Played Lately: Fly From Evil

• The title of this post is blatant misdirection. I make no apologies, though, because I am playing Fly From Evil in a way. It's the Waiting For The Next Big Thing, FFE Edition. And I've been playing since, according to the Fly From Evil Yahoo group, November of 2002. It feels kind of strange to maintain interest in a product for over six years.
• I first fell in love with detective fiction through Sue Grafton, which eventually lead me to Raymond Chandler. It was around that time that I found out one of my favorite game authors, S. John Ross, was working on his role playing magnum opus, a hardboiled crime game. And since I've enjoyed a lot of what SJR has produced, I eagerly awaited the new release. Now, at the start of 2009, I'm still waiting.
• While it's played in many communities, Waiting For The Next Big Thing is quite popular among Massively Multiplayer Online Gamers. Just last year, Warhammer Online was all anyone could talk about and even got a two month honeymoon of good will upon release. Then reality finally encroached and many people realized Waiting for Warhammer was more fun than playing Warhammer. Luckily, the game is good enough to survive and will grow over time now that the burden of expectation has passed. Now Darkfall seems to be the Next Big Thing but I not playing.
• I don't hold anything against, S. John. I'm not privy to his personal situation, but I do know he's trying to write a full, WotC/White Wolf-class game all on his own. The frustrating part is I know it will be brilliant when I finally get to see it. But I hope a Next Big Thing.