Apparently you do neither know alternatives to buying CGL-issue books, nor alternatives to buying PDFs altogether. And I doubt you know Psychology, except maybe from visiting a therapist. You'd not have written most of what you did if you did.


Fortunatly, no. They edit them, add in Errata, and even bind them all in hardcover. Little of CGL's shabby writing survives this. Not enough is done about the shabby storyline, but that might change in 5h edition, since the German writers are a bit frustrated with CGL's work as well.


Some people just refuse to take sub-par quality, and instead complain about it. And then there's your kind of people, who look to aggrandise themselves by siding with the supposed betters and point at the supposed heretics. Just like a true Belieber. Aren't you, Pepsi?


Obviously, correct writing isn't your top priority, but - while that may come as a shock to an American - not everyone thinks like you or has the same values. Yes, he might well do, or maybe buy the German book.


That's like saying the Pinto was an average car. If you don't care about product quality, fine. Just don't pretend to be on the high horse and yell at those who do.

Page 24.
Glaring enough for you?

Yeah, I will totally borrow it. Absolutely.

Again, three thirds of this errors would've been corrected if anyone other than a Word spellchecker gave the text a read before publishing it. My English is far from perfect, so I obviously miss a few errors reading, but still there're more than enough to grate on my nerves.

For the level of an average highschooler, no, it's not that bad. For adult persons, trying to have something called reading flow, yes, it IS simply that bad.
You may disagree, but the errors are there and ... ironically prove you wrong.

There are simple truths in a business that's focused on _books_. Books, which are, incidentally, reliant on language, grammar, and proper spelling.
Don't get me wrong though: I am not blaming authors for anything beyond content (well, much). I make a lot of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes myself.
This is the editor's fault.

@Fatum:

I agree in full. It is disgraceful to let that level of QA go through. It is also disgraceful to have authors proofread their own material. It just doesn't work.

Just a heads up regarding Perianwyr...

1) I know why Peri did what he did. It just hasn't been explained yet because right now, there are no Jackpointers who have had a chance to talk to Peri and ask.

2) I'm writing a 4-adventure series for Missions called "The Dragon's Song" that will follow up the events of Clutch and his arrest in Storm Front. They're CMP's (Convention exclusive Missions), but the plan is to do like we did with Elven Blood. Likely a limited print run for at the conventions, then a PDF release once the prime convention season is over.

Bull

I know alternatives, but we were discussing not buying the 5th edition core book, due to editing.


I've a degree in psychology with a minor in abnormal behavior. How about you Hermit?



If you don't like the story, then you might not like the books. If you're on a forums board posting dozens of times daily or 1000s of times over all. Chances are, a few editing mistakes, aren't going to stop you from purchasing such an 'important' book to the line, as the new core book.



Many people like to complain. Many more like to complain 'online'. As for 'sub-par' quality, I don't agree with that. I point out that it's exactly par quality, if not slightly above par. Again, these are RPG books. They all have grammar errors in them, or conflicting rules, or stat errors. All of them. Every one. Some worse than others. Shadowrun's not the worst. Far from it.

Are some people so picky they might not buy a book due to grammar? Sure. Do those same people spend large portions of their time on forums boards posting hundreds to THOUSANDS of times just one one game? Not often.



lol wow.... and you try and go for direct insults. "My kinda people". Looking to aggrandize (( which you spelled wrong by the way : ) )) myself by siding with my supposed betters?

I'm just pointing out that if you post thousands of replys on a Shadowrun board, a few grammar errors won't prevent you from buying the new core book, which you'll need to continue playing the game as it progresses.

Your insults non withstanding.. I point back to the "Some people are only happy when they're complaining" part.

We have bought a total of three CGL products in our home in the past 4 or so years because of poor editing. Of those purchases I'd toss one in the trash (Conspiracy Theories) because the editing is so bad. Clutch and Elven Blood are keepers, Elven Blood was very good IMHO and I didn't see any large grammatical errors. Clutch I only wanted because I'm a dragonfangirl.

They've lost significant money from us because of poor editing but I think we are probably the minority.

Clearly you're all getting it backwards! He obviously have several standing hordes of ork waiting to forfill their proud heritage of raiding and pillaging! (Yes Im aware the Barsaive Ork were quite civilized)

It was the misspelling of one word man. lol One error, repeated 4 times. It's a simple mistake that is not going to be caught by spell checking. If you're reading hundreds of thousands of words for mistakes, words that don't pop, or are easily confused might get missed.

As for "Three thirds"of -those- errors.... wouldn't that make it all of them?

I'm not a grammar nazi. I hate them, but if you're going to complain about other people's grammar, you kinda gotta watch your self using 'this' instead of 'these' in a post about word mistakes and grammar, and three thirds... well... That's ironic.

To wit, you are not. I know several German players who wait for the Pegasus products because of the same reasons. All those bought English material up until ... well, War!

Well that makes things better

Yes. A simple mistake, easily corrected by having someone (like the EDITOR, who's JOB DESCRIPTION this is) read over the material he publishes.
Failing to realize this makes you look so foolish.


Fatum comes from Russia, what's your excuse except bad schooling?

And instead taking advantage of any of the possible alternatives? Nah. Too complicated.


University of Lagos? Or someplace in Kansas?


If I want cheap par products, I will not pay premium money for them. I will either find other ways to acquire the product that cost less, buy a derivate that is of higher quality, or buy a better alternative.


And we are pointing out that you are wrong.

But cute how whiny you suddenly get now someone hits you back.

Ach ja, und wenn du meinst, dich über meine Rechtschreibung auslassen zu müssen, mein Freund, dann versuch doch mal, einen korrekten englischen Satz zu schreiben. Bisher sind die in deinen Postings arg in der Minderheit. Just saying.

Lei è un cane intelligente. (Said with no sarcasm, DS needs a sarcasm color...)

I'm not saying that editors shouldn't catch those. If I were getting paid to do so, I'd make more of an effort. I'm saying using a homophone by mistake isn't the end of the world, or worthy of REFUSING TO BUY THE BOOK!!! Especially if you're the type of person that's online and posting thousands of times on the rpg board.

Yes the editors should know better. It's their job. But refusing to buy a book due to a homophone mistake? That's silly



Hey man. I'm not the one claiming I won't buy a book after posting 1000s of times on the forums board over a homophone, and complaining about grammar while making grammar mistakes myself in my posts... complaining about grammar! If I were, I'd look silly.

I know I don't spell well and my grammar is suspect. Highly suspect in many cases. Again. It's not hypocrisy for me, as I'm not the one claiming to refuse to buy a book based on it.

It's called quality control, it's something you can come to expect from a product you pay for. It's an important distinction to make, when you're having a conversation it's common decency to not nag on someones grammar or spelling, especially in a climate where most are speaking in their second or third language (Although the opposite seem to be true with french speakers, it's proper to correct someone)

However, we're not having a conversation, we're paying customers forking out our hard earned cash for a service. We have all right to expect a high quality product.

As civilised as that stinking backwater ever got, anyway. *snorts orichalcum dust*

I'm not saying he couldn't. I'm saying I doubt he would. There's a difference. Had he only a few dozen or hundred posts over years, I could see it. But when you're almost at 2000 posts on one forums board, you're pretty invested.



University of North Carolina, actually.



I'm not sure what a cheep par product is, i'm going to guess you mean sub par. Where in, I again point out, to be sub par, it means below average. I point out that all RPG books have grammar, spelling and stat problems, and Shadowrun books aren't worse than average. So they wouldn't be 'sub par'. They'd be 'par for the course' or slightly above par. As for money. Money's money, unless you're paying in gold coin or something, you're not paying premium money either.

Again, if you don't like the book that's one thing, but refusing to buy a core book of a line you're on the forums boards daily and to the tune of -thousands- of posts, based on a homophone, is silly.



No. You're saying that I'm wrong. I think I'm right. For example, just the other day you bought two new releases for shadowrun with in 24 hours of their release Hermit. Not the actions of someone who cares so much about grammar mistakes you'll refuse to buy the new core book based on it. Your actions speak louder than your words.



I'm not whiny. You're reducing yourself to repeated direct insults because you don't like what I have to say.



I'm not venting about your spelling. I'm pointing out that using improper grammar and spelling while you yourself (( or others making the complaint)) about grammar and spelling, is ironic. When you're complaining about spelling and grammar, you need to put forth the effort not to make the same mistakes you complain about, while complaining about them.

Switching to another language doesn't change that either. I have stipulated and will stipulate again, my own spelling and grammar are horrible. I --know-- it is. But then, I don't complain about other's spelling and grammar, unless it's REALLY Messed up, because..... it'd be hypocritical of me to do so.

...

...oh goody, more "witty snark = intelligent discussion".

Anyways, so are grammatical errors "A" problem that should be addressed? Yes. Are they "THE" problem? No.

God no.

NEVER.

At the end of the day, it should be the actual content of the product that matters. Grammatical errors are really a minor detail all considering, and generally doesn't really spoil the rest of the writing. As long as they aren't so bad to the point that the meaning of the product is lost or misunderstood, then it should not warrant "NNNOOOOO!!!!! BETRAYAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Forest for the trees, people.

Completely off topic, but even though my German's rusty as hell, I was able to puzzle out that sentence without using a translator.

My two cents... I haven't bought any print releases since War! came out, and all the old-school writing talent left. I've never felt there was a satisfactory resolution to the whole embezzlement scandal. The quality of writing after that time period had a precipitous drop -- I'd call it a plummet into the jaws of a gaping, endless abyss. That whole time period completely destroyed my regard of the Shadowrun brand, and of Catalyst's handling of it.

I would love for SR5 to redeem the game for me, at least insofar as the rules go. And it could be that with enough playtesting and rules fixes that the rules themselves could be quite good. I'd buy the SR5 core book for that alone, maybe.

But for the plot and writing? Meh. I've abandoned all hope. It hurts me to say that, but it's true.

Yeah I did wonder why his entry in StormFront said that he was had a pivotal role in the events in Denver when he didn't really do anything except sitting in a coffin.

I only have the Japancorps and Matrix stories to go so I guess it is save to post my "Places you don't want to be in 2075" list in descending order of "get the hell out"

1. Asamando


2. Bogotá


3. Denver


4. GeMiTo


5. Secret Ares research labs


6. Teocallis


7. Near any Black Lodge property


8. Seattle

Guys, can I ask that you take it to another thread? It's a problem, yes, and a long-standing, ongoing, frustrating problem. But it's also one that sparks an argument in almost everything thread. May I suggest just starting a "Terrible Editing" thread, and each time a new book comes out, you guys can argue over there, so that folks can actually discuss the content of the new book (good or bad), and not just resurrect an ongoing fight?

I totally agree, in most cases. I hate grammar and spelling Nazi's. Hate hate hate them. Forums boards of this nature are informal places where people aren't held to publishing standards and yes, some are speaking second or third languages. I -totally- agree that it's common decency to ignore such things.

By and large _I do_. Because I myself, often have ---horrible grammar--- and with out spell check, even worse spelling. It takes -a lot- to get me to comment on grammar or spelling. I'm very very fluent in Typo.

When I -do- point them out, is when others are BEING Grammar or Spelling Nazi's, and make the same mistakes they're complaining about. If you're going to rail about grammar or spelling, make sure you do so in grammatically correct ways, and make sure you spell your complaint's correctly. Other wise the complaints look to be the very height of hypocrisy.

I hate grammar/spelling Nazi's... and I really hate hypocritical ones.

Sorry Bull. I'll drop it.

@Abschalten: Actually, there was a lot of good stuff since War! There ARE oldschool writers still (or again) on board that deliver consistently interesting stuff. There are also new writers that consistently produce good writing. Goodman, Zimmerman and Croteau are on this very forum and I have a lot of respect for what they have written for SR4. You're missing out

For me it's a matter of pick & choose.

I would love to be proven wrong. Could you recommend some of the newer, quality releases so I can look for myself? You can list them here for other folks or just shoot me a PM. Either way is cool.

Bogota

-snip-

Didn't see the post, Bull. And for the record, I will continue top bring it up, if only in the hpope to make this so frustrating that eventually, something is actually done about it. And Pepsi, while you may hate grammar nazis, I hate people who defend shabby products because they think shabbyness is acceptable.

Elven Blood is a beautiful adventure book, Safehouses and Sim Dreams & Nightmares (haven't read that one myself, yet, but here's a review http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=1216612 ) are fine stuff for fleshing out lifestyles and SimSense / BTL stories.
You should read the novella Neat and The Land of Promise, too. The latter one ties in directly with Elven Blood and is a long needed update on the Tir Tairngire situation. Way of the Samurai is a good product, and even though I didn't enjoy the writing itself much, the crunch part is interesting (and I'm not a crunch guy ^^).
Running Wild is one of the better 'big' books, and Another Rainy Night is a good read although I can't quite say what to make of it in an actual game sense.

Most of these are available in pdf for a relatively low price.

In their defense, they have rather a large number of shade trees, and a subterranean tunnel/"sidewalk" system (if I've read all the preceding source material correctly). One doesn't have to go out on the streets in Asamando, at least in the capital I can't spell without a book in front of me, very much at all if one chooses not to do so.

I might be misremembering things. Wouldn't be the first time; it's been rather a busy week and my brain's a little scrambled.

I love how by Pepsi Jedi's logic posting a lot (if you consider 2k posts over three plus years to be a lot) makes it harder for me to acquire books in any of the many alternative methods, and how he accuses others of hipocrisy while apparently holding forum posts (that I didn't get to edit thanks to my ISP suddenly dying) to the same standard as the books we willingly pay money to read (mind that this payment is a privilege in a world where producing a digital copy costs nothing). If you want honest comparisons, open one of my fan supplements (which are free, unlike the CGL books), and you'll find that while I regularly mess up the articles, for example, the errors like the ones I quoted from just a couple pages, the ones even a highschool learner of English would spot, are simply not there.

As for the new books, the decent material hidden in those is the very source of real trouble: the books might be worth reading for it, but doing that feels like digging for diamonds in a shitpile. Also, as for the good recent books, The Way of the Adept (and Samurai), and especially Safehouses, come to mind.

Lol double post

Yeah, sorry about that part. There's more game-relevent stuff in "Sail Away, Sweet Sister," its long-gestating and really way-overdue sequel, which I hope to have finished soon. I've just had a lot of other contracts to get out of the way, and SASS isn't contracted yet. Neither are "Father to Son" or "Thunderstruck" or "Sons of the Alamo," though...man, I've got a lot to get finished up. I suppose once a couple of these other paying gigs get finished....

No need to apologize, really. I enjoyed the thing immensely I just don't see a way to incorporate it into actual play, apart from that evil HMHVV terrorist group appearing in the world. ^^

Personally, I also liked the Season 4 Missions a lot. Best published adventures for Shadowrun, if you ask me.

And I took Another Rainy Night as a novella, like Neat, first. Which makes both novellas out in PDF form very good. Now we need to convince CanRay to write one, and Critas and Patrick to write more. ^_^

Small point of fact. I didn't say you couldn't acquire books in alternative methods. I said that people who post 1000s of times on a rpg forums board are not likely to cite misused homophones as reason to refuse to buy the book at all. ... not likely to refuse to buy a book at all, based on the misuse of homophones.

That I think if you invest that much time just to the forums for the product, that you'll very likely buy the new core book for the product. That 4 usages of a homophone wouldn't likely stop you. Yeah you have 1800+ posts over that time frame. Roughly 2 posts per day if spread out evenly. (I know they come in spurts.) But yeah, roughly 2 posts per day on an RPG forums board, totaling in almost 2,000 post, indicates to me that the grammatical mistakes aren't going to hold you back much.

Edited: for clarity of thought.

What happened to "I'll drop it"?

QFT. Missions, especially this past season, are among the best bang-for-your-buck PDF purchases out there, for just about any game system. (Full Disclosure: Yeah, I write for CGL, but I'd buy these even if I didn't. I've never written one, and probably won't ever because my adventure-writing chops suck and I wouldn't do that to anybody.)

I'd love to see Ray do some straight fiction. With the job he's done in Safehouses and Sim Dreams, I think a novella (or full novel) from him would be hella fun.

I'm a sucker for Rusty's work; the more words he produces for SR, the better the game world and the happier I am as a reader.

I've got a couple things coming up that I can't talk about right now, but I'm very pleased with how they came out; one of them is a lot of fun to read even knowing that I wrote it myself, and that's just a great feeling. It's also unlike most of my other stuff. I've also got a story called "Blowing Sky High" that's going to be part of the Shadowrun Returns anthology. I'm working on the sequel to ARN, as I said in another post, along with a few other things. So if you like my stuff, know that I appreciate it, I'm flattered anyone would want more, and there's more coming down the pipe.

If anything, caring for a system makes the monetary support of lazily done books less likely, not more so.
Your attempts at predicting my actions better than myself are making me suspicious, though: we're past the Awakening date, are you per chance trying to read my mind?

He posted 20 minutes later and I was clarifying I wasn't saying something attributed to me.

I didn't reply to your insult laden reply after I told Bull I'd drop it.

You are, however, quite right. I should stop replying to the bait. My apologies.

Very much enjoyed Running wild even of some of the concepts are pretty reprehensible to my sensibilities namely technocritters and mutants, don't get me wrong I like technomancers, but literal cats on the internet is just... It makes my head hurt.
The writing is solid, I would have liked some more crunch for the dragon chapter... Art leaves much to be desired though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8VTeDHjcM
SCNR.

Back to Storm Front now!

Redacted, sorry Bull, just saw your post.

Running wild, was written well. I liked it in some ways. In others I found it inferior to the old Paranormal Animals of NA.

I prefer illustration for each paranormal, and love love loved the shadow talk pertaining to all the creatures in PNANA. That book, Paranormal Animals of North America, was the book that drew me into Shadowrun. I very much missed the shadow talk on all the critters and such, and the illustrations for all of the things. Those are the sort that really need good mental images for them.

Running Wild is a book with a good concept and a lot of interesting ideas like biodrone rules and technocritters, but some of the execution details left me wondering, like e-cockroaches being harder to spot in the Matrix thanks to being so small.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I know Sengir and I, and to a lesser extent Hermit and I, have kind of gone round and round about it, but if anyone has any questions about "Sleeping With the Enemy" that haven't already been driven into the ground, please feel free to ask. Hell, even if they have; anyone who knows me knows I'll talk about my stuff until I get a restraining order....

Same here. And he can do it, he has episodical stories on his DevArt that are really good.


QFT.


I have a big, big review coming up and will put all my comments and questions about the book in there.

Back to topic or this thread gets locked.

Page 50 in the "Fall of a Dragon" chapter, has a runner named Helix. Sort of made me blink. I have a female Night one, Elf Street Sam named Helix. Made me smile a bit.

Now that I've been reading spoilers, I feel I can kind of contribute a little more...

Yes, work quality is important to me. As the Jackal said, we haven't bought more than three books for the last four years - Conspiracy Theories, Clutch of Dragons, and Elven Blood. Of them, Conspiracy is on its way out the door; the only thing keeping it from going there is that Jackal hasn't read it all the way through yet, and she's a bit of a conspiracy nut. Clutch is good for its focus on dragons other than most of the Greats. The Peri chapter was good, but the Damon chapter was good enough we attempted to bribe its author with alcohol last Gencon. Elven Blood, on the other hand, is wonderful, and big props to Crit for writing it (which I've pretty much told him every opportunity I've been granted).

Tangent: Bull, is there any chance that we can get Season 4 thrown into a book and published as a pdf or something? I was going to buy some during the GM Sale on DriveThruRPG, but the sheer number of them kind of kept me from doing it. Please?

But I'm an author myself, and a bit of an editor, and I think that your quality has to speak for itself. It's not critical, and it's absolutely not the reason I'm leery of buying this book (I'm not going to kid myself and say that I'm not buying 5e, but I'm pretty comfortable with 4eA and looking at doing a Cortex hack) but it's now part of it. You have to take pride in the work you release, and if you're letting that sort of thing slip through the cracks - I mean, c'mon. We all understand that shit is going to get past us, but this has been a recurring thing for the last couple books and it's starting to get a little old.

Onto the main thrust of this thread: I'm not happy in regards to the dragon spoilers. Hell, I'm not happy with a lot of the "revealed" elements. It doesn't kill my interest in the game, but it certainly enforces my (again: admittedly paranoid) feeling that we're going for "IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE SIXTH WORLD, THERE IS ONLY SHADOWRUN" and - I'm sorry guys, not my game. I say that as someone that will prolly still pick up books by my favorite authors (Wak, Critias, Patrick, James) when it concerns an element of the Sixth World that I enjoy, but I can tell that my tastes and your tastes are diverging.

And that's okay! I like a lot of where mid-3e to mid-4e was going, and know that I can co-exist with you all. And I'll be picking up 5e just in order to stay on track with the cool kids. But given that I get something different from Shadowrun than a lot of people seem to here and on the official boards, I just feel a drift coming on. Plus, I'm kind of super happy with Dungeon World and Marvel Heroic RP'ing and...

So yeah. Disappointed in the spoilers revealed so far. Poor OQ, Harley, Peri...at least Damon came out okay, right?

Right?