[Sengir]

And the artwork?  Is this like that "You can be a dragon PC" preview from Runner's Companion?

I'm afraid it's not, people who have bought it (for whatever reason) report the same...quality all over the book. Seriously guys, this is pathetic

[FastJack]

Here's the breakdown:

1) No Shadowtalk - Yes, I miss it as well, but I'd rather have no shadowtalk than bad shadowtalk. Not too mention it makes meta-sense since most of the creatures are in the wild, so you won't be running into them in a dark alley. Considering most of the Jackpoint crew are urban adventurers, they probably don't have much to add on the subject.
2) 30 critters - Including the ones that we've been missing: Blood kite, Bunyip, Century ferret, Rock lizard and Snow moose. Also, Vorpal Beaver. I like VB's. They're cool.
3) Artwork - It's still a lot better than 75% of Paranormal Animals of Europe/North America
4) Price - I would've preferred a $5 price tag rather than an $8 one, but that's true of most of the PDF-only books. Still, $8 is pretty cheap for the amount of content.

Overall, (out of 5)

It's not as great as This Old Drone or 10 Jackpointers, but still a decent product that fits as an addendum to Running Wild.

[CanRay]

OK, you have almost sold me as soon as you said Vorpal Beaver.

And, you know, I could always write my own Shadowtalk...  I have a few NPC characters that hunt or have dealt with Jungle Environments.

Might have to give this more of a think now.  Damnit, you had to mention the Vorpal Beavers, didn't you?  I feel compelled to buy this book now as a Canadian!

[Sengir]

3) Artwork - It's still a lot better than 75% of Paranormal Animals of Europe/North America

Sorry to be blunt, but it's seriously beyond me how anyone can reach that conclusion. Is your edition one of those crappy old scans from the modem age, are you just misunderstanding your moderator obligations, or did you really find a metric according to which those pics are better than the old ones?

Since the 6W wiki is down, here are the critters and their old artwork from the German wiki:
Abrams Lobster: http://shadowhelix.de/Abramshummer
Bayard: http://shadowhelix.de/Bayard
Blood Kite: http://shadowhelix.de/Blutmilan
Bulldog Stoat: http://shadowhelix.de/Bulldog-Wiesel

Compared to the preview, the drawing is infinitely more clear, the limbs don't look like they got grafted on by Frankenstein, and the images are not in a resolution like a JPEG clip art blow up to full-page size.

[CanRay]

That Abrams Lobster pic makes me hungry...

[Bull]

That Abrams Lobster pic makes me hungry...

Everyone makes that joke. 

I would like to note, as I did on Dumpshock, that regarding Shadowtalk, well...  The author followed the same format as Running Wild.  You'll note that RW didn't have any Shadowtalk in with the critter write ups either.  A shame, I think, but considering how many there were in RW, it's kind of understandable.

As for why that wasn't changed for the eBook...  I'm mostly speculating here, so take this with a grain of salt, but I know the eBook line is still fairly "new", at least as a cohesive, regular release line of products.  Parazoology is only the new eBook Line Dev's 3rd release?  And Adam Large has been working on this product for a while. 

Making "MilTechSpec" similar in format to the old Street Sammy Catalogue (i.e., pictures and shadowtalk) was a decision made after This Old Drone was done.  TOD used he Arsenal format instead (i.e., no Shadowtalk, multiple items per page, small pictures, etc).  So the Shadowtalk and old school layout is a recent design decision.  So in this case, i suspect that the lack of Shadowtalk is a artifact from earlier designs rather than a case of reverting in design. 

Why not add Shadowtalk after the fact, you might ask?  Probably a number of factors.  The text had been turned in and proofed a long while back, and Adam's been working on other projects, so time is a factor.  Plus, I know from experience that you write differently when you know that there is Shadowtalk and when there is not.  You'll save certain background details and exposition for the 'Talkers to add in.  The flow is a little different.  Since the text was already done, if they had decided to go back and edit for Shadowtalk, either the entire thing would have needed to be re-written, or the Shadowtalk would have been mostly mindless and useless (but colorful) fluff.  Which isn't bad, and hey, I love it, but...  As it is people complain about the more mindless fluff and comments (There's a recent thread complaining about the fact that we now know where one of the Talekrs, Kat maybe, lost her virginity, and how it was a "useless waste of space".)

For what it's worth, for PDF products, I firmly believe that we should use the old school catalogue and Shadowtalk style for everything since page count isn't really an issue.  Hell, I've even started putting that in a little into Missions (SRM 04-01 involves a bunch of locations.  For pre-defined ones, I simply cut and pasted their entries from Seattle 2072.  For those taht didn't have one, we wrote up S2072 style entries, complete with Shadowtalk, so the GM has a point of reference for the locations.)

Bull

[CanRay]

It wasn't a joke.  I'm actually craving Lobster.

[Sengir]

You'll note that RW didn't have any Shadowtalk in with the critter write ups either.  A shame, I think, but considering how many there were in RW, it's kind of understandable.

Well, RW had the other sections which provided some great shadowtalk an in-universe writeups...especially the section on non-human sapients is some good reading.

[PeterSmith]

Sorry to be blunt, but it's seriously beyond me how anyone can reach that conclusion.

Art is subjective. What you may detest could be the single favorite thing of another person. Since it's an opinion, both of you are correct.

...are you just misunderstanding your moderator obligations...

Seeing as how this forum is set up pretty much the same as the BattleTech forum (a forum I set up more than ten years ago with another fellow) I fail to see how FastJack posting his opinion is a "misunderstanding" of his obligations. The moderators are part of the community here, they are welcome to participate in discussions with everybody else. They are not, nor are they expected to be, detached from the community. Rather, they're like beat cops. They walk their areas of responsiblity, but they're also part of those areas.

[CanRay]

We're talking about Shadowrun.  "Beat Cops" are the ones that "Beat People Down" in the streets.   

But the analogy works fairly well, nonetheless.

[nakano]

No Shadowtalk = the suck.

Its a core part of the source material, and has been forever. 

Its absence opens the door to future omissions.  While I agree with FJ that it might make sense not to be in this book, and omae that is a BIG might, once the door is open it cannot be closed again.  Next time its just a little easier to go ahead and say, "well you know, its a book about evil mice in space, runners on Jackpoint are never gonna care or comment."  If the modern internet and nerd rage have taught us anything, its that someone ALWAYS has an opinion.

[Man Who Walks At Night]

Here's the breakdown:

1) No Shadowtalk - Yes, I miss it as well, but I'd rather have no shadowtalk than bad shadowtalk. Not too mention it makes meta-sense since most of the creatures are in the wild, so you won't be running into them in a dark alley. Considering most of the Jackpoint crew are urban adventurers, they probably don't have much to add on the subject.

I just don't see this - if they (Jackpoint) take the time to post something like this, they would have gotten in touch with people who could comment on it, not necessarily themselves, but then people they know, its a bad excuse for not having added shadowtalk.

I think I have used like 3 of the critters from Paranormal animals of Na, so the book was not really a good buy from that perspective, but I absolutely love the shadowtalk and would pick up parazoology for just the same, without it, its just a bunch of critters I would never use. The Shadowtalk gives a gamemaster ideas for how to use these critters, put them into perspective and also makes for easy handouts to give to players doing a data search on the critter because they expect to run into them.

[Pathica]

I know full well I am not alone in being a non-playing shadowrun fan. (due to time/no players/age/over breeding.) 

We buy Shadowrun books too.

The setting, the fiction, the art, shadowtalk... Simply put, hard crass numbers without my beloved 'fluff', coupled with weak pictures is a deal breaker for me.

[Grinder]

3) Artwork - It's still a lot better than 75% of Paranormal Animals of Europe/North America
 (out of 5)

Tastes differs, but this... OMG!

[Charybdis]

Dear FastJack:

You had me at Bunyip.

This is now a MUST HAVE sourcebook.