EP2 Shipping Costs Update!
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 10, 2017 at 10:53:36 PM

Hey everyone!

We promised you an update about Shipping Costs today, and we're really happy to bring you good news on shipping to Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand.

We are also really close to unlocking the Player's Guide stretch goal, and with that, here's a teaser about the $160,000 stretch goal: it will be an adventure, released in distinct PDFs/POD books for both for Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, and for Transhumanity's Fate!

We've added a Transhumanity's Fate backer level to help support this upcoming stretch goal:

$10 - Welcome to Eclipse Phase - Fate Edition

Jump into Eclipse Phase using the Fate system with: Transhumanity's Fate, After the Fall (fiction anthology), A Time of Eclipse (setting information), two music tracks, and first edition Quick-Start Rules. All digital, delivered to you within 24 hours of backing!

Now, onto shipping!:

A Shipping Reminder

Shipping costs are being managed via BackerKit for this campaign. This means that if you're backing at any of the levels that include print books, we'll be contacting you in August/September to finalize your shipping information and charge you for that shipping. BackerKit will also let you upgrade your pledges at that time, grab any add-ons you want, and handle all that sort of stuff. We're really excited for the streamlining that BK will be bringing to the fulfillment of our campaign!

If you want to deal with BackerKit as little as possible, that's easy to do: raise your pledge to cover shipping before the Kickstarter campaign ends on May 17th. That will let you zip through BackerKit's checkout down the road!

Revised Shipping Rates

We have partnered with three additional shipping companies to handle many of our international shipments, which has brought down shipping costs greatly, and also makes it much less likely that you'll have to pay import duties on your books. Woot!

Revised estimated shipping costs are as follows:

• United States: $10
• Canada: $15
• France: $15
• Everywhere else in Europe: $20 (+$5 per additional books)
• Australia: $20
• New Zealand: $20 (+$5 per additional books)
• Rest of the world: $40-55

 Thanks for your patience while we worked out the shipping details!

One Week To Go

This is a short Kickstarter campaign, ending next Wednesday, May 17th! As we jump into the final week, please share the campaign with your friends and fellow gamers. We're in a really good place in the campaign, financially, but there are some stretch goals coming up that will benefit all Eclipse Phase fans!

Introducing the Firewall Planetary Ops Team
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 10, 2017 at 05:18:02 PM

Hello everyone! Today, we want to give you the first peek at one of the four Sample Teams that will be included in Eclipse Phase, Second Edition!

First, the usual housekeeping: We're pushing towards unlocking the Player's Guide stretch goal, and then the Ambient Album from Scott Fox. Scott's already twitching with anticipation of writing this album! When those two goals get unlocked, everyone backing at levels that include All Digital Stretch Goals will get these releases for free!

We are now over $120,000 dollars into this Kickstarter project, which means we've bested the amount we raised for the Transhuman Kickstarter in 2013, and we're only two hundred backers away from besting the number of backers we had for Transhuman. Thank you for your support, and please give this a campaign a share: whether that be tweeting about it, posting on your Facebook page, Google Plus, your favorite message board, etc.

If you're still on the fence about backing for any reason, hit that "Favorite/heart" button on the campaign's front page so you can stay up to date as we roll through the last nine days of the campaign: Wednesday, May 17th is the final day!

Now, let's talk about...

Eclipse Phase, Second Edition Sample Characters

The first edition featured sixteen archetypal sample characters that players could pick up and use, and that GMs could use as NPCs. Eclipse Phase, Second Edition evolves this into a more well-rounded presentation of four sample teams, each of them containing four specific characters that exist in the Eclipse Phase universe. There will be four teams: two Firewall-oriented teams, a Gatecrashing group, and a Criminal enterprise. They'll have full character sheets, artwork, and examples of play will be woven through the book featuring them.

Why do it this way? A few reasons!:

• By providing an entire team, it's easy for a group to grab a set of characters and start playing, knowing that they'll have a balanced party that can reasonably attempt to conquer any tasks put in front of them.
• Four characters is a pretty typical gaming group: you can add characters to fill out a group more easily than taking a few away.
• We've had a lot of requests to flesh out characters that have appeared in Eclipse Phase books and provide statistics for them.

Introducing the Firewall Planetary Ops Team

At their best on the densely settled gravity wells of the inner solar system, a planetary ops team is Firewall’s go-to for missions in the Martian outback, the floating cities of Venus, or the caverns of Luna. With this team, surveillance and security hacking, investigative networking, and scientific evidence analysis are key competencies. Skill in interviewing leads and being good with a gun are also handy. Teams like this need a diverse set of contacts to follow leads, but hypercorp and guangxi connections are especially important.

Jake Carter

Martian Field proxy

Jake lost his family on Mars during the Fall and has been deep Firewall ever since. As a proxy, he’s Firewall’s expert on happenings in the Martian outback—the vast territory of wilderness and small settlements outside the big Martian dome cities. Jake’s ruster morph is a tough, cold-resistant body designed to survive in the harsh, partly terraformed climate of Mars.

Qi

Barsoomian Hacktivist

Qi is a music producer, hacker, and political activist. Her connections to the progressive Barsoomian movement and bleeding-edge infosec skills make her the team’s security and surveillance hub. Qi’s dragonfly morph is a light, flying robotic morph, ideal for recon and fast to sleeve in and out of.

Ajaya

Lunar Machine Hunter

A veteran sentinel from the Fall era, Ajaya escaped Earth as part of a proto-Firewall ops team. Her present cover as a security contractor on Luna keeps her close to happenings in the Moon’s TITAN containment zone. Ajaya’s ghost morph features chameleon skin and lightning reflexes—perfect for infiltration work.

Cagehopper

Black Kettle Genehacker

Cagehopper is a genehacker—part doctor, part semi-legal genetic tinkerer. Aside from putting the team’s morphs back together (or replacing them), his job is to identify and counteract biological threats—including the exsurgent virus. His rugged neo-neanderthal morph has all of the standard transhuman upgrades.

Who's Next?

Which team do you want to hear about next? The other Firewall team, the Gatecrashers, or the Criminals? Let us know in the comments!

May 3rd Update: New Backer Levels, Clarifications, New Stretch Goal, Artwork!
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 10, 2017 at 07:08:39 AM

Hello everyone!

We are one week into the Kickstarter for Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, and things are humming along very nicely! Thanks so much to all of our fans for backing and sharing this campaign. Other people who have supported us during and leading up to the campaign—our partners, families, and friends—also deserve a big shout out for dealing with our extended office hours and for letting us bounce ideas off them constantly.

Right now, we are sitting at the healthy funding level just over $97,000 with 1,330 backers. One exciting fact is that of those backers, 54 of them are backing a Kickstarter project for the first time, and they chose Eclipse Phase, Second Edition. Thank you!

This update contains information about:

• New Backer Level: Welcome to Eclipse Phase

• The Posthuman 2017-2020 Backer Level 

• Stretch Goals

• Artwork Preview

New Backer Level: Welcome to Eclipse Phase

We added a $10 backer level for people who are new to Eclipse Phase. It contains digitals version of After the Fall (the first Eclipse Phase fiction anthology, edited by Jaym Gates), A Time of Eclipse (the setting information from the first-edition core rulebook), two music tracks from Scott Fox, and the first-edition Quick-Start Rules.

This is the ideal backer level for someone who is curious about Eclipse Phase: we'll deliver the electronic books to you within 24 hours of backing so you can get reading right away. Please share this new backer level with your sci-fi loving friends!

The Posthuman 2017-2020 Backer Level

We've had a few questions about the Posthuman 2017-2020 backer level. That backer level's description is:

Band together with your gaming group for:
• One print copy of every book, game, and trinket we produce starting with Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, until the end of 2020.
 • One electronic copy of every book, game, and trinket we produce starting with Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, until the end of 2020.

Shipping included for all of them!

We can't edit the backer level now, but we want to clarify a few things:

• We guarantee that you'll get at least 10 printed books and/or games (not including print-on-demand titles, which you'll also get). On the off chance that we hit the end of 2020 without producing 10 printed titles, you'll keep getting everything—print, electronic, merch—until we ship 10 printed titles to your door!
• This includes everything we produce, both for Eclipse Phase and other games: convention exclusives, merch, anything limited edition, card games, you name it!

Stretch Goals

Your Whispering Muse at $100,000: We're just a few thousand dollars away from unlocking the first series of eight Your Whispering Muse releases. A few people have asked about submitting material to it—we'll have an Open Call for proposals down the line!

New Stretch Goal

Eclipse Phase Player's Guide — $130,000

The Player's Guide is a 48-page (minimum) PDF that brings the essentials of Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, to the player's fingertips. It will contain basic rules and character creation for the player that doesn't need access to core rulebook details all the time. This will also be released in print, though we have not yet determined whether this will be a full print release or a print-on-demand title.

Artwork Preview

You've seen some of the new artwork on the various mockup covers and in the Kickstarter project already, and here's three more pieces of new artwork! Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, will contain over 100 pieces of brand-new artwork, and we're incredibly pleased with our artist's new concoctions!

Thank You!

Thanks for your support! You can always reach us at [email protected] with questions or comments. And a little reminder to visit the last update and tell us what you want to see in NPC File Volume 2!

First Updates: Base Goal, International Shipping, Open Playtest, Stretch Goals!
over 7 years ago – Tue, May 09, 2017 at 02:10:51 PM

Hello EP2 Kickstarter backers!

It has been a whirlwind of less-than-a-day since we launched. This is a quick update on a couple subjects: hitting our base goal, international shipping, the Open Playtest, and of course: stretch goals.

Hitting our Base Goal

Hitting $35,000 so early is extremely exciting: thank you very much. The actual budget for creating and printing Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, is more than double that original goal, but $35,000 guaranteed is a good foundational level for us to proceed full steam ahead with the project! And over 800 backers already is a very encouraging number for the long-term health of Eclipse Phase and Posthuman Studios! Raising this much money means we can pay for all the exclamation marks we're using!

International Shipping

We're exploring different solutions for managing more affordable international shipping, and we're confident we'll find a good solution to lower the cost. If you are a prospective international backer, we ask that you back at one of the electronic reward levels until we post updated shipping information.

We will post an update about International Shipping by Friday, May 5th: even if that update is just to say "we're still working on it." Thanks for your patience.

Open Playtest

Our aim is to start rolling out the Open Playtest documents by Friday, May 5th, beginning with the Game Mechanics and Making Characters chapters.

Stretch goals

We are announcing our first two stretch goals:

Freelancer Raise! — $70,000

At $70,000, all of the freelancers that work on Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, will get a 10% bonus payment. We have dozens of freelancers working on EP2: authors, editors, and artists. As always, we're paying our freelancers when they complete their work -- some companies, even giant corporations, make creatives wait until or after publication to pay them, and we refuse to partake in that.

As with the Transhuman Kickstarter, this bonus does not apply to the owner/operators of Posthuman Studios.

NPC File Volume 2 — $85,000

We're estimating NPC File Volume 2 as a 48-page book. It expands on the original NPC File Volume 1: Prime by presenting NPC/character archetypes and specific characters within that archetype. All backers that are receiving digital stretch goals will get NPC File Volume 2 as part of that pack of rewards!

Sharing is Caring!

And finally: please share this campaign on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), the gaming forums you hang out on, and other places where you think people will appreciate. Be kind and don't spam!

Thank you for support. This is extremely exciting, and we're looking forward to bringing you more Eclipse Phase! As always, you can reach us at [email protected] with questions or comments.

Stretch Goals: Unlocked and Newly Announced!
over 7 years ago – Tue, May 09, 2017 at 02:10:44 PM

Hey backers — hope your weekend is going well! Hard to believe that we launched this campaign less than four days ago.

Let's get right down to it: woohoo, we smashed through the Freelancer Raise stretch goal and NPC File Volume 2! Now that it's unlocked, we want you to sound off in the comments: What do you want to see in NPC File Volume 2? What did you like the most about NPC File Volume 1? What can we do in NPC File Volume 2 to make your games easier to run? Which characters have we mentioned that you want to see us cover in more detail?

Now, let's talk new stretch goals:

Your Whispering Muse Series 1! — $100,000

Your Whispering Muse Series 1 will explore a variety of Eclipse Phase topics in short, four or six-page releases. Series 1 will feature eight installments, moving "off the beaten path" to topics that haven't been covered in-depth in an Eclipse Phase book before. More about Meathab? Trends in Zero-G Fashion? What are the Ten Most Beautiful Sights in the Solar System? Any or all of these could be fed to you by Your Whispering Muse.

We'll be using Your Whispering Muse to give new-to-Eclipse Phase authors a place to show their stuff, and also to let our established writers dive into some new topics!

Freelancer Bonus Doubled! — $115,000

When we hit $115,000, our Eclipse Phase, Second Edition, freelancers all get another bump to their pay rate!

Thank you!

Thanks for your support, and please share this campaign on your social media and email it to your friends who internet like it's 1997! As always, if you want to 1997 us, it's [email protected]