I placed this in the wrong forum before ... and didn't know if anyone could move or deleted it so I and posting it where I think it belongs, which is here.

Hoi,

I have posted some ideas here and have quickly caught the bug again.
I last played Shadowrun 2 back in 1998, it is has been a very very long time.
I have not played SR3. Are there people that still stick to the 2nd edition rules,
or has everyone pretty much migrated to 3? I am saying that on the cusp of
the 4th version release. I was really enamoured with 2dn edition rules, and
had little problem with them, so there is apprehension about moving to 3rd.
(I have seen a few of them and was not overly keen, but it was a cursory glance
at the system.) If there are people not migrating to other systems have they developed conversions or other resources?

I was wondering if old first and second edition manuals that are no longer in print
have been released into an open format? most people prefer to have the books,
rather than print off 1000 pages, and if there are any open community source books
out there. (I come from a mud background, where source is shared and ideas are
exchanged freely.)

When I jump into a community I usually get quite absorbed, and try and work to
publish free open resources, ie. I am starting on some stories and a blog of my
old character's daily life. (I was inspired by the Darth Vader blog) And I was thinking
of creating a daily events stream of news like blackjack did. ie, fire at blah blah blah does nuyen.gif nuyen.gif damage, daughter of johnson gets kidnapped, a shipment of compound yyy hijacked on the I-5, etc

I also need to find a primer of everything that happened from 2054 till now basically.
I am finding the blood magic and horrors stuff quite overwelming as it seems that the technology aspect of shadowrun is seemingly getting left behind. Are there other non-official directions and story lines?

Timeline (Just hit search without entering any info and then sift through to 2054 and beyond).

Technology aspect not being left behind. See Deus, Shutdown.

Old manuals are not open. Old manuals will never be open, at least not until 75 years after the death of most of the artists whose art is contained within. Even if that weren't a problem, opening old core rulebooks means creating free competition for one's own product, and that ain't cool.

Most people on this board have migrated to 3rd edition, it's considered the default base of discussion.

~J

Many old books are being made available for pdf purchase. That makes them available again, but still not open.

That bit on Deus, and Shutdown was a poor reference to the book Renraku Arcology Shutdown, and parts therein expanded since, which have some nice big advances in technology.