[Michael Chandra]

The corrections? Every other company I buy from will still list all the corrections so that those with a print book aren't shafted. This company has basically said "if you didn't buy the pdf, screw you, we won't even tell you all of our mistakes." That is terrible practice and I refuse to encourage it.

Given how they did not state there will not be a full errata pdf in the future, you're jumping to conclusions. Perhaps ask for clarification before jumping to betrayal accusations.

[$/@mm-0!]

Eh yeah this isn't much different when the first printing of SR4 came out. I ended up doing what  I did back then, sharpie edited it though with as expensive as the book was it was a little harder to do  . Glad to see we have something for the time being.

[Insaniac99]

The corrections? Every other company I buy from will still list all the corrections so that those with a print book aren't shafted. This company has basically said "if you didn't buy the pdf, screw you, we won't even tell you all of our mistakes." That is terrible practice and I refuse to encourage it.

Given how they did not state there will not be a full errata pdf in the future, you're jumping to conclusions. Perhaps ask for clarification before jumping to betrayal accusations.

I'm not buying that.  Given the facts of how long we waited for this, how little voice there is from anyone with real power (Again, I'm not blaming the freelancers), and how they phrased the post announcing it* I see nothing that indicates they plan something more detailed than this.

  This kind of thing should have come out no later than the first couple of months, well before December for sure; it could have been done before the print book even shipped (heck, before it was even at the printers if they followed the practice of starting PDF sales and print presales when they first arrange things with the printer like Green Ronin does) 

So given everything; unless and until they straight out say "don't worry we are going to make a master list of corrections too" I don't have enough faith in this company to put out something like that -- and definitely not in a reasonable time.  I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

*for reference here is what they said in full.

A few important notes about the errata document:

• The document is a layered PDF, meaning you can print it without all the background material to save you some printer ink.

• The document lists substantive changes to the book. We have also found some typos, grammatical issues, and other minor things that need changing, but they are not included in this document, as we wanted to focus on things likely to affect gameplay.

• The changes in this document and the aforementioned typos and such will be incorporated into the Shadowrun, Fifth Edition PDF in the near future. At that time, people who have bought the PDF will receive notification that they can download an updated version.

• Note that there will likely be updates to this document as time goes by–we’ll try to announce when a new version comes out.

[samoth]

You left out the most important part of the announcement:

Working in gaming is really good for reminding you that you are far from perfect. Repeatedly. Anyway, after spending time playing and enjoying Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, we noticed that there were some changes and improvements that needed to be made. Those changes are listed in an errata document now available right here or on the Battleshop or DriveThruRPG. A few important notes about the errata document:

To me it reads like they're sick of being bothered by people asking for clarifications that they deemed us worthy of this epic rules release.  Of course this totally ignores the fact that these errors have been compiled since June.  Maybe if Hardy ever logged into his forums account he would see that?  It does make me wonder just what is going on all day at Catalyst that nobody could be bothered to put this together earlier.

I also really like this line:
• Note that there will likely be updates to this document as time goes by–we’ll try to announce when a new version comes out.


"maybe we'll fix stuff and tell you, but maybe not.  Thanks for the $60."

[Michael Chandra]

*for reference here is what they said in full.

Thank you but I am aware of what they said in full. And I agree it's poorly expressed. However, I see no reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt, or at the least ask for clarification, before presenting your assumption as a fact and a reason to not trust the company.

[Insaniac99]

*for reference here is what they said in full.

Thank you but I am aware of what they said in full. And I agree it's poorly expressed. However, I see no reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt, or at the least ask for clarification, before presenting your assumption as a fact and a reason to not trust the company.

See if it was just one of those factors I mentioned, I would be a lot more trusting. But here's the thing, we have had squat for six months, the people who make decisions aren't active on the forums. And now, finally, after six months we have finally been given this set of errata which should not have taken Nearly this long. If the errata had been more complete, if the people in charge were active here, or if this errata came out a long time ago, I wouldn't be complaining so much.

[Namikaze]

The corrections? Every other company I buy from will still list all the corrections so that those with a print book aren't shafted. This company has basically said "if you didn't buy the pdf, screw you, we won't even tell you all of our mistakes." That is terrible practice and I refuse to encourage it.

What are you talking about?  If you bought an early edition of D&D 3rd edition, you got a PDF of the errata as well.  It's not like they offered a refund on the book and reprinted it just for the errata.  This is totally normal behavior for ...lemme think...  every single RPG I've ever played.

[Ryo]

For six months, I was expecting a lot more than this, especially since there's a lot more rules substantive errata that has been posted on the forums months ago that aren't in this document. Hell, they bothered to change "Infiltration" to "Sneaking" in one part of the rules, but didn't bother hitting every other time that happened in the book. And they fix two minor aspects for Technomancers, and then missed the fact that Submerging apparently costs 30 karma.

[raleel]

I think what is probably most unsettling to me is not the rules fixes that folks feel the need for, but rather the inconsistency and incompleteness of the errata as given. For example, go search for "Infiltration" in the pdf. The clearly no that it no longer exists, as they fixed it on page 365. They clearly know that skills don't match, because they removed Herding and Lockpicking. And yet Infiltration is in several more spots in the book (p184, 270, 321, 362)  . And so is lockpicking (check out the archetypes).

Not a very complete job on the stuff they were apparently looking to fix.

[Michael Chandra]

"We have also found some typos, grammatical issues, and other minor things that need changing, but they are not included in this document, as we wanted to focus on things likely to affect gameplay."

That's because all those other spots it's pretty damn clear they mean Sneaking and it's basically a typo of sorts. However, with Motion Sensors it is not clear that Sneaking is intended, it might have been Gymnastics. So it's the one case where it's a more tricky matter and needs clarification for those who haven't read SR4.

[Insaniac99]

The corrections? Every other company I buy from will still list all the corrections so that those with a print book aren't shafted. This company has basically said "if you didn't buy the pdf, screw you, we won't even tell you all of our mistakes." That is terrible practice and I refuse to encourage it.

What are you talking about?  If you bought an early edition of D&D 3rd edition, you got a PDF of the errata as well.  It's not like they offered a refund on the book and reprinted it just for the errata.  This is totally normal behavior for ...lemme think...  every single RPG I've ever played.

I think that is a purposeful misreading of what I am saying.  They have quite clearly said that there are multiple other errors that they aren't going to list, but will release an updated PDF.  I am saying they should own up and say "Here are all the changes for those of you who only have the dead tree edition" so those with the paper book and not the electron version can still see all the mistakes.

For six months, I was expecting a lot more than this, especially since there's a lot more rules substantive errata that has been posted on the forums months ago that aren't in this document. Hell, they bothered to change "Infiltration" to "Sneaking" in one part of the rules, but didn't bother hitting every other time that happened in the book. And they fix two minor aspects for Technomancers, and then missed the fact that Submerging apparently costs 30 karma.

Yeah, If this had come out much earlier this kind of errata would be fine; but six months for something this incomplete?
I think what is probably most unsettling to me is not the rules fixes that folks feel the need for, but rather the inconsistency and incompleteness of the errata as given. For example, go search for "Infiltration" in the pdf. The clearly no that it no longer exists, as they fixed it on page 365. They clearly know that skills don't match, because they removed Herding and Lockpicking. And yet Infiltration is in several more spots in the book (p184, 270, 321, 362)  . And so is lockpicking (check out the archetypes).

Not a very complete job on the stuff they were apparently looking to fix.

[Namikaze]

I think that is a purposeful misreading of what I am saying.  They have quite clearly said that there are multiple other errors that they aren't going to list, but will release an updated PDF.  I am saying they should own up and say "Here are all the changes for those of you who only have the dead tree edition" so those with the paper book and not the electron version can still see all the mistakes.

Read the website.  Clearly the other errors that you're referring to are covered in this quote:

The document lists substantive changes to the book. We have also found some typos, grammatical issues, and other minor things that need changing, but they are not included in this document, as we wanted to focus on things likely to affect gameplay.

Or this one:

Note that there will likely be updates to this document as time goes by–we’ll try to announce when a new version comes out.

If you bought a PDF of the book, the PDF will be updated with the errata, per this quote:

The changes in this document and the aforementioned typos and such will be incorporated into the Shadowrun, Fifth Edition PDF in the near future. At that time, people who have bought the PDF will receive notification that they can download an updated version.

If you bought the rulebook physically then you will get the same errata document that the rest of us got.  I don't understand where you're coming from with this angsty "woe is the person who bought the physical book" attitude.

[raleel]

"We have also found some typos, grammatical issues, and other minor things that need changing, but they are not included in this document, as we wanted to focus on things likely to affect gameplay."

That's because all those other spots it's pretty damn clear they mean Sneaking and it's basically a typo of sorts. However, with Motion Sensors it is not clear that Sneaking is intended, it might have been Gymnastics. So it's the one case where it's a more tricky matter and needs clarification for those who haven't read SR4.

I think you might be reaching a bit, particularly when you consider that your example specifically references motion sensors, and p184 is a sensor defense test. It would be zero stretch to think those were the same thing and wonder where infiltration was. I'm also not buying the "typo" explanation. Most of the sample character changes are single character changes. Some of the NPC changes involve deleting skills, but they didn't delete lockpicking from the characters, but did drop it from the skill list.

Granted, I had already mentally replaced Infiltration with Sneaking, so I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I had also also gone "where is this infiltration skill they keep referencing? is it different than sneaking?". It does seem really inconsistent and haphazard.

[Michael Chandra]

Motion Sensors that you're trying to sneak past, and Sensor tests that try to get guns trained on you, are two entirely different things.

[raleel]

Motion Sensors that you're trying to sneak past, and Sensor tests that try to get guns trained on you, are two entirely different things.

I think we are just going to have to disagree on the readings of these.