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Blue eyes
An update from the official fanpro homepage on Monday 17 january 2005:

Meine amerikanischen Kollegen arbeiten im Moment mit Hochdruck an der Fertigstellung des "Loose Alliances" (dt. "Feind meines Feindes") und "Shadows of Asia" (dt. "Asien in den Schatten"). Das sind beides 'schwierige' Bücher, das LA wegen des komplexen politisch-gesellschaftlichen Hintergrundes und das SoA wegen seines gewaltigen Umfangs (alle asiatischen Staaten von Russland und dem Mittleren Osten bis hin zu Indonesien und Ozeanien werden abgedeckt ), also seid bitte nicht böse, wenn es etwas länger dauert als geplant.
Als Erscheinungstermin gebe ich dann auch vorsichtigerweise für das LA das erste Quartal 2005 und für das SoA das zweite Quartal 2005 an. Die deutschen Versionen werden wie gewohnt ca. 1 bis 2 Monate nach Erscheinen der Orignialversionen erhältlich sein, die genauen Termine gibt es hier im Newsletter, sobald sie feststehen.

The important news:

Loose Alliances presumably released in the first quarter of 2005

Shadow of Asia presumably released in the second quater of 2005

Shadow of Asia covering: Asia, Middle East, Russia, Oceania/ I believe this covers Australia, New Zealand and smaller islands in the Pacific..... A HUGE BOOK!!!!!

CAN WE PLEASE GET SOME KIND OF AN OFFICIAL US. RESPONCE TO THIS NEWS ?
eek.gif


Grinder
Hopefully the german versions will be better translated than SOTA or SoE - both had been horrible translation and are a waste of money. I prefer the english versions.
mfb
me too. i find the german versions wholly incomprehensible.
Hudson
QUOTE (Grinder)
Hopefully the german versions will be better translated than SOTA or SoE - both had been horrible translation and are a waste of money. I prefer the english versions.

So the curse continues. frown.gif

And my friends still wonder why I never buy german RPG books. (With the notable exception of SR1 back in 1990.)


Folkert
Grinder
Back in the old days, german sourcebooks had at least some extra-stuff (remember the german versions of cannon companion or man&machine?) which may or may be good but _at least_ it was something special. And the translation was flawless.

Today it seems like FanPro doesn't care if we (the players) like their work. ohplease.gif
Jrayjoker
My very limited understanding of German is that if you don't know the jargon you can't communicate intelligently. Is this a case of having translators who are not gamers, or is the proofing just that bad?
Grinder
Don't know. Seems to be both. At SOTA:2064 new people did the translation and they made really bad mistakes, like a terribly wrong translation of "track & field" or "hockey" (which means ice-hockey in the context). You don't have to know the game to translate such words in the correct manner.
Some mistakes are more in the sense of not knowing the gaming world, but they are the minority.
Synner
To respond to Blue Eyes' original post: Yes, that is the expected order of release. Loose Alliances is currently undergoing final edits and primary writing on Shadows of Asia was mostly wrapped before the end of the year. Shadows of Asia does indeed look to be pretty big since it covers the continent from the Urals to Oceania and from Yakut to Sri Lanka, with special attention going to all the major players. Like SoE, the book covers a lot of new ground and a lot of countries.
otaku mike
I wouldn't expect much on Australia as it's already been covered quite thoroughly in T:AL
Besides, Australia is its own continent/geographical area. It's not a part of Asia per se.
MYST1C
QUOTE (Jrayjoker)
Is this a case of having translators who are not gamers, or is the proofing just that bad?

The worst German translation so far was "Brennpunkt: Matrix" (Target: Matrix).
Loads of strange or plain wrong translations, not using established translations for specific English game terms - and packed with grammar and spelling mistakes.
I was very surprised to discover that the same translator had also done the German version of Matrix (which was ok) so he should have known what he was doing.

It seemed the book had gone straight from translator to printing without any proof-reading (after much asking this was somewhat confirmed by FanPro).
Grinder
But Crazy's still around there, so why does such shit happen? eek.gif
Blue eyes
QUOTE (Synner)
To respond to Blue Eyes' original post: Yes, that is the expected order of release. Loose Alliances is currently undergoing final edits and primary writing on Shadows of Asia was mostly wrapped before the end of the year. Shadows of Asia does indeed look to be pretty big since it covers the continent from the Urals to Oceania and from Yakut to Sri Lanka, with special attention going to all the major players. Like SoE, the book covers a lot of new ground and a lot of countries.

Thank you very much Synner for putting the record straight.

Doesn't this mean that it will contain even more pages than Shadows of Europe?

Will we then also see a focus on magical traditions in the Middle east ?

otaku mike
Why only the Middle East when there are also Russia/Yakut, Japan, India or Southeast Asia to name only a few other places?... smile.gif
Blue eyes
So true, I was just aiming for the one I found must interesting, but yeah here's hoping there will be a focus on all those different magic traditions in that enormous area........ biggrin.gif

Any one able to confirm or deny our hopes ????????????????????????


Grinder
India as well as China could easily cover a whole sourcebook alone. Too bad this won't happen ohplease.gif
Demonseed Elite
They certainly could, but the one-nation-one-sourcebook thing doesn't work so great anymore. I know I could have written a ton more on Tibet (in fact, I have a ton more written, strewn around my hard drive). Maybe I can get some of that stuff put on the shadowrun website, or maybe I can make my own webspace for it.
Fortune
Synner's wanting to put his supplemental material up on the shadowrun site as well. Maybe you guys should get together and barrage Adam with emails. wink.gif
Grinder
That would be cool. But i guess Adam knows anyway that we want more in-depth-material smile.gif

Can you give us a brief overview about tibet, a little teaser? New Martial Arts? New Ki-powers?
TW
QUOTE (Grinder)
Back in the old days, german sourcebooks had at least some extra-stuff (remember the german versions of cannon companion or man&machine?) which may or may be good but _at least_ it was something special. And the translation was flawless.

Today it seems like FanPro doesn't care if we (the players) like their work.  ohplease.gif

If Fanpro D doesn't care for their german SR fanbase/audience, then why is it that there's a new "German-only" SR publication coming out each year, not to mention regular monthly (!) updates and additions to the webpage?

With the SR plots not focusing on Seattle and the UCAS alone anymore, there's really no need to add material on the AGS every time a new book is being translated. Also, some of the German freelancers (e.g. Lars Blumenstein, Tobias Hamelmann, Jens Ulrich and myself) also write for Fanpro US and are thereby able to slip in tidbits on the ASG from time to time and where appropriate.

Personally, I'd prefer an all-out 100% "german-only" sourcebook / campaign / whatever to the 5 extra pages on cyberpirates in the North Sea at any time, but that's just me...

As for the translations, I can't comment on that since I'm collecting the english versions ever since SR1.
Blue eyes
QUOTE (Grinder)
That would be cool. But i guess Adam knows anyway that we want more in-depth-material smile.gif

I second that, it would indeed be very cool to get more background material for the different countries put...... Let's hope Adam agrees smile.gif
Demonseed Elite
QUOTE
Can you give us a brief overview about tibet, a little teaser? New Martial Arts? New Ki-powers?


I can't really. But I will say that I focused more on the nation and the people than new rules. I think the former are the more important aspect of the "Shadows of..." books, and I'd save most new rules ideas for other books, like the SOTA books. But honestly, most of the ideas I had for new rules have been covered lately in other books by other authors (Channeling metamagic, the new physad powers in SOTA64, etc.). No need to repeat the work they did or try to make it obsolete.

QUOTE
I second that, it would indeed be very cool to get more background material for the different countries put...... Let's hope Adam agrees


I'm going to guess that one of the considerations is whether or not the material on the Shadowrun website is canon, and if it is, it probably needs to be scanned by Rob and possibly edited. Which I don't know that they have the time and manpower for.

Whereas if I just chuck it up on my webspace or another site, it's there but not really canon and so it doesn't require any FanPro effort.
mfb
it would be very, very cool if Fanpro implemented a series of web expansions for the books they put out, using excess material that was cut out for space considerations.

i'd make the web material semi-canon. it'd be basically official, but there would be no guarantee that future sb's will follow it.
Crimsondude 2.0
Well, I think it'd be really cool, too. But I also imagine some things are cut not so much for the authors' lack of knowledge or commitment, but because it doesn't tie into the long-term canon, and even official, non-canon or semi-official publications may lend a certain imprimature to something that is inconsistent or contradicts something that will come later.
Nath
The problem is, if you extends everything from, say, Shadows of Europe, giving so much more about each cities, governments and corporations, you'd make the real book useless, and damage sales. First option is only to give stuff that is really not in the book (matrix hosts, cost of living, ...), another one would be to extend only a teaser, like covering in detail a single city for instance.
Crimsondude 2.0
That, too. I think the type of material that has been released on the official website is in the vein of what to post; For example, the bio about Johnny Spinrad transcends SoE since he also appears in SOTA64 and has been referred to since SR1. It provides further context to these books, but doesn't make the book useless by any means. If, OTOH, they were to post pages of details about every major city in Spain, it'd make about half of the chapter useless, if not the whole chapter depending on what was in there as it related to the rest of the chapter. In detailing even cities, the information in SoE about the Church, corps, government, and shadows would be almost unnecessary (this is, of course, a worst case scenario). And that would suck, because then there'd be no more SR books.
Grinder
QUOTE (TW)
Personally, I'd prefer an all-out 100% "german-only" sourcebook / campaign / whatever to the 5 extra pages on cyberpirates in the North Sea at any time, but that's just me...

We should better not discuss about the AGS...

I never wanted to deny the writing skills of the german staff - in fact, i only wanted to complain about the quality of the translation. The last books seem to be translated in a hurry with no cross-check or whatever. That shows to me that FanPro is more concerned about releasing a translation as quick as possible, even if it comes on cost of the quality (of the translation). And that really sucks.

Mensch & Maschine as well as Arsenal 2060 had fluff text in int, nothing specific about the AGS (like Cyberpiraten had).
Adam
QUOTE
I'm going to guess that one of the considerations is whether or not the material on the Shadowrun website is canon, and if it is, it probably needs to be scanned by Rob and possibly edited. Which I don't know that they have the time and manpower for.

As far as we're concerned, material on ShadowrunRPG.com is canon; it all has the approval of the Line Developer.

It would rock to post tons of extra stuff for each book, but there are some factors that contribute against it -- namely it costs time and money to generate and edit such content. You can't just chuck 5 pages of "cut material" from a book online, as it's often cut in little bits and pieces, and material that is cut "wholesale" is often cut for a reason ... IE, it doesn't fit with the developer's vision with the book, or it's plain just not up to snuff [and would take too long to get up to snuff.]

That and I'm mad busy doing the other project you guys have been begging for for years -- getting ebooks online. smile.gif
Nath
Now I think about it, I'd prefer to see on the website materials that wasn't cut from any book. The specific example I have in mind is the UCAS Presidential Election of 2064: none of the scheduled books will come close to cover it, until SOTA:2065, which will take place one or two months after the election (not to mention the primaries).
Crimsondude 2.0
OTOH, stuff from the website can eventually end up almost verbatim in a later SB--like the info on the Scott Commission and DIMR which wound up in Target: UCAS.
FlakJacket
QUOTE (Blue eyes)
Shadow of Asia covering: Asia, Middle East, Russia,

Oh I definately want to have a look at this one to see what they've done with Russia and Israel, never mind the Chinese states or Hong Kong. biggrin.gif

QUOTE (Adam)
That and I'm mad busy doing the other project you guys have been begging for for years -- getting ebooks online. smile.gif

*Sigh* I don't know. It's always Me Me Me with you, isn't it? wink.gif
Adam
Funny, I always thought it was Us Us Us with you guys... smile.gif
FlakJacket
Nah. That'd be Gimme Gimme Gimme, usually with a large sideorder of Now. smile.gif
Adam
Here's the ad that FanPro will be running in the Origins pre-registration and on-site booklet: http://www.talkinabout.com/fanpro/origins_ad.jpg
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