do contact lenses with modifications, haha. I mean, some kinds of technologies you can miniaturize. But wow, miniaturizing light amplification into a lens that is between 30 and 100 micrometers? Damn son. That's impressive, lol. And then the fact that the system allows more than one upgrade to a set of lenses? "I've got my contact lenses with a wireless image link to my smartgun too. Yeah, they kinda make my eyelids bulge and itch a bit, but hey, price of progress, ya know?"

I meant that you did need the *implanted* smartlink.

I agree that many items of gear in SR make no sense; shrug it off or houserule it.

Yeah, safe to say, contact lenses would never be allowed in any game I ran. My brain hurts enough trying to imagine how clunky and unfashionable a set of multi-upgraded glasses would look. Understanding how these technologies work really just takes the fun out of games like this sometimes. Shadowrun needed to set an upgrade capacity to the different types of eyewear. And well, just not have ever tried to be creative and add contact lenses, heh.

Buying the bike is always good,car for subtle tranportation.

I've always imagined the look as some of the crazy steampunk goggles you see around, giant telescoping lenses and the like^^

Contacts with image link/smartlink is fine; very cyberpunk. The problem is, as you mention, that 50x magnification, low-light, and thermo all take up the same space as that image link.

I say the goggles are just ski goggles. Blends right in with the weird fashion trends and re-trends.

I thought SR4A did add capacity to eyewear, contacts can have I think...Image link, which is free on everything and wireless and awesome (or something) and one other mod. So...Thermographic image-linked contacts!

That's his point: all visual mods are capacity 1 (whether they should be hugely bulky or not). Contacts can go up to 3, I think?, so that's 3 mods.

Again, I'm fine with the magical illogical supertech science.

Also, AFAIK you can simply trode sensor feeds into your head from a bunch of cameras anyway. The rules for 'natural vision' (including contacts) and sensor-feeds are a little wonky, but hey.

I thought contact capacity was 1, not 3. I thought glasses were 3, goggles were 4, and contacts were 1.

(At least my SR4A book is out in the car instead of at home today!)

3, 4, and 6 respectively.

Wha-really?

I now decree it to be 1,3,4. IT IS DONE DO NOT BE DISOBEDIENT

I mean cripes, I know they're swimming in nanites, but to give them that many mods would require a truckload of Visine.

^^ Yeah, I ruled it to 1, 3, and 6 - but rating 6 goggles are the Steampunk monstrosities I was talking about

It's the wireless transmitter part that is the thing that makes you go "Hmm?" Plus the apparent lack of a power source.

Goggles are a bit more believable. I mean, I'm willing to accept they've got 50 years or so to perfect this technology. And shit, suspension of disbelief is part of the fun sometimes. But suspension is one thing. Discarding belief is a bit more to ask.

I'd say realistic capacities for glasses would be 2-3, goggles would be 4-7 depending on size. But the key is to make things have different sizes. An image link, smartgun or flare comp might only be 1, but Low Light, Thermal, Ultrasound, etc, might be 2 each.

I'm sure they just steal power from the body or something. Maybe from the constant jerky eye movements. I dunno, it's nano. If you look too close, it all breaks down. Non-wireless contacts ruins the whole point, after all: AR.

Well, I think my stance on everything AR and wireless is pretty well known, heh.

Besides, what I'm getting at is that the game should still require players to think, and prepare, and adapt. And not simply have enough money to buy the magical goggles that do everything.

They had to *think* of buying the supergoggles that negate all visibility penalties.

I know what you're saying, but it's 2070. The world *should* be AR-everything and wireless-everything. Everything I glance at should be auto-googled, with all relevant info prepared and displayed. Life should be like a video game, except easier. That way, there's more contrast against the SINless street scum. I mean, it's that or remove smartlinks and everything; play in 2010—no, better make it 1990, because we already have iPhones.

Aldous Huxley wrote an interesting novel about a society that had everything handed to it.

Yeah, everyone was happy. Anyway, it's cyberpunk. It's supposed to resemble aspects of dystopian literature.

He wrote two, actually, it's an interesting comparison between them^^

Given that we have AR today.. with slightly special glasses, and smart phones are probably less than 3 years away from completely destroying the line between device and computer.

The idea of AR really shouldn't cause anyone pause. It adds an interesting flow to the world of the SiNers

Indeed, and if we have no problem with trodes (direct brain interface for the consumer), *nothing* should cause anyone pause.

Why I like cybereyes:

1) I like having a digital storage space where I can backup my software/pilots/agents/firewalls/ect/.
2) I like the absence of retinal data. Before I realized Missions didn't allow amnesia, I liked the thought that the last thing that happened before they wiped his mind was they wiped his eyes.
3) I like waking up at night and having my smartlink. I like having my smartlink in the shower. I'm paranoid that way.
4) I find it easier to believe my own cons with cybereyes than I do goggles.
5) I'd be better with contacts if I could simply believe in them more. I wonder how much looking someone in the eyes while they're wearing contacts gives away. What can you see?

"Keep da pin an' throw da udda thing"
"If bullets go that way, follow them"
"Bullets have right of way, every time"

One thing I always took into account about cybereyes, long before it became normal to write about this effect in the books, was how huge of a disconnect there would be between normal vision and watching everything through what are essentially cameras. That, and just the kind of enormous faith in the technology you have to have to let someone cut out your most important sensory organs. As "common" as cybereyes are in the game, I think that would actually be one of the modifications real people would think twice about. You might be able to do all the things you want with your cybereyes and always have them on hand, but, I mean, they are cutting out your eyes.

But that's obviously just from a roleplaying standpoint.


And the idea of AR gives me pause because I look at it beyond the "can we do this?" to the "should we do this? or would we do this?" What is possible is not always practical. Yeah, a lot of the aspects of wireless and AR are cool and make sense. Making it ubiquitous is a different story. Like I've said, making some devices wireless introduces a failure point where a wired system wouldn't have one, and adds no functionality. Hence, why would they be wireless? Plus the whole aspect of everyone needing an expensive piece of electronics just to function in society is rather silly. Does the year 2072 have no poor people? Last I checked, the background fluff was suggesting there's quite a lot of them.

As opposed to simply cutting your eyes with a laser.

Psh, Kruger. Ubiquitous AR makes total sense, and people hate wires (not that the two are related, either). Why are people's home networks wifi instead of ethernet today? Xbox, PS3? You're not being very imaginative, if you can't even take into account 2010.

I don't know what kind of low bandwidth house you live in, but I have ethernet running to all of the stationary devices I can get it to. Only the laptops use the wireless.

Besides, the last thing I want is my phone broadcasting shit about me everywhere I go and stores greeting me telling me what I want when I walk in. And then the cops hassling me about why I'm not broadcasting if I decide to turn it off, or when battery undoubtedly dies from running all those applications (transmitting is a significant power drainer), or I forget my phone at home that day. No fucking thanks, lol.

What I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense because people wouldn't ant it. For every technoqueer who stood in line like some kind of drooling retard waiting for an iPhone4 on launch day, there are a thousand people who didn't care. People didn't like spam when it was called junk mail. They didn't like it when it was email. They didn't like it when it was Internet pop-ups. They aren't going to like it when it's now jumping in their face as they walk down the street. Not to mention just the sheer volume of "noise" that the devices are going to pick up and the absurd taxation of bandwidth. People in 2010 understand the dangers of identity theft. The last thing they are going to want is a device that blabs out who they are, everywhere they go. The core concepts of the AR and wireless Matrix break every common sense rule of personal privacy possible. And that kind of drive is basic human nature. I'm not one of those "OMG steelz mah identity types" but I know I wouldn't want people walking down the street knowing everything about me. The directory at my work will show building location and your badge ID picture. We call it Stalkernet, and I know many of the women don't really enjoy it, especially given as many hot young women work there (and no, I won't get you a job). Now you're telling me that people are going to walk down the street broadcasting their names and Facebook statuses? Facebook really only offers the illusion of privacy, but people buy into it because they are ignorant. The idea of the AR and ubiquitous wireless world obliterates even the pretense of it.

Nah. I don't buy it. Simple human psychology defeats the idea. It would be nice to be able to walk by the vending machine like you can in parts of Europe and buy a soda from the vending machine using your smartphone. It would be nice being able to have instant and easy access to the more basic functions of the Matrix. Making it a necessary part of life just to simply exist? Absurd at best. Idiotic is probably more likely.

Not so much on the second part that I snipped out, but I completely agree with this sentiment.

I've had real eye surgery, not just some laser BS, and it is fraggin' nerve wracking. I refused to be concious for the procedure and them use a general to put me under. I know my anxiety would've made it hard for them to do work using just a nerve block.

Even as a "common" modification I can still imagine there being a slight creep factor to seeing someone with cybereyes. Kruger also makes a good point about the disconnect of seeing everything through a camera. I know it will make most of you froth at the mouth, but I always felt eye replacements should have had either a higher essence cost (to associate with the potential disconnect) or more common social penalties.

As someone with a metal plate in their head and a prosthetic eye, I feel pretty comfortable saying that's your own bias talking there. Here's hoping that I don't ever need a hearing aid, however. Having an electronic barrier between the rest of world and myself would surely drive me mad when added on top of everything else.

I've got a fake eardrum. My hearing always tests as just fine in that ear, no hearling loss. Yet when I speak to people I always have to use the other ear to hear them correctly. It's really quite odd. (Drives my girlfriend mad to say the least when I'm always asking her to repeat things)

"Go for the eyes boo!"
I'd go for the eyes too.
Take out the glibber, get a built in zoom and sunglasses by dimming the gamma levels.
If you can do it, get some optical character recognition software or pattern recognition.
Or save pictures/videos of important/funny stuff. At night simply shut them off and sleep.
But removeable ones like G'Karr from Babylon 5 would drive me nucking futs soon <.<;,

Fair enough, I just think we're a pretty resilient species and that a lot of people hit me as rather free with the negative penalties.

And *my* point, Kruger, is that you're not even just wrong about 2070, you're wrong about 2010.

Oh no, I agree entirely.

As for new runner advice *ahem* I recommend no character run with less than 2 IPs as non-combat centric or 3 as combat oriented. Be it achieved thru magic, drugs, 'ware, edge, having only 1 pass is VERY prohibitive.

If the delusional world you live in tells you that's true, then so be it.

You were one of those people in line for the iPhone4 huh?

Some negative penalties, sure. But I think we're pretty attached to our eyes. I don't doubt for a second a lot of people would readily choose cybernetics if they were affordable and practical. But I think we're a lot more attached to our meat bodies that we realize. But we're also very superficial too.

To quote a wise man named Nathan Explosion in reference to the concept of self felation: everything we do, in life, is to get somebody else to do that for us. We're very image and body conscious for a reason. Think about your average cybered up street sam. He's gonna have a hard time getting laid in a lot of circles if he's got all kinds of crazy, visible augments. I imagine not every woman is as open minded as Deunan Knute. I'm sure there are fetish clubs for that, but you exclude yourself from certain social interaction when you look like you could work overtime on an assembly line or that you could interface with your toaster.

15 years ago, he would have just been one of the people in line for a normal cell phone.

Man I can't imagine people putting up with all the hassle of having people call all the time, being able to be tracked by GPS - there's no way they would go for it... oh wait.

And yes, I remember having these exact discussions when cell phones first started to catch on.

Yeah, but you're talking the difference between passive tracking and active tracking. Sure, they can locate someone via their cell phone, but the cell phone isn't constantly screaming out who they are too everyone, and they aren't having to set up complex filters just to be able to walk down the street without being distracted to the point of danger. The concept isn't even remotely the same. Despite the warnings of some science fiction, I like to hope we're still a far cry from becoming the pudgy blobs of WALL-E. I mean, I've seen some of you at the game store and can tell you're not hitting the track every day, but still. And even if we are headed in that direction, that's not a very fun future to roleplay in.

You also exclude yourself if you don't.

Have tattoos? There are people who won't touch you if you have one.
Don't have tattoos? There are people who won't touch you if you don't have one.
And the change in acceptability for tattoos and piercings has been entertaining. I watched piercings go from punks to professional models. Tattoos went from sailors arms to eyeliner. Plastic Surgery has become commonplace.

We understand you feel the way you do, but projecting those feelings on everyone else just doesn't match the data. Too many people augment their bodies every day.

Sure, I'm just saying it's difficult to predict future trends based on what we feel right now^^ Acclimation is a terrifying thing. But, fwiw, I decided that in my game, the Corp Court ruled against spam a while back (since it's most cost effective for very small companies)

A tattoo and a cyberarm are just slightly different. If you get drunk and wake up with a tattoo you might just be out a couple hundred bucks and your dignity. If you got some lame generic tribal arm band when you were twenty and realize when you're thirty just how stupid it looks, oh well.

The "large scale body augmentation" crowd is still pretty small in Shadowrun outside the runner circles. That stuff is expensive, even in 4e.

Remember, fashions follow trends, and even though tattoos are relatively common these days, there are still limits where they stop being socially acceptable to the greater crowd. I think you're the one projecting, not me. I don't care about tattoos or body augments. I'm just telling you how greater society reacts to things that are radically different. This is sociology, not simply opinion. It's got a few millenia of history to draw on.

See, this works both ways too. Think of how many tech trends people thought were going to be the "next big thing" and disappeared? People are very finicky. Like I said, the question isn't "is it possible?". Of course it is. The question is "would we", or "should we". I just don't believe people would. Outside of a police state, which doesn't exist in generic setting Shadowrun, I just don't think people would accept that kind of intrusion and control. And the Crash 2.0 doesn't offer any explanation as to why they would all of a sudden.

Since you ask, I wasn't. I don't see the relevance, but whatever gets you off.

The point is that, right now in 2010, everything is already wireless. Phone, media, video games, whatever. People willingly gives out their personal info; people willingly GPS check-in. They're making 'smart' laundry machines and fridges and power meters. Your car has dozens of sensors; for example, the tire pressure ones are—yes—wireless. That's 2010. Add *six decades*. It's further ahead of 2010 than 2010 is compared to 1950.

Your active/passive distinction isn't a distinction. Commlinks in the game don't broadcast personal info, they make it available. You don't have to believe people would do it, because they're doing *today*.

Faaaaaace Boooooooook.

If they aren't broadcasting anything, then how do you detect their networks? The signals are there and being transmitted.

Try and lose the snippy tone. Your knowledge of modern tech isn't as overwhelming, or encompassing as you like tho think it is, lol. You can disagree with my sociological analysis (which is strangely different from technological trend analysis), but at least address the key points. You keep saying what "can be done" and you don't stop to answer if it would be done. There are plenty of things that can be done and aren't.

Besides, trying to make concrete statements about technology trends are typically doomed to failure. There are endless failed companies and failed product lines that people thought were "sure things". If the guys at Apple and Microsoft routinely offer products that fail, I'm pretty sure it's going to be hard for you to speak with any authority on what will happen simply based on the ability for it to happen. If I'm wrong, there are some product development departments that need your services and you should be charging them top dollar. I feel you owe me a finder's fee though.

You started it.

They give presence, but that's like saying that wifi access points are broadcasting. You connect to them, just as you connect to commlinks.

Actually, I don't think I said 'can be done'. I think I said 'are done right now'. My evidence that things are happening right now is that they *are* happening right now. Really, you're the one making predictions. I'm just saying that things will be at least as wireless and connected as today. You're saying that a reverse trend will appear.

It's like radar. You fire off a ping and it wakes up and shoots back 'Here I am!'



I sold a bookkeeper on the idea of a SIN two weeks ago. He loved the idea of having all your transaction histories and everything available via a biometrically-locked flash drive to use as the security key. You could even put your banking info on it and plug it into the USB at the store to pay directly!

So I suppose I sold him on credsticks, too.

We certainly already have tons of wildly popular 'store loyalty' cards, which track all your purchases for that company to datamine. We have wireless 'wave and pay' RFID credit dongles, in use today. There are 'pay by cell' and 'cellphone credit swiper' systems in use today. Google knows everything about you online, because people sign up to tell it everything about them. Again, 2010, all happening right now. Add 60 years.

So, let's stop trying to weasel out of the discussion by appealing to tone, or presumption of authority, or miscasting my argument as 'can versus would'.

And this is what Active mode means. Everybody's commlink constantly broadcasting a "knock, knock" signal.

Which is not that same thing as broadcasting their personal data. We all agree.