Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Finis

One year and one day later and my work is done, though it feels like I could go forever. To the readers of Farcast, whether you stayed current every day or are just finding this now, this project has been for you. Ideas are free, and so Farcast is free - only the expression takes a little effort, and that work is my gift to you.

I wish there was some great and original lesson to lend meaning to this work, but I'll settle for a simple, well-known truth: there is nothing here you could not do yourself. There is no game, no setting, no universe that cannot be made richer by your thought and effort and consideration. Read a little, think a little, dream a little. Don't be afraid to go beyond what is in the books, or write what they might never print. Eclipse Phase begins with the published material, but it lives in your heads, in your writing, and in your games.

To the fine folks at Posthuman Studios and the freelance writers and artists that created the Eclipse Phase RPG: thanks for letting me splash in your pool for a bit.

Thanks for reading, and happy trails.

- Bobby Derie

23 comments:

  1. I can't believe I am just the first to say this, but - THANK YOU. I hope this is published as a pretty PDF and well advertised, your work is astounding.

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  2. I agree with Piotr, this is an amazing and invaluable work! I have been following nearly every day and collecting everything into a bare bones PDF. With Bobby D's permission I can make that collection available until something more polished comes along.

    Thanks so much and it's definitely an inspiration! I've had too much on my plate for 2014 but a year blog is on my list for the future based solely on your accomplishments here!

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    1. Barebones we've got (look at the Darkcast box to the right for the links!) Canageek has been working on a much better PDF, which looks great so far, though I don't know when he'll finish it.

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    2. I've emailed over the first 151 entries, which is what I started on back in July. Once I've recovered a bit I'll have a think about how to do the other half more efficiently.

      The main challenge was that I extracted the data from the existing PDF, to show how much better it could be, and then used sed and search/replace to bash it into something resembling a document, then tweaked it page by page.

      Now I've got to decide if working with the HTML, word documents or PDF is the most efficient way of doing things, though I suspect I'll still spend most of my time fighting with the document, trying to get the longer entries to fit on one page as Bobby Dee requested of me; that is probably more then half my time. (Xin Nix, The Mighty Bu were early problems, but once I threw up my hands and dropped down to typeface 11 everything fit much better, even if there is a lot of wasted space. However, one Jill Nightbringer gave me headaches up until tonight, needing massaging every time I changed a setting. Also: Innata looks horrible. I don't think I can do much better with her without splitting her across to pages. However, that is so blatantly obvious that I didn't even try, plus I didn't get to her until tonight. Jill on the other hand, man, I will never be able to use Jill in one of my games due to my hatred for her now.)

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    3. I actually spend a considerable amount of time each day hoping that you will decide to conti ue this blog. Thank you SOOO much for you works here. As a GM of nearly 20 years, I salute you.

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  3. Thank for your hard work, I looked forward to reading nearly everyday.

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  4. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

    Best of luck in your new endeavors, whatever they may be.

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  5. Thank you for the year of entries! I've found so many little nuggets of inspiration in here, beyond just the entertainment of the entries.

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  6. Thanks Bobby, and Happy New Year!---it's been a fun ride, and I'll definitely pull down the compiled .pdf when it's available. Now if I can just get me some EP players....

    Allan.

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  7. Pure gold. Yoyr work is pure gold. Thank you very much, bobby !

    If it feels like you could go forever... Well you can continue to post ! I think that i'm not the only one who hope that !

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  8. Great work! Very impressive creativity.

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  9. Zounds man, I enjoyed this a whole heck of a lot, any thoughts on what your going to do next?

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  10. Thanks so much for this! In my head, it's *aaaaaaall* canon. :D

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  12. It's been a great ride. I've read all the entries and all I can say is thanks for the effort, man. You don't know the half of how hard this actually is for us regular guys. I once tried setting up a repository of my EP ideas and couldn't get a single decent entry out.

    Thanks for all the hard work. Thanks for sticking with this project. I hope to see more of your work. And please write more on the adventures of Axial and his crew.

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  14. No, THANK YOU, man. What an extraordinary effort. Hats off! :D

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  15. Man, I've loved reading these entries, and, as you know I've loved reading this enough to spend days and days typesetting the first half of your entries; I'll get the second half done eventually.

    Anyway, thank you so much for sharing. Do you have any plans to do more blogging or writing?

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    1. Well, I always have the Unpublishable: http://the-unpublishable.com
      The publisher just emailed me back the other day and said my book was a go.
      I'm fiddling with a non-game wiki: http://wikithulhu.com

      So, y'know. Stuff.

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    2. Cool! I'll have to check those out.

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  16. I've considered this amazing blog to be the pinnacle of EP fan content, and have used it as a resource for a few years now, but only just today realized you are Ancient History of Shadowrun fame! It all makes sense now! The wit! The quality! You should throw your name in the hat to do writing for the next EP book, if you ask me! X-Risks'll be EP's Threats, and I bet you could craft some real mind-bending STINKERS to throw at PCs.

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    1. Heh. Thanks. I don't know if I'll write for Eclipse Phase in any official capacity - they have a good corral of writers as it is, and these days I'm working on another book. But I do appreciate the sentiment.

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