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What happened to official Errata?

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Irn0rchid

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« Reply #30 on: <05-05-16/2158:24> »
There was supposed to be a Street Grimoire errata and re-print last month... so far it hasn't materialized, nor have there been any updates.

I just... I just don't understand why this is so hard. Yes, there are limitations put in place as a small company. But at the same time this is the PR equivalent of seppuku, it's slowly destroying the Shadowrun brand as each new book comes out and none of the glaring and long-standing errors are fixed.

As best I can tell from reading all the semi-official responses to the assorted threads it's "'cause, reasons." And that we'd totally understand if we knew the reasons, but we can't be told them. "Cause, reasons."

ScytheKnight

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« Reply #31 on: <05-05-16/2337:46> »
I've red a lot of those reasons... and to an extent they are fairly good, from a short term perspective.
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MijRai

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« Reply #32 on: <05-05-16/2343:24> »
At this point I've sworn off buying any new Shadowrun game products until they fix what's already released.  If they won't listen to our voices, they can listen to our wallets. 

The main reason I'm still around here is because the forum is a better place to get information than their abysmal 'official' site and because I enjoy discussing the thematic aspects of Shadowrun.  It also gives me a chance to listen to the writers and some of the other staff, which is nice.  If they're active here, they're obviously folks who care about the community and game and try to lend us mere customers a hand. 

I'll never lose my love for Shadowrun, but Catalyst is definitely not helping the setting/system. 
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Oben

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« Reply #33 on: <05-13-16/1225:29> »
After this much time without corrections or errata, I can only hope the Shadowrun IP gets sold/leased to another company.

This is particularly saddening after I look at the stack of 5th edition (and 4th as well) books that I and others at my table have bought. Some of the improvements from the 4th and 5th editions are really good ideas. Unfortunately they are hamstrung by poor editing and an apparent lack of communication between the writers.

As a consumer (the guy who pays the money), I am not concerned with the "reasons" the product I purchased does not meet my needs. It has been almost a year, and Catalyst still keeps cranking out new filler material without correcting the problems with what they have already released. Nor have they released any actual information on what/when/how they are going to fix things.

This is not a good way to earn customer loyalty.

I wish the individual writers, logistics folks, marketing, and other team members the best of luck. But as things stand, both I and my wallet will be waiting until a 6th (or 7th if need be) edition gets produced by a company that has their act together.

In the mean time, we'll just stick with 3rd edition and other game systems.

Good luck y'all.


Irn0rchid

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« Reply #34 on: <05-13-16/1331:16> »
What boggles my mind is how unnecessary it is. All the ill will and hard feeling created by the lack of Errata could be immediately countered by just investing a little bit of time. It doesn't even matter whose time, anyone can do it, the end product just has to be officially blessed by Catalyst. The main questions are already all catalogued right here in this forum, and a lot of them even have answers from the writers, but they're not "official".

Look at Games Workshop, the old Luddite grandpa of the tabletop world. They finally started producing FAQs/Errata again, on Facebook of all places, and it's been met with over a month of continued good press and player excitement. What did it take to do that? Virtually nothing. First, solicit questions from the players. Catalyst has already done that right here. Second, answer the questions. It doesn't matter what the answer is, only that the answer exists. Third, release the answers. They're making pretty little images to do that, but that's unnecessary. A word doc converted to a PDF would be sufficient.

I'm 100% sure if Catalyst offered, players on this forum would do every one of those steps except answer the questions that haven't been answered yet (compile the questions, compile the answers, create a pdf) and all Catalyst would have to do is say "Please do this" and then do their part of answering the remaining questions and releasing the resulting PDF officially. But no, cause reasons. I guess it doesn't have a direct impact on the bottom line like a new (poorly edited) release does. And the crazy thing is, people would forgive the poor editing if they'd just bother to release fixes with some semblance of timeliness.

It just doesn't make sense. :( Maybe they'll sell/lose the license soon, but I won't hold my breath.

ScytheKnight

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« Reply #35 on: <05-13-16/1951:24> »
There are a lot of things that can be forgiven... a total disregard for communication is NOT one of them.

Just recently I finally received a Grand Tour edition of Incredible Expeditions from one of my first Kickstarters, this special edition was finally shipped over a year after the standard edition went on sale publicly, and over two years after the Kickstarter finished. Now while the delay was forgivable, the total lack of communication from the creator wasn't, the end result is pretty much a complete trashing of their reputation. It had gone on for so long that she was being reported to Kickstarter for fraud, and I seriously doubt she could ever attempt another crowd funding project as many people, myself included, would not hesitate to recount the horror story we had getting our games.

This is the same thing, the flat out refusal to communicate on the issue of official errata is causing irreparable damage to the reputation of CGL in terms of the Shadowrun brand. I really, REALLY love this setting and game... but my patience is exhausted, we where promised an errata and re-release of Street Grimoire last month and not only hasn't this happened but there's no word as to why and when we might expect it now.

Sooner or later, people are going to stop buying products. I'm not there yet.

But I'm starting to consider it.
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adzling

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« Reply #36 on: <05-15-16/1819:20> »
It's pretty clear from the ongoing lack of errata, zero communication and now the alternate setting and alternate rulesets for 5e that Catalyst is only interested in things that make them $$ now damn the fans and customers if they don't give them more money.

If they could get $50 each from us for errata they would do it in a hearbeat.

PiXeL01

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« Reply #37 on: <05-16-16/0346:33> »
Don't give them any ideas.
Next they might come up with an online service you have to pay a monthly subscription to in order to get any update, PR or Errata, at all.

But all in all you are right; they churn out unsupervised "stuff" with the SR tag hurriedly smacked on it because the fans will buy anything carrying the name. ... Like me :/
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fseperent

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« Reply #38 on: <05-27-16/1841:54> »
This is why I shell out for Hero Lab.
Between that, these forums, and PiXeL01's compiled lists, I don't need the books.
BTW, thanks again to PiXeL01 for the hard work.

Irn0rchid

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« Reply #39 on: <05-27-16/1851:44> »
Do you want Hero Lab shut down? Cause that's how you get Hero Lab shut down.

fseperent

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« Reply #40 on: <05-27-16/2118:02> »
Irn0rchid: you, ScytheKnight, and Oben have laid out good reasons to not buy another book.
My feeling is I don't have a problem if a book has basic errors.
I've bought games that had a ton of bugs out of the box.
If the bugs get reasonably patched, I'm inclined to let it go.
With DLC, I would expect the same level of support.
Catalyst was good for the first couple of books when it came to errata, then decided it didn't need to care.
Hero Lab acts like a semi patch with continued official support from Catalyst.

jim1701

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« Reply #41 on: <06-07-16/1633:45> »
It's pretty clear from the ongoing lack of errata, zero communication and now the alternate setting and alternate rulesets for 5e that Catalyst is only interested in things that make them $$ now damn the fans and customers if they don't give them more money.

If they could get $50 each from us for errata they would do it in a hearbeat.

I disagree with this.  Catalyst also puts out Battletech and Alpha Strike in addition to other games.  Some have failed.  Leviathans, for example, has been a fail at least so far but they were pretty up front with what kinds of issues they were having and a lot were out of their direct control or out of their price range.  I enjoyed the first edition and if they ever figure out their production issues and get it going again I'll be happy to buy the second edition.  Leviathans was also their own brand so they weren't paying anyone for the license. 

Now Battletech, on the other hand, has been pretty successful, IMHO.  Some will say it's different because it is "just" a table top game.  I will do my best not to look condescendingly at those of you who do so but no promises.  I can tell you that Battletech is as big a game with as much fluff if not more than any Shadowrun book.  Yet they manage to put out more than 400 pages of errata over the last 10 years or so.  They just did a new release of errata for most of the core rule books just this week. 

The only real difference between the two products is who is in charge.  You have a Shadowrun dev team and a Battletech dev team and they obviously have two very different standards of quality for their respective products.  Now what the reason for that may be is completely open to speculation unless you have access to the inner council of each team.

Maybe they are saving all their errata for the 30th anniversary edition to be released in three years or so.   ;D


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« Reply #42 on: <07-10-16/0206:31> »
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About Catalyst Game Labs Catalyst Game Labs is dedicated to producing high quality gaming products that mesh sophisticated game mechanics with dynamic universes, presented in a form that allows both beginning players and long-time veterans to easily pick up our games. Catalyst Game Labs is an imprint of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which specializes in electronic publishing of professional fiction. This allows Catalyst to participate in a synergy that melds printed gaming product with all the benefits of an electronic interface and community, creating a whole-package experience for any type of player.
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Dinendae

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« Reply #43 on: <07-10-16/0356:05> »
Quote
About Catalyst Game Labs Catalyst Game Labs is dedicated to producing high quality gaming products that mesh sophisticated game mechanics with dynamic universes, presented in a form that allows both beginning players and long-time veterans to easily pick up our games. Catalyst Game Labs is an imprint of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which specializes in electronic publishing of professional fiction. This allows Catalyst to participate in a synergy that melds printed gaming product with all the benefits of an electronic interface and community, creating a whole-package experience for any type of player.
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Which still applies to Catalyst's Battletech products, as Jim stated previously. Not so much for Shadowrun, unfortunately.

Mirikon

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« Reply #44 on: <07-11-16/0204:09> »
To be honest, 5E has been one long stream of disappointments. I stopped buying the Missions and other adventures entirely, and only now get the occasional book to keep up with the lore. At this point, the only way I can see to fix 5E is to just simply let it die and have 6E come out, with something closer to 4E's rules.
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