Daily Blogging: Reviewing our Stuff
I spent some time today working more corrections into Digital Grimoire, and pre-bookmarking the file even though the remaining corrections have yet to be slid into it. This pre-bookmarking won’t work on many of our projects, but on a short one like DG it should work out just fine. I’m pleased with some tweaks that Adobe has made in the latest version of Acrobat — should speed up bookmarking just a little bit. Yes, there are ways to automate bookmarking. No, none of them that I’ve tried have worked out how I want them to.
And I have a request for our fans: if you’ve bought one of our books or games on a site like our own BattleShop, or DriveThruRPG, please take 5-10 minutes and write a quick review of it, once you’ve had time to read and run it. Those reviews help us, and they help other customers. If you have some more time, consider writing and submitting a review to RPGnet, or any other site that accepts user-submitted reviews. Reviewing our stuff on sites that are dedicated to the Shadowrun fan community is great, but reviews on other sites help expose the game to other people, who may never have heard of it, may use our books in other game systems, etc.
November 8th, 2008 at 23:31:52
I always review games I buy from Drive Thru RPG and am very honest about it.(I gave Ghost Cartels an honest 5 out of 5 on Drive Thru RPG).
Anyways a question:
In Corps guide, will we see new equipment?
I think that the Megas probably use their own branded weapons. Each AAA corp probably has a sizable weapons division. I can’t imagine for example Aztechnology using Ares branded weapons for example.
November 8th, 2008 at 23:44:10
I think that it’s unlikely but not impossible that the Corporate Guide will have new equipment. I think it would be more likely that it would list major subsidiaries that produce equipment, but it wouldn’t name or stat out specific equipment.
Honestly, it’s not at all hard to make branded equipment for any corp: just give it a new name, and use the stats for a similar weapon. You don’t need us to help you with that!
November 9th, 2008 at 04:51:25
We would be happy to host some Shadowrun reviews over at Flames Rising as well.
November 9th, 2008 at 06:10:58
Would it be possible to get a rough idea of future product releases? I loved Ghost Cartels, but if I hadn’t seen it in the store at Drive Thru RPG, I wouldn’t have even known it was coming out.
And is there any info on Shadows of Latin America/Holostreets? ;)
November 9th, 2008 at 14:00:40
Matt D,
Before the PDF of Ghost Cartels came out, we had an entire in-character chat to promote it, released a couple PDF previews, talked about it at a couple of our other chats … not sure how you missed any news about it before the PDF arrived. And, of course, we’ll be releasing more promotional stuff closer to the November 25th street date. Maybe you should subscribe to the site’s RSS feed? :)
Coming up, we have reprints of Street Magic, Arsenal, Unwired, and new titles: Feral Cities, Runner’s Toolkit, and the first of the Dawn of the Artifacts: Dusk. And Ghost Cartels in print, of course.
Shadows of Latin America is still in limbo with Holostreets, as we work on the back-end. That’s one reason why we’re going ahead with PDF-only releases, like Digital Grimoire, to help bridge the gap and gauge the market.
November 9th, 2008 at 15:16:15
I bought Runner’s Companion from Fan Boy 3 in Manchester, UK yesterday (and just shamelessly plugging my favourite FLGS), and while I haven’t read it all yet, I already love what I’m seeing.
Harumen. These little fellas are likely going to replace Night Ones as the metavariant I most want to play. I mean, there’s such an appeal in portraying a furry monkeyman type who’s a physad of the Athlete’s Way, and whose speciality is crawling through the air ducts …
Will Digital Grimoire ever make it into a dead tree version? I’m disadvantaged as I have no credit card to purchase the PDF – and besides, I can’t read a computer screen in the bath.
November 9th, 2008 at 15:22:47
There are no plans for Digital Grimoire to come to print—it’s just under 20 pages, so hardly feasible as a printed project.
If you don’t have a credit card, a PayPal account will do for many online purchases. And not only can you read a printout of a PDF in the bath, but if you drop it in, you can just print out a brand new copy…
November 9th, 2008 at 16:09:40
@Matt D.: If you’re available, you might consider attending our Shadowrun chats with the fans, held the third Saturday of each month. We usually post topics and times here on the website. This month we’ll definitely be talking about Ghost Cartels and Feral Cities.
November 9th, 2008 at 16:26:30
How much of Shadows of South America writing is finished?
If Holostreets does not take off, any chance of this being published or at least available in PDF?
November 9th, 2008 at 16:37:40
Primary writing on Shadows of Latin America is finished, although I’m sure that there are spots that require touch-ups, additional information, etc. It’s still a long way from being in publishable form — it would need a fresh development pass, artwork, layout, etc.
As far as I’m concerned, nothing is “off the table” regarding a method for publishing Shadows of Latin America, although the traditional “full print run” is a huge long shot at this point, as the book is set previous to the SR4 timeline.
November 9th, 2008 at 16:48:40
No prob with Shadows of Latin America, I think an update is very possible.
Take your time with it to make it great.
Are there plans for Shadows of Africa?
I think that this is the last continent besides Latin America that is not covered.
November 9th, 2008 at 16:59:48
No, there are no plans for Shadows of Africa.
November 9th, 2008 at 19:28:59
Ah, but Lagos, in the Kingdoms of Nigeria, will be covered quite in depth in the upcoming Feral Cities. In addition Feral Cities will give some brief updates on several countries in Africa…
November 9th, 2008 at 20:22:17
And not to mention each African country gets a brief write up in the upcoming Almanac.
Just curious any hint on what is happening in Angola and the Congo in Shadowrun?
My take is that Angola is an expansionist communist power who took over large parts of Southern Africa namely the former countries of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, parts of the Congo and Zambia and is in verge of war with Azania.
My take on the Congo is that its a warzone. Basically due to the awakening, the countries in this area(DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi etc.) have collapsed and the jungle has basically taken over. However due to the Congo’s mineral wealth(especially in Orichalchum) its become a warzone with various Megacorps and national powers fighting it out for its mineral wealth. They do this by direct intervention by corps and national forces as well as financing your local proxy warlords, tribes etc.
Is this close to canon?
November 9th, 2008 at 22:03:40
Thanks all… It’s true I don’t read the chat blogs, I usually just check the main site and hadn’t seen anything being noted until Adam’s daily blogs started up.
November 9th, 2008 at 23:04:13
Hey Matt,
Just to be clear — my daily blogging experiment started up right around the time we would normally start promoting Ghost Cartels. I don’t believe it’s effective to deeply promote a book if it’s not going to be available for sale shortly: there’s no point in getting people really excited about something they can buy in six months, because in six months … they may well have moved onto something different. I hope to address the “promotional timing” topic more in an upcoming blog entry.
November 10th, 2008 at 06:44:24
wouldn’t it be great to release SolA as a SR3-print-version as part of the 20th anniversary stuff? just for the people waiting for it for years now? just kidding ;)
…or maybe not 8)
In Germany dunkelzahn’s secrets was released 8 years after it was originally published in the US and fanpro announced it as part of a “shadowrun classic”-series… so, basically it’s possible to release an in-game outdated book without smashing the metaplot-development.
But as much as I would appreciate it, I can understand that you don’t want to release any old SR3-stuff anymore.
November 10th, 2008 at 06:55:26
Hey Terance,
Angola & the Congo will be touched on in Feral Cities. And… in a game of “hot & cold,” you are freezing on your take on the Congo. ;)
November 10th, 2008 at 09:44:29
Hmm, Shadowrun Classics would rock! I have every 3rd edition book, but almost none of them are that up to date. A swanky new cover and the errata included in the book would be almost too much to resist buying it….
November 11th, 2008 at 01:43:57
Just to echo Adam’s plea for reviews, RPGnet is happy to receive Shadowrun or Battletech reviews, anytime. Just make sure to write more than three paragraphs, folks – if you really care about the game and the products, tell us why. :-)
-
Allan Sugarbaker
Review Coordinator
RPGnet
November 11th, 2008 at 01:59:46
@wusselpompf: Granted, Fanpro did release Dunkelzahn’s Secrets, but that was the only ‘Classic book’ they ever released.
November 11th, 2008 at 07:54:01
@concrete:
I know, but that more a problem of fanpro than one of the idea of the series ;)
my point is: you can release outdated books wihtout spoiling the timeline.