I'll second that Whuffie.

How I wish rpg´s could support more employees. Both for yours and our sakes Adam. Take care and don´t burn out man.

Adam, I don't think you're lying on the couch looking at internet porn. I know you're working.

That doesn't change the fact that SoA's PDF is late.

Obviously, you have too much to do. So why doesn't Fan Pro hire more staff? Even temporary staff? Here we go again...things get screwed up, and the Fan Pro company men say, "Hey! We're working really hard!"

Yeah, hard, but not very effectively. Because Fan Pro can't be bothered to hire any little gamer nerd at minimum wage for a temporary position as a gopher during the preparations for GenCon (or if they have hired one, they didn't hire two, which they obviously need), to take some of the weight off Adam.

Because Fan Pro has clearly put a work load so heavy on Adam (who, as Fan Pro knows, has obligations to other companies, too) that it's impossible for him to get it done. Because Fan Pro has decided to build Rome in a day with all these SR releases piled on top of each other.

Fan Pro organizes badly, understaffs, makes impossible demands on its personnel and faerie-tale promises to its customers, and as a result, the whole show likes like a burning clusterfuck in a centrifuge.

And the upshot of all this is that Zen Shooter runs home from work every Thursday for the last three weeks to be disappointed that SoA isn't out yet. The upshot is instead of being thrilled, the customers are cranky.

I not infrequently put in two weeks' work in six days, and it's very taxing. So I definitely appreciate Adam's effort.

And it's not his fault if this is the "industry norm". See Dilbert. (And beyond that, see an industry that has a reward structure set up so that if you are realistic instead of following the industry norm, you run into problems.)

Oh, and finally--the worst way to get a project done faster is to add more people to it at a late stage. New people require training. Then, they do things wrong. People who can do things right have to take time training them, and then fixing their mistakes. Once you've missed a deadline, you're basically screwed unless you can hire extremely expensive experts, and it's usually better to just miss the deadline than splurge on that kind of talent (if there even are freelancers of that quality in the industry you're working in).

Never add n00bs. Look at Halo 2 over Live

Adding people not toally familiar with the product late on is deadly. They need to be there from go or not at all.

I agree with most of what Zen shooter said in his last two posts. To be a little less wordy, it comes down to experience. the occassional missed deadline, we'd all understand, but when it is chronic we are less understanding.

They set the deadline, not us. They should, after several years experience, be able to be realistic. They declare what is coming out and when. They should be able to be realistic about it. To repeadely fail with the consistency of the NY Mets after the all star break, is, to be polite, frustrating. It makes their other statements coming from the company less beliveable because their statements about projects are so much chaff.

I mean if you cannot competantly set deadlines for yourself, why should we believe other statements from them?

The only thing that I'd question regarding release dates, given that they're usually missed, is scheduling a critical release (new edition) at a very-hard-to-break date (GenCon). Everyone does it, granted, but it seems unwise. Promise a kick-ass preview, maybe even with preview copies of the game, but leaving wiggle room would probably make for less sleep-deprived editors and a better and more polished game.

I think it was a lot to take on their plates all at once. I'm hoping the 4th ed BBB comes out about the time they said.

But come on Zenny, I've probably whined (yes, I'm a whiner ) more than anyone so far about SoA, but it's like Winterhawk said, they're all freelancers putting this stuff together. They have no control aobut how it goes out, and I'm sure they're just an anxious as we are, if not more so, to get their works out there. Beides, posting in here isn't gonna get Rob Boyle to come over, see it , and go "oh! he;s right *checks watch*, we are late. Ok boys, go ahead an ship 'em out!" All it does is frustrate the freelancers that do see it. ANd if they could put it out sooner, they would have by now.

As evidenced by Adam, this isn't the only thing they're working on . Far from it. I know where your coming form, it is frustrating to keep getting dates that don't really mean much. But they can't just say "hey, we're putting this book out some time this year. Look forward to it, ok?" They have to set some sort of date. jsut think of it as a tentative release date, and call it good. Obviously it's a bit different scenario for SR4 and Gencon, but that's probably why they don't have SoA out, they have something that they really need to get out on a certain date, and that date's gonna be here soon. Very soon now *does Mr. Burns finger-steeple*.

yeah, I think I saw a couple of hairs there in the shower the other day too!

And I think I'm starting to waste a bit too. Or is that getting wasted? I'm so confused. Lack of SoA is making my head all fuzzy. Or that could be the shmirnoff.

WinterHawk! Help! I need SoA NOW!

or.... maybe less vodka, and a haircut. Or is it more vodka?

right, they've got so much in the pipeline in such a tiny space, and they set the deadlines. Another question, what ed will SoA be?
I know the game info section is minor and all, but it does exist in the SB's already out there. It was supposed to be 3rd ed, by the schedule they set out. Let's now say it won't be out before Gen con so there are options
1) They put out 3rd ed SB's after 4th ed is out.
2) They lied when they put out the schedule and planned for it to be 4th ed all along
3) They decide to redo it from 3rd ed to 4th ed which means a whole new delay, and once more trashes the schedule.

Boys and girls, something to discuss. If it's a given that Fanpro is not being realistic in its scheduling, then they are saying stuff just to float it out there, then it becomes increasingly difficult to believe their other statements, like about 4th ed. and entireraisin d'etre.

My experience has been that once someone who wants money starts lying about one set of things, just assume they're lying about everything else. It saves time cutting through the BS later.

The print roleplaying game industry isn't nearly organized enough to maintain conspiracies. Trust me on this. By and large, the industry is just a mess. I enjoy doing work in it, but it's underfunded, understaffed, and largely disorganized. So whenever there are product delays and missed released dates, it's not a matter of something sneaky, it's just that someone is overworked, there's a shortage of money somewhere, something wasn't planned for well enough, or someone screwed up.

Not conspiracy, 'wage slave corp spokeman,' I mean Winterhawk, but the claims that 4th ed is anything but a money grab? nah. Those I no longer accept. There is NO reason for 4th Ed except they want you to buy their core books all over again.

You said that we can assume SoA will be 3rd ed because it's been announced else where. Well guess what? You just made my point. They also announced when the SB wouyld be pout, and they didn't make that, did they? If they were not straight up about that, why should we believe the rest of it?

They've been caught out and they are called on it. It has been pointed out in this thread by people before me, that they repeadedly set and miss their own deadlines. They do NOT have a rep for being accurate. another word for 'accurate' could be 'honest.' The BS on 4th Ed. make me more willing to make the substitute now than I was a month ago.

After SoA they were supposed to have the SB explaining how 3rd Ed world ended, before hte 4th ed came out. In theory people buying 4th ed would have bought that SB to keep the sotry line. now, with that clearly coming out after 4th ed debutes it will be an "either/or." If you buy 4th ed, you've got the details there and won't need the SB. If you do not want 4th ed, you may not need to go that way.

I can't read Rob's mind, but I don't think SR4 should be qualified as a money grab. I don't really doubt that new editions bring some money in, but I don't think that was even close to the main motivation for the new edition. I think, to be entirely honest, they wanted to bring new players in. And, probably, they wanted to approach the game from an angle that was theirs. Wizkids/FanPro runs Shadowrun now and they probably had some ideas of stuff they wanted to do that they could finally do. Rob's been working on SR for a long time; I'm sure he's come across ideas he's had that he's wanted to work into SR but never could under FASA. Now he got his chance, and if I were him, I would have taken it too.

If you want to see missed dates as dishonest, go right ahead. But I'd say that's erroneous. The dates aren't set with deception in mind. Sometimes they are set optimistically, and conditions don't work out to support them. Sometimes they are even set conservatively and things don't work out to support them. That happens in many industries. It happens in the print roleplaying industry a lot, because it's a very disorganized industry. I don't like that the industry works that way, but that's the way it is.

I already said it wasn't "conspiracy theories." In fact I never said it was. You keep bringing that up. I'm guess to distract everyone else from the fact my key statements are valid.

I have a far better idea of how corps work than you do, trust me. I know how companies are made, and destroyed and are targeted for aquisition. That's why I don't trust Fanpro, anymore. It's not a case of me getting po'ed whenever they miss a deadline, it's the fact they constitantly miss a deadline, something they set. apart form stuff tyhey put aty gen con, I'd be surprised if you could find a product where they did meet their commitment.

As for profit, sure, it's why they exist, but the point is they expect people to shgell out money all over again for the core books instead of producing new products.

I think something that isn't quite clear about Shadows of Asia: It's finished. It's done. It's printed. It's somewhere in the shipping process [which is taking much longer than it should, but that's not something that I'm especially privy to details about, so I'm not exactly sure /why/ it's late.]

The PDF of Shadows of Asia is late, as I mentioned above, because I've been exceptionally busy trying to get more important products done. Not only does FanPro have priorities, but occasionally the freelancers have their own priorities. I've apologized -- to the fans in general and to FanPro -- for this situation, and while I'm sorry to disappoint you/them, I don't think I made the wrong decision.

Regardless of your knowledge and experience with companies and corporations, Snow Fox, I get the personal sense you don't understand the print RPG industry very well. Especially the smaller companies like FanPro (and note when I say FanPro, I mean pretty much one guy, Rob, who is pretty much solely FanPro US, all by his lonesome). They are, pretty much, garage companies.

There are certainly cases where new editions and desire for money have no relation to each other, or where desire for money is just as good of a motivation as desire to make a good game and please existing fans while acquiring new ones.

There are also cases where money conflicts with these goals. For example, setting a major release date at a major event is for publicity, which is to gain short-term sales, which is about money. This increases the fan base over the short run, but if too many shortcuts are taken, it has a negative impact on the game that lasts for years (until the next edition). Eventually, this will translate from grumbling players into reduced sales, but companies tend to be more interested in money now than the possibility of more money at some vague point in the future. Money doesn't grow on trees, and anyway, growing trees is expensive.

There's also an argument to be made that there's a monetary impulse to make a new edition less compatible with previous editions (as well as an artistic license / sense of ownership impulse). For example, if you had the Grimoire and Awakenings when Magic in the Shadows came out, you didn't really need to rush out and buy MitS; the SR2 rules fit well enough under the SR3 framework that you could mostly adapt them on the fly. Of course, the SR3 rules turned out to be somewhat different, and eventually that means that players will switch to keep current, but the immediacy is gone. With SR4, the change is drastic enough so that MitS, along with the other SR3 books, is only useful as a foot-stool to help you reach the SR4 books on the shelf. Any existing fans need to buy the rules supplements as soon as they come out, or live without all the toys they're used to. Again, money now vs. maybe happier players eventually who might buy more stuff from you later (or might just be happier and not pay you).

So I don't believe that new editions in general--and SR4 in particular--was not shaped in part out of a desire for increased revenue. But I also don't believe it was shaped only out of that desire, since there are other good explanations for the existence of a new edition (it's about time!) and the sea-change magnitude of the differences from SR3 (desire to leave a mark of ownership and do things Rob's way).

I also don't believe that corporate monetary considerations are always good ones from a customer's perspective. Corporations have no conscience or empathy, nor do they care about what harm they cause, because they're not people. Individuals within a corporation may care about these things, and laws or public opinion may force corporations to behave as if they were empathic and ethical when they might get caught. But what makes for a good company is profit, especially short-term profit since if you don't win in the short term, you won't be around in the long term. There's a constant pressure towards what would be considered criminally deviant behavior if it occurred in an individual person. After all, isn't that a great deal of the point behind Shadowrun--the inhuman exploitative nature of the corporations, using violence to achieve their ends (through shadowrunners)? It's not all fiction (although corporate espionage today tends to be overwhelmingly nonviolent). That said, FanPro is pretty far from a big faceless corporation. But even Rob has to juggle matters of income vs. other considerations, and it would be strange if the other considerations always won.

And I also don't believe that missing deadlines is a sign of dishonesty per se. It may be--and monetary considerations may drive one to be more optimistic-sounding than one can probably back up, which is dishonest, and is probably often done (probably by FanPro, too). Missing deadlines is also a sign of poor time-management skills. In an industry like this, outstanding time-management skills would be necessary to come out with things on time, but it doesn't much penalize companies who miss deadlines. So there's no reason to put that kind of effort into setting realistic deadlines. Fans have short memories, on average, too. So, they'll think "Woo, yeah, look at all the stuff coming out soon!" and then a few months later, after one thing has come out, they'll think, "Huh, wasn't a lot of stuff supposed to be out already? Oh well...woo, yeah, look at all the stuff coming out soon!"

Those of us who take a longer perspective would be well advised to snicker cynically when obviously overoptimistic dates are promised, and not be upset (or surprised) when the dates are missed.

It may be too much to ask for the people who are in the thick of it to take that longer perspective. It's a lot harder to estimate from close up than from afar.

Yes, I'd much rather get the products a couple/few months later, then get them on time, and get garbage. See the computer gaming industry for an example.

Release dates have to be set to satisfy the book trade and the RPG distribution trade, so they can take pre-orders. The_Dunner made a nice post about that earlier in the thread.

Unfortunately, it isn't a system that punishes for late releases -- and in some ways, it actually rewards for late releases -- late books tend to sell better than on time ones!

http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/wordpress/?p=49

The release date is the 15th of August. It's official

score

As much as it may make me the turd in the punch bowl, I found the lack of mention as to System Failure particularly telling, and not a little annoying.

I'll enjoy it when it's sitting in my hands, and not a second earlier.

To be honest, I am more curious as to when the PDF of Shadows of Asia will turn up, we have a hardcopy release date true, but not a softcopy one (other than the good old, when it is done of course)

The book is coaming we just need to wait. I just hoped I am not picking it up on the way to gen con. At leat we have one date the pdf should be out soon hopefully.

Shadows of Asia is available for purchase at BattleCorps now.

Pre-Order the book only : Click Here
Pre-Order the book and get the PDF too (and save $) : Click Here
Order the PDF only : Click Here

We've also added SR4 for pre-order, and reduced the price of Loose Alliances from $22.00 to $18.00!

I was just over at BattleCorps and was thinking of buying the pdf, untill I talked to my gm and he said he wanted the non pdf version. I am still thinking of buying it. I saw they said there was info on the asian magic system. Any idea if there is information on the matrix?
ring3tones

Yeah, I'm curious as to what they mean by "magic traditions" given what's been said about Fourth Edition and magic traditions in a game that will be released at Gencon four days after the hard copy of this book.

Glancing at the table of contents, there is info on the Japanese Matrix.

So far I read all the way thru China. I like what I read so far. The first chapter mostly deals local corps and some info on the religions. Basic info similar to the first chapter of SOE.

The second chapter is China. It describes some of the splinter states in semi-detail. The book does not go to far in focusing in on one particular region, but instead gives a rough look of each of the regions. Just enough info to give some plot seeds and how the government of the regions interact. I would recommend reading a travel book before running a game in China. One non-game thing that stood out to me was there is a splinter state in Northern China known as the Republic of China. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought Taiwan was the Republic of China. I don't recall reading in the history section where Taiwan became offically independent, but I might have missed this. If fact, I don't think there is any dicussion on Tawain as a country in this chapter. If you read the Lung section of DotSW, then you know about the five sacred mountains and the importance of the dragonlines. This chapter covers the same ground as the earlier book, so if you don't have DotSW, you are not missing anything. It feels like this chapter had a lot of stuff cut to make it fit into the book. Since they have to cram this into 28 pages when they could make a book the size of SoNA for China alone, I believe they did the best they could do.

After reading about Hong Kong, I hope they release more info for it during SR4.
The next chapter is India and after that the Japan.

Shadows of Asia PDf

Looks like the PDF is finally available and they are even offering a discounted bundle for pre-ordering the hardcopy with the pdf.

Continuing with my mini-review, I come to chapter 3. The Indian Subcontinet.

This chapter has a tighter focus than the previous parts, mostly due to the fact that is is focused on the Indian Union. It starts off with a short history of India during the 21st century and moving on to the caste system. A lot of focus is in describing the caste system and how it was resurrected. How the castes interact with each other, how they do business, and most importantly, how they deal with shadowrunners in their ranks. I found it to be a enjoyable read and it provides some of the flavor the GM could use in placing a run in India.

Moving on, the other religions of the country are describe and some ideas for runs are thrown out. The best part of the chapter is next, describing the sprawls. New Delhi, Calcutta, and Bombay are given roughly a page and half description. Each of the cities has a different flavor, from Politics(New Delhi), Corps battles( Calcutta), and my favorite Bollywood society plots( Bombay). Each a of the cities has a plot seed injected in the Shadowtalk. New Delhi has the privatization of the national highway network, where competing Megacorps trying to get a piece of the pie. The Bombay plot seed is by far the best, involving a upcoming wedding between to uppercaste weddings. There is so many plot twists that is could be a whole campaign in itself and lends it self to a international runs.

The last part of the Indian Union goes over the mystical sights that dot the landscape. The holy rivers and been discovered to flow over Manalines. This causes some interesting effects in that pilgrims bathing in the waters will sometimes Surge. These individuals are treated as holy men by the local populace. The mystical sites are given some detail and how the local mages like to treat them.

The chapter finishes off with the rest of the nations in the area. Nothing really special with the execption of Tibet. If you are running games with Indian Jones type runners, this is your country. Tibet's mana cloud that has been keeping out unsavory types like Chinese Warlords, Megacorps, and PCs is begining to weaken. This just happens to occur while the country is is without its leader. Much politicing and soulsearching is going on and just asking for your PCs to go in and make a problem into a disater. It is describe in basic detail, so the GM has enough to make whatever s/he wants to place there.

This chapter is a good read and plot hooks stand out. I hope the rest of the book keeps this up.

Hehe, Peter's Bollywood plotline is great. That was cracking me up during the writing of SoA.

I have much more material on Tibet in my notes that never made it into SoA due to word count. I have to see yet if FanPro wants to do anything with that material and the website, but if not, it will still be put out there.

Now, on to the most important chapter( to me) of Shadows of Asia. Being the one reason why I bought the book, I have very high hopes for the chapter on Japan. I will start off with a disclaimer. One, I'm a Japanofile. So if there is any RPG sourcebook on Japan I will get it. Second, being a fan of anime, I don't automatically hate any references to the medium( and its older brother Manga). Third, since it says Target under my name in the forums and I have let it been known that I look forward to SR4, you should take my next mini review with a grain of salt. I am easily pleased. So off to the tour of Japan.

The first I will go over is a RL issue. On the map of Japan, it appears that the Southern Kurils near Hokkaido have been returned to the control of Japan. This had not been mentioned in the history part, and it is really not that important to the scheme of things, but it does bear mentioning.

The chapter starts of with another history lesson. What makes this lesson from the previous one is that it feels like it was written by the Japanese. Extolling the virtues of Japan while brushing aside the shames of it past, it describes the Imperial Japan we all love to hate. The racism against metahumans and a sense of national destiny are not condemed but explained away as a unforunte happening that was inevenibtle.

The next section goes into the power struggle between the Emperor and his aides, the Megacorps, and the Great Dragon Ryumyo. The metaplot started in YotC and contiued on through DotSW is expaned on. It seems the Emperor is not as all powerful as he seems to be. With both the dragon and the Megacorps chomping at the bit to bring him down, runners can make plenty of Nuyen by choosing a faction(or better yet, playing them off against each other). A religious schism is growing between the Shinto shrines, where some support the Emperor while others support Ryumyo.

Up next, the Japanese criminal underworld is described. The yaks have there turn in the spot light, but if you have the 2nd edition Underworld sourcebook, it is not anything that you don't already know. The Ninja clans are what would interest players the most. With mentions of some notable clans and a famous swordmanship school, your elven Kunoichi PC can have her background fleshed out. I don't consider this a bad thing.

A code of the Salaryman is the following section. Describing the mind of the local corps employees, it is mostly used for background color for runs. The next two sections are viewpoints of Japan from outsiders and natives. My only problem with this is they are two short! So much more could be put in.

Pop culture is the next section, but like the Code of Salaryman, it is used more for background color for the locale.

The last part of the chapter deals with sites. First up is the Nippon Matrix, which is the future of Shadowrun. No really, it is. Set to be the first wireless network in the world, this section screams metaplot. With Transys Neuronet helping MCT build the network, it is being touted as the next best thing. Much can be weaved around this and it will probaly tie in with Systems Failure when it comes out. You heard it hear first. Neo-Tokyo and Nagaski are given some description, and somewhat fleshed out for runs. I stand by my opinion that Neo-Tokyo should be one of the six core cities for SR4. Most likely in the 2nd cities book. Nagaski is the local Barrens, but in a city wide scale.

In conclusion, I like the chapter alot, but some things bug me. How prevalent are spirits in SR? It seems most of the rebuilding is to be done by the local spirits. I still having trouble with the concept that magic is common enough that instead of construction companies doing the work, that magical beings will be the ones to be rebuilding on such a massive scale. Second, the information in the chapter has enough background color to run some runs, but if you plan on running a game in Japan, I recomend purchasing the Call of Cthulu supplement Secrets of Japan. It goes into more depth on the culture and if you remove the Cthulu stuff, it can be used as a generic soucrebook for any game system set in Mordern( or Future) Japan.

Next chapter is the Middle East and following that is one of my other favourite countries, Russia.

Thanks for the review so far. Do you know if there is any info on otaku? I am hoping they may have some.

There are some information scattered throughout the book. Nothing major yet.