Uhmm, the second printing did already contain the old errata...

But isn't that one of the reasons you do a new printing run (besides to just replenish your stock and get more copies out into the market)? This is what they did with the old SR4 rule books if I recall. Each new printing incorporated the errata from previous ones. Yeah, it's not exactly great for people like us who have the original printed copy, but it seems silly that someone picking it up for the first time needs to go and look at errata that has been out for 2.5 years for a newly printed book they just picked up. Those who had the old book as a PDF are getting the new printing through their accounts on BattleCorps, so why not apply it? They'd at least be able to take advantage of it, and it would give those with the old print copy some incentive to drop the money on the new PDF version.


I'd love to see the revised errata for it, and for books that have been out for 2+ years with no errata that really need it. The FAQ is in dire need of updating as well. But if they've been neglected this long, I'm doubting they'll suddenly surface at this point.

Well there has been a flurry of new releases (both physical and digital), and the permanent CGL staff is likely not large, so it could be a issue of limited manpower and hours.

There has been no errata for over two years, long before the recent bunch of releases or the great freelancer exodus...

And they had the time to go over the book for typos. This is intentional, though other than the above mentioned reason, I can't think of anything for this to male sense.

Wait . . the first SR4 Products . . Are those the WizKids/FanPro Versions again?

And how many of the errata-worthy products where in the works or near to getting a second printing before then?

Then again, i think the only guy at CGL at the time that "understood" digital benefits to publishing was Jury.

Sadly I'll have to agree. Nobody can keep a straight face claiming that the second consecutive re-release (after SM) got de-errataed due to an oversight, it simply is a brazen-faced "fuck you" to new buyers and existing fans alike. I have the German version in DTF and keep the old PDF, but such a statement simply ticks me off.
This mentality of knowingly releasing a crap product and hoping some poor idiots will buy it is exactly what lead to the disaster which was War!, so CGL should know better. Actually, until this morning I was quite positive they did, because the new products showed things were going back on track again (let's ignore Parazoology ). And now THIS *shakes head*

And yet, that is exactly how 90% of businesses work. Just look at the majority of Computer programs that are released, knowingly bugged and less than perfect. Or the vast majority of products that just do not last compared to what was being made 50 years ago. It is a business model that has been proven to work, and the vast majority of businesses follow it...

Not that I applaud it, mind you. It does suck. But that is how it is these days. Very Few businesses put out quality product, and then stand by it.

Well, one other thnk I can think of is a total fail of management (Hardy). As in, he takes his Arsenal file (unerrata'd) and hands it to someone to "correct typos on this list and the cover", not even thinking of the fact that that way he's actually de-errata'ing a book (either because he does not care, or because he is too disorganised).

Not that that makes this any better.


Depends on where the company is located. Export oriented countries that aren't able to unercut China's prices cannot afford this. Pegasus and CGL are an excellent case study in different business mentalities for that reason (not that Pegasus is an exporter, it's more of a general mentality).

...and subsequently gets patched, often at the day of the release. Hence the German pseudo-anglicism (at least I've never heard a native speaker use it) "bananaware" - ripens at the customer's.
CGL, however, sells green bananas which never ripen and patches those which did ripen so they turn green again.

More discussion of boats, less discussion of corporate philosophy, please.

We're a lot more on topic than you are.

Or just hands on the list of thinks to correct to someome who takes the Arsenal file from their hard drive without realizing that it's not the correct Arsenal file.

Or that. Either way, it speaks volumes on the amount of quality control this book went through, sadly.

If it came with included English translation I'd buy it. Although I shouldn't HAVE TO to get errata.

Well for arsenal errata you can just go to the official site and download it

Guys, this is the SECOND book where this happens, after the new Street Magic. De-errataing one book is accidental, it's the sort of thing which happens because nobody thinks to check such an obvious thing. But no member of the Hominoidea blunders twice in such a stupid way.

Has CGL ever explained why they do(don't) do errata in this strange way?

It doesn't make money, IIRC. Which they had to have after recent...events.

Point taken.

This makes it even more bizarre. Sloppyness is one thing, but intentionally damaging your product is a whole new level.

Exactly

Something else I just thought of, what effect does this have on Missions? One would assume the most recent printing supersedes previous errata, so "we don't know no errata" is the official RAW now?

If that's the reason, I hope they realise it's an error. It would cost very little to accomplish, and I can't be the only person who'd happily pay for fixed up pdf versions of books that I already own. Plus, they'd be keeping their customers happy, which is usually a good move for a business. I've already ditched one RPG company (guess which one) for stubbornly and sullenly refusing to support and rectify their products.

Actually, I love errata so much that I'd happily pay a subscription fee if CGL would employ someone to lurk on the SR forums and release monthly compilations of well-reasoned official determinations on rules issues.

[edit: I just had a thought. I don't know much about the corporate history of the SR line, but maybe CGL somehow doesn't actually own the errata? So maybe they can provide it free on the website, but can't charge for it.]



Haha, a bit of both I did buy and enjoy Deadly Waves.

*Cocks pintel-mounted .50-Cal on my Houseboat* I'm on a boat!

Actually, I finally got it, so I'll give a read and my own 0.02 myself in a bit, when I have time to go through it.

Okay, read the book. What can I say - I like it, for what it's worth - it gives some ideas on water-based runs, but I just don't see many people using them.

Now, on to criticism this forum is so well-known for!
The shadowtalker RL interaction mentioned here and there seems really forced. They are what, half a hundred people in the big wide world, and yet they meet each other regularly? Right, they're professionals in a field with a limited number of highly qualified workers, but still. Would make more sense if such encounters were mentioned more often in other books...
Some shadowtalk is weird or seems a bit out of character, like Slamm-O! teaching pirates their craft, or Dr.Spin commenting "Wish I had thought of it" on an advertisement slogan pushing the repair drones as something “every safe boat cannot do without”. Seriously?
Then, there are just bits that are plainly wrong or stupid, like a shadowtalker mentioning that using a loud civilian vehicle for distraction only works in trids or urban brawl. Urban brawl? With civilian vehicles on the field (or rather, brawlers using them for any reason)? Hmmm? Then, the book mentions smuggler Tiburons in the Mediterranean, which everyone takes for theirs, and that lets them slip by. Uh, is the ancient artifact called "friend-foe systems" forgotten in Shadowrun? Doesn't seem so, minding that you can install one on a gun...

I'll buy one of my characters the house boat. And FWIW, since I have a half-done Venice setting I occasionally use, many of the vehicles in the PDF are fairly useful to me.

We're in Kingston right now, doing some smuggling/piracy stuff. Angry free water spirits. Good times.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this part. I'm on my wife's laptop so I don't have my Deadly Waves handy right this second, but what exactly is the complaint with this post, and/or what are you trying to say about Urban Brawl (if you don't mind me asking)?

Okay, I'm glad to hear at least something from the book will be used, although personally I'd be careful about using something that's stated to be barely afloat and barely mobile as my base...

Uh, have you read the rules of Urban Brawl (say, in Killing Glee)? Even the use of the outrider's bike is strictly limited; using civilian vehicles, even if there are some left on the field for some reason, is right out.

It's more like a hideout. And the game's in London, so I'll not take it onto open water. I've actually been fiddling with other boats before to path a houseboat together, but wasn't quite satisfied with the results before.

However, rules how to integrate this into a lifestyle would have been nice - say, as in "the houseboat counts as a permanent middle commodities (3 LP) in a lifestyle". That would at least make sense, going by the numbers.

Killing Glare, and yes, I have. In fact, I just got done writing an update for Urban Brawl into a CMP adventure, and communicated pretty heavily with the German team about their Blut & Spiele, so I feel pretty comfortable with the game. What was confusing me was your post made it sound like Urban Brawlers never had loud civilian vehicles on the field, when in fact they've got (normally) an armor-plated, up-engined, Harley roaring around on pretty much every single play of the game. The only "limitation" on what the Outrider can do is that they can't carry the ball; in terms of using it as what you might call a "distraction," then (albeit a lethal one), I don't see what the problem with the comment is -- at least as far as Urban Brawl is concerned.

While it's true that the Outrider's bike is still pretty souped up and modified, it's still at heart what I'd consider a "loud civilian vehicle," for sure.

Well, it has Amenities...


Yeah, Glare, right. And I even rechecked, heh.

Which I wouldn't call a civilian vehicle, minding that it's purpose-built for the game.

There are also limitations on who and when can and can't ride it along with the outrider.

The problem, as I said, is that the bike is not a civilian vehicle, not any more than the brawlers themselves during the game are civilians. And since using even that is limited, using what you think first of when you read about civilian vehicles - cars or bikes left in the game zone, - is right out of the question, as a distraction or otherwise.

Makes my life more difficult, that's for sure.

The only "good" thing about the reversion is that it means the Gauss Rifle doesn't have that fucking retarded -1/2 Armor, with -6AP stacked on top of it. Gah. I loath and detest "- 1/2 Armor". Stupidest rule in the game. Because it means that something that can slice through 10 points of vehicle armor can only cut through 1 point of my fashionable 2 Impact Leather Armor? Stupid wonky piece of crap rule.

Anyway, standing rule is that the most recent version of the rules, FAQ, and Errata apply. With newer printed versions superceding earlier versions. And yeah, like I said, this makes my life considerably more difficult.

Bull

using them as IED's however, should be just fine . . if you can rig something up to make them blow where they stand . .
oh, and using them as thrown weapons or clubs should work too, for trolls and other monsters.

Poor old Man ^^

Not always. Recently we've introduced the Harley Brawler that tends to be specialized towards ass-kicking in the Brawl Zone, but traditionally it could've been any old heavy motorcycle, none of which were specialized security or military vehicles. They're still not exactly rolling around in APCs or something, either way, though. To me, a motorcycle's a civilian vehicle at heart.


Uhh, not really. It's pretty much "not the ball, or a dude carrying the ball," and that's really about it.


Right, well, anyways. *shrugs* I won't say the Shadowtalk comment is tremendous or anything, but it seems like we just disagree on the precise nature of the Outrider and his bike, which (in my opinion) isn't worth quibbling about any further, even for someplace as generally pedantic as the internet. Mostly I was just asking for a little clarity concerning your particular Urban Brawl question (since UB's always been awesome, in my head), and that's accomplished.

So, anyways. Sorry for the tangent.

Haha, ok, right. That surely makes for a "loud vehicle" alright


Well, Brawler is statted up in Killing Glare. Plus there are BMW Mjöllnir and similar models in Arsenal 2070, built purposely for combat biking - so I doubt there's any shortage of specialized bike models, really.

Right, for some reason I thought Heavies couldn't.

Yeah, that particular bit is minor, of course. I was just mentioning it to explain why I feel the shadowtalk in the book as a whole is somewhat substandard.

OK, first read through, some interesting things certainly, but the Shadowtalk seems very forced indeed, and full of "That was you?" comments. Which seems odd for a small group of very international ranging people who probably rarely ever are near each other (Except for the folks in Seattle, of course! Home of the Shadowrunner!).

Other than that (And, yes, the "Bogota On The Ocean" bit) it's worth the purchase price in my mind. Art was decent and, well, looked like boats (Better than the firearms did in Gun Heaven!). Some interesting choices of Civilian and possible Shadowrunner craft as well. I have a few ideas of what to do with a lot of them.

Now I can have my summer house (house boat) and my winter house (zepplin). Things are moving up for my character.

Where's your Spring and Fall houses? Ford-Canada Bisons?

Tractor-trailer on the grid with a great pilot program. Always on the move with the jammer on.

I don't know i read pretty much all of those as "oh, i heard about that one" and not "oh it was you on the other side of that insident".
The one that was of the latter type didn't look that forced to me atleast.

Again - half a hundred people of the billions in the world. Ok, half a hundred people of the tens of thousands in the profession.
The chances of them meeting each other is even less than us meeting each other.

But as I said, I'd be fine with that if such encounters would have been gotten any mention in the other books other than cursory.

From my own read-throughs, I only recall one instance of "that was you?" when two Jackpointers directly crossed paths. The other times it was just folks having heard through the grapevine about jobs another Jackpointer pulled. That doesn't seem unlikely to me, since we're supposed to be dealing with the best and most well-connected Shadowrunners; traveling in the right circles, getting semi-legit work as advisers from time to time, only pulling the most top-end jobs, etc, etc? I can see it.

Yeah, hearing of each other is perfectly believable - but it's by far not what we have in Deadly Waves.
Besides, Mika and Mafan are said to be rivals (those two, right? Away from books), so I believe at least those two meet each other at least indirectly from time to time.

Uhh, yeah it is. Hearing of each other is what we have in Deadly Waves. Unless I'm misremembering, there's only one instance of a pair of Jackpointers that directly crossed paths (Red Anya and one of the magic-user dudes, who sank her ship with a water spirit, IIRC). The other handful of Shadowtalk posts were "Oh, so that was you, that one time, that I heard about!" and "I remember hearing about that explosion, you killed some cops," and that sort of thing.

Damage and armor have always been a quite abstract system (and scale poorly to anything larger than an up-armored Steel Lynx), so just don't think too much about it
Although as long as it's coupled with a solid base AP, I think the "-half" works just fine...



Well, good luck trying to make CGL release (or accept previously released) errata. And that's not sarcasm, I'd rather have no reason to bitch about their errata policy anymore.

Maybe something like "-6 or -1/2 Armour, whichever is higher" could apply? That way it would have a solid base punch and do as well as intended against high-armour vehicles (or trolls).

All you need do now is combine them into a single vehicle...

Easy enough, that's one mod.

Indeed... Got me one in the game we are playing in Hong Kong... Of course, the character is mostly retired for now...