Vaporware

Vaporware - noun - "Computer Slang. a product, esp. software, that is promoted or marketed while it is still in development and that may never be produced." quoted from dictionary.com. Probably you heard this word before. This word, vaporware, have tight bond with games like "Duke Nukem Forever". That game is like god of all vaporware games. On the other side there are some software that is called "Redemptive", those are titles which were called vaporware for a long time, but on the end they were published. Half-Life, Half-life 2 and so on. Even Guild Wars 2 was called vaporware by some doomsayers, but after trailers they were left silent. Anyway, this isn't post about Guild Wars or Duke Nukem it is post about one game that fired up tiny flame of hope inside all of us, fallout fans, it was called Bourgeoisie. Ring a bell? No? OK, it changed it's name after a while, and it is now called Afterfall. They promised so much, oooh, we were so naive. I thought that it will be the best cRPG out there! Year, after a year, after a year they were talking about their game. But all of us wanted more and we got concept art, yeah that is all. After all that, in February this year(2009), they forgot to pay for their domain, or something like that. Anyways, afterfall.pl was down, we buried all our hopes and left to find new ones. In meanwhile, they gave one statement about all that talk about afterfall death. It proved correct after they bought new domain, afterfall-universe.com.

Afterfall is not only a few games placed in a post-apocalyptic world. It is a huge project, in which we have put our hearts and effort. For many years we have worked on a universe that will be bigger, better, and more interesting than any game-world ever before. Now we can freely say “We have done it”, and we want to show you the results in several different projects. The most important of them will be Afterfall cRPG (and by RPG we mean Role-playing game, not a game with RPG-elements only) and its sequel. Apart from that, we are planning to develop many games (and maybe not only games) representing various genres. One of them is RASCAL, a survival horror which will introduce you to our amazing Universe. Universe, where the only limit is your imagination. Read more...

After(f)all, we got survival horror. And besides that we got whole universe, wooo. Whole universe of nothing. Really great. I understand that they want to take money with this RASCAL title, so they could have enough big budget for cRPG. But do you think that they will finish RASCAL in time... or whenever?
Here is quote from NMA forums, from poster TheSarge:

Ah, vaporware. What a really easy way to make money.

All you need is:

1) A good con artist to act as your VP of financing. His job is to convince investors that your product is for real without ever showing them said (non-existent) product.

2) A web artist to make you a really good website. This is essential to create the illusion that your company is for real.

3) A lot of dumb suckers who will give you money.

Want to start a new vaporware company? Just send me $29.95 and I'll start development* on an incredible** package of instructional videos*** that outline how to be a successful**** vaporare company, all from the comfort of home!*****

*That means I'll think about it.
**Incredible, as in: Not credible.
***Some imagination required.
****Some failure may occur.
*****By "From the comfort of home" I mean that I will sit at home, in comfort, as you send me money.

For the end, here are some afterfail links:
www.afterfall-universe.com - offical website
www.afterfall-universe.com/devlog/en/ - devlog of nicolas intoxicate
Afterfall forums on NMA

Greatest WFRP websites out there

Maybe you noticed that I love Warhammer. Yea comet of sigmar is the name of this blog isn't it? I want to show you the best websites (in my opinion) which can help you with your WFRP adventures. If you were a GM for some WFRP campaigns then you probably used those websites already. Lets start.
WFRP2 Index - On this page you can find almost all WFRP expressions and page numbers of related books which hold explanations for it. It is all on the same page, so you can just CTRL+F (or whatever is shortcut for your browser search function), type the word you are looking explanation for and ta-da. Of course you will find only page number and book name which holds all the info you need. It is still illegal to share books' material online.
Free WFRP books - When BI was owner of the license for WFRP, they had whole bunch of free books hosted online. You could find maps, articles, adventures etc. on their website. Way cool. After website went down, all of that was lost, or was it? Some good soul, I don't really know who, uploaded all of that material on mediafire. Note that lot of that adventures and other mini books are fan material, but anyway quality is really good. One more thing, it is LEGAL to download that material, don't be afraid of anti-piracy capitalism fist :P
Malleus Maleficarum Character/NPC generator - This is soooooooooo great thing. You can randomly generate some NPC character, or you can make your character step by step. It works great! When you choose your career you code automatically show you skills, talents and advances for it. Also you are shown their optionality. After finishing your edit you can see how much exp is used, and when you buy all advances, skills and talents you are shown in which careers you can exit! I use it to store characters of all my players there, it's good to check their experience from time to time :). I really like this site, and believe me there is lot of code lines behind this, it wasn't no small task to make this application.
MadAlfred's WFRP page - MadAlfred is one of the best known WFRP player and game master out there. This is his website. It is full of WFRP (v1 and v2) articles, maps and all other things which can help you with your adventures. He is best known for his GREAT scenarios. So check them out!
WFRP career Index - Same as the first website, wfrp2 index, but you can find only careers here. With Career Compendium release we got all of the careers in the same book, but before that it was time consuming book searching. If you don't have career compendium, or you think that is faster to find wanted career like this, you are advised to use this website.
Strike-to-Stun - I must say that this is the best WFRP community on teh internetS. Yea really, there isn't much of competition, but anyway they have great forums, and they keep they website updated always.

If you have any kind of website, blog like me or whatever linked with warhammer be free to contact me, I will be happy to say few nice words and share your link free of a charge ;)

Horus Heresy

Fantasy Flight Games, said on their website that they are finishing board game version of Horus Heresy. Horus Heresy was/is CCG made by sabertooth games. They were part of the Game Workshop studio before they "broke" and sold their licences for all games to FFG. I'm OK with all that if they don't forget about Dark Heresy. If they made board game of Horus, maybe they will leave Dark Heresy to be classic RPG. Of course they could make new edition worse than every board game you can imagine. So we just wait and see what happens.
Link to the new Horus Heresy website:
Horus Heresy on FFG

Dragon Age: Origins PnP RPG

First of all, sorry for small number of posts last week (read like this, 0 posts). Anyway, I'm back :). As maybe some of you know, there was some rumor of dragon age table rpg, but some time after rumor became fact. You can now pre-order box set and get PDF version for free. Price for this box set is 30$ ($29.95 exactly). Here is the quote from the greenronin website about what you can find in that box set:

• A 64-page Player's Guide with an introduction to tabletop roleplaying, background on Thedas and the nation of Ferelden, a complete guide to character creation, rules for character classes and talents, a primer on magic, and the basic game rules.
• A 64-page Gamemaster's Guide with an introduction to this key role, advice on the art of game mastering, advanced game rules, and an introductory adventure that plunges the characters right into the world of Dragon Age.
• A beautiful poster map of the nation of Ferelden, the opening setting for the Dragon Age RPG.
• 3 six-sided dice.

Visit http://greenronin.com/dragon_age/ for more info

Disciples III: Renaissance

Russian game publisher, Akella, said on their website that they started printing discs for Disciples 3. Release date is scheduled for 11/12/09, but there is only Russian version for now. So all of us non-Russian speaking gamers must wait another few months. I think that we seen this already, yes? Cough, cough, King's Bounty. Ah those Russians. Anyway, good news, at least we now that English version IS coming, sooner or later. Can't wait to step in that dark fantasy world once again!
Google translated news article
disciples3 forum