From here:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/180676...Digital-Box-Set

As usual, drop comments here or discussion. Also, I'll be gradually collecting errors and corrections as needed, so, if you spot problems, point 'em out so I can send 'em upstairs.

Until then, dig in!

The content sounds great, but after all the lows in writing quality in SR5E.... my expactations are below 0 for this.

Is the physical Seattle boxed set also hitting shelves now? If not, how much longer will that be?

Well, I have grown cautious enough to wait for reviews.

This would normally be sort of a 'must-have' for me...but some specific questions for anyone that reviews it at all:


Emerald Shadows, a book outlining the geography of the sprawl and the notable powers and locations in each district
This is the element I am most interested in.
So how many pages?
More impotantly, how does the volume and specificity of location detail compare with the immortal benchmark set by Boy Petersen in the original Seattle Sourcebook?
I still use that, having been deeply disappointed by the massive scaleback in detail in New Seattle, and then a further scaleback in Runner Havens.
So if I liked the original Seattle Sourcebook, how much will I like this?

Ruling the Queen City, a deeper examination of the power and history of Seattle, including a look at the people who rule over the city—and the people who control them;
Is this going to be the usual formulaic suspects - insert name and race and if it's a pol or a corper then he's evil, if it's an oppressed meta journalist they're a hero and guess what mere mortal PCs should feel honored just to be awed and cowed by them?
Or are there going to be some nuanced, surprising individuals and stories we haven't heard before?

Modular map cards, a deck of cards showing maps of different types of rooms that can be combined into a never-ender variety of buildings;
and
And a poster-sized map of Seattle like Shadowrun has never seen before
Will either or both of these be in the digital edition, and if so, are they just pretty to look at on the screen, or will there be any functionality (edit, or maybe the ability to put the modular pieces together to form an image we could post in PbP)?

Thanks to anyone...

What happened on this map? The location of the ACHE and the Aztech pyramid is to be found in the 1E core rulebook, and in several later maps and artwork. What happened there? I mean, the art as such is reasonably nice and all, though a bit incomplete for a map of the entire Seattle sprawl ... but what the hell? And what is the giant blob dome where Qwest Field used to be? Is that supposed to be the Omnidome?

More to come. I can say, though, that I'm kind of miffed there are no neighborhood guides, as Wak has promised. Were they cut? Great to see a good writeup of the Outremer islands, finally. The Ork Underground seems stumped too, though. Again, where are the neighborhoods? Where is the Ghost Gator? Huh?

All that based on a very fast skim with little to no time for SR relevant stuff these days.

Not promised, but things I talked about for my dream project... which I later deleted once anotehr writer was, like, "Ahem." It could have caused confusion (And it seems that, in this case, it did! So they were right.) .... The Emerald book is 88 pages, and it does 5-7 pages of each neighborhood. My first pass on mys ections, I didn't have the format that was used on everything, so I had to do a turbo rewrite, then go back and redo my *other* section which wasn't quite finished. 'Twas a bit of a mess on my part, there.

But you can get a nice overview of each area in that book, while the other book handles the big fish.

For those curious and playing from home, this is also where I snuck in the first mention of Fancy Derek.

Well, technically the second mention of Fancy Derek, if you count the initial typo.

*closes eyes, hand to heart, head lowered*

Truly, he is an inspiration to us all.

I've been having a pretty crappy week, but this single line cheered me right up, since I loved creating the Ghost Gator for Missions (And love hearing stories about it terrorizing teams ).

And I really, really wish my depression & anxiety issues would let me write. I badly wanted to work on the Ork Underground stuff for this. I have a bunch of work I did a couple years ago, and I sent that off to Wak to use as he saw fit, but sadly I think space just became an issue.

Some day...

I used it where I could, and where I didn't, I went out of my way to not step on your toes. That thing's huge and full of AWESOME, and I look forward to the day that you can wrap it up for publishing. Anything I can do to help brother, I got your back.

Haven't been able to find a picture of those, are we talking about classic dungeon tiles or really one room per card (which would somewhat restrict variance in room dimensions)


Have been able to find a picture of that, did they just hide all markers there for a clearer image or is the actual map also blank?

One room per card.


Aside from ferry routes, there's little in terms of Markers. Basis is a googlemaps shot or similar sattelite image. Downtown has drawn-up buildings on top of that (the misplaced Arcologies and a huge dome thing I suspect is supposed to be the Omnidome), the rest is a relatively simple googlemaps paintover. The image there is a downsized version of the original.

Wait a minute. As I am looking at the higher resolution version of the tumblr image: http://40.media.tumblr.com/354921a0d68b423...s9c9hj_1280.jpg the upper arcology -- the only one correctly placed -- is the Aztechnology pyramid, right? Because it kinda looks taller than the lower building.

Hm, might be helpful if the GM needs to whip up a random office hallway on the fly, because players took another turn than planned. But if all those cards can do is random uniform rooms, using them already tells players "your plot is around the other corner"...


Meh. They overdid the marker density in the 6WA North America map, now they scaled it back to zero, maybe next time they'll find a good compromise

And something awesome I just saw posted in the mothership forums: http://fizzygoo.com/Sr/Support/ACHE.jpg

Mothership forums?

The official ones

Will the box be released in phsyical form too?

Absolutely. That's kind of teh entire point of a boxed set.

If you think about it, a digital box isn't very boxy at all.

I think I'm already over the map, after all the problems were known for a year. Though it would be hilarious if the Aztechnology arcology has also been misplaced. But I would like to know, what exactly is the huge dome?

I'm still waiting for small reviews. IN particula,r teh city sections. There's some neat stuff tucked in there.

Indeed, and once I find the time I'll write one. However, one of your authors is not aware that Fuchi has been dead, ingame - and out of game - for 15 years now. Please fill them in. Thanks.

Again?

BTW: Still waiting for Saeder-Krupp review

Yes, again. The Auburn chapter, IIRC (it was a late night, could not sleep, kind of read, so I might be a bit off).

Sorry, not a bunch of time and a couple crazy (not the good kind) developments in my RL. It WILL come, but it may be some weeks.

Well, ok there are several parts of Fuchi that still survived (I'm looking at you, Fuchi Telecomm), or where acquired by other corporations. But the fact that NeoNET "owns" Fuchi Industrial Electronics, as depicted by Market Panic, is just wrong. And even if Fuchi in one form or another still exists (owned by another Mega, but probably not NeoNET), it wouldn't be more then a letterbox company.

... Yeah, need to find out what's up with that.

And, on teh OTHER thread, I was gonna tease you a bit, with, "Man, if you don't get through this one, we'll have Seattle out and you'll be a whole book behind!"

And then they dropped it a week before I thought it'd hit.

So, the joke, literally, fell on me. D'oh!

Indeed. But someone treats it as if it was 2050 and Fuchi was one of the Big 8. And that just doesn't make sense at all. For reference: in Auburn it's that Diamond Deckers makes knock-offs of Fuchi products. Even if that is supposed to be a reference to the fact they did this in the old Seattle book, it has been 27 in-game years since then. That is like saying Apple is best known for having ripped off it's original from Atari, and not, say, the iPhone.

You're probably right, thou I think that Fuchi still exists as a Trademark. And there might be a retro trend (with the return of the Decks), so there might be Fuchi retro designs. That said, it would make sense, when Fuchi references would have been put into that context. But, as we are seen it's not, it's clear that the writer usees outdated sourcematerial.

Yes. I would not have mentioned this if there weren't instances of this - much more major instances - in other books, too. I think it's just a lack of information; to me, it seems this author primarily operates by the somewhat dated world primer courtesy of HBS, which still lists Fuchi as a working corp. Again, this underlines the urgency of an internal reference/fluff bible wiki, I think. shadowrun is a, by game system standards, ancient game with a very long, detailed history. It's unfair to expect every new writer to know all this beforehand, but it's also wrong to just accept glaring continuity errors as a fact of life.

alternately, the person in charge of all the freelancers and who is *presumably* supposed to be editing, fact-checking, etc, should be catching these errors and then correcting them. a radical notion, i'm sure, but worth trying.

I sometimes update the shadowrun wiki, but if we could get more fans in on that, it'd probably be more accurate than anything the freelancers could do for Sixth World documentation. The current shadowrun wikia site got its data from the Dumpshock sixth world wiki before it was abandoned.

I believe there is a potential for crowd sourcing here. But to make it really useful, a separate reference wiki with a simpler structure should be used. Simpler both for the freelancers and the contributing volunteers. I proposed this before, but in the meantime I have built several German example wiki articles that I just gave a rough English translation to get the idea across (actually the San Francisco article is based on my additions to the Wikia entry that originally gave me the whole idea for the structure).

http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Ref:Duchy_of_Pomorya
http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Ref:Czech_Republic
http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Ref:Rolf_Bremen_%28English%29
http://shadowhelix.pegasus.de/Ref:San_Fran...o_%28English%29

If you have a look at the four articles, they have the same structure as a full wiki article (history, geography, crime etc). But all the information is given in a compact form and directly connected to a Shadowrun source, really more of an annotated index. The information bits are also symbolically coded to indicate where they come from: a short story, shadowtalk commentary or a game information section. They are further colour-coded to indicate a rough measure of reliability. Generally a statement from a shadowtalker will be less definitive for the canon than something that is said to be the case in a game information section. This can be done differently of course, the ordered structure with simplified information directly referencing Shadowrun sources is the point.

So why do another wiki? What are the advantages? It's easier and quicker to fill with information. The information is more accessable than from a full text and always directly connected to the source material. One reservation against using the wikis freelancers might have is that a whole new reformulated text introduces uncertainty whether the canon is correctly presented. The simplified version minimises that possibility and I assume most freelancers will want to go to the sources anyway. Finally listing and referencing a few snippets is a much easier task than writing an article. It also coincides with something many game masters or players probably do anyway in reading sourcebooks and taking notes for their game. So the hope would be that this attracts more volunteers than the wikis do right now.

And as a bonus on top this actually helps the full wikis as they can incorporate and further develop the information into complete articles. And maybe get new contributors started.

You never know.

What I'm always wondering is why CGL and other companies (say Bethesda) don't just build a wiki or a Google API map under their official domain. Apart from being helpful for both fans and authors, it markets the game to new players. I got into Shadowrun and RPGs in general when I stumbled across the history on some probably long gone website, and I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who picked up the game because he was fascinated by the setting and universe...

IP protection paranoia. Also, though, it could invalidate (or at least lower its value) an IP in the eyes of a court and/or potential buyers/licensees, I think.

In that case fan sites should have an even harder time.

Also, the FASA Battletech homepage in 2001 had more data than today, so I don't think it's a copyright problem. Probably more of a "that's not a traditional sales channel" problem...

Yes I think it's more of a mentality/culture problem.
Settings with evolving story lines would be far more adapted to an online wiki format than to a book format.

But that means a new business model (probably subscription based) and some changes to the way the writing is done.

I think we're getting a tad off-topic here.

Does anyone have more thought about the book content of the Box?

Alright, strictly stream-of-memory-from-yesterday:
- The map is indeed just the image from tumblr in slightly larger resolution. Meh
- The map cards are teh suck. The cards are not square or 1:1.4 but something irregular, to compensate for this every room as a tiny "door" opening in each of the disproportionally thick side walls. Unless you use microscopic markers or print the rooms on an A4 sheet (which the resolution seems far too low for) the rooms are also far too large for small cards, making them useless as tactical maps, and not detailed enough to provide real storytelling inspirations.
- The "gang card" is just a table of gangs, two or three words on specialties ("ghoul gang") and in which district their territory lies. It comes with a map which does not show these territories, but simply the Seattle districts -- it still may be more useful than the actual Seattle map, because it's in vector format.
- The characters cards reuse faces cropped out of old artwork, which does not work well on several occasions. A Night One with regular elf artwork, a non-hideous looking hideous ork, a helmetless panzergirl who never takes her helmet off ...
- Fancy Derek makes an appearance as pimp, underground fight promoter and serious asshole
- The character where Derek shows up has an interesting background story
- There is a difference between "male human" and "human male"


My impression so far in three words: Shoddy art direction. Not that the art in itself is bad craftsmanship, but from missplacing the ACHE to using random cropped faces, the use of that art shows serious neglect.

I haven't read all of it, but I like what I've read more than I expected to.

As a complete resource to Seattle, it's a pretty lackluster boxed set (or in this case, PDFs). The cards are of no value to me, and the amount of content pales in comparison to Seattle 2072 or the original Seattle Sourcebook.

The map is pretty but not functional as a map. It completely lacks labels, and even buildings like the ACHE are in the wrong location. Personally, when I buy a boxed set, it's with the expectation of a lot of great maps, so this is my biggest disappointment.

But, as a supplement to the other Seattle books I have, I'm quite enjoying this. The content I have read is distinctly useful and interesting. There are clearly some great writers on the team.

Clearly, you should pick up Seattle 2072 first. It's a fantastic book that this is no replacement for. But I can recommend at least getting the PDF of the Seattle Sprawl boxed set afterward.

Any written content in particular that's clicking well for you? There're several writers quietly circling around this thread, hoping someone will say something nice about their part.

I have no clue about how to do that. What kind of fact checking ther would be or stuff alike.

Neither how to create an entry, and so on.

I could help out on this but I don't even know how to do it.

Oh and, more problematic, my English is far from perfect.

I was quite happy with the section on the Redmond barrens. There isn't much breadth in that chapter, but more depth in what was covered that previous works. My current campaign is centered there, so this was handy.

Also, the whole introduction to "Ruling the Queen City" did a great job of setting up Seattle's place in the world. I'm a Seattle native, so I have to layer what is written on top of my own perspective, and I like what I read.

I still have a lot to read, though. I'll try go give more impressions as I do.

Well, negative things obviously stick out more than just the 20th description of Big Rhino's. But something that indeed "clicked" was the description of gentrification in Bellevue and the Underground. Referencing current events too obviously is something I'm wary of, but filthy rich "haves" displacing the have-nots is just a fitting cyberpunk theme.


On the other hand, the artwork really doesn't get better in the Emerald City booklet. And this time it is about the craftsmanship, too, a lot of the artwork is CGI straight from the uncanny valley. Like that picture of the runner hanging under the green bird spirit (I'm pretty sure I saw it online somewhere, but can't find it): It's not terribad, but the pose and lightning and everything just make it look uncomfortably artificial

Go to the shadowrun wiki, search for an article you want to add. If it's not there click contribute button and add new page. If it is there and you want to add or correct it click the edit button.

Make changes that you want, make a little note and press publish. There is a WYSIWYG editor, so you can add headers and the like, kind of like how dumpshock or many other forums do it.

And not speaking english isn't entirely a requirement as even the English speaking natives make grammar mistakes that someone else usually fixes at some point in time. And some entries require a lot of rewriting as they might have just been stubs, or sometimes have incorrect information.

The problem always stands that there is a lot of content in the sixth world, and it just takes a lot of time to compile it, even just poorly.

@sk8bcn: Since your profile indicates you are from France, are you aware of the ShadowWiki? http://shadowrun.fr/wiki/Accueil It has a lot of information that is not in the Shadowrun wiki on Wikia and usually already refers to the English sources, so simply translating missing content would probably be very helpful. Once the substance is there hopefully someone else will give it a nicer shape. Actually a lot of articles in ShadowWiki should have an interwiki link to the Wikia wiki (and/or the Shadowhelix), so finding the matching wiki pages should not be difficult.

He he! Unfortunately, I spend time on SR's wikia and Dumpshock when bored at job or needing a pause.

Shadowrun.fr is labelled as a gaming site and blocked at job.


I'm gonna give a try at editing the wikia. I will mak a thread here to reference my updates so that someone could better the spelling and grammar.

That's hilarious.


For those interested, the Seattle Sprawl Box Set is discussed in episode 85 of the Arcology Podcast with three of the contributing freelancers (one of the podcast's hosts among them): http://arcologypodcast.com/episode-085-sea...sprawl-box-set/

I would like to know a good explanation for how the Atlantean Foundation rose from a publisher of one - in numbers: 1 - monthly online magazine in 2064 (Loose Alliances) to the biggest book publisher in the world (Ruling the Queen City, p. 31)? And who told the former world leader that (DeMeKo, anyone?)?

EDIT: If it would be specified as the biggest physical book publisher, it would be fine. Without this change, I would say there are by far more adequat and bigger fishes in the pond.