Now thats a great april fools joke.. Better than last year. Congrats

Except for the fact it's completely unbelivable.

Its not so much that is believeable, cause its clearly not, its just a very nice response to those who kept on saying "This has got to be an April Fools." right up till the end. I mean come on, everyone knew they were gonna do something today, I just like what they did.

It isn't better than last year. It isn't even funny. It seems to come more from annoyance than from humor.

~J

oooo almost for a second i was fooled then i saw the new forum for it an knew it had to be fake...... but it could be a double bluff and they are going to skip out SR4 altogether and go straight on to SR5??

hehehehhe


torz x

Humor is kind of like rock'n'roll. In the same way you can tell that a song is rock, or that a song isn't rock, just by listening to it, you can tell if a joke/April Fool's Day gag is funny just by reading it.

Am I the only one who feels a little bit saturated with new Shadowrun edition jokes? Before all of the SR4 angst exploded, an SR4 April Fool's joke would have been funny (hell, it was funny...last year). Now an SR5 joke just seems a little tired. A little, eh? what? meh.

Now, an April Fool's gag about SR4 (for example, that its planned to only release it to Gamecube, as per Microsoft's reserved rights, and never to any other console/system), that would be a funny joke.

I can understand if the good folks at Fanpro/Wizkids are busy though. I can dig it.

/tired of the angst. Raise your hand if you just wants to play some SR4...

Some parts were good, but I kinda liked last years.

... after my cyberheart restarted, that's is.

See, a good April fool sjoke would have been to announce that the previous SR4 annoucement was a gag, when it wasn't

Oh this is just great I am really getting pissed off at this BS first they expect me to go out and buy SR4 in Aug.

Now they make this announcement that after one month I will have to stop playing SR4 or lose my life and go out and pay another 150 bucks for SR5.

Look I'm all for a new edition but 2 new editions over the time span of one month that is it if they really do this I'm done no more Shadowrun for me.

I think everyone here should follow my example and do the same exact thing.

Oh by the way for those of you who seem to go through life believing everything everyone tells you then you should now that this rant is a joke meant to be funny in light of all the BS people seen to be yelling out over SR4.

Have a nice day oh and yes last years April fools was better.

Then again anything to fancy this year may have gone over way worse than the news about the reality of SR4 so that is why I think they went with something a little less involved

It was still a little funny in my opinion good job and hats off to Rob and to all involved in SR4 just make us the best product you can please.

I guess they finally came to their senses and jumped on the OGL thingy. Now every fan boy out there can integrate. Not only will you be able to play a cybered out street sam you'll be able to throw him up against the constructs from Eberon.

Genius....
Pure Genius...





Too bad it didn't say SR4 instead SR5 as being the April fool's joke

not to mention the fact that at $150 it is a steal...compared to the ridiculous prices you would have to pay if you wanted an SR3 hardback.

I would have been more fooled had they annouced simply that SR4 would be d20 and included all the other setup they had.

Whether or not annoyance is understandable, it's not particularly professional.

I just think it's amusing that the people most insulted by it are the people it's targeted at by and large (ie, those that have been muttering about various aspects of the game despite reassurances).

I'm not insulted. Just a tad disappointed. There's been very little information, so the only real reassurance has been "We know what we're doing, quit whining."

Still irritated at SR$.

Not insulted by the joke. It was mildly amusing at best.

But yeah, it does seem to be a poke at those of us that are not happy with SR$. Which, yeah - not very professional)

I can take it.

They obviously have a problem with criticism.

Well for critism to be valid, there has to be some material to critisize. We don't even have that yet. So maybe it's not critisism they can't handle but unfounded accusations.

Besides, we can get all in their face on these forums but they're not allowed one little return salvo once a year?

haha, yeah. those damn money-grubbers at wizkid$. all the freelancers i know are loaded.

i doubt it's that they have a problem with criticism. if Rob had a problem with criticism, he wouldn't still be doing SR. i think it's perfectly okay for them to have a problem with your criticism, though, Eldritch, since you've come out and plainly stated that you're mad at them for things that you completely made up. that's like when my mom gets mad at my dad for something he did in one of her dreams.

There is information available: we have the scant details provided, which promise fairly significant changes, and we have FanPro's track record. It's incomplete information, but it's enough floating about for questioning minds to formulate ideas. So while there may be a lot of silly complaints and accusations floating about, I can't muster that much sympathy for FanPro--they're the ones running a business here.

It would be one thing if there was some sort of dialogue going on. But to paraphrase someone else, the entries on the Shadowrun official page read more like message board posts than official news. Making official updates in a state of pique, even as a joke, seems a bit unprofessional. But that's just my opinion.

Fictionally overheard at the developers table:

"Ok you guys start writing. I'll go find out what the users want."






That's how i run all my projects.

there's a difference between questioning developments and sinking into a psychosis-induced fantasy world. questioning developments is fine; it shows interest, it sparks ideas, it promotes good change. fantasizing about what FanPro might be doing, and then getting mad at them for what happened in your daydream--which is 90% of the complaints i've seen here--is not only unproductive, it's unhealthy.

The amount of info being made available (or not available as the case may be) has been attributed to SR4 not being totally finished yet. To prematurely criticize would be as mistaken as to prematurely endorse. Stating fears, desires, past practices are all understandable but criticism is not warrented, yet.

Pretty poor attempt at a humerous response to the SR4 dust-up. If they wan't all the nerotic fans to shut up and go away they should give out more information and put it to rest. Simple as that.

And we are releasing more information as it's appropriate and time allows -- that's the point of the devblog.

That settles it.

I am now spelling all product names with the ever-so-witty "$" in place of the S!!1!!11

yes. the "nerotic" fans might consider--and probably would, if not for their nerosis!--the fact that there might not be anything more to put out. this stuff is in playtesting. the devs could, if they were suicidally stupid, post everything they're working on for everyone to see. that would be almost guaranteed to drive away everyone.

see, when you're developing something, what you do is, you stick your finger down your throat and puke up every idea you've ever had. most of what comes out is going to be half-digested crap that nobody wants to see in their game, which you then pick through piece by piece until you find the good stuff. post that on the devblog, and all of the sudden all of your fans will be screaming at you (even more) about how you're ruining their game--even though 90% of what you come up with isn't going to be in the game at all. moreover, the few people who did like this piece or that piece that you ended up discarding are going to be in your face about how you "lied" to them. "it's right there in the devblog", they'll tell you.

so, yeah. better to keep your blog shut and have everybody think you suck, than to post to it too often and confirm it beyond all doubt.

This is the first time that FanPro LLC has created a new edition of a RPG, but the team working on it hardly lacks experience: Rob worked at FASA for years, including on SR3 and as the Assistant SR Line Developer; Michelle Lyons worked at FASA, has edited nearly every FanPro SR release, and now works at WotC as an editor; Christian Lonsing has been the German SR developer for several years now; Dan Grendell worked with FASA; Elissa Carey, Jon Szeto, and myself are all relatively well-known SR freelancers, and I've done a fair amount of game industry work for other publishers, too.

For most of the people working directly on SR4, this isn't just a hobby, we aren't just fans -- this is how we make our living.

if you call that living!

I don't understand why I found that so funny, but I did.

no one ever does.

No I wasn't griping at all merely stating a point. I think nearly everything that has been put out by Fanpro has been great and I know alot of the writers post on here.


WE DO APPRECIATE IT!!!

I think I speak for most of the fans when I say that we know you will do what you think is right and the result will probably be a great new version but I doubt many of us can help but feel the tiniest bit apprehensive when things start getting changed extensively, no matter who is doing it.

sure. nothing wrong with that. i feel the same way, with some of the rumors floating around. it's when people start randomly spouting about how SR$ is going to suck because of X, when X is something that they fabricated, that it gets annoying.

Ok, first of all I don't believe I've insulted anyone outright. If I have, I apologize - that wasn't my intent.

Second; to the best of my knowledge I have not made anything up:

Fanpro is Coming out with Sr4. They are changing the core rules. They are changing Decking tohackin, combing with rigging, etc. They are upping the timeline. Blah, blah.

The primary reason for this is money.

Correct?

Now, you see a lot of my cynicism comes from expierence. My other favorite game went to 4th edition a couple years back. The developers and writers were all long time players of the game and claimed a great deal of love for the system and setting. (Where have I been hearing that recently and repeatedly?)

And they royally F'd it up. Changed quite a bit of the core rules and completely rewrote the Magic system. And hey, I'll even go so far as to say their stuff was good. But the rules changes were unnecessary. And the new magic system did not fit the setting. The new rule book was poorly organized, and huge.

So yeah, I am concerned. I have that right. I can't do squat about it excpet post here and hope the devs are listening and change as little as possible.

Do I trust you guys to properly take care of Shadowrun? No, I don't know you guys - or your playing habits.

If Fanpro want's to impress anyone, then pick 30 or so players and form a 'test group'. Set up private forums, have them sign NDA's. Give them the data and let them toss it around a bit. Se what filters out. I'm not saying let this group decide anything. But they may see something that you guys aren't. You might be suprised.

*****

Whatever - you guys/fanpro will do what you want.

Holy crap, a gaming company might be out to not only create a fantastic product, but to do so for financial reasons as part of their motivation?!

What's the world coming to! Quick, everyone! Put on your righteus indignation faces, and shake your fists in the air!

4th edition is all about the money. Heh. Right.

Look, I'll put it in simple terms for you. MOney is definately a factor. FanPro is a business, and if we want them to continue to create Shadowrun products, you better thank god that they want to actually make some money. Because the day they stop is the day Shadowrun goes away for good.

Why Shadowrun 4?

1) Tech Curve.

Fact is, Shadorun is, in many areas, behind the Technology Curve present in 2005, let alone what would and could be present in 206X. It's something that FASA wanted to correct, and began with robots and certain wireless stuff in SR3, and FanPro continued. However, you can't just have Tech "jump". Shadowrun's always been a living world, evolving slowly in "real time", for the most part. So additions had to be added just as slowly.

Wireless is a fact of life now. Wireless should be a fact of life in Shadowrun. Many, many players, especially newer players, didn't understand why there wasn't much in the way of wireless. Hell, my players still snicker when they buy a "Cellular Phone" at Chargen. So a time jump was necessary to adjust the tech curve. As was the way a number of things in Shadowrun worked, especially the Matrix.

With the amount of changes necessary, it makes sense to do a new edition.

So why change the rules, you ask?

2) Bring in new fans.

No, this isn't about money. It's about growth, expansion, and maintaining interest. A fact that you may not realize is that SHadowrun loses players almost daily. People lose interest as they get older, get jobs, families, and other hobbies. They may still be interested in Shadowrun, but they don't play. And if they don't play, they rarely buy books.

Back about a year or two before SR3 was released, we had a ton of people avidly playing SHadowrun. Comic Heaven, our local Game and Comic shop, regularly ordered 6-10 copies of every new SR product, and it would sell out within 2 weeks of release. We had a half dozen local GMs and as many groups.

Now, I don't know anyone that regularly plays SR. Even I don't play much anymore. The closest we've come in over a year is a handful of playtests for SR4, 3 sessions I ran trying to get a game going again but failed, and now we're bastardizing the core SR3 rules for a converted non-D20 Modern/Urban Arcana game.

And Shadworun doesn't attract a lot of new players. FASA's demise, the 6 month's of down time between FASA and FanPro, the year or more of retailer ignorance that Shadowrun was still being produced, FanPro's own sporadic schedule, and lack of support from a couple of distributor partnerships so far have all helped keep Shadowrun out of the limelight, so newcomers to the gaming hobby don't hear much about the game.

Then add in the fact that there are a lot of people out there that don't like the Shadowrun system. A LOT of people. Go hit RPG.net, or any of a dozen other general gaming forums, and ask for opinions about SR. The majority of people that have given SR a chance like the setting, but hate the system.

I like the system, but I know there are tons of flaws and inconsistancies. YOu guys love the game, but constantly bitch, complain, and argue here about the rules. So obviously they're not perfect. Trust me, I don't want to see the ruleset go away, but that has a lot to do with the fact I like the complexity and I know it backwards and forwards. I'm old and grumpy and hate change.

But, Shadowrun can't grow without this change. It's stagnating badly now. It's not drawing in enough new players to compensate for the ones it's losing, let alone grow.

And that's it, in a nutshell.

Yes, FanPro's gonna lose people with this change. That's a given. There were people that didn;t move from SR1 to SR2. there were people that didn;t move to SR3. Some are still playing older editions happily, many moved on to other games. That's the way this industry works.

But there are a lot of poeple whoa re taking notice of Shadowrun right now, that haven't given it a second look in years. There are a lot of people who see the phrase "streamlined, simplified rules" and are excited by it.

And yeah, FanPro's only giving out tidbits. That's pretty much how the industry works as well. It's a lot like the trailer to a movie... They show you a little to peak your interest, but they don't show you the whole plot (usually).

Gen Con is over 4 months away. Rob and Adam and crew will be posting more information during that time. So patience, on that front.

<shrug>

I don't know what else to say, and I don't think anyone else involved does either. Mostly because I don't think there is anything else to say. If anyone's not happy with the way things are, well... I'm personally sorry. But you can't please everyone.

Be patient. Be understanding. Try to be a little bit trusting. And worse comes to worse, keep playing SR3. Even if there are no "official" conversion info, there will be numerous fan created conversion guides, I'm sure. And world source material isn't really made obsolete, as they're usually very rules light or rules free.

Bull

Why are you guys still trying, really? Some of us aren't morons, and we don't need it all explained to us like kindergartners. The rest have already made up their mind that "SR$" (heh) is a horrible idea, that it's nothing but a money grab aimed specifically to take away their pot cash, that it's going to ruin their most favoritest game ever, that it makes baby Jesus cry, that it's the reason the Pope is sick, and that it's going to be printed on the last sheets of paper made from the only remaining wood pulp produced from the now depleted rain-forest. They're going to whine and wail and gnash their teeth for four more months, then they're gonna grudgingly pony up for a copy of "SR$" after Gencon -- and then they're gonna read through it looking for things to hate, because no one on the internet ever goes back on an opinion (even one based solely on the voices in their head, like everyone's current beefs with their own imagined version of "SR$").

Some of us are willing to give it a chance, some of us aren't. Don't waste your time, playtesters and dev-team, explaining yourself or trying to justify your actions or seeking some sort of validation from the naysayers. It won't work, and they aren't worth it anyways. Worry about developing the most kickass, sleek, sexy-ass version of Shadowrun ever, instead.

It's that silly part deep inside of me that likes to know the why of everything. And I sometimes foolishly assume that if things are explained simply and fully, that everyone will understand.

I know. I'm a masochistic idiot. What can I say?

To be honest, though, I know where some of these guys are coming from. I wasn't joking when I said I don't like change. Rob mentioned SR4 at Origins last year.

My first response was "Tell me it's not D20, or I'm coming over the table at you." I was joking, of course, since I knew that Rob had no interest in D20, but still...

Me second was "Why change?"

I love SR3. As a buddy used to say, "SR3 is the cadillac of RPG's". It's not perfect, but everytime I start thinking of how I want to design a game, or I think about how to imporve a game, I usually come up with something mimicing how SR handles things.

But change is often necessary. And while I wasn't really all for the idea initially, I understood the reasoning behind it.

Hoepfully eventually all the SR fans will too.

Bull