If the scientists that they talked with are willing... maybe a "The Science of Eclipse Phase"? sometime in the future... be a cool way to dovetail the game to transhuman, futurist interests.

Ditto an "Art of EP"... this could also serve for the oft-requested "what does x morph look like?" request... but I could dig a morph book as well...

It would also be cool to have a suppliment that covers some possible settings for characters that have been caught and uploaded by the TITANS... do you wake up on the banks of a nice river or do you have no mouth and have to scream? Something for side ventures for those characters lost to the EP universe but perhaps... not... dead.

My niece would vote for a plush surya as well:)

Admini wrote:

With some more Earth info in general, it'd be possible to start a campaign there. Sort of an escape from hell thing.

Or, maybe, The Matrix? Ignore the idiotic sequels, and jusr use the basic premise of the original (with suitable modifications).

Perhaps a Habitat book with maps, illustration and info on a few habs in various part of the system. This same module could include vehicles used in the hab, shuttles used outside the hab, NPCs, economy, intrigues, plot suggestions etc. I would enjoy reading such a book and find it useful for campaigns and adventures.

7thSeaLord wrote:

Ignore the idiotic sequels, and jusr use the basic premise of the original (with suitable modifications).

The sequels are great - perhaps not quite as shockingly good as the first, but with a much more appealing level of sci-fi. Although the physics behind the machines energy creation by using humans is complete bollocks!

I would like to see someone detail AR and VR programs and cultures. Is there a steampunk AR/VR? Are there AR/VRs of what people think Earth was like in the 20th/21st century? Things like that. Also...Earth. Do you know how cool it would be to have a setting book for a post-apocalypse Earth? New factions, mutant morphs, anti-TITAN spawn weapons, etc.

Surprisingly there is a steampunk VR but no one really pays attention to it ;) I'd love to see some NPC's. Who are the people currently in the congress of the PC, Which argonaughts might be part of the "inner circle". Some Examples of the Barsoomian underground leadership. Hopefully things like that will be included in "Sunward". Also how long do you figure it will be untill they tell us that they're moving the release date of that book back? LOL Just kidding ;)

Asimovian wrote:

Per our discussion elsewhere on these boards, I would love the addition of rules for spacecraft - building them, travelling in them and fighting with them.

The rules for fighting with them are, "Don't!" They explain that spacecraft fights are pretty quick and brutal and usually consist of the guy with the bigger gun and better shield wins.

Just making sure that spacecraft and space combat rules are mentioned in response to the OP's question.

Mifune wrote:

Asimovian wrote:

Per our discussion elsewhere on these boards, I would love the addition of rules for spacecraft - building them, travelling in them and fighting with them.

The rules for fighting with them are, "Don't!" They explain that spacecraft fights are pretty quick and brutal and usually consist of the guy with the bigger gun and better shield wins.

Are you trying to tell him that he's not supposed to ask for them just because some people don't think they are appropriate? It's always better to have such rules and be able to choose not to focus your stories on them than to lack them and decide that space combat is going to have a place in your stories.

I am a convert to your cause, so don't get me wrong here. But I do understand that if the core book says "don't worry about space combat rules, space combat is not what this game is about", that people may feel that space combat rules are superfluous, or even inappropriate. As I said, I have come to agree with you guys - EP is set in space, so it would be very useful to know how to deal with PCs moving in space. I don't think space combat or even space travel should be the centre of our attention by any stretch, but more info would be useful. If the devs disagree, let's make our own rules...

Perhaps this could be the answer...

jackgraham wrote:

Empyrean is a far future posthuman RPG authored by Jack Graham (Eclipse Phase core, Sunward) and Derek Swirsky. Written from 2003-2009 but never published, Empyrean will be ported to the Eclipse Phase rules engine in compliance with the EP Creative Commons license. Empyrean will offer playable alien races, a richly developed setting, and eventually, combat systems for spacecraft, all of which will be backward compatible with the EP rules. /.../

Quoted from http://www.eclipsephase.com/announcement-empyrean-rpg-be-ported-ep-rules.... Jack speaks about this also here http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=473495

First: Hi, (i'm new guy here ^^ ) Second: I wish to see some atlas of habitats (with pics) and more informations about mesh. Maybe some book about gear and hypercorps. (yes, i know about Sunward).

1.I would also love to see a EP book of art as well. 2.More morphs would be great also along with more enhancements and upgrades.BTW awsome job with the book!!

I second the "no gear inflation". Earth is enormously intriguing for me. I'd like to see the many stories, places, traps it contains. An Earth supplement with many interesting artefacts to recover or places to visit would be great. I love maps. I need maps of L4 and L5, of the Troyans habitats, of the Jovian Republic, of Mars and Luna settlements... Well, I can do without but I know that it is like candy for some of my players. Also it would be nice to have a well-developped place with many details. I know it will be hard to give details about every single habitat but having one detailed with great details (places to hang out, entertainment area, mafia structure, politics, important NPCs, etc...) would be great to offer a setting. Shadowrun did that with Seattle and it gave good elements to start in an otherwise overwhelming world.

Let's see. We know we're getting Sunward, Gatecrashers, and at some point Rimward. In addition to that, I'll add to the chorus of people saying "gear book" and "spacecraft/travel/warfare" book. I'd also like to throw in a request for a book on culture. It would end up almost entirely fluff and minimal crunch, of course, but a more in depth look at entertainment, fashions, food, art, games and all of those other little details of the average transhuman lifestyle would be really nice. And eventually I'd like to see in-depth books about specific settings. I would think that aside from Earth, the following could all easily provide enough material for a book on their own: Luna, Mars, the Belt and the Jovian Trojans, the Jovian system itself, the Saturn system (although Titan would obviously eat a huge chunk of that book, maybe enough to be spun off into a separate release), the Uranus system, the Neptune system, and the trans-Neptunian objects (with especial focus on the Oort Cloud and the Out'sters). The Mesh would also be a nice topic, and perhaps more on infomorphs and infolife in general.

I second setting info. Mars, Venus, Jovian Jun. . .Republic and Titan all have lots of room for material and they're all quite different. I wouldn't mind "Scum Barges of the Solar System" either. The huge diversity of setting can be somewhat about the setting. There's so much setting that it can be daunting to design a campaign that does even one part of it justice. I think even a single setting would help capture a lot of the more mundane, daily life details that have necessarily gotten less coverage up until now.

I want all books, but if I had to choose just three for quick release (say, along this year or the next), I'd choose: -A book with detailed info on habitats, which are a key element in the game, and probably harder for us to imagine than simple planetary cities (at least for me). At least a chapter in it would be devoted to Extropia. -A book on secret groups. We know books like Sunward will feature the open power players, but this is a game of horror and conspiracy: and what better for conspiracy than groups that move in the dark? -A book on the daily life of the people. Sprawl Survival Guide was one of the best books written for Shadowrun, in a way it really made you feel the game universe. And one such feeling is even more necessary with EP, as it is a much more different game world than our real world.

Scion wrote:

I'd like to repeat the request for more information on the mesh. In the one-off games I've run I've used the mesh as a three dimensional internet browser, where the various mesh sites appear as geometric shapes that baloon into VR environments when you interact with them. But I'm sure you're willing to put more thought into it than I am :P

I'm sure there must be some sort of Mercurial havens completely alien to non-infolives. I could also see various heavens and hell where infomorph would spend some times. Maybe some people voluntarily participate to Matrix-esque games where they suspend some of their memories ?

I'll echo a bunch of people up there: More morphs. To a lesser degree, more implants and gear. Not more powerful gear, just more of it. I'm not quite as keen on supplements focusing on other solar systems/whatever the gates hold. Don't get me wrong, it'd be really awesome, but the other stuff is a far greater priority for me. I would, however, like to see a couple of different scenarios for Eclipse Phase in the future. I have a very strong suspicion that if we annoy my GM much more, we'll all die and wake up, fresh from backup, a hundred years later.

I'm going to put down a vote for a gear book but i'm going to put some spin on it. I like company specifics and history. I like a weapon that has something more than just a designation as a blaster or some snazzy marketing name. I don't use a peacemaker in western games because it's a good gun, I use one because it's iconic, it's a colt and it has history. Shadowrun has done it, deadlands wasted west has done it, and I know some others have. The most recent example I can see if the video game Borderlands. In it there are about a dozen different arms companies that you can buy from randomly and each has it's own strengths. Some guns are good all around but not great, some have higher magazines but shorter rates of fire etc. The corps are already there and the weapons already exist. With the ability to buy blueprints from anyone why buy off the rack. Why not sport a Vladof pistol that everyone knows is a hand cannon rather than just a plain old sporty handgun.

From the Wikipedia entry on *books... "Splatbooks are alternately desired and reviled by gamers, who see them alternately as valuable resources for creating their characters and a craven attempt to milk players for extra money for things that either should have been included in the main system resource books or devalue the things that were." And then there's the old joke about Palladium books: "Wow! A whole book full of guns to go with my trench coat... and trench coats to go with my guns!" :) I guess down the road we could do Faction books, but I have to wonder how many people would really want us to go that road. Publishers love books designed for players; they tend to sell best. But there's plenty of time to debate whether this is a good thing for EP, because we've got three setting books to get through before stuff like this is on the table. What do y'all think, though? Will you love us or hate us if we do gear and/or splat?

jackgraham wrote:

From the Wikipedia entry on *books... "Splatbooks are alternately desired and reviled by gamers, who see them alternately as valuable resources for creating their characters and a craven attempt to milk players for extra money for things that either should have been included in the main system resource books or devalue the things that were." And then there's the old joke about Palladium books: "Wow! A whole book full of guns to go with my trench coat... and trench coats to go with my guns!" :) I guess down the road we could do Faction books, but I have to wonder how many people would really want us to go that road. Publishers love books designed for players; they tend to sell best. But there's plenty of time to debate whether this is a good thing for EP, because we've got three setting books to get through before stuff like this is on the table. What do y'all think, though? Will you love us or hate us if we do gear and/or splat?

I personally would love splat. My big thing, though, is that I prefer splat and rules info to be separate. I like that in Shadowrun, I can buy books like Vice for splat that I enjoy, and books like Augmentation when I want equipment. The beauty of this setup is that splat never gets outdated, so a pure-splat release stays good forever. Even a little rules info renders it a book that's at least partly useless should a new edition come out. If I have any recommendations, though, it'd be these: [list][*]Don't be afraid to produce micro-releases. I'd imagine that there isn't going to be much background for many factions, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't think about releasing something about them. I personally await a mini-book detailing the Ultimates, and will buy it up on release. I expect to see info on the history of their group, their social structure (as a militaristic faction, I want to know what their ranks are), the way they act around each other, the way they treat others, how they govern themselves, and maybe even maps and info on their two habitats. I want to know what they think of asyncs and AGI, or uplifts. I want to know what networking skills most suit them, or about their own private reputation network. Most importantly, I'll still buy it up if all that info barely fills 10 pages (if it's priced reasonably, of course). [*]Make it varied. One thing you'll learn by releasing splat about various factions and entities in the setting, through sales records, is what parts of the universe are most popular. It'll give you an idea of what people want to see in future releases. If books on the Jovian Junta are selling, then people will probably be more interested in adventures set in that area. Could even give you a way to constantly keep info on the setting alive... there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of possibilities for habitat locations, factions, religions, and even characters... and you could create books for any of them. Plus, you could release micro-PDFs for various things (including the factions as I mentioned earlier), followed by hardcover collections of these PDFs for those who are more interested in physical releases. [*]Really show us how big the setting is. Eclipse Phase is potentially massive, possibly one of the biggest settings there could be. The locales are potentially infinite. You could spend every single publishing dollar on describing the places that gatecrashing could take you alone. You could probably dedicate an entire sub-campaign setting on the city of Glitch by itself. You have enough setting material that you could probably publish EP forever and never even need to advance the setting beyond 10AF. Please... give us what you got!

I know White Wolf releases PDFs of books they otherwise wouldn't be able to release. Releasing smaller PDF-only books might be a good idea.

killj0y wrote:

I know it might run counter to current production thinking but I also wouldn't mind a simple softcover black and white version of the core book. I like the hardcover and will keep it around but it's very nice and I don't want my $50 copy banging around in my bookbag if I have an alternative. Someone will cry, what about PDF. And an echo will answer, Not until ereaders get under $100 and stop trying to cram DRM down my throat. I want a $20-30 softcover that I don't mind writing in, throwing, pasting errata or loaning to a friend.

Yeah, but the nice thing for those of use who want it in PDF is that we could theoretically print it out for use as a "group book", then write in it, paste in it, and loan it to a friend. Back when I was younger we used to do this with AD&D books. Go down to the library and photocopy most of the book, then write in the copy as a group bible for the game, writing in our own houserules and modifications as we saw fit.

standard_gravity wrote:

An alternative of course is a phat "players guide" including info on all various factions etc from a PCs perspective.

Something like this would be nice. While I dig the huge amount of setting info in the core book, it'd be nice to have an abbreviated version highlighting the must-knows to hand out to players who are less keen on reading. ... though now that I think of it, there's no reason I couldn't do that myself if I had the time. Ohhhh, temptation. The big thing I personally want is more plot hooks to build off of, which I have little doubt I'll get in Sunward. (I have a list of fully 25 or so plot ideas I came up with just from a read-through of it.) Rules for players customizing and creating their own gear would be nice too.