[mtfeeney = Baron]

Can we make a trade?  Instead of Bull not posting further, it'd be great if Boomstick stopped and Bull stayed.  Don't let one rude and unpleasant person ruin it for everyone, Bull.

[PeterSmith]

Bull, I for one appreciate everything your doing. Your work, both with missions, and with keeping us abreast of 5e info is valuable to me and I and my friends thank you for your time and effort.

Brown-nosing and sucking up to everybody's favorite Orc will get you...well, it'll actually get you pretty far.

[Ariketh]

I'll second the vote for keeping the freelancers around. I'm pretty sure they play as much of the rest of us. Having their insights on the dev process and the behind the scenes stuff is cool. Even if I don't agree, it's information I didn't have before. Really, other people's perspectives are good. Even if they are wrong.

-Ariketh

[bannockburn]

I sincerely hope for their sake that they play more often than me.

[Warmachinez]

Can we make a trade?  Instead of Bull not posting further, it'd be great if Boomstick stopped and Bull stayed.  Don't let one rude and unpleasant person ruin it for everyone, Bull.

Agreed!

The bolded part is my doing.

[Wildcard]

Easy there hivemind.

[Wildcard]

Given the hate "always online" philosophy receives today, idn if microsoft pr have fingers in this (it is connected to licence, for conspiration sake ). Althought I am huge fan and I can even understand the advantages in most cases, some examples really give me creeps and will need really good explanation before I buy it.

Let's consider, for a second, that such hate only comes from a fairly small quarter.

Amazon, one of the largest online marketplaces around is currently running an online poll to see which console gamers like better. With more than a week to go before the poll results end, the PS4 has a startling lead with 94.5% of votes being in favor of the PS4 and only 5.5% being in favor of the Xbox One (at the time of this article's publishing). It's not even like you can blame the SDF or fanboys at this point...everyone, even casuals see the failure that is SOPA in a box.

[White_Ghost]

With the Rapid backpedaling on Microsoft's part, I'm curious at how this will turn out.

Some people have said that it's a marketing strategy, IE: "You talked, we listened! Now we're going to change, and you helped!" but I find that to be a bold face lie. The way that those in charge have treated customers have me thinking that they fully believed that the Xbone would sell as announced. And even if they return everything to last gen standards, their reputation has already be demolished.

Trying to look at this objectively, Sony hasn't done anything spectacular beyond not treating their customers like bags of money this E3, so I'll be making my purchases based on titles, not consoles.

[Ghoulfodder]

So maybe there's just some sort of misunderstanding going on, here, and in a minute we'll all laugh about it and your post will make perfect sense when read some other way.

But can you do me a favor here, and try to help me figure out any way to read this that isn't you just straight-up calling Bull a liar? 

Well, I guess you won't laugh so hard because I said this with intents, quoted before. And my intents won't please you. But I did not mean that Bull is a liar. I think he was perfectly good faith and that actually, this is usually intended around in development team. Just that the thing I quoted was a fact, which showed that reality differed from that good faith intent. That I was pointing out. Not for calling him a liar but for reminding him some sentence I felt that was not to much appropriate for someone stating that.
As I pointed out, I like Irony. Also I admit that is easy to take a sentence out of context but it was well meaning what I quoted. The rest of my reasons saying that were in my previous post:

Here's a tip.

When someone involved in the development of a game tells you something that contradicts your view of how the development team works, they're right and you're wrong. That's where you apologise and / or drop it. Not say you still think you're right. Because basically, you haven't got a clue.

[Wildcard]

Yeah. GoG's got a sale going on right now. Finally getting around to picking up titles I wished I could play when I was little. Like the Might and Magic series always looked awesome in the old gaming mags. I  played HoMM 2, and just the previews for MM6 were all amazing.

It's wierd how the whole graphical reductionist games like Minecraft have made me realize I don't really give a shit about graphics.

[Boomstick]

I intented to drop on that because I said what I wanted and anyway, it serves nothing apart feeling I did the right thing. Which I can easily leave for more productive activities, as being right in an internet argument is still dumb.

Here's a tip.

When someone involved in the development of a game tells you something that contradicts your view of how the development team works, they're right and you're wrong. That's where you apologise and / or drop it. Not say you still think you're right. Because basically, you haven't got a clue.

So if you had read my post, you would have seen that they are not so right, since the fact is that one of them (maybe not Bull but one dev team guy, just had the doubt this morning about that) blatantly told to those of us who were complaining about something "get over it, it's done [...]".
So much for taking feedback into account. And while I had no part in the above mentionned argument, as a fan, and as a client, I felt as much insulted by that that people can feel insulted when I point them their mistakes or the things that don't work (at least as intended) in the rules they wrote. I said nothing before but reading this from Bull made me react.
I won't say anything else about the team's workings, but we have at least proof that for one statement, they are wrong about their own politics.

Apart of that, I won't talk no more about that, since that displease so much people apart of them. I see blasphemies take new forms our days...

So now, back to the game

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It sounds a lot like the corps have off-loaded some functions of gear into the cloud, because "The Matrix is Safe Now (TM)" and it would also have all sorts of DRM and Metadata advantages for them.

Indeed. While that makes a little sense for common implants, that view doesn't when it comes to combat enhancement implants.

Well the "Matrix is Safe Now (TM)" so there wasn't a lot of concern that thing would get hacked.

The Matrix was safe when it crashed, two times. And the Matrix was safe when they discovered TM. And they don't even know about the Sybil virus.
But hey, SR people must be a true bunch of ignorants who never happen to learn (I know that could be said about us, but we seem to have learn a bit if not enough, from past wars and other disasters we encountered before).

Apparently that's wrong, because Deckers can hack gear in a matter of seconds now,

Finally it is less safe than before;)

Also, in real life, people leave security holes in all sorts of stuff they'd be smart not to.  Many real world internet companies use a webmail setup for their internal e-mail, even on wifi enabled laptops, and hell, there are real life examples of pace makers being hackable.  Reality is stranger than fiction.

Well, I am aware of that. But mostly it is because people is not aware, smart enough in that field, don't care about their privacy or firmly believe the danger to be real (so it is not a problem if a potential movie hacker could enter in their phone and listen whatever they are doing just because there is an exploit in the chip firmware). And strangely, once they are aware, understand or are proven by FACTS that the danger is real and not so infrequent, well, they react, they scare, and they scream to the corps.
Look at XBOx1, look at Exynos exploits (Samsung), look at PSN, and so on.
So people are not so dumb.

I figure, and I have no text to back this concept up,  the reason that Wired Reflexes and Reaction Enhancers work better together when on wireless isn't that wireless is some how faster, or that street docs don't bother to plug the two system into each other, but that there is a cloud computer app somewhere they hook into that does a bunch of pattern recognition on the user's movements and detected threats and optimizes the performance of both systems so they aren't getting in each others way, possbily providing AR guides indicating optimal dodge directions or threat vectors.   "Now with Ares QuickDraw Network (TM)"

Well, as wired reflexes are, based on fluff, neural boosters and adrenal stims, and supraconductive neural replacements, I guess that having computerizing power for that kind of calculation would be better in Movebywire implants or a third party implant with motor control capacity, because enhancers and wires can't get in the way of one another (and Matrix can't interpret what is a threat for you or what to dodge based upon your sole motor information, but I buy the pattern recognition part). But I recognize that is an idea, cause while they are basically "neural impulse augmenters" and "improved neural signal transporters", a module could basically be used to replace input from the brain by input from the module itself.

Which makes me wonder what will happen if you hack enhancers? Will you have a doll whose movements you'll be able to control.

I can make up similar concepts for most of the wireless bonuses I've seen so far. (Again, I don't have a book)  So those goggles that give a perception bonus when on wifi are using Evo's O.W.L.Sight Image Recognition Network, etc.  It might be a bit silly, but it fits the rules about needing to be connected to the Matrix to get bonuses.   I still don't know why you need a special internet app to have faster chemical seal activation, so the distributed computing explanation isn't perfect, but it's less silly than the "internet is magic"  strawman argument. 

Well at least, that's some thinking. Thank you.

I just hope this concept isn't taken to the conclusion that registered software in 4th ed was, and make it possible for Corps to track or locate you after a run by looking at the gear use logs unless you jump through 9 kinds of hell to anonymize your gear's wireless bonuses

Well, still, there would be some logic to that. Or, if you use some "spoofed chips" (can you with NEW MATRIX?), you still leave tracks, even if they can tell that is you right away but have to get you at first.

.  I really didn't like having to constantly patch all my software (cracked, open source, or even self-coded) every month or two in order to avoid rating decay.  It was a lot of trouble to keep accounting of for a software orientated character in order to avoid tracking bonuses for using legitimate "registered" software being used in a hack.

I guess that since there has been a will to streamline things, SOTA, if it is still here, will be a lot more simple (like "pay XX more in your lifestyle based on types of gear you have to keep updated)

Honestly what I find interesting about this "distributed computing" concept of Wireless bonuses  is that it limits Street Sams (among others) in Wifi negated areas, which reminds me of Adepts loosing abilities in Background counts

Well, I hate a lot that their is too much parallels between magic and matrix. not regarding rules, but regarding the concepts (spirit/sprites, background count/noise or whatever, etc). But that is just a matter of taste.

Still, thanks for your interesting arguments.

[Shinobi Killfist]

With the Rapid backpedaling on Microsoft's part, I'm curious at how this will turn out.

Some people have said that it's a marketing strategy, IE: "You talked, we listened! Now we're going to change, and you helped!" but I find that to be a bold face lie. The way that those in charge have treated customers have me thinking that they fully believed that the Xbone would sell as announced. And even if they return everything to last gen standards, their reputation has already be demolished.

Trying to look at this objectively, Sony hasn't done anything spectacular beyond not treating their customers like bags of money this E3, so I'll be making my purchases based on titles, not consoles.

I don't think Microsoft was like, hey how can we bone the customer.  They wanted a cut of used games, and well every game company and console company has been trying to figure out a way to do that for years.  The invasion of provacy stuff was an attempt to make it a universal always on item, you'd be like hey xbox turn on the TV channel 54. No finding the remote, not fiddling with details just kinnect crap.  Honestly if this thing came out 5 years from now I bet no one would raise a stink because by then privacy will be non-existent.  Basically they were going for innovation, not bone the customer.  That being said this generation I get the playstion and well the nintendo since i already have that, but I'm probably opting out of the xbox unless I think they wont update the stuff they took out back into the sytem a few years down the line.  This will be the first generation since the nintendo existed that I wont get all the consoles.

[mtfeeney = Baron]

There's actually a thread for discussing the Xbox One.

http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=11031.0

[Railgun]

After having read through the book, I'll admit that a significant amount of the wireless bonuses would actually make sense, even for security/combat gear. Well, maybe not for the wired reflex/reaction enhancer combination (seriously, SR5 devs, this was a bad idea that made the whole concept a lot harder to sell).
What doesn't make sense in general is the requirement for matrix connection. It could make sense for the sort of gear a random employee would use, but not people who encounter professional opposition that seeks to kill them (Shadowrunner, cops, corp security, soldiers). The vast majority of the wireless bonuses should work on a matrix-disconnected PAN, which will be more often that not set to a signal rating of 0.
The concept isn't bad, but its implementation needs a lot of work.

I'm going to house rule that only PAN access is required for the wireless bonuses to work (unless it really doesn't make sense), and that a datajack/DNI/wired connection can give the same advantages. And I'll just remove the wireless requirements for some items such as the wired reflexes.

[RHat]

After having read through the book, I'll admit that a significant amount of the wireless bonuses would actually make sense, even for security/combat gear. Well, maybe not for the wired reflex/reaction enhancer combination (seriously, SR5 devs, this was a bad idea that made the whole concept a lot harder to sell).
What doesn't make sense in general is the requirement for matrix connection. It could make sense for the sort of gear a random employee would use, but not people who encounter professional opposition that seeks to kill them (Shadowrunner, cops, corp security, soldiers). The vast majority of the wireless bonuses should work on a matrix-disconnected PAN, which will be more often that not set to a signal rating of 0.
The concept isn't bad, but its implementation needs a lot of work.

I'm going to house rule that only PAN access is required for the wireless bonuses to work (unless it really doesn't make sense), and that a datajack/DNI/wired connection can give the same advantages. And I'll just remove the wireless requirements for some items such as the wired reflexes.

What, does the distributed computing model just not work as an explanation for most of them?  Because seriously, your PAN CANNOT replace the power of distributed processing.