Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: Ed on <10-23-10/1555:17>
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What's the difference between ShadowSea and JackPoint? I know FastJack is the operator sysadmin of JackPoint and I know that all of the game books that I am aware of are written from the point of a JackPoint posting.
Thanks,
Ed
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Jackpoint is an invite only private network. Shadowsea is more public. They are run by different people, I forget who runs Shadowsea. Jackpoint is more focused, while Shadowsea has tons of info, but it takes awhile to find something useful.
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Shadowsea is de facto a continuation of the old, pre-Crash Shadowland - an open-to-all node, provided you can find it. Whereas JackPoint has an exclusive, small membership of persons all personally vetted by FastJack.
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Thanks, that's about what I figured. Does anyone know who the SysOp is for ShadowSea or the names of any major personalities on there from previous Shadowtalk segments?
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The SysOp is Facet, according to Seattle 2072 page 137. I had honestly forgotten. As for posters anyone who can find it. If an old shadowtalker isn't confirmed dead they probably post on it.
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And if they are confirmed dead they probably post to it under a different name.
Rule #1 - If you don't see the body, they're not dead.
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And if they are confirmed dead they probably post to it under a different name.
Rule #1 - If you don't see the body, they're not dead.
Rule #2 - Even if you see the body, they may not be dead.
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And if they are confirmed dead they probably post to it under a different name.
Rule #1 - If you don't see the body, they're not dead.
Rule #2 - Even if you see the body, they may not be dead.
Rule #3 - If you're in a comic book, soap opera or horror movie, ignore Rules #1 & #2.
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And if they are confirmed dead they probably post to it under a different name.
Rule #1 - If you don't see the body, they're not dead.
Rule #2 - Even if you see the body, they may not be dead.
Rule #3 - If you're in a comic book, soap opera or horror movie, ignore Rules #1 & #2.
Rule #4 - The GM is NOT bound by any of the rules . . .
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Considering how easy it is to find anything on the Matrix is SR4... ShadowrunSEA is, IMO, probably pretty much useless. Shadowland had script kiddies and clueless newbs wandering in all the time, and at least back then you needed to know what you were doing to Deck. These days, you buy a program and let it hack for you. So everyone and their dog (and spies from every major and minor corp, government, agency, and organization) are on ShadowSEA (and similar "open" networks).
I imagine that there are 4 types of BBS/Network in SR4...
1) Totally Private.
Jackpoint. One single person administrating the network, and the only ones that get in are by that person's invitation.
2) Refer-A-Friend
A step below Jackpoint, this board is invite open, but it more open. More than likely, you can't invite anyone until you've been on the board for a certain amount of time, or you've earned a certain reputation, or whatever. This is your main security gateway, really, so some boards will be tighter, while others a bit more open. Either way, you get a limited number of invites (1 to 3, maybe), and then those invites "regenerate" after a certain amount of time. If your invites lead to problems (Spammers, hackers, etc), then you can lose your invite privileges or get banned yourself. This method lets a board self propogate and grow without the main admin doing all invites himself. It provides some security while allowing for a broader, more diverse membership pool.
A lot of Torrent Sites these days use something like this method.
3) Openly Hidden Node
This is what I figure ShadowSEA is, like Shadowland before it. It's a hidden node, so you need to know where to look (or know how to search, at least). But, if you know where to look, you can register and login and start chatting. This provides a minor speedbump, and keeps out the most clueless users, but isn't really an impediment to anyone who wants to find it. Even if (Especially if) their goal is to spam or hack it. This method would likely require a fair amount of moderation to keep the riff raff at bay.
This resembles your average Message Board these days. You need to be able to find the board, and you need to be smart enough to set up a login. Not much of a deterrent, really.
4) Public Network
Just what it says, a publicly accessible network that anyone can join. You likely don't even need a login, you can likely post anonymously, or just type in whatever "username" you want to post as. Pretty much worthless. :)
Bull
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4) Public Network
Just what it says, a publicly accessible network that anyone can join. You likely don't even need a login, you can likely post anonymously, or just type in whatever "username" you want to post as.
Which makes them a GREAT place to leave encoded messages who will make sense only to the right people. And in your logfiles it looks oh so harmless, you could leave the message from a Lone Star Detective's borrowed Commlink :)
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4) Public Network
Just what it says, a publicly accessible network that anyone can join. You likely don't even need a login, you can likely post anonymously, or just type in whatever "username" you want to post as.
Which makes them a GREAT place to leave encoded messages who will make sense only to the right people. And in your logfiles it looks oh so harmless, you could leave the message from a Lone Star Detective's borrowed Commlink :)
Standard intelligence/insurgent practice . . .
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3) Openly Hidden Node
This is what I figure ShadowSEA is, like Shadowland before it. It's a hidden node, so you need to know where to look (or know how to search, at least). But, if you know where to look, you can register and login and start chatting. This provides a minor speedbump, and keeps out the most clueless users, but isn't really an impediment to anyone who wants to find it. Even if (Especially if) their goal is to spam or hack it. This method would likely require a fair amount of moderation to keep the riff raff at bay.
This resembles your average Message Board these days. You need to be able to find the board, and you need to be smart enough to set up a login. Not much of a deterrent, really.
If we starts seeing ads for the Neil The Ork Barbarian Workout Program in the comments of sourcebooks, I totally blame you. ;D
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Karl Kombatmage is way more marketable than Neil.
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I use Shadowsea a lot in my games. I'll give you a quick rundown of how I deal with it.
The way I've always run it is to tell my players that Shadowsea is like 4Chan's /b or Something Awful. PC's (unless their backstory suggests something else) always start with Shadowsea as a Loyalty 0, Connection ? group contact. The actual connection rating of the node is determined by rolling 1d6 each time they want to use it, it's random, but then again the cross section of wanna-be runners, scrip kiddies and 3rd tier gangbangers who use the node are kinda random too. Then they treat it like a normal contact except I make all of their etiquette rolls in secret. No matter what they turn up 'something'. It's just a question of how reliable it is.
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That's an interesting point, I always allowed my PC's to take JackPoint as a contact but I made them pay a little bit for it. I don't treat that as meaning they have FJ as a contact either, just that someone vouched for them to get them into JackPoint.
It helps with the flavor of the game and sometimes they get work through it or can use a JP connection to reference a book in game for information or clarification on things that might not necessarily be available to them in the field.
Ed
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Rule #1 - If you don't see the body, they're not dead.
Rule #2 - Even if you see the body, they may not be dead.
Rule #3 - If you're in a comic book, soap opera or horror movie, ignore Rules #1 & #2.
LMAO and yet so true.
I do like the idea of having ShadowSEA have a variable connections rating. Makes sense to me.