Since I know there are those who've been waiting patiently for Shadows of Europe for a very long time now, and since the German crowd have already been let in through the FanPro D April newsletter, here goes the latest update.

The good news is the book is finished proofing and is undergoing final tweaks before being sent off to press. The other good news is that during layout it turned out it that to fit all the material it was going to have to be a bigger volume than originally predicted - so SoE should number a thick 240 pages(!) of all new material on the New Old World.

Hope that makes up for the wait.

I have to say, this is good news. Now I really can't wait for it to be released.

Yay. I like meaty tomes. Any chance of there being any Shadowrun hardbacks in the future?

yes--available at your local Kinko's!

What is Kinkos?

A full-service photocopy, video conferencing, etc. place.

Sorry. He's referencing shops you don't have.

The chance of a SR3 hardback is exceptionally slim, due to the economics of printing and how many copies could reasonably be sold to recoup those costs - especially considering SR3 is six years old.

[I know you're gonna jump up and down and go "But I'd buy one and so would lots of people on Dumpshock!", but by virtue of caring enough about Shadowrun to talk about it on the internet, you are not the average SR fan. ]

It may have been phrased badly, but I think I got my point across - you can't use the hardcore fans as a barometer for what will be popular, because they're bound to have strong feelings one way or another. Look at the difference between the Shadowrun d20 threads that came about after our April Fools joke; on Dumpshock, people were widely against it. On RPG.net and ENWorld, people generally thought it would be a good to great move for FanPro.

No, I was serious. It made perfect sense to me. The fact that we all spend our time shooting the breese about this stuff makes us more inclince than the average RPer to be interested in a product like that.

Hell, I'll go you one better. I'd bet the majority of Dumpshockers wouldn't buy a hardcover for a variety of reasons. Say there's 5000+ DSers. Not all of those are active. And even of the ones that are, most woundn't/couldn't because of the cost, etc...

Crap. See? Thats why I liked yours better. It was clear, brief, and to the point. Mine rambled on...

240 pages... that makes it Shadowrun's largest sourcebook ever, right?

Here in Germany all SR rulebooks (1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition) are hardcovers...

COKE??? I really prefer Pepsi. (actually, I prefer Virgin Cola but I am not sure you even know what I am on about)

On the side, will the book be more pricy?

Hey MYSTIC the only reason DIDS II is so thick is because its written in German. Talk about a language with long words...

Anyhow, I bet if you ask TW and the other German FANPRO freelancers nicely they'll translate it all back again. I bet that'll beat the pagecount contest.

I play d20, and I think converting SR would be a TERRIBLE idea.
d20 is kinda nifty, it's useful to have a system that lots of people know, especially if you're trying to start a new game, but it is hardly the ultimate state of enlightenment for all RPG's, as some seem to think.

For cola, it really depends on what ypu're having with it. Coke has a sharper more lemony taste whilst Pepsi a softer more mellow flavour to it. Not that I drink a lot of the stuff or anything.

Who ever heard of a Whisky-Pepsi?

It may have to do with the recipe reacting differently to the water at the nearest bottling plant. It's not usually worth the cost to purify the water when you are going to mix in a thick sludge of flavorings, so a different metal/mineral content in the base water may lead to such local variations.

I would claim that it also differs from batch to batch at times, although that might also have to do with where the water comes from each time, storage, bottle impurities (all bottles recycled here, and often), etc. The sharp, lemony cokes are the best. About 1 out of 10 bottles you get that great waft of lemony scent when you crack it open the first time. Aahhhh.

Might as well get started on a new bottle. Damn, ain't lemony.

And YAY for greater page count!

They have starting adding a lemon flavoring to the new lemon flavored diet coke.

Anything with the adjective "diet" used to describe it is not worth ingesting. Give me a fatty SoE with 0.24kp any day.

Coke with whiskey is about the only way I can drink it...heh. Otherwise, pass me a pepsi!

I would ask why you would ever want to ruin the whiskey, but then I remember how to drink a bottle of vodka I had to mix it with coke. Best 2 hour buzz I ever had.

But seriously, I don't drink sodas but rarely. I think it was because I got sick of fishing lemon slices out of my cokes when I was in Europe. Sick bastards.

Hey crimson do they have any other war presidents? Or is it jsut another attack on Bush? Was it made with Photoshop? Nevermind I'll figure it out.

[Edit]I also now have a mosaic of John Ashcroft made from porn photos.[/Edit]

The guy made it with a mosaic creation program. It's a statement, because there are images used up to 3 times (620ish would have been too lo res), but he also justified it on grounds that the known dead are only those who were killed outright, and not those who died later in hospitals or suicide.

I have it because IMO it is mean as hell, and frankly I have long since quit trying to think about this war rationally. It's pure spite and hatred, especially because I know so many people there. It's disingenuous, but the point remains that their deaths are on his head.

But this isn't the place.

I am so eager to see SOE come out. I have some storylines in the works that I really need SOE for. (But then again, I still haven't finished the prologues for two major characters incorporating elements in SoNA)

Attempt to completely derail thread:

I understand it is kinda hard to keep "logical" with crap like this going on, but i can't condone just giving up.

Now back to our regularly scheduled thread:

So, what are the rumours about price of this bad-boi? For >300 pages, even softback, that must be going to push $40US?

I would appreciate it if no further attempts were made to derail the thread. It would be a shame to have to shut it down, but I will.

As for price, it'll be bumped up to $29.99.

Shut it down. Its already useless, in order to get anything of use that may be posted I or others will have to wade thru the last dozen or so posts of garbage, and I am not inclined to do that.

I can't see how you can declare a discussion of beverage bottling techniques worthless.

Burn the rest though.

I have a question - and I understand if nobody can answer it...

Will SoE be changing any of the information presented in previous sourcebooks? I admit that I'm primarily concerned with the UK, but it goes for all of them - the 2nd Ed. London and Germany Sourcebooks for example? Will the things they included be refuted or made obsolete by SoE, or will in incorporate and/or build on those titles?

Every attempt was made to make SoE consistent with all previous canon material. Just like SoNA didn't contradict NAN1 & 2, NAGNA, Tir Tairngire, Calfree, etc., neither will SoE contradict or make obsolete the London, Germany or Tir Na nOg sourcebooks.

That being said more than 10 years in game time have elapsed since the London and Germany compilations were uploaded to Shadowland and only a little less for TNO. A lot of stuff could have and has happened in that decade. So, while SoE builds on previous material, it presents significant updates all round as well as lots of entirely new material.

If you're a long time fan like me who has those books you might find it fun to see how things have developed from the status "back then" or you can use them as a complementay reading since the material in SoE will obviously be briefer.

And before anyone asks, yes, we did attempt to address some of the previous inconsistencies just as the authors of SoNA had done with North Am.

There's a lot to be said for "creative revisionism".

Indeed.

The first thing would be: It's still revisionism.

True, unfortunately there's a bunch of things which don't add up or simply sound dated or plain wrong in canon (especially with the older SR1 stuff).

NAN population figures are one, French nobles in feathered caps and leggings are another, but the London sourcebook is also a classic example - post-Thatcherian hangover anyone?

So, an author revisiting anything of the kind faces an unenviable choice. He can:

• Disregard it completely (and tell all the fans that have been using that material it's effectively no longer part of canon continuity).
• Selectively disregard it (not addressing the problem at all, working around and ignoring it).
• Say it was wrong (for whatever reason) and introduce new data (allowing for an in game explanation for the prior mistakes).
• Give the material a serious twist (meaning you take what was written before and cast it under a completely different light).

Personally I prefer the latter two options which fall under "creative revisionism". Would you prefer either of the former?

Nope. Not me. I like the last two... and I prefer the last one.