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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #30 on: <09-10-20/1828:46> »
Or are you talking about the time one of the errata team talked about a rule, breaching NDA, but did not post the full text of the rule? (That's not piracy. [...])
If THAT is what you get out of what I said about someone allowing others to pirate the book the second it came out electronically, I honestly have no idea how to respond and it's probably better if I don't even try. Same with your claim that I might be talking about an anonymous source, when I made very clear the source of the incident was known.

And again people are disqualifying me as a member of the community because I played Shadowrun for a significant time and like SR6 more than SR5, yet somehow I am claiming all oldtimers hate SR6, despite the fact I've never made such a claim. >_> I think we're done here, if these are the angles y'all are pushing.
How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!

0B

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« Reply #31 on: <09-10-20/1841:44> »
Or are you talking about the time one of the errata team talked about a rule, breaching NDA, but did not post the full text of the rule? (That's not piracy. [...])
If THAT is what you get out of what I said about someone allowing others to pirate the book the second it came out electronically, I honestly have no idea how to respond and it's probably better if I don't even try. Same with your claim that I might be talking about an anonymous source, when I made very clear the source of the incident was known.

And again people are disqualifying me as a member of the community because I played Shadowrun for a significant time and like SR6 more than SR5, yet somehow I am claiming all oldtimers hate SR6, despite the fact I've never made such a claim. >_> I think we're done here, if these are the angles y'all are pushing.

Did you actually read my post?

For crying out loud. I said LVN does not represent the community.

Also being fair here, LVN is trash and they did decide to hate it before it came out. That's one user, though, one who's been banned from SCN and various other SR networks for this kind of behavior, not really a representative of the community.

Am I being mean to LVN? Yeah, probably. But nothing in this says that LVN's not part of the community, and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you are in the community. We are all painfully aware of your participation here.

Are you talking about piracy in general, then, not the pirated leak and not the NDA violation? Because I did also talk about the pirated leak. If you're talking about piracy in general, then you can look at the stats I posted earlier where it breaks it down by whether folks purchased or pirated it. I suspect that there is some underreporting, but it'd be irresponsible to predict the error there.

This jumped out at me OB:

"1 didn't want to learn a new edition. (2.8% of purchasers, vs 7.6% of all respondents)"

Does this put the final nail in the coffin of the "dedicated/long-time shadowrun players don't like new stuff" meme that M.C. (and others) continually push?

It's a strong signifier for these communities. The margin of error shrinks for rates that are close to 0% or 100%. For that one, we have 95% confidence that for the populations polled, the rate of folks not wanting to learn a new edition is between 1.7% and 13.6%. For purchasers only, it's between 0% and 8.3%.

It's possible that folks that purchase from FLGS and rely on physical copies may have a higher rate (No evidence one way or another), perhaps due to the higher start-up cost, being old, etc.

Lormyr

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« Reply #32 on: <09-10-20/1904:10> »
And again people are disqualifying me as a member of the community because I played Shadowrun for a significant time and like SR6 more than SR5, yet somehow I am claiming all oldtimers hate SR6, despite the fact I've never made such a claim. >_> I think we're done here, if these are the angles y'all are pushing.

Or maybe it's because we just don't fucking like your hyperbolic bullshit, and has absolutely nothing to do with your experience.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

adzling

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« Reply #33 on: <09-10-20/1922:57> »
And again people are disqualifying me as a member of the community because I played Shadowrun for a significant time and like SR6 more than SR5, yet somehow I am claiming all oldtimers hate SR6, despite the fact I've never made such a claim. >_> I think we're done here, if these are the angles y'all are pushing.

I never said you weren't part of the community and I don't see where anyone else has.
So that seems like a strange thing to say.

I am pretty sure you have waved the "they're only complaining because they don't like change" meme around these parts more than a few times.

However I'm not gonna spend my time trawling through your old posts to find them so I'll just take you at you word if you say you didn't say those things and offer a mea culpa.

Regardless it's clear that the "they just don't like 6e because it's different" meme is total and utter crap.

Turns out they don't like 6e cause they think it's crap.

Which is what you would expect when served a crap sandwich.

0B

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« Reply #34 on: <09-10-20/2004:39> »
In the interests of moving things back on track (And I am guilty of derailing as well), I've gotten comments both here and elsewhere about additional questions that should be asked- banshee brings up a good point that someone who has never seen or played 6e may not have a solid opinion on it.

These are some of the ones I have so far:
  • What brought you to this survey? (I might include the FB group and a few discords this time, since Reaver has a good point that the FB group is of significant size- it has similar levels of activity to reddit and is larger than this board)
  • What editions do you like? (Checkboxes)
  • What editions do you dislike? (Checkboxes)
  • What editions do you regularly play (Weekly, monthly, etc)? (Checkboxes)
  • What editions have you played within the past year? (Checkboxes)
  • Of the editions you have played within the past year, which ones did you enjoy playing? (Checkboxes)
  • Of the editions you have played within the past year, which ones did you dislike? (Checkboxes)
  • Of the editions you have played at any time, which ones have you bought the CRB for? (Checkboxes)
  • How many SR books have you bought? (Checkboxes)
  • Are there any editions that you would like to play, but don't have a group for? (Checkboxes)
  • If you would like, leave your contact info and I can try to connect you with a group for the editions you want to play. (Text field)

Let me know what you think

Banshee

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« Reply #35 on: <09-10-20/2029:42> »
For what it's worth my observation was only that a significant proportion of "haters" have chosen to be so without actually giving it a chance, and the survey results support this.

Are there issues with 6E? Yes. Is CGL ultimately responsible for them? Yes. But is 6E an "unplayable dumpster fire"? Absolutely not.

It really does play much better than it reads for those that are willing to give it a shot is all I'm saying. Even as one of the authors I've admitted to not liking portions of it and also wish I could have one more pass at tweaking the stuff I wrote once some fresh eyes were able to view it.

There are very few actually negative reviews (strictly concerning game play and excluding quality) that I give much credibility to simply because based on the evidence provided with those reviews they are based on just reading the book (usually without taking errata into account even) or playing it but obviously missing using the rules as presented.
Robert "Banshee" Volbrecht
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Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #36 on: <09-10-20/2041:02> »
For what it's worth my observation was only that a significant proportion of "haters" have chosen to be so without actually giving it a chance, and the survey results support this.

Are there issues with 6E? Yes. Is CGL ultimately responsible for them? Yes. But is 6E an "unplayable dumpster fire"? Absolutely not.

It really does play much better than it reads for those that are willing to give it a shot is all I'm saying. Even as one of the authors I've admitted to not liking portions of it and also wish I could have one more pass at tweaking the stuff I wrote once some fresh eyes were able to view it.

There are very few actually negative reviews (strictly concerning game play and excluding quality) that I give much credibility to simply because based on the evidence provided with those reviews they are based on just reading the book (usually without taking errata into account even) or playing it but obviously missing using the rules as presented.

Maybe, 27.8% didn't get the book, but their GM may have, they may have played at a demo of some kind etc.  As a quick example my group played Carbon 2185 recently. I made a character from online resources but did not buy the book as it was potentially a one off. My experience was fairly positive.  Its shallow has a pretty bizarre economy but quick and easy to play. We handled character interaction, dealing with security devices, combat. Its fairly cheap so i picked it up after the game. So I played, it could respond to a survey about it but did not have the book at the time.

0B

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« Reply #37 on: <09-10-20/2241:34> »
For what it's worth my observation was only that a significant proportion of "haters" have chosen to be so without actually giving it a chance, and the survey results support this.

Are there issues with 6E? Yes. Is CGL ultimately responsible for them? Yes. But is 6E an "unplayable dumpster fire"? Absolutely not.

It really does play much better than it reads for those that are willing to give it a shot is all I'm saying. Even as one of the authors I've admitted to not liking portions of it and also wish I could have one more pass at tweaking the stuff I wrote once some fresh eyes were able to view it.

There are very few actually negative reviews (strictly concerning game play and excluding quality) that I give much credibility to simply because based on the evidence provided with those reviews they are based on just reading the book (usually without taking errata into account even) or playing it but obviously missing using the rules as presented.

I mean, if someone reads the book and gets a different interpretation than intended, isn't that more on the designer than on the player?

It's fair to say that rules with errata may be better. However, this is the first system I've played and run where I've felt the need to go to errata. I don't have much experience with game systems (Various editions of D&D, Eclipse Phase, Sprawl), but I don't think it's fair to count on the player having a lot of experience with game systems. I don't think all problems with the book require you to play it, either: missing rules at the beginning (Unarmed damage, essence value), typos, references to rules that don't exist- all of these are things that someone can identify without playing.

It's far too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a player just "doesn't get it," "didn't go into it with the right mindset," "doesn't have the same game design expertise that I do," "was too harsh with criticism for it to matter," etc.

The advice I've always gotten for creating is: If something tells you something's not working for them, they're almost always right. Conversely, if they tell you how to fix it, the fix is almost always wrong.

Take multi-attack for example: we might identify that the rule is vague, that it can be OP using anticipation, or that it doesn't make sense when you take into account how weapons work IRL. There are a dozen different fixes we could come up with, but the designer is going to understand their system the best, and will be able to create the best fix for it.

"Ignoring the critics" is not a good solution. Someone doesn't need to prove to you that there is a problem. They might not have found the right answer to fixing the problem, or maybe they've misread it. The latter is on the designer, not the player. If the rules are not clear, there is a problem with the rules.

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For what it's worth my observation was only that a significant proportion of "haters" have chosen to be so without actually giving it a chance, and the survey results support this.

It really doesn't.

All we see is that about a quarter of the folks on these three communities neither bought the book nor pirated it, give or take 10%. Nothing in the survey asks if they gave it a chance, if they played it, if they played the quickstart rules, if they did a mission at digital gencon, etc. Nothing in the survey shows whether this group is one of the "haters" who posts about "dumpster fires" all the time.

Edit: HOWEVER, comma: the popularity of a game is NOT the same as the game's quality. It wouldn't matter if I had a perfect random sampling of 2000-odd purchasers of the 6e CRB from across all platforms, mediums, whatever. It doesn't matter if they all hate it. The quality of a game is certainly a factor correlated with popularity, but it is NOT the same. I hope this hasn't been misconstrued.
« Last Edit: <09-10-20/2245:29> by 0B »

Marcus

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« Reply #38 on: <09-10-20/2303:12> »
I've read the 6E CRB. I don't own it. I didn't pirate it.
I read a lot of TTRPG books, it's a hobby of mine.
The layout of 6e is professional and looks good to me. The content just doesn't match up.


Anyway we aren't making more progress

With 95% confidence, between 3.58% and 17.20% of visitors of /r/shadowrun, dumpshock, and the official forums like shadowrun 6e.

This makes perfect sense to me.

So was answer to my question we think various discords are now the most popular interface for SR fans?
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0B

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« Reply #39 on: <09-10-20/2311:51> »
I wouldn't go that far- it's more about getting a larger look at the "fanbase" as a whole. I don't have the means to send surveys out to everyone who bought the book, or everyone who considers themselves a SR fan. However, there may be folks on FB and discord servers that represent a different part of the online audience. Heck, there's still a few Shadowrun 3e MUDs going strong.

jim1701

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« Reply #40 on: <09-11-20/0211:58> »
Well this hater read the reviews and saw too much of the 5e experience to want to spend yet more money on a new edition just to get kicked in the teeth again.  Is that fair?  Well, it's fair to me.  I paid a lot of money on books that never lived up to my (or my friends') expectation and despite repeated promises that all would be cleaned up it never actually happened and they moved on to a new edition instead. 

In strictly my own opinion if CGL were serious about cleaning up their reputation vis a vis Shadowrun there would be a new line dev running things for a new edition. I consider it entirely unfair to expect me, who was not satisfied with how 5e turned out and it still under the same management, to turn around and pay yet more money for a new edition. 

On the upside I found out about Rifts for Savage Worlds which is another setting I love and despite being made by a company even smaller than CGL manages to produce a high quality product.  So I suppose that's win/win.

penllawen

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« Reply #41 on: <09-11-20/0417:35> »
Personally I find it interesting that roughly 70% of the responses that don't like 6E don't have the book. So how can they be giving it a fair assessment when they are obviously only able to judge on what others say rather than direct personal experience.
That's one possibility. Another is that they played with the quickstart rules, didn't like them, so they didn't get the book. Or that their GM bought the book, they didn't enjoy playing it when they tested it out, so the players didn't buy a copy.
Another answer to this that hasn't been covered: the gnarlier bits of 6e have been discussed and picked apart, with cases made both for and against, over and over, in exhaustive detail, in every SR forum there is. You don't need to do a lot of reading of threads here (or on Reddit or FB etc etc) to have a very good working understanding of the 6e rules for, say, AR/DR/armour; or Anticipation; or Edge; or any other contentious subsystem. From there, I think people can reach a very reasonable and defensible conclusion that they don't like it without ever picking up the book.

Furthermore, I think that by doing that, they can easily get a better sense of the edition's shortcomings than they could from just from reading the book. I read 6e, noticed some issues, didn't notice others. Then I started reading threads on Reddit, thought "wait, what?", went back to the book, went "oh, right. That's bad. I didn't see that." This happened repeatedly.

We all make commercial judgements about whether media is worth our time and our money before we give it our time and our money - films, TV shows, books, comics, whatever. There's no reason RPGs should be immune to that.

topcat

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« Reply #42 on: <09-11-20/1401:41> »
I disagree to a certain extent- the opinions of people who bought a previous CRB, but not 6e, should also be significant. This is someone who is in the potential market for SR, but decided not to buy the most recent edition.

I've seen far more SR players who refuse to play, let alone buy, any version newer than the one they're invested in.  I'd be willing to bet these forums have more people playing dead versions than live.

When we look to people who are willing to buy new versions...

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Under your criteria, of looking at people who bought the book:
* 7/36 (19%) like 6e
* 14/36 (39%) are "complicated" about 6e
* 15/36 (42%) dislike 6e

Looking at the criteria of people who bought a book in the past (May or may not have bought 6e):
* 7/71 (10%) like 6e
* 14/71 (20%) are "complicated" about 6e
* 50/71 (70%) dislike 6e

They're twice as likely to like SR6 and twice as likely to have an "it's complicated" view.  That's a massive shift from those who haven't purchased it.

0B

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« Reply #43 on: <09-11-20/1501:21> »
They're twice as likely to like SR6 and twice as likely to have an "it's complicated" view.  That's a massive shift from those who haven't purchased it.

Why is it strange that people who bought the book are more likely to like it or have complicated feelings about it?

I bought a copy of 6e and played it with my players, way back before errata came out. They didn't like it, so they didn't buy their own copies of it. Why would they buy it if they preferred the 5e rules to the 6e rules? You could claim (Without any context whatsoever) that maybe I did something wrong as a GM, but I prefer 6e to 5e, personally. And maybe I didn't read the rules right, or maybe I should've waited months for the errata to come out before playing it. But I doubt I'm the only person who tried out 6e with their group before everyone had a copy of the CRB.

Or are you treating "complicated" the same as "liking"?

Even if we look at it that way, you're still left with 42% of the people who bought your product disliking it. A product isn't an election, you want as many people to enjoy it as possible. Certainly, you can't please everyone, but if almost half of your players don't like the game? There's a problem.

It's fair to say that these only apply to a few online communities.

I've seen far more SR players who refuse to play, let alone buy, any version newer than the one they're invested in.  I'd be willing to bet these forums have more people playing dead versions than live.

Yes, it's fair to say that more people are playing 5e or earlier than they are 6e. Again- if a game isn't enjoyable to someone, is that really on the player or is it on the designer? And ultimately, does it matter? Loss of sales is still loss of sales. Why should I play a game I don't like?

topcat

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« Reply #44 on: <09-16-20/0926:05> »
Why is it strange that people who bought the book are more likely to like it or have complicated feelings about it?

It's not strange at all.  The key point is that far fewer people who bought the book disliked it.  Most people would take "liked" to mean that they liked everything about it and "its complicated" to mean that there are things they liked and things they disliked.  Both are more positive than the "disliked" option.

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I bought a copy of 6e and played it with my players, way back before errata came out. They didn't like it, so they didn't buy their own copies of it. Why would they buy it if they preferred the 5e rules to the 6e rules? You could claim (Without any context whatsoever) that maybe I did something wrong as a GM, but I prefer 6e to 5e, personally. And maybe I didn't read the rules right, or maybe I should've waited months for the errata to come out before playing it. But I doubt I'm the only person who tried out 6e with their group before everyone had a copy of the CRB.

Running the release version of a game you weren't ready for and poisoning your group isn't a great way to go about things, no.

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Or are you treating "complicated" the same as "liking"?

See above.

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Even if we look at it that way, you're still left with 42% of the people who bought your product disliking it. A product isn't an election, you want as many people to enjoy it as possible. Certainly, you can't please everyone, but if almost half of your players don't like the game? There's a problem.

Maybe, maybe not.  Depends on the audience you're going for.

Quote
Yes, it's fair to say that more people are playing 5e or earlier than they are 6e. Again- if a game isn't enjoyable to someone, is that really on the player or is it on the designer? And ultimately, does it matter? Loss of sales is still loss of sales. Why should I play a game I don't like?

I'd wager that more people are playing SR4A than SR6 - and wouldn't be suprised if more people are playing SR4A than SR5.  Some people are still playing earlier versions than SR4A, which have some of the worst rules ever within a popular RPG franchise.

The point is that those people weren't going to buy SR6 ever, regardless of what the rules were.  Literally anything they didn't love is an excuse not to buy.  Those people aren't customers anymore.  Their money was never available, so the product shouldn't be made to cater to them.