Earthdawn Kickstarter, Any details about ED4? Options

[Redjack]

Kick Starter

Anyone know anything about the ED4 rules? I know ED2 is generally hated and ED3 is pretty much ED1 repackaged.
A couple of times a year, we play in an ED3 campaign in our game rotation.

[Sendaz]

No idea yet, they only cleared their $10 k goal today with a nice spike.

Will be interesting to see the new faces as FASA and how this turns out.

Rumours are unconfirmed that threading is being renamed Wiring and forces players to wrap bits of magically enhanced wire around their base devices like armor and weaons to be able to boost the device's abilities. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Hacking off these bits of wiring can reduce the performance of said devices and is expected to be a specialty for some characters.

[Stahlseele]

So . . wait . . magical wifi that can be hacked by other magic users? x.x

[KarmaInferno]

So . . wait . . magical wifi that can be hacked by other magic users? x.x

That is the joke.

At least I think it's a joke.

Please let it be a joke.



-k

[Bigity]

It's a joke.

I was super stoked about this...but I HATE the digest format. Absolutely hate it.

[Grinder]

Anyone know anything about the ED4 rules? I know ED2 is generally hated and ED3 is pretty much ED1 repackaged.

Hey, we did make some substantial changes to the ruleset, i.e. talent options. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Redjack]

Hey, we did make some substantial changes to the ruleset, i.e. talent options. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

No slight intended. We play ED3... and honestly, I don't know enough about the differences between 1 and 3 to speak on it. I just know that our GM also uses some v1 books. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Grinder]

Just for the fluff text, probably. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Bigity]

Well finally backed this at the 45 dollar level - getting a PDF of all books developed from the kickstarter, including stretch goals. Hope they make it to the elven nations book in the next 4 days.

[Sendaz]

I backed for the $30 PDF bundle for the Players and GM books a week or so back.

Of course right after that they then offered the combo with ongoing stretch reward for the $45 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

debating whether I want to upgrade or not.

Edit: 11/02

Could not resist and upped the backing to the $45 level for the added PDF's (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Damn them and their seductive sales. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Plus it seems they have now reached the 80K stretch goal with Elven Nations unlocked, though I was hoping for a Good Elven cookbook instead.

Deboning an elf is such a chore so any tips is always welcome and boiling takes forever...

[Bigity]

How to cook forty elves?

[Bigity]

Well they hit 100k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Now just have to wait for releases.

[Grinder]

Good luck with that - I wouldn't expect a solid, well-playtested ED4 (the timeframe is way too short) and also none of the sourcebooks before early 2015.

[Sendaz]

August does seem a bit ambitious for the first set, especially as they are tweaking a lot of stuff still.

Heck according to their forum they seem to still be debating how their damage track will work (for Stun and Lethal/Physical Damage), which one would think is fairly major...

As for extensive playtesting or lack thereof, recent events have shown sometimes even with playtesting glaring errors will get through because said testgroups can fall into a rut and only look for certain things / situations and skip over others even though all of it should have been relevant. Guess it will come down to who they got taking it through it's paces.

[Grinder]

Wonder if nuFASA already commisioned new artwork for the ED4 core books or if they gonna recycle most of the old one. Not that their new Earthdawn-logo gives me much hope in terms of quality.

[Bigity]

My understanding is that the initial point of the kickstarter was to pay for new art, and their art director is Jeff Lebeunstram (sp?).

[Sendaz]

Looks like they are still trying for august release, though even they say it may or may not happen:

Hello all. Here's a status update on where we stand right now.

I've spent the past week working through the preliminary layout of the Player's Guide, trying to tighten things up and squash any last minute bugs (and the preliminary layout runs 524 pages). Art is being slotted in, and we're doing everything we can to try and get the book done and over to the printer in time to have copies at GenCon. It is going to be tight, but we're trying.

As soon as we have it done, the PDF will be going up in our shop (and coupons will start going out to the Kickstarter backers), and we'll work on getting the print copies shipped out.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of previews with you -- some art, and some layout. First, here is another of the color pieces we commissioned. This is intended as the cover to the upcoming Questors book, by Jeremy McHugh.
<snip the new artwork... some of it rather nice>
Finally, here are two preview chapters. The short story To the Saddle Born and the Game Concepts chapter. While these are preliminary, lacking art (and page references), this should give you an idea what things are going to look like.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to finish up my work on the preliminary layout. Thank you for your patience -- I'm really excited at where we are, and can't wait to get the book in your eager hands!


One final note about GenCon -- I am (sadly) not going to be able to be there this year, but if you are, please stop by the booth and say hi to the members of the FASA Games team that will be there! Even if we don't have the Player's Guide, we will have more preview stuff at the booth -- not just for Earthdawn, but the other games that are in development.

The Game Concept has a lot of copy and paste from earlier material but there are some tweaks here and there and I did like how they explained converting older success level results into the new system which is nice if even just one small point.

[Stahlseele]

Earthdawn actually got a rather favourable OSSR over on the den surprisingly . .
The original one at least. Aside from the Step Mechanic.

[Sendaz]

Well it is supposed to be getting closer now according to the most recent update on the subject:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/783548...n/posts/1094950

[Redjack]

The lack of professionalism is disturbing though, from the lack of updates, to the whining about income after having taken money in the KickStarter, to the extraneous personal details. In the end, as a backer, I would prefer to know that the product line was not being handled in the 'fly by night' fashion that it is...

[Sendaz]

I agree the lack of communication to date is probably the worst thing. What was really odd is they didn't put this on the official blog but just on the KS page.
I rarely check the KS page as I thought any updates would be discussed on the blog or in the forum.
My bad.

Nobody likes to admit things are not going as smoothly as planned, but in a KS part of the whole appeal is that the backers are a part of the project and they assume they will be kept in the loop, for good or bad.

Yeah we can get irate if things get late, but we get REALLY irate when we have no clue what is going on in the greater scheme of things. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[flowswithdrek]

It’s the lack of communication that is the most annoying for me not the content. This is the problem I’m having with quite a few of the Kickstarters I’ve backed. The issue with the Earthdawn updates are that sometimes it’s via the FASA Games’ forum (if you don’t visit regular, you don’t see it), sometimes it’s via the blog (which I rarely check) and sometimes its via Kickstarter. It should always be via kickstarter first and foremost because that’s where people backed the project and they should not be expected to go elsewhere for their information regardless if the company has a forum.

As a kickstarter backer I had a chance to help proof the Players Guide and it looked professional enough, just had most of the art missing at that stage.

I suspect some of the issues (personal ones aside) are down to being new to being a Line Developer. I would hope/expect these will get ironed out along the way.

[Grinder]

What a mess.

[flowswithdrek]

Player's Guide has now been released to backers

[Sendaz]

So Horror Marks are still pretty much still the same.

Sort of mixed feelings on this.

On one hand it is sort of iconic to the setting, but on the other hand it was always sort of 'oh we can do things you can't do or counter really.'

Do like some of the tweaks for the spells though.