A Note About This Playtest

Sat, 2017-05-06 00:50

#2

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

So the files are being made

So the files are being made available on DriveThruRPG this time around? Is there something wrong with hosting them on this site? Also, the old files for the Transhuman playtest are no longer available for download. The links don't work anymore.

Sat, 2017-05-06 08:39

#3

GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture

I think part of the reason is

I think part of the reason is that DriveThru has a really good automated process for reminding people when a file has been updated?

Sat, 2017-05-06 14:21

#4

AdamJury

Yes, much easier to update

Yes, much easier to update the files and send out notifications if we use DriveThru, plus, more people who hadn't heard about the playtest from other sources can discover it. Playtest files are not meant to be kept around forever; that's why we don't CC license them.

Sat, 2017-05-20 06:10

#5

Maudova

Open Playtest Doc Layout?

@robboyle I'm curious what program are you building the open playtest in?

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Sat, 2017-05-20 10:43

#6

o11o1

Rules Set in Stone?

How open to "radical" alterations are the developers in regards to feedback and brainstorming? There are a few interesting suggestions in the various threads that I think are interesting ideas, but if they're already past the line of acceptable changes, it my be more in my interest to focus on smaller tweaks. If the rules are early and in potential flux, then wild brainstorm tangents might improve the game. If the rules are "near done" and you're mainly looking for missed small bits and oddly worded statements, that implies such tangents are wasted effort to some degree.

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A slight smell of ions....

Sat, 2017-05-20 13:19

#7

AdamJury

Maudova wrote:@robboyle I'm

Maudova wrote:
@robboyle I'm curious what program are you building the open playtest in?

InDesign/InCopy. Two InDesign files; one for the actual EP2 book, one for the open playtest files, and they mostly share the same InCopy/ICML files.

Sat, 2017-05-20 15:28

#8

eaton

Quote:How open to "radical"

Quote:
How open to "radical" alterations are the developers in regards to feedback and brainstorming? There are a few interesting suggestions in the various threads that I think are interesting ideas, but if they're already past the line of acceptable changes, it my be more in my interest to focus on smaller tweaks. If the rules are early and in potential flux, then wild brainstorm tangents might improve the game. If the rules are "near done" and you're mainly looking for missed small bits and oddly worded statements, that implies such tangents are wasted effort to some degree.

I'm pretty curious about this too — some of the tweaks that I've suggested in other threads are fairly simple (movement/action economy tweaks); others are skill-tweaking/attribute balancing type stuff; and others still are significant "What if SOM was a morph-only stat and skills mapped to COO as an ego aptitude" type zaniness. I've gone through a couple rounds of chargen, and will be gaming out a few sessions soon with my group, so it's not all speculative, but I don't want to waste everyone's time spitballing stuff that's super-out-of-scope for 2ed…

Sun, 2017-05-21 12:49

#9

mutant1967 mutant1967's picture

Second Edition compatibility

How compatible will the old books be with the second edition rules? Will you guys be re-doing all the books?

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Sun, 2017-05-21 20:01

#10

AdamJury

Will first-edition books be

Will first-edition books be compatible with the new edition? Yes and no. Sourcebooks such as Sunward, Rimward, Gatecrashing, Panopticon, and Firewall are 95% compatible. Some of the morphs, gear, and other rules provided in their Game Information sections will be outdated, but are easily convertible. Any sample characters will also need to be converted. Our first-edition adventures and X-Risks are less compatible, but shouldn’t take too much adjustment to use with second edition. Transhuman and the Morph Recognition Guide are not compatible with second edition—but material from each of them inspired and was integrated into second edition.

Mon, 2017-05-22 10:38

#11

RobBoyle

o11o1 wrote:How open to

o11o1 wrote:
How open to "radical" alterations are the developers in regards to feedback and brainstorming? There are a few interesting suggestions in the various threads that I think are interesting ideas, but if they're already past the line of acceptable changes, it my be more in my interest to focus on smaller tweaks. If the rules are early and in potential flux, then wild brainstorm tangents might improve the game. If the rules are "near done" and you're mainly looking for missed small bits and oddly worded statements, that implies such tangents are wasted effort to some degree.

We're in an in-between stage. We have a lot nailed down, but there is a lot we are still open to changing. The drafts are in various stages of completion, ranging from "done except for playtest changes" to "detailed notes/outline with a lot of the text currently being assembled." We are pretty unlikely to change any of the core dice mechanics or to steer away from the new pools at this point. However there are plenty of others things, especially smaller details/rules, that we are flexible on. As an example, we are currently discussing in-house whether to collapse Academics/Interest/Profession skills into a single Knowledge field skill. This was something that was nominally on the table before, but we kept them separate because those field skills are already open-ended and too nebulous for some people so having them codified into 3 distinct categories was helpful. We've seen some playtest feedback that is pushing towards combining them, though. We will be posting some specific questions and rules issues we are looking for feedback on with the next playtest pack update.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Mon, 2017-05-22 12:11

#12

eaton

Quote:We will be posting some

Quote:
We will be posting some specific questions and rules issues we are looking for feedback on with the next playtest pack update.

Excitement intensifies.

Tue, 2017-05-23 17:19

#13

Grim G

ETA

So when's the next chapter coming out? A week? Before the month ends?

Tue, 2017-05-23 18:17

#14

RobBoyle

Grim G wrote:So when's the

Grim G wrote:
So when's the next chapter coming out? A week? Before the month ends?

If all goes well, yes, by the end of the month.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Wed, 2017-05-31 14:22

#15

Maudova

RobBoyle wrote:If all goes

RobBoyle wrote:
If all goes well, yes, by the end of the month.

Any status update? Are we looking at tonight or later this week for the next update?

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-05-31 18:07

#16

RobBoyle

I'm really close to having

I'm really close to having the next playtest pack together, but we've decided to make a couple of significant changes based on some of the feedback so far, so I have to take care of that first. I might have it Friday, it might be early next week.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Wed, 2017-05-31 18:18

#17

Maudova

Thank you for all the hard

Thank you for all the hard work. Let me know if I can help.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-05-31 23:04

#18

eaton

Quote:I'm really close to

Quote:
I'm really close to having the next playtest pack together, but we've decided to make a couple of significant changes based on some of the feedback so far, so I have to take care of that first. I might have it Friday, it might be early next week.

You realize of course this only makes us more excited

Thu, 2017-06-01 14:44

#19

Grim G

RobBoyle wrote:I'm really

RobBoyle wrote:
I'm really close to having the next playtest pack together, but we've decided to make a couple of significant changes based on some of the feedback so far, so I have to take care of that first. I might have it Friday, it might be early next week.

Well that's good. Wouldn't want it to get rushed. But if I may ask, what has been changed?

Thu, 2017-06-01 16:32

#20

UnitOmega

Yeah a changelog would be

Yeah a changelog would be nice if it doesn't have one already. Or put new/altered text in bright red.

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Thu, 2017-06-01 16:43

#21

o11o1

Maybe a nice blue

UnitOmega wrote:
Yeah a changelog would be nice if it doesn't have one already. Or put new/altered text in bright red.

Bright red can be distracting. Maybe a nice business pen blue?

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A slight smell of ions....

Mon, 2017-06-05 12:42

#22

Grim G

So is there an updated ETA?

So is there an updated ETA? Also, which chapter is being released next?

Mon, 2017-06-05 19:25

#23

o11o1

hopefully combat, that's the

hopefully combat, that's the one thing that's been holding back my own group.

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A slight smell of ions....

Mon, 2017-06-05 19:57

#24

Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture

IMO, the combat and gear

IMO, the combat and gear chapters can't really be separated very well. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them released at once, and that was the reason why we're waiting. It'd be really hard to evaluate the effects of changes to weapons or armor without knowing the combat rules, or vice versa. That said, there's a lot of gear you don't use in a fight, and those should stand alone pretty well.

Wed, 2017-06-07 00:02

#25

Maudova

RobBoyle wrote:I might have

RobBoyle wrote:
I might have it Friday, it might be early next week.

Hi Rob. I am curious if you are still on target for delivery early this week or if we should expect a weekend delivery. Thanks. P.S. Hopefully you weren't detained at a Freedom Prayer counter protest or hit with tear gas.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-06-07 13:12

#26

Grim G

Maudova wrote:RobBoyle wrote

Maudova wrote:
RobBoyle wrote:
I might have it Friday, it might be early next week.
Hi Rob. I am curious if you are still on target for delivery early this week or if we should expect a weekend delivery. Thanks. P.S. Hopefully you weren't detained at a Freedom Prayer counter protest or hit with tear gas.

Wait, Rob went to a protest?

Wed, 2017-06-07 13:22

#27

Maudova

Off-Topic I apologize.

No that was a joke. There was a Antifa rally where I live, protesting against a "Freedom Prayer" rally lead by some white supremacists. The Antifa group was easily 5 times the size of the original rally. The police got involved, rubber bullets, tear gas, and people were detained including reporters. A couple of my friends were involved. I honestly don't even know what part of the world Rob lives in. Just figured it might be something the staff might enjoy being at...and possibly be involved in. Annnnyways.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-06-07 13:25

#28

Grim G

Maudova wrote:No that was a

Maudova wrote:
No that was a joke. There was a Antifa rally where I live, protesting against a "Freedom Prayer" rally lead by some white supremacists. The Antifa group was easily 5 times the size of the original rally. The police got involved, rubber bullets, tear gas, and people were detained including reporters. A couple of my friends were involved. I honestly don't even know what part of the world Rob lives in. Just figured it might be something the staff might enjoy being at...and possibly be involved in. Annnnyways.

Ok good. Antifa makes me ashamed to be an anarchist.

Wed, 2017-06-07 13:26

#29

Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture

You talking about the

You talking about the Portland thing, I almost went to that haha I think Rob is in Chicago.

Wed, 2017-06-07 14:45

#30

Maudova

Yes. Specifically that.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-06-07 16:49

#31

Grim G

Portland thing

Trappedinwikipedia wrote:
You talking about the Portland thing, I almost went to that haha I think Rob is in Chicago.

How many "protests" have there been in Portland recently? I hear so many stories of riots breaking out in the US that they all blur together for me.

Wed, 2017-06-07 17:24

#32

RobBoyle

Adam's wrapping up layout on

Adam's wrapping up layout on the latest playtest stuff, should have it up later tonight. You'll be getting: Combat, Psi, and Acquiring Gear/Morphs, along with updated Game Mechanics and Making Characters. Though Gear and Mesh are still being worked on, this should be enough to actually get a game going. I'll post a change log later.

Trappedinwikipedia wrote:
IMO, the combat and gear chapters can't really be separated very well. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them released at once, and that was the reason why we're waiting. It'd be really hard to evaluate the effects of changes to weapons or armor without knowing the combat rules, or vice versa. That said, there's a lot of gear you don't use in a fight, and those should stand alone pretty well.

In our effort to keep relevant material together, weapons stats are now included with weapon rules.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Wed, 2017-06-07 17:26

#33

RobBoyle

Grim G wrote:Maudova wrote:No

Grim G wrote:
Maudova wrote:
No that was a joke. There was a Antifa rally where I live, protesting against a "Freedom Prayer" rally lead by some white supremacists. The Antifa group was easily 5 times the size of the original rally. The police got involved, rubber bullets, tear gas, and people were detained including reporters. A couple of my friends were involved. I honestly don't even know what part of the world Rob lives in. Just figured it might be something the staff might enjoy being at...and possibly be involved in. Annnnyways.
Ok good. Antifa makes me ashamed to be an anarchist.

It wouldn't be that much of a stretch, I've been involved with antifa groups of one sort of another for most of my life. But that's not a discussion we'll be having here :)

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Wed, 2017-06-07 17:42

#34

Maudova

RobBoyle wrote:Adam's

RobBoyle wrote:
Adam's wrapping up layout on the latest playtest stuff, should have it up later tonight. You'll be getting: Combat, Psi, and Acquiring Gear/Morphs, along with updated Game Mechanics and Making Characters. Though Gear and Mesh are still being worked on, this should be enough to actually get a game going. I'll post a change log later.
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:
IMO, the combat and gear chapters can't really be separated very well. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them released at once, and that was the reason why we're waiting. It'd be really hard to evaluate the effects of changes to weapons or armor without knowing the combat rules, or vice versa. That said, there's a lot of gear you don't use in a fight, and those should stand alone pretty well.
In our effort to keep relevant material together, weapons stats are now included with weapon rules.

Thank you all for this. My group will surely appreciate it. I know I do.

—

~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-06-07 18:12

#35

Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture

RobBoyle wrote:Adam's

RobBoyle wrote:
Adam's wrapping up layout on the latest playtest stuff, should have it up later tonight. You'll be getting: Combat, Psi, and Acquiring Gear/Morphs, along with updated Game Mechanics and Making Characters. Though Gear and Mesh are still being worked on, this should be enough to actually get a game going. I'll post a change log later.
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:
IMO, the combat and gear chapters can't really be separated very well. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them released at once, and that was the reason why we're waiting. It'd be really hard to evaluate the effects of changes to weapons or armor without knowing the combat rules, or vice versa. That said, there's a lot of gear you don't use in a fight, and those should stand alone pretty well.
In our effort to keep relevant material together, weapons stats are now included with weapon rules.

I'm super excited about this, I'm hoping I can do a real playtest in about a week so this is really good timing for me!

Wed, 2017-06-07 19:35

#36

Grim G

RobBoyle wrote:But that's not

RobBoyle wrote:
But that's not a discussion we'll be having here :)

Yeah, fair enough. Don't want to derail a discussion. That, and I've heard rumor that you ban anyone who talks about politics.

Wed, 2017-06-07 20:10

#37

RobBoyle

Grim G wrote:RobBoyle wrote

Grim G wrote:
RobBoyle wrote:
But that's not a discussion we'll be having here :)
Yeah, fair enough. Don't want to derail a discussion. That, and I've heard rumor that you ban anyone who talks about politics.

Not if its civil and on-topic. EP addresses a lot of political issues after all.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Thu, 2017-06-08 00:24

#38

Maudova

Just in time for my game this

Just in time for my game this weekend. Thanks Rob, Adam, Jack, and the PostHuman Studios staff/freelancers.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Thu, 2017-06-08 17:20

#39

SquireNed

This is a little bit nit

This is a little bit nit-picky, but would it be possible to get working bookmarks on the playtest documents? Most of the documents don't have bookmarks, and those that do have garbled ones. I have software that lets me automatically make them from text formats, but it's not foolproof (and the formatting in the documents is not perfectly coherent), and since it's not CC licensed I'm the only person with accurate bookmarks.

Thu, 2017-06-08 17:49

#40

AdamJury

I can't promise that will get

I can't promise that will get done for the current batch of files but I'll make sure the next batch, at the least, is better bookmarked. (There's some "fun" adhoc stuff going on in the creation of these docs...)

Thu, 2017-06-15 23:46

#41

Scottbert

I just want to note that I

I just want to note that I largely like what I see, and think that consolidating skills, providing more guidance in chargen, and having morphs adjust pools instead of recalculating skills, and some streamlining of the gear system, are all good calls and 2E is on the whole moving in a good direction! I also have a lot of [i]little[/i] gripes with 2nd ed as currently written, though, which I've noted in each chapter discussion.

Sat, 2017-06-17 12:50

#42

Maudova

Playtest Timeline and Subjects

Hi Guys, Would you be willing to tell us when the next text block to be dropped and if there will be new subjects included? Thanks.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Wed, 2017-06-21 14:53

#43

Grim G

Maudova wrote:Hi Guys,

Maudova wrote:
Hi Guys, Would you be willing to tell us when the next text block to be dropped and if there will be new subjects included? Thanks.

Yeah, personally I'd prefer to have updates to current subjects before anything new.

Thu, 2017-06-22 00:25

#44

o11o1

Much like how some books come

Much like how some books come out first, having a day or two to digest changes to the rules set before we get the bigger playtest drops is probably a good idea.

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A slight smell of ions....

Mon, 2017-07-31 18:23

#45

Lurkingdaemon Lurkingdaemon's picture

No news is...good?

Wondering if there is any forthcoming news or updates on the state of the 2nd Ed drafts. If not, no worries - just curious is all.

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Wed, 2017-08-02 20:05

#46

o11o1

News!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507486226/eclipse-phase-second-edit... Next playtest packet is planned sometime in August 2017, before GenCon.

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A slight smell of ions....

Fri, 2017-08-04 23:08

#47

TheGrue

o11o1 wrote:https://www

o11o1 wrote:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/507486226/eclipse-phase-second-edit... Next playtest packet is planned sometime in August 2017, before GenCon.

Quote:
We are behind schedule on the core rulebook

Hmmm, you don't say?

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Sat, 2017-08-05 00:58

#48

o11o1

Better Late than Garbage

The quality of the actual rules in the playtest documents are encouraging. It implies to me that work is in fact happening and we're going to get a good product. If it has to wait until 2018, so be it.

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A slight smell of ions....

Mon, 2017-08-07 13:25

#49

Maudova

Better Well Vetted than Rushed.

Everything is fine. If we see the core book in September or October it's not the end of the world. Besides I'd rather have a Beta or Alpha artless/fluffless copy of the full rules before it's finalized. I've ran 3 games of EP 2 playtest and found the published rules solid so far. I am waiting for the new mesh and equipment material to come out to issue a full review. I am also looking for social rules, hopefully expanded well beyond what EP1 had and more than what we've seen in the playtest.

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~Alpha Fork Initialized. P.S. I often post from my phone as I travel extensively for work. Please forgive typos and grammar issues.

Thu, 2017-08-24 23:46

#50

o11o1

At the Devs: How did GenCon

At the Devs: How did GenCon go?

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A slight smell of ions....

Fri, 2017-08-25 16:07

#51

AdamJury

Gen Con was really great. We

Gen Con was really great. We gave out over 1,600 copies of the Quick-Start Rules in print, ran a lot of games, and had some great and enthusiastic feedback from new and experienced fans alike. A larger writeup -- and the digital QSR -- will have to wait until at least next Tuesday. We're all officially out of the office until then, due to a family situation.

A Note About This Playtest

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