Are there any further updates on Eclipse Phase? Any ETA on when it goes for printing or when pre-orders will start?
Any further updates?
Fri, 2009-01-09 17:38
#1
NiallNai
Any further updates?
We're waiting on some straggling pieces of art and inputting the final corrections. Plan is to get it to print this month. After it's off, I'll have a better guess at the release date.
Also, final drafts for the first follow up sourcebook are in, and the next two books after that are also under way.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Very good! but this waiting is hell! A posthuman hell,in fact! Keep up the good work.
Glad to hear it! I just heard about eclipse phase and I am generally intrigued, but I was worried when I saw the announcement of the release date slipping.
But anyways since this is a few days latter, any word on a release date?
Hear hear. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the game. How will you be distributing the book? Amazon.com? Purchase via a PayPal Store?
It will be going through standard game distribution channels, primarily via Alliance. It will also be available via http://battlecorps.com/catalog/ -- the online store for Catalyst Game Labs.
The PDF will be available for sale soon after the book goes to print.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
There will be a hard copy book! Excellent! That answers a question I was going to ask. I am not familiar with Alliance or Battlecorp.com, do they ship to Australia?
I get the feeling you're pretty new to rpgs, Thampsan, in which case, welcome to the hobby. :)
Catalyst publish the excellent Shadowrun rpg, among other lines with a very lengthy and established history in the rpg and tabletop field, such as Battletech.
As with most such rpgs, they are distributed in appropriate hobby stores around the world, as well as sold via Amazon and Battlecorp (though it's always a gamble as to how long it takes Amazon to get some rpg items out there).
Alliance is a distributor; that means they distribute the books to the stores, etc. Battlecorp.com is the online store of Catalyst, where you can direct order their titles, but like I said, their titles also tend to be readily available in many hobby stores, via Amazon, or (again like many, many other rpg titles) can even be ordered via your local bookstore most of the time.
Nearly every online rpg storefront, whether Battlecorp.com or otherwise, will ship internationally, but you have to be aware that shipping to Oz is likely going to cost you more. It's always worth checking around for the rates on the sites beforehand. My advice is to look for Australian hobby stores selling rpgs online first when the book is released, as that could possibly save you some money and time in shipping.
The other option, of course, is to purchase the pdfs when they become available from stores such as Drivethrurpg.com and RPGNow.com; electronic versions (and many companies do electronic versions these days) are typically discounted, and obviously reach you as swiftly as your internet connection permits. Of course, the downside is that unless you print them out, you don't have a hardcopy.
Hope this all helps.
cheers!
Colin
Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com
Ahh, I haven't played much Shadowrun (or any Battletech), but i've heard of them. :)
I am an avid player of D&D (Editions 2nd to 3.5, 4th ruined the franchise in my opinion), as well as CoC (5-6th Eds) and the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game, as well as most product lines White Wolf has ever released.
Normally I do most of my RPG shopping from Amazon.com (local retailers having truly appalling markups, and most non-local but still region retailers taking too long to get books in stock).
I have to say I haven't been this eager for an RPG book since the release of new World of Darkness Mage. I am an avid fan of the Transhumanist fiction of Greg Egan and Charles Stross (as well as the Space Opera Sci-Fi of Peter F. Hamilton), and had I not been a member of the Extropy email list I would have most likely never heard of EP.
Thank you very much for the helpful (and attentive) answers to my query! :)
Apart from the Eclipse Phase core rules, when will the quickstart be ready? Before the core rules, I hope.
Sorry to nag.
I have to agree with you on D&D. I started my pen&paper RPGing with D&D 3.0. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as well as 3.5. However, after just hearing about what they did with 4e, I was completely turned off. But even as I was playing D&D 3.0/3.5 I started to grow a little tired of the d20 system. I dabbled a little in Mage, and then our group eventually came across Shadowrun 4e. Now that is just about all we play. If we ever decide to play something else it is going to be EP. I just started reading Nights Dawn trilogy (Peter Hamilton) and that is just making me more anxious for EP.
Man, do you guys know how to make someone feel old... Now where's my zimmerframe and spare teeth, dagnabbit?!
Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com
Actually, if you don't know of any decent online sites for ordering located in Oz, I do know that LeisureGames in London ( http://www.leisuregames.com/ ) have an excellent reputation for handling international orders quickly and reliably. I couldn't tell you how much their shipping to Oz would be for a typical rpg publication though, so you'd have to ask them about that.
Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com
Sorry about that. :) I played my first RPG on the Nintendo (Dragon Warrior 3), which started my love for the genre. I played PC RPG's for a long time, but didn't find a pen&paper group to play with until after college. So that is why I didn't get started until D&D 3ed. From Thampsan, I'm not sure what CoC is.
CoC = Call of Cthulhu, another of rpgdom's venerable greats (though heretic that I am, I prefer Cthulhutech). :)
Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com
Heh. I used to play RPGs on PC before I got into pen and paper (the first being Thunderscape) but Nethack and the Balders Gate series as well. I also played the Shadowrun game on the SNES back in the day. I highly recommend the Night's Dawn series, I just finished reading it and while I found the plot took a bit to swallow, I loved the metaphysic of universe. Thanks for the tips on online gaming stores.
What a great series Baldur's Gate was. I sunk plenty of hours into those games. Never really got into Nethack.
I'm still plugging away at Nights Dawn. I'm reading it on my lunch hour, so it will be awhile till I finish. :) What a great read so far.
Now that the 20th anniversary edition of SR4 is out of the way, Adam Jury (he's our layout guy) will be making the EP core book his priority. The last bit of art should be showing up next week. If all goes according to plan, we will have it to print by the end of the month. After that, he'll wrap up the QSR, probably in April.
So, to clarify, The core book PDF will probably be released first, then the QSR will be released shortly after as a free PDF download, and a couple of months after that we'll have the print version (full color, hardcover) in stores.
All of this is subject to change, of course. :)
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
If I may so suggest. When you're done with that check out his books "Pandora's Star" and "Judas Unchained" (a new trilogy to the series is about out but read the first 2 first). With EP nigh I've re-read them and have found them useful in outlining the whole concept of "backing" oneself up. You'll find similar versions of both (as I understand them) means of mind backup, as well as "resleeving" (abet in human only bodies, save one exception) and the second book also does a good job of detailing what would in the EP universe be considered a "fork". Other things worth reading about include some fairly alien aliens (most are a not quite the hard SF type, but the High Angel and the motiles are interesting), AI that lurks in the background, augmentation and "augmented reality", and some interesting thoughts on the strategic advantages (and disadvantages) of wormhole-based interstellar travel. The "Pandora Gates" are not in-system teleporters... but given the growing use of egocasting you could probably pull some of the same tricks off.
So once it's off to the printer, the PDF will be available?
I have read the Mindstar Rising but it seems that Pandora's Star could very well be a next book on my reading list.
I believe Rob Boyle said the PDF will be available shortly after the HC is ready. EP HC is listed with a caution notice which means it could be a week or two later than expected -- so the late March, early April date is still spot on.
C.
Any more updates on the status of Eclipse Phase? Based on what I've seen so far, Eclipse Phase has jumped to the top of games I'm going to be buying this year. I hate to come off as a fan-boy, but this is exactly the game I've been looking for.
The last of the art and the corrections are in. Still waiting on a couple of logos. Adam's on a short vacation, but when he gets back on Monday he'll be working to get the book's layout wrapped up. Soon, my friends, soon!
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Do you think that the PDF will be available before the end of the month?
Yes.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Oh boy!!! How exciting! Also glad to hear you guys didn't pull the plug on PDF's. Just read on slashdot.com that WoTC yanked their PDF's for D&D. Even another reason for me to give up on the future of D&D and play more exciting games like Shadowrun (and soon Eclipse Phase) that are put together by a better company. Thank you for the hard work you all do for these products!
Thanks! Yeah, have to say, WotC's policy is mystifying. Especially as most of the hard evidence these days indicates that piracy actually _helps_ publishers (and at worst has a very negligible effect on sales, and even then only to the most popular artists/titles), serving as a sort of grassroots marketing and exposing books/games to new people.
This is one of the many reasons we're doing EP under a Creative Commons license.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
you don't have some release date to give me
give me !!!!
because now I run in circle, in my room, waiting ...
and I only find this new game today ... Oh God sometimes I'm geek
keep the good work
What do you mean a butterfly cause this ? How a butterfly can cause an enviromental system overload on the other side of a 10 000 egos habitat ?
Sorry, we don't give out release dates until we have them nailed down for certain.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
As the first of May is only a week away, I was wondering if there is any further word on the pdf or the printing of the book in general.
Well, unfortunately, I'm going to have to eat those words about the PDF, as Adam got sidetracked by another project for awhile. The good news, however, is that the first batch of final proof PDFs is in my hands and the rest are due this week. We'll be scouring those for any last changes, and then it's off to print. So we are close, my friends, very close.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Thanks for the update Rob. I knon you guys are swamped with all sorts of great products. I appreciate the update.
Not a so much a complaint, but a query... why is it that something you really want to get is always delayed? For example, the new Star Trek film was originally scheduled for release back in Nov 08. It was pushed back 6 months to May 09, God knows why! Not complaining. I'm just sayin'.
Amen to that, but in the case with EP it looks like there has been a LOT of work to get the art and layout as perfect as possible (I seem to recall there was a change in artists as well at some point, that will set things back a bit). I REALLY want this game as well, but after seeing the attention to detail that is in the latest "Shadowrun" product I'm willing to give them a bit of time to have a fantastic game in the end.
...As for "Star Trek" I dunno, looks good but it's. just. not. Kirk. without. spacing. out. each. word. like. it's. a. sentence...
Agreed... but as i said before i'm not complaining about the delay. I was just
commenting that it seems you must always wait longer for things you really want... thats all.
We've actually had several changes that have cost us big delays. The book was originally going to be 2-color, but right after I started assigning art, CatLabs switched it's mind and decided to go for full color after all. Then we switched art directors half-way through, and there was a big pileup there that cost us a couple of months. On top of that, this has been a very busy year for Catalyst, with Shadowrun's 20th anniversary and a slew on new CBT and SR projects, which all unfortunately take priority to EP as they are existing thriving game lines.
That said, we're definitely in the final stretch now!
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Maybe the new movie will explain Kirk's speech impediment, such as a traumatic brain injury which causes him verbal processing issues.
Will the PDF be available only through BattleCorp or will it also be available through DTRPG? Are you guys planning on a PDF/Book deal?
Final stretch? So a few weeks then? A month? Regardless it is fantastic to hear the product is so close to release. As an aside, the cover art for Sunward looks amazing.
Do you have a pricing estimate, for either the pdfs or the books? And as another poster mentioned, will there be bundle deals?
It will be available from both. I assume we'll be doing PDF/book combo deals too -- we usually do.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Well, I don't want to say anything with finality, but we're looking at getting it to the printer in about 2 weeks here, and the PDF should be available right after that.
I don't think we've finalized the PDF pricing yet. The core EP book will be $49.99 (400 pp., full color, HC), and follow-up sourcebooks will I assume be $24.99.
I'm fairly certain we'll be doing PDF-book combo deals through battlecorps.com, yes.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Fantastic pricing, a little on the expensive side, but if the quality of art is of the same consistency as has been posted on the blog and of the Sunward cover, then $50 USD is well worth paying for a 400pp HC.
A little aside, what sort of paper are you going to be printing the HC books on? By that I mean 4th Ed D&D used some sort of high-gloss magazine-esque paper, but the slightest hint of moisture and the ink smudges and runs (some friends and I bought a few copies of the gift box-set of 4th Ed and within weeks of regular gaming use these problems became apparent). To make matters worse still the pages also develop that terrible 'warped' page quality as well. Compared to most other printed RPGs out there that use fairly sturdy paper that holds up well, WotC really dropped the ball. But the paper used in Chaosium's SC CoC is also fairly sensitive to humidity.
Just asking for those of us that live in regions where humidity can get a little high.
Are we close to print yet, or the possibility of pre-orders?
Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com
With a little over 2 months and a week to go before GenCon, is there any chance of the game being available before or by GenCon?
I think they'll release it at Gencon or shortly after, imo.
EP is officially of the printer. And as a certain insane alien miner might say: The wait is (nearly) over. Yay!
Yayyy! And WOW! Final page count was 400!?! To quote the great and mighty Den "umm... BIG!"
That's great! Guess I better start saving my pennies. :) GregH, where did you read what the final page count was?
Saw it in the Upcoming Books section. The number changed to 400 shortly after I saw the "it's off to the printers" in the EP Twitter section, ergo (sorry if I misread though) it seemed that was the final page count.
Yep. 400.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
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