Look, I'm at least as dubious as any ten dudes about SR4. I started playing in 1989 with the same GM I have today - Serious Paul - and we're still using some rules from SR1, we're so bass-ackwards and reactionary. I feel your pain; you just bought all the books, you just learned all the rules, blah blah blah, my big black boot up your ass.

Well, guess what. You can stay here and bitch about it, or you can make suggestions that'll be maybe read by someone maybe in a position to do something about it, or you can do what I'm going to do: make a difference.

Write something for SR4. Playtest it. I loved Rigger 3 so much it hurt; mostly it hurt because Rigger 3 had some serious and abiding flaws. And I actually playtested that; I just didn't do so with nearly as much time and attention as it deserved. Look, this is something we all love, and if we want it to not totally suck, we're the ones who should be doing something about it.

So stop flaming a version you've never read. Stop assuming it's a money-grab. Stop complaining that you're going to hate the rules, even though you really don't know what they are. Do something. Do something that will actually make it better, instead of just making people frustrated. Contribute. I will be.

How precicely *does* one apply to be a playtester? I know I'd be all over that in a hot second if I could.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the new game. From everything I've read this far, the vast majority of it looks like a huge improvement overall. I'm especially thrilled by the Matrix-oriented changes, and am looking forward to (but still being a bit leery due to recent work on) the magic system in particular. I'm sure there'll be things I don't like and will doubtlessly complain about 'em, but that doesn't mean I won't appreciate the effort that went into them.

Shadowrun is, and always has been, more about the setting and atmosphere than the rules systems. I'm going to miss having completely different rulesets for the various "classes" in the game (mostly because I enjoyed the flexibility of getting over a humdrum phase by playing a different "class," and thus a completely different game within the same game), but a unified system will be so much better in the long run.

If the new system makes the game even a little easier for new players to learn it, and even playfully nuzzles at improving the layout of the rules themselves (as opposed to spreading a single rule out through twenty different chapters and books), I'll be thrilled.

But, then again, I love change. <just looks at his handle and sighs sadly>

I have only two requests, myself:

1. Detailed indexes (if anyone corrects me with "indices," I'm gonna smack 'em), dammit. These *are* effectively technical manuals. Please treat them as one, at least as far as the rulebooks go. Grr.

2. More playtesters. I don't want to be one, as I know my style of the game is drastically different from many others, but please -- please -- expand your current cliche of playtesters to a large degree. Preferably /not/ using only a certain type of player or group of players (ie, personal buddies, freelancers, and convention goers). It compeltely defeats the purpose of playtesting if you only use a small sampling of player types.

Uhm. Not sure if this was the right thread for my rambling, but screw it.

the only thing i don't like was the guerilla-style surprise with which they announced it. if they've already been working on it for something like a year (which is what i've heard) and it's going to come out in 5-6 months, i get this feeling like me writing something for it and submitting it isn't going to do a dreking thing....

sounds to me like they've already made all the decisions about how they want things to be. i could be wrong, but it's what i think.

*edit*

upon reading otaku mike's post, it is nice to know that they haven't made up their minds about everything just yet. and now that i know playtesting isn't near an end just yet, i would certainly toss my hat into the ring...except that i do not yet have a group here in Denver to run with (HINT: if you live around denver and need a PC/GM, check the player/GM registry!)

rob said that they have all the playtesters they need

I assume he was swamped by applications to playtest SR4 the moment the press release came out.

From what I have been made to understand, and this is just from talking with a few different play testing groups that I know, it seems like a word of mouth thing to be a play tester. Which kind of makes sense-if it's even true.

You want your play testers to be reliable people you can trust, and who can follow instructions. I'd love my group to be able to get on board, and believe me I am networking as best I can for it, but I understand that it's not like they can afford to mail this tuff to everybody that lines up.

I do agree with 3278 on one thing-submit stuff, if not to the actual game, then TSS, or one of the regular fan based prjects laying around here. (McMackie's people always need new DAT files.) I wrote a fair share of the Seattle 2064 stuff, and although the editing procss has been a real chore and we're still waiting for it all to hit the stands (I am anyways.), I am pretty happy with that. I feel like I helped guide the game's direction at that time.

Plus something I thought up, with a handy dose of encouragement from Adam, and others-for which I am very grateful, I made something cool enough to mak TSS. A special issue of TSS. I still hold out hope that one day I could write some canon stuff-with a healthy spell checking program of course!