That would be one of them thar "official" forums. I was looking for one more like Dumpshock that was less official but more active and used by a wider array of people. Hence the use of "similar to this one."

No, I don't think there's a Dumpshock equivalent for Eclipse Phase.

Closest would probably be rpg.net.
Otherwise, i don't think there's an dumpshock equivalent PERIOD.

Much obliged.

There were some very good threads about it on rpg.net. The problem with the official forums is that they are so hideously over-thought out that it's pretty much impossible to maintain any sort of community there. I think there are over a dozen different topic areas which makes the sort of babble that keeps Dumpshock busy and twisted just can't get established. Instead of a couple of big noisy rooms, you have lots of monastic cells with the occasional lonely thread in them.

Off-topic here, though, so I'll complain about them no more.

K.

Yeah, that's why I don't care for official forums usually. They also seem to attract an odd sort of poster. I can't explain what's odd about them, but it... it just is. The Wizards of the Coast forums is a good example of that. I can't stand them, but I can't identify why either. It's weird.

Knasser:

Every time someone has offered a free version they have seen an increase in sales. Eclipse Phase isn't the first to do this. Individual authors of books do this, Baen as a publishing company does this, various music companies/performers do this. The people who hoard without ever buying anything are actually the proven exception.

And until they come up with a good solution to the eye strain problem (as they've already come up with one for the portability) then ..no, physical books will not be replaced. Even the kindle with its special display screen still produces more eye strain than reading a book. If you discount people wanting to support a product they like.

There are, of course, other variables in play (game quality, promotions, etc) -- but as I said, EP has sold more than twice as many copies as another Catalyst core book did in PDF format, in much less time. Was some of that factor the price? Was some of it the Creative Commons? Was some of it Shadowrun fans wanting to see what Rob Boyle was up to now? Was some of it people looking for a sci-fi game in a relatively untapped (currently) market? All of the above.

I personally agree, and it's on the list of things for us to talk about, although we do have some bigger fish to fry right now. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

RPGnet seems to have adopted Eclipse Phase as one of it's "Darling Games", which means it gets a lot of discussion. So I'd say it's a pretty good place to go to chat about it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bull

Of course, not with you, right bull? *snickers*

@Stahlseele

At least they didn't create an EP Ghetto like they did for D20! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I would add, that there is a huge difference between a fan of a game and being a Forge expatriot (which seems to be a lot of the people residing on RPGnet these days).

Perry from Kickstarter is a friend, but I don't know if the self-imposed time frame the model uses would be the best fit for a niche thing like E-ink compatible rules. Though I guess it would be a good way to determine the interest in such a thing. I guess a good old email list would be the best way to test the waters. Then, once you've got a decent chunk of emails, you can just send them all the link to the new kickdrive. I'm just worried that the readers haven't really hit the level of saturation yet to pull requisite numbers, but it should still see solid sales as the market share goes up.

Not entirely sure what you mean, Stahl.

I don't talk EP much, mainly because I've only skimmed the main book and I haven't had the chance to play it yet. It looks cool, and I want to play it, we just haven't managed to fit it into the gaming schedule yet. I don't usually talk much about a game until I actually play it, as I don't feel I can form a valid opinion of it till then.

Ahh, if you mean because I got suspended over there, that got lifted on Thursday. Apparently a bunch of folks pleaded my case (unknown to me, I was perfectly willing to cope with a one month suspension), and since I've been on there for 8 years, have over 5000 posts, have never caused any problems before, and apparently my comments were pretty mild, so they cut me some slack and reduced it down to a week and a half. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bull

I'm not particularly worried about exposing EP fans to the Kickstarter; in terms of being able to reach a good portion of our fan base, I think we're fairly well off there. Could be doing better, but as we devote more time to Posthuman Studios, we will be ramping up that sort of thing.

As for ransoms for niche projects, to me, that's the ideal purpose of them -- combining the purchasing power of people who want a niche product to make it possible for that niche product to be produced and made available for other more casual fans.

I suppose the "donate what you think it's worth" nature of it can mean that everyone is satisfied and you get the opportunity throw out extra collectible-type swag to the big supporters. I just worry about not making the numbers needed and then having to shelf the idea for later re-visitation. Still, I am totally excited by the idea.

Me too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) And we're not looking at raising, for example, the 20-30K necessary to build a book like Sunward. We'll be looking at smaller projects and smaller amounts of money -- enough to pay for our time to generate some desirable things while we work to get fully on our feet.

I can see quite a few ways to use it to fund things that can be traditionally difficult or low or slow profit in the hobby sector.

Is that really appropriate?

Another well-run gaming forum is ASL on gamesquad:

http://forums.gamesquad.com/forumdisplay.php?f=30

It works pretty well. I can see an Eclipse Phase forum working there.

Ransoms work great when a company delivers a product. I'm still waiting for my Arc Dream product, but I'm used to waiting: I pre-order ASL stuff from MMP, so I'm used to waiting years for stuff to come in the mail. And I often have to call them with a new credit card. Greg Stolz tends to do a good job. I think, if you provide reasonable guidance for product, then customers will be happy. Chas Argent does a great job of calming the ASL community when we have been waiting for over a year on some pre-orders.

In general we're looking more at things in the "Greg Stolze model" than the "Arc Dream model."

Does that include releasing it for free afterward like Greg does?

That depends on the project. Free as in Creative Commons? Almost certainly. Free as in dollars? Not necessarily.

My good man, as the writer of that section of SoA, I must say that it warms my heart to see it was not completely forgotten. Maybe one day I'll finally do that Shadows of Bangkok webbook (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Mike

DO IT NAO

Seriously, I could use that shit; I've been planning to do a Southeast Asia campaign after I'm done with this Minneapolis one. I feel like I know enough about the area to ad lib it (finishing up a linguistics major with a focus on Hmong, so the area's not unfamiliar), but I'd totally love your perspective on it for some inspiration.

It's already come up a few times. Basically, there's been some plot threads (actually tied them into the Hong Kong incident) suggesting that the Mafia in St. Paul, which has a strong Hmong component, has been smuggling arms to Hmong "Chao Fa" holdout rebels in Szechuan as a fuck-you to the Triads there, for instance. But I'd like to do more with all of it.