So I’ve been out of the game for a bit. My interest waxes and wanes depending on if I’m gaming or not. The two SR video games have by Shadowrunner’s blood pumping and I’m back for however long.

I usually look for post from Bull, Ancient, Synner and a few others to get the feel for whats going on.

Holy Crap! What the F happened? The short version please. I see Ancient is very unhappy with Catalyst but not sure why. I know they were having issues but damn. What’s the consensus on all this? Should I bother going to 4th edition or are they going out of business soon?

CGL seems to be doing fine, so far as I can tell. Constantly releasing new material. A lot of folks find the rules broken (especially the math experts here), most figure out how to make them work for them. There is a change in overall feel, which I personally have no problem with. Its a new generation, things change. Things are far less often pink-mohawk or armored duster and instead seem to resemble shows like Burn Notice or Leverage only set in the near future.

As for events in the setting? Google, er, excuse me, Horizon, had a rapid ascent to the top, and is now plateauing, if not losing ground, and the dragons are getting antsy.

Bull is still around, Ancient and Synner not so much.

More or less, Catalyst had some money and legal issues, and some freelancers weren't getting paid so they left. Others left for moral and ethical reasons. It got pretty ugly for a while.

The issues are mostly resolved now, Catalyst has folks pumping out new products again, and they seem to be okay.

Certainly, at least check 4th edition out, it is a very nice system even if it has some rough spots.



-k

Jesus his web site is gone! Is he done with SR all together or just this current iteration?

Are they? I thought the resolution to the whole Coleman House Expansion was 'Uh. No I didn't take any money.' and that the plan moving forward is to pay freelancers at the bottom rates for the industry.

But they are getting paid, which is an improvement.

Someone mirrored Ancient's site with his permission. Otherwise yeah, it's gone. He pulled out, and held copyright on all of his creative works when things came to a head.

Which is unfortunate. His knowledge of the lore was primo.

AH came out of hiding just long enough to PM me links to all his goodies.

Thanks man.

Have they put out any product that people who have to pay for them don't consider crap? I stopped looking at them after the neo-nazi jew-buster crap in "Bogota!"

That's a great point. I received my copy of a 3rd printing (corrected) version of Street Magic, and within ten minutes of skimming through, I already saw glaring grammar problems that should have been caught in copy edit. While I make grammar mistakes in my early drafts, I usually get most of them cut out by final. With this booking being a reprinting with the SRA pages referenced, I would have expected that it would be more tightly edited than it was.

As for new content, that is another great point. We have already seen the MMO guys that do Vampire revert back to the original Vampire game. I guess because the nWOD never really took off like oWOD. (Of course, all we ever see from that game is pretty videos of how cool the clothes will be in that game.) Also, I'm starting to get the impression with the Shadowrun video games reverting back to 2050 as a sign of the same type of vibe. I wonder what other folks impressions are. Is the last decade of Shadowrun really that weak? I ask because I'm not one to buy every supplement that comes out.

SR:Returns is in the 50's because it channels nostalgia as a very important factor. SR:Online will be 2070's.

Speaking for myself, I've enjoyed the 4th Ed, and 4A rules a lot more than any other that I've played, and I've also enjoyed watching the timeline progress.

It's only my opinion, but I think in the past decade the fiction has really grown up, and started reaching out to draw in new players and characters, while retaining the core of what was cool from previous editions.

I also happen to think that the only way the game could ever be what it was, is if the big events are frozen in time.... and to me that is a lot less interesting than having effects have consequences. For example Chicago was nuked in an awesome story arc, but even more awesome is the fact that years down the track it's still messed up.

I love the fact that when something happens, it really happens. There isn't the "Everything resets by the end of the episode" that can happen in some games and game universes. It's like Technomancers, once the Deus story arc finished, it fundamentally changed the 6th world, and Technomancers are the end result of that. Everytime I see someone play a Technomancer it brings back all the cool parts of the story to me. Ditto Shedim for Dunkelzahn, ditto ditto Horizon for CalFree.

I am only one person, and this is only one opinion, but I love Fourth Ed *because* of the previous editions (and the events that happened in them), not in spite of or instead of.

Sorry if I got a bit off topic here, but I wanted to inject an alternate point of view.

Cheers
CC

I'll say this much - we picked up Clutch of Dragons last week, and I bought Elven Blood this weekend, and I've liked both. Minimal editing errors, the writing has gotten much better, and nothing I've really found questionable. Even on just a quick read through of Blood (I only got home from Gencon a few hours ago) I'm really impressed.