Shadowtalk - July 4th 2001
by Adam Jury
It is with great pleasure and no small amount of anxiety that I present to you the new Official site for Shadowrun. Being well aware of the passion that Shadowrun players and gamemasters have for the game - and how frequently and voraciously they express this passion - I'm busy hiding under my desk for the next week or two.
In all seriousness, I am very pleased to be the Webmaster for this site, and I hope we can achieve a level of quality and communication online that was not possible in the past.
To open what will be my ongoing column about the website, I'm going to quickly answer a few questions that I've already heard, and a few that I anticipate will be asked many times.
What exactly happened to FASA? Why are you guys publishing Shadowrun?
FASA announced in a January 25th Press Release that they would be closing their doors. The Shadowrun property was sold to WizKids LLC (Makers of the popular Mage Knight miniatures game), and then licensed to Fantasy Productions, who have been producing the German-language version of Shadowrun for many years now. Rob Boyle was hired by FanPro to head the English-language version of Shadowrun, under the name Fantasy Productions US.
How often will you be updating the site?
Rob and I are aiming for updates 2-4 times each month. This will include production schedule updates, new freebies, a planned Shadowrun FAQ, and much more!
Are you going to put old out of print books online?
This has been discussed but formal plans have not yet been made.
Are you guys going to have message boards?
We will not be hosting message boards immediately. FanPro has message boards available on their main site at www.fanpro.com - however being that they are primarily a German-language publisher most of the posts are in German. For the time being the Dumpshock Forums will be monitored on a semi-official basis by both myself and Rob; we will make a decision about hosting message boards at shadowrunrpg.com sometime down the road.
Where is the online store?
We are still working issues regarding the online store and how shipping will work. FanPro currently has an online store but products sold there are shipped out of Germany, while the English-langage Shadowrun products are warehoused in Chicago.
I want to write for Shadowrun, where are the writers guidelines?
Writers guidelines are currently not formalized; much of the 2001 and part of the 2002 products are already written. Writers guidelines will be on the page at a later date - in the meantime, submission queries and suchlike should be sent to Rob Boyle at info@shadowrunrpg.com.
Are the old books still available?
FASA is selling old product at www.fasa.com until July 31st. Most retailers still have Shadowrun product in stock and may be able to get it from their distributors. For a full list of Shadowrun products published by FanPro US, please check the Products page.
I have a Shadowrun website - do I need to fix the disclaimer on it?
Disclaimers should be updated to reflect that Shadowrun (and related products) are now owned by WizKids LLC. A sample disclaimer is as follows:
Shadowrun is a Registered Trademark of WizKids LLC. Original Shadowrun material Copyright 1989-2000 by FASA Corporation, and 2001 by WizKids LLC. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission.We are planning a slightly more comprehensive online policy, which will be available - you guessed it - in the near future.
And lastly, a quick shout out and my most gracious thanks to the Shadowrun freelancers who helped inspire me and bug-bash during the creation of this page: Elissa Carey, Patrick Goodman, The Mysterious Dvixen (tm), Paolo Marcucci, Kenneth Peters, Jon Szeto, Rich Tomasso, Sebastien Wiers, the unambitious 'anyone I forgot', and of course the big cheese Rob Boyle.
If you have more questions, comments, please feel free to email me at the address below!
~ Adam Jury, Official Shadowrun Site Developeradam@shadowrunrpg.com
