I've seen many, many people posting about how much they love SR3 and that they're distrustful of SR4. Well, SR3 was a bit of a departure from SR2 and WAY off from SR1. Change can be good. Just because things are evolving, doesn't mean that Shadowrun is going to be a totally different, unplayable game now. Give SR4 a chance before you get all pissed off. Wait until you KNOW FOR A FACT what has changed and HOW IT HAS CHANGED before you judge it. I think that the developers have earned a little trust, don't you? Aren't they entitled to the benefit of the doubt? Haven't they proved that they know what they're doing?

They haven't, not really, and...I'm a cynic about such things.

Not after this 'hackers' name change crap they haven't.
And I'm starting not to like the hints being dropped of the change in dice mechanics either.

They changed a name and they updated some tech. That's so catastrophic that everyone has their undies in a bunch? Calm down, for God's sake. It's not the end of the gaming world.

I can't agree either— and hell, I like the hackers name change and the furor over it is getting pretty damned annoying. I simply haven't seen much from these guys, and neither have the rest of you. Recent FanPro work has been better, yes. Certainly a step up from the disastrous crap that somehow passed for publication when Mulvihill was around. I'll admit I'm reasonably optimistic about this, and I do think people have been unreasonably quick to jump at current devs and declare them false prophets and all the other silly bullshit that's been flying lately. But I'm not going to advise blind faith, either. That's a bit too far in the opposite direction.

That said, the blind judgement a lot of people have been getting into lately needs to stop. That shit's just as narrowminded, and arguably more annoying.

Take it with a grain of salt Smiley! What the heck else would we be talking about? Its the old story about headlines; "Planet Doomed" is news, "Planet A-OK" is just not as interesting.

Well, I love every change so far - even the change of deckers to hackers.

I have complete faith in the design team.



The Horror

What could we do to amuse ourselves if we didn't have gems of irrational, seething, rage, like the guy who posted the,"Opinion? Yeah, I got one?" thread?

As long as we are talking upside, anyone wanna take a bet on wether or not the invisibility question gets resolved?

Also, the FAQ no longer applies.

Hey guys,

It just occurred to me. Isn't it April Fool's Day in two day's time?

Boy, you're right! They sure pulled a fast one on us. I just wish I could see the looks on the playtester's and developer's faces when someone tells them the whole thing's just a joke!

I'll give SR4 a chance. There are things to be changed, a lot imo. We'll see if we like the changes rob and his boys are doing. If not - well, nobody has to use them.

Yea, or buy them.

Which means SR folds again, and now we don't even get SR3.

Actually plenty of people still play basic dnd but that's besides the point. Personally I'll give it a shot see if I like the rules and setting. Honestly I expect to probably have something akin to using the SR4 ruleset with a revised SR3 setting but that's just me. Of course at a certain point in time that pretty much kills adventure and sourcebook sales but that's an industry wide problem atm.

and thats my point, if people are still playing a ruleset that had a fighter, mage, cleric, thief, elf and dwarf as playable CLASSES, well, i think you'll be able to manage with sr3 if you don't like the direction sr4 goes. After all, they haven't had any sort of setting upgrade for what? nearly 20 years?

And if you asked those guys if they would like to get a new book now and then, what would they say?

My point is that there's nothing wrong with people being apprehensive about the SR4 changes. Because who knows what can happen if it doesn't sell.

We Fear Change.

I dont know what they'd say, but i can tell you it's generally not profitable for a gaming company to continue making products for obsolete (in their minds) products. I'm sure the number of people playing dnd/adnd/ even 3.0 is a small minority. Writing, printing and distributing books is expensive.

Remember, inside every silver lining is a cloud.

I think it says on the SR4 FAQ that SR3 books with rules in them will no longer be useful.

I'm glad I didn't buy SOTA whatever.

Really.

I do still want MrJLBB though, last book I got was SSG.

I guess Running Wild and Loose Alliances can suck it, though.

If Shadowrun tanks over this, WizKids still owns the rights.

Personally, I'm more worried about the system being bad and not tanking.

~J

He's worried that it's going to be bad, but everyone around him is going to like it, and he'll have to suck up to the new (bad) system just to get to play SR anymore.

That concise enough?

I want to preface this by saying that a lot of the wording I'm going to use is that of a friend of mine with whom I've talked this out. The opinions contained herein, however, are mine.

I don't object to the idea of SR4. When I first heard about it I was excited, even hopeful after the initial fear died down. A lot of things need to be simplified, made sane, rebalanced (though I disagree with the merge-the-rulesets mentality). Even the news that the WMI (which it's no secret that I think has no place in Shadowrun) has not only persisted but thrived left me hopeful. The more I watch, though, the more the hope turns to dread. From the destruction and rebuilding of the Matrix on principles derived from today rather than from existing Matrix tech, to the general change-for-change's-sake attitude being expressed (from Patrick Goodman's "We're trying to bring it up to snuff with the world around us, which has largely outstripped it in terms of the tech available to us now", which is not in and of itself either positive or necessary to the retagging of Deckers to "hackers", presumably in an effort to say to potential players "hey, it's different now!")… the entire thing has the stink of a marketer on it, and not a good marketer.

But what I'm afraid of isn't that SR4 will fail catastrophically. No, that may send FanPro scrambling back to 3rd Edition (or possibly resulting in someone else picking it up if FanPro loses the license from WizKids), which, while badly in need of improvement, has been clearly demonstrated to work. What I'm afraid of is that this will have a modicum of early success with casual players who drift off into other games, while simultaneously eroding the fanatical fanbase, thus leading to slow death several years down the line. That seems altogether more likely to result in the death of Shadowrun as a game.

Edit: Eyeless: Hush, you though I do admit that if that happens I'll have to find something more productive to do with all of my time, horrifying thought that that is

~J

I think that's pretty concisely put, and I can more or less agree with it.

Fair enough. I have some of the same concerns. I guess we are in a wait-and-see mode for a few months

I tend to agree with Kagetenshi that there remains a big question of whether SR4 can thrive or if it further fracture the fanbase. I'm not saying that a new edition isn't pretty much mandatory on a regular basis in the gaming industry as corebooks are always better revenue streams than sourcebooks it's just that each rule revision seems to bring fewer and fewer gamers along with it unless it manages to bring in a new influx of gamers. Simply put there seems to be a point of diminishing returns on most game systems and at a certain point in time it becomes a good business decision to scrap an existing line and build something completely new.

I'm not sure that SR4 is going to be that point (despite the large degree of hatred it's already acchieving) but overall some degree of trepidation is somewhat warranted.

And again, the fact that the rights are owned by someone other than the publisher gives an added layer of protection.

~J

Look the system may or may not be bad. Personally i'm comming down on the side of not bad, because I think the playtesters want to do it justice.

But thats really a moot point because it's the world i'm paying for. The plot and all that jazz.

So as long as that remains as good as ever I will still religously pick up all the new books.

Before anyone starts slagging off past plotlines there have been none that I have hated.

Yes I like some better than others but none of them have been truly bad.

I hope it is good as well. Hell, I may or may not like it. Won't know until I see it. But I won't be able to - just can't afford it (Or justify the expense)

I just don't think SR4 is neccessary.

"All change is not growth; as all movement is not forward."

Right. It's the "not invented here" syndrome, which is an absolutely atrocious mindset.

~J

more like the "we get a lot of complaints about the way the old regime ran things, so we're going to do things differently" complex.

No, he quite definitely just described "Not Invented Here" syndrome. Reread the last line of that post.

~J

And do you really think that that will change? The flipping through several books to find a particular rule? Or to make a character?

No.

Sure, at first you'll only need the one book. But then The Magic book, the Cyber book, the ...and so on.

And will the new version be less complex? Maybe. Will it Be "Dumbed out"? Maybe.

The point is, SR4 will have just as many flaws - and be just as complex as SR3. Maybe not right away, but eventually.

That's just the way it is with RPG's. And it doesn't have to be that way.

Well, yes, that's partially true, Kage. Not that I'm saying that is even a part of the motivation for SR4, but it could be. My direct neural interface to Rob's brain is on the fritz lately, so I can't tell you what was running through his mind at the time of the decision.

But think about it. If SR3's ruleset was proving troublesome to the development and popularity of the game, what are the options? You could try to change the rules within the same edition, but that's an expansion of SR3's already existing problem of having an expansive rules tangle across non-core books. Or you could make a new edition. "Not Invented Here" syndrome would be correct if FanPro were tossing out all of Shadowrun to make a new game, but that's not the case. NIH syndrome involves ignoring previous research, results, and knowledge, which is also not the case here. Expansive past research and experience in Shadowrun is being applied.

Take a look at the RPGNet threads here, here, here and here full of people who post about ditching Shadowrun because of the confusing rules, "rules creep", too many required books, too much flipping through books, etc.

I can say that it is definitely the goal. There are far too many people who say, "I like Shadowrun, but..." or "I would play Shadowrun, but..." and that needed to be addressed. It's one thing to come to someplace like Dumpshock, but the people who read and post on Dumpshock already play Shadowrun. Most have managed to get their heads at least partially around SR3's rules. They own many of the books. What about the person who has heard of Shadowrun, but has never read the rules and doesn't own any of the books yet? We want him or her to play also. It's not just a matter of sales (though if we can get those people who own no Shadowrun books to buy some, that's certainly a good thing), but it's about the game. Game designers make games for people to play them. If there's something preventing a lot of people from trying your game out, you want to fix that.

I would love to give you an absolute "YES!", Eldritch, but that's out of my hands, really. I'm just a fan and a writer. I have some influence, but ultimately the line designer tells us how the books are going to go and what will and won't be in them. So Rob would have to answer that.

As I've said, I'm not against a new edition. I won't say that it's badly needed, but it is needed. I am, however, seeing what looks like a lot of change for the sake of change—I am, at this point, not terribly impressed by what I'm seeing of this new edition.