Well, I don't know that you necessarily need to phrase it as 'cheater' if the character is designed from the get go as a higher BP Build for a higher BP base build set of runs. Though it's likely a good idea to make it as clear as possible (Such as the suggestion of a notice in the character description etc) that states the PC is designed with X starting BP/alterations and is aimed for higher end games specifically.

The point of everyone starting with 400 bp's is that then every GM can just grab anyone who is on at the time and run something and generally have a vague idea of what you're going to run into or what they can be capable of dealing with. It's bad enough already where 400 BP's from one person are not the same as 400 bp's from another, if you make that gap even larger, then that gap will only widen.

So, I guess in my opinion, if you wanted to make 600 bp characters, sure, great, but this game is based on 400 bp starting chars so it's not really something that fits with the game as intended. At least that's how it seems to me.

If someone wants to run a high BP campaign that would be great.  But since nobody wants that responsibility, there's no point in creating high BP characters.  Still, it would be helpful for an alpha/beta perspective to learn about how some of the more esoteric builds function at higher levels.  For instance, a starting AI or free spirit seems pretty harmless, and there would be no reason to ban them from the game once it opens.  But what about one of those characters with the equivalent of several hundred karma?  Would they still be balanced?  We'll never know unless someone tries it.

Well, to be fair, Tear...AI and free spirits would seem to me to require reality levels (VR, Astral) we don't have coded yet.

Bah.  All you have to do is pose "If you're not on AR, you can't see this!"  Or maybe more concisely, use some kind of tag like <AR> or <Astral>.  You just have to trust people not to be OOC crossovering douches.  Or if you're super paranoid, you can ask OOCly who's perceiving AR or VR, and then @pemit to them only.

I'll only interject here to say that we wanted to get away from tiered karma-level players with this game. We wanted everyone to be able to play with everyone else. Running a special high-karma version defeats the purpose.

And I speak from experience here: high karma PCs are no more playable or exciting than low karma ones. It's all in how you play it.

I lurk here mostly. I doubt I'll be interested in playing New Seattle, if or when it opens up again. Like Kage, I had one of those 700+ karma characters by the end of my time on 'old' Seattle.

I stopped playing because it got boring. It limits the plots that GMs - player or staff - can run for you because they become progressively more and more ridiculous just to be challenging. And you lose the street angle of the game, too - which to me was of central importance (at least early on).

So the simple answer's 'no' to conversions, if anyone's interested. And set it in a totally different campaign/reality to old Seattle if necessary. Great as that game once was, if you're serious about starting over you really need to distance yourself from it.

With skill caps and attribute caps - the necessity of tiered karma-level runs is moot.

I don't think so, because someone with hundreds of karma might have multiple things capped out, while a starting character will probably have nothing maxed (if he knows how to make a good starting character).  The biggest equalizer between characters in SR4 compared to SR3 is Edge.  In SR3, hundreds of karma meant a really high karma pool, which meant godlike superpower.  In SR4, everyone can start with as much "karma pool" as they want, so you no longer have that gap.  A person with lots of karma is still a lot stronger, but it's not so much night and day like it used to be.

Yeah.  I suppose a "really high karma" PC in SR4 just has way more skills to provide.

Seems kind of boring to me.  I wouldn't want a character that can do it all.  This should be a team-based game, after all.

Transfer concepts, scrap any actual history from the previous MU though.  Just my two cents.