Wow, so many folks took that "Hacker" comment way too serious. I'd firmly like to speculate that it's only a title for the same thing decking as been.

It's marketing I tell you! Marketing!

a cyberterminal (tortise deck) is just a legal, slower version of a cyberdeck. but doesn't it still take you into the 3-D matrix that a deck does?

right...you're not 'in' the matrix, but you are still "using full simsense immersion". i'm talking about only using like 25% immersion, where you can still carry-on daily activities while surfing.

basically is see being able to have the cyberdeck render a more text based matrix (something like our internet today) 'over' your vision - like you could have your matrix 'window' open in the corner of your vision while you walk down the street, or you could bring it to full so that it covers your entire field of vision once you sit down somewhere.

or you could have a wireless cyberterm. that is the size of your pocket secretary do the same thing.

does that make sense?

right! and i'd like to see a scenerio where you could be partially in.

Some of this sounds very much like Steve Mann's work on wearable computers. Overlaying computer images/info over a view of reality.

One of is philosophies is that in wearing a camera, he's taking back part of what he's lost in that the rest of the world spying on all of us with cameras.

Wearcam Site
Homepage (One of them)
EyeTap Imaging Labs
For those lacking Google-fu

ya, that's pretty cool - i'd love having UNIX with me all day! well, if i could connect to the 'net wirelessly everywhere...which right now is not possible...but in 2070...

I can almost see it now: Two SR4 deckers meet face to face and begin and lock into battle each attempting to crash the other off the Matrix. At the climax, the losing decker reaches out and punches the would be victor square in the nose, a la "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark" style.

LOL.

just to see if i understood...

you could be walking around and "see" martix places/personas litterly overlaid ontop of real life? so then:

you're sitting in a coffee house and you are seeing the surroundings of the coffee house, but your matrix persona is on shadowland and you are seeing shadowland's surroundings too(maybe as an translucient cover to the coffee house). so if someone approached you on shadowland, then you could choose to interact with them, and no one in the coffee house would know.

i guess i see more oppertunity for PCs to try and abuse that - not that i don't think it's a good idea, i would just like to see it restricted...i.e. if you try to deck and do something somewhat complicated in the real world at the same time, then you have to roll against vertigo effects or something.

really, anyway you look at it, wireless matrix access that occurs simultaniously with real life needs to be restricted...maybe say that in any one initiative pass you have to choose whether you're in the matrix or the real world.

I'm thinking this concept would work well with some Snake Eyes and BattleTach. The team would be active in supplying intellegence on the immediate surroundings. The Decker could overlay the lay of the land, mark targets, and find points of weakness during the mission. He'd act as an onsite controller directing the Team to their objective. He can also use recognition software and the horsepower of his deck to ID things colllected in the data stream like a sniper that is hidden, cannot be seen easily, but a sensor sweep picks him up.

Just think of the guys in the "van" in an Alias episode when a mission is on. The support in the van are supplying mission info, directions, and acting as mission controllers. He'd also do the hack when it became necessary to further the physical assets. Small Unit Tactics might be a useful skill to supply a pool or extra mission dice for the scene.

You're also assuming Shadowland has a place. Which it may or may not, I don't know, but keep in mind that when we usually see Shadowland in the game, it's as a source of information, not as a "space."

For instance, imagine Dumpshock as Shadowland. Now, if you're in a coffee shop and you have your wireless laptop and you bring up Dumpshock and you reply to my post here, you're interacting with me...from the coffee shop! Now imagine Dumpshock as a space of information overlayed over your vision. Imagine if you were surfing Dumpshock with your eyes and posting through a subvocal speech-to-text translation.

To take it a step farther, imagine you're in the coffeeshop with your wireless laptop and you open AIM or whatever and message me. And imagine I open a chat window with you, and I've got my webcam going and a microphone set up. You're chatting with me, from the coffeeshop, wireless, with voice and image. Now just take it a step farther and expand "voice and image" to a 3D icon representation. So instead of seeing me in your AIM window, you're seeing me standing next to you in the coffeeshop.

Nifty, huh?

You mean that isn't how it works? When I was working on a team of hardasses who had TacComps with the BattleTac Cyberlink and Snake-Eyes, a Rigger with all the BattleTac goodies and a Decker with BattleTac Matrixlink they were all communicating, to simplify it, telepathically. It's also how someone I know ran the Blues in the Arcology, with Deus having a SUT skill of 16. Everyone could sense where everyone was, what they were doing, what they were perceiving, and what their condition was. With a team leader with a sufficiently high SUT, they have Combat Pools in the high teens to low twenties, and almost cannot ever be surprised.

Kind of like that?

Psst. Open up a Commlink and have your street sam buddie punch him in the back of the head just before you launch Black Hammer.

see, that sounds more like what i was talking about...running forums and instant messaging systems (or chatting with someone's persona), checking email, google searches for info...that kind of thing. that's all 'simple' stuff that could be done while you multitask with your regular vision.

its the idea that we may be able to hack a full 3-D environment with locked data stores and other matrix objects around while we are still viewing the real world that sounds undesirable to me.

I would bet on it working more like a rigger jumping into a drone or a mage going on an astral quest for that. But I picture a higher use of agents and frames, like commanding spirits or drone pilots, to do much of the crunch work.

i like that comparison:

riggers and mages both have two ways of being outside of their body, each way demanding a varying level of concentration...

...with riggers you can command a bunch of drones or jump into one and control it. to jump into the one, you have to forsake the others.

...with mages you can astraly perceive and see the astral plane, or you can project and travel around in it. to be able to travel around in it, you have to forsake being in your body.

...now with deckers, you'll have accessing the matrix and hacking the matrix. to be able to full on hack it, you'll have to forsake contact with the real world.

I'm thinking that's exactly what it's going to be. Or at least I hope so anyway!

One of the playtesters spilled his guts and basically admitted this in another thread.

Well it would probably be more limited in what you can accomplish, but why not?

Back to the coffeshop. Joe Hacker walks in, sits down, wants toorder a cinamin honey double mocha fudge latte deluxe. Instead of waiting in line like a chump, or waiting for a waitress to notice him, he uses his live wireless Matrix link to do it. Glancing at the cash register (or maybe the overhead menu, or whatever), his wireless Matrixlink (complete with limited simsense rig, probably) reads the position of his eyes and brings up an interactive menu on his image link. Joe places the coffee order, which gets transmitted to the guy behind the counter instantly.

Now, that's how *normal* Matrix 2.0 users would do it. Let's say Joe is a bit more amibitios, though, and wants to not actually *pay* for his coffee. So he loads up his Read/Write Utility, kept in hearwear memory, his pocsec, wherever, and hacks the menu system, changing his drink order to paid with a simple Computer test. Of course, Joe can't go hack the coffee shop's bank accounts and steal their assets or anything because there isn't a proper popup menu nearby to hack, but he can give himself a free drink just fine. Watch out for IC though; they can really f*ck you up, and you can only get away by physically running out of the wireless's signal's range.

*That's* how I see the new non-comatose Matrix system working. Of course all of this is my opinion, and shouldn't be interpreted as anything like how it will really work; I'm so not-connected with Fanpro...

I had the same thoughts, but I think the Virtuality was a concept that was ahead of it's time to be understood. It's getting more and more talk recently as a viable concept (The game developers' conference, State of Play II, recently has been talking about the augemented world and the collapse of the division between the real world and the virtual world).

I think the big problem with Virtuality was that it was too heavily based around holographic projections of the virtual onto the real world. This new Matrix and the hacker seem more in common with GITS:SAC and the Laughing Man, where cyberbrains are as common as cellphones (applies more to Japan than here) that someone could engineer an exploit that would allow him to commit crimes in public and in broad daylight and no one could positively ID him because his face was obscured by a logo in their heads.

yes - that is exactly how i would want it to run as well - even if the decker is very skilled, i would want him to have only limited hacking access to any place on the matrix when connected wirelessly - that only makes sense.

good write-up

and i would imagine that in any big metroplex, you'd have wireless all over the place. that would certinally make our deckers think twice about what they're attempting...is it worth all the trouble you'd face? the only way out of that one, since you are tied to the physical world and wouldn't be able to out maneuver the IC, is to dump yourself out. ouch.

You're assuming they were particularly separate to begin with.

~J

"Konekuto Waiado"

Don't you know, aluminum's out. Velostat is all the rage.

Jrayjoker - I suggest you go back and read the post, particularly the point where Audun mentions that he has no involvement with SR4. Believe what you will, but please no name calling when you're disappointed (or not as the case may be).

Fortune -