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[DiasExMachina]

Three weeks ago, we finished the ladders--the biggest rule addition we have made to the 4ED ruleset. After our Close Combat Specialist class was finished, I dared my crew to create characters for that single class, but select a different ladder for each one. With our new batch of martial feats, we started up our first Mixed Martial Arts brawl. I drew an octagon on the map and we went one-on-one with our builds.

I played an aging shaolin kung-fu master. Conan played a calculating sambo wrestler, Mike, a massive juggernaught with meaty fists, and Schuyler, an agile taekwondo expert. Yes, there really is all that variety out of single class dependant on your ladder and feats chosen. I won’t say who won (IT WAS MEEE!).

Over the past two weeks, we got all our other classes down. These include Infiltrator, Faceman, Sniper, Gunslinger, and Combat Authority. We merged Engineer into Manipulator, and Driver into Faceman, though you can still choose driver powers via feats. Manipulator is our hacker class. We have been trying to approach the vernacular of NeuroSpasta with a fresh perspective. So gone are the “deckers” and the “riggers” and the “jacking-in” and the “plugging-in”. A few days ago, we got to looking back and reminiscing about older cyberpunk novels and games of the 80s and 90s and snickered at the inaccuracy of their predictions. Although the concepts of an urban sprawl and the privatization of the government as well as the encroaching control of corporations were prophetic, few of them could properly predict the advancement of computerization and the speed in which computers would evolve in processing power and graphic potential. The hardest hit were the role playing games, which endorses truly fantastic and ludicrous concepts for the sake of "being cool", regardless of its logical application. Manipulator is more than just a corporate hacker, as they are able to tap into someone's blackberry, Iphone, or even their brain implants. And no, hacking does not take place on a grid map or a hexboard. There is no graphical representation of it at all. This was a simple decision as the concept of adding a dimension to something which has none seemed against our mission-statement.

So yeah, there could be a functional product by the end of March. Does that mean it will be out sooner? Nope, just more time for testing. The game still won't be released until the end of the year. Hell, we don't even have a logo yet.