hollis said:

Maas-Biotech shares enough thematic similarities with Haas-Bioroid that it's the obvious source for the nod. You'll find as you get a few chapters into Count Zero that Maas-Biotech's big thing is their new organic neural interfaces and AI. Sound familiar, looking at the A:N Haas-Bioroid fluff? Yeah…

Weyland's an obvious reference, of course, and I'm leaning towards NBN referencing a mash-up of real-world entities like NewsCorp and Google rather than anything *specific* from classic Cyberpunk fiction springing to mind. (though you could certainly make some equally mediocre cases for a variety of specific examples -- Diversifications, Inc. from the novel I'm just finishing up, Synners by Pat Cadigan, being the example that comes to mind because it's fresh…) And Jinteki I'm completely stumped on. Maybe something more along the lines of Rudy Rucker, which I'm somewhat less well versed in.

As for the original topic -- I'd actually kind of like to see maybe one more faction for Runners, and then additional individuals for each faction. Because Anarchs, Criminals, and Shapers thematically cover most of the bases -- all we need to see now are maybe Industrial Saboteurs or something -- hackers-for-hire running against their employers' competitors. Once you get that last good archetype covered, then going for new individuals seems a good route, as it allows you to offer different special abilities and different constraints for minimum deck size and maximum influence to distinguish new Runners, all without having to focus a lot on meat and potatoes cards for the new Runner.

Conversely, I hope they don't do "new branches" of the existing Corps. It detracts from the singular identity of the Corps, and it misses the boat to go for new fun insider references like we've seen with Haas-Bioroid and Weyland. I'd love to see Cyberdyne (a military-industrial complex contractor with government and special ops pull), CosaNostra Pizza (Mafia-run high-speed pizza delivery), etc. inspired corps make it in.

These two strategies actually mesh well with each other, too. The Runner strategy doesn't require a lot of bulk -- some new additions for each of the 3-4 factions of Runners, plus one or two new Runners per faction, and you've got some nice additions for everybody. Then the Corps can be added one at a time, with enough of a full set to support them and then a few new cards for the other Corps, as well. So the Corps take up more space in each expansion, but the existing Corps get less dedicated to them than the existing Runners do, but you get an entire new Corp set in the bargain.