From:	Augustus shadowrun@********.net
Subject:	Mike Mulvihill on STATE OF THE ART
Date:	Mon, 30 Oct 2000 12:24:58 -0800

----- Original Message -----
From: Gurth <gurth@******.nl>

>Like Adam said: yes, we do. As it is, information about North America
>outside of Seattle is split among seven books (NAN 1 & 2, NAGNA, >Denver,
>Target: UCAS, California Free State and Tir Tairngire) and those are all
set
>in the early to mid-2050s. We're now roughly a decade on, and a lot of
>things have changed in that time. Also, have you considered that another
>reason for another book on NA could be that it might introduce major
>changes?

Probably the biggest reason is... sure there is lots of info already done...
but its all pretty much out of print... Personally, I have everything for
shadowrun except for Shutdown and Cannon Companion, so I have all the
previously listed sourcebooks...

But for anybody who started playing shadowrun after SR2 was out won't have
access to NAGTA, NAN1/2 and Tir Tairngire... for those in after SR3 came
out, they might be able to get Target: UCAS still... but everything else is
out of print.

Now sure, you might think "well if they want the books so bad, they can buy
them off eBay or something". But that does nothing for Fasa. If I go on to
eBay and sell my NAGTA sourcebook for say $50... I'm not going to say "Oooh,
I owe some thanks to fasa for that... I should mail them a cheque for $10 as
a tribute". So Fasa gets nothing for those books sold on ebay or otherwise.

And then ofcourse, some might be discouraged and give up on playing the game
if they're looking at it like "Gee, everything I want... I can't get...
because its all going for $30 on up on eBay"

As far as I see it... Fasa should really consider people like me a very low
priority... I'm already sold on the game... it has everything I want in an
RPG (good setting, skill based system, lots of freedom to do what you want,
no levels, no hit points). Their biggest priority has to be getting new
players into the game and getting them to the point where they are like
me... hooked into playing.

Because in the long run it serves everybody... it serves fasa by ensuring
the survivability of their game... it serves new players by giving them a
good game with good products to play... and it serves the old timers by
ensuring that we can keep getting more and more material/product to play
with.

ICE is one of many companies that are gone now... because they didn't
concentrate enough on brining in new players. Their material was full of
holes if you were new to the game... because so much of the stuff was left
to 'old books' that all their core players already had... so new players
were pretty much left SOL as far as their game went (some of it was
reprinted, sure... but not enough of it was)

Anyhow, thats my rant

Augustus