The past year and a half have been rough. From losing my father in a freak accident to a change in priorities, but soon a sad undertone became clear: I knew that FaB DB was coming to an end. Ever since my daughter was born 3 years ago, I've had less time to dedicate to FaB DB, but recently I've had almost no time at all.
All good things must come to an end
The fact is: FaB DB has been an incredible project that I have lovingly supported up until the past year. However, with the last release I couldn't even find the time to give FaB DB the love it really needed to continue to thrive - and that's when I decided that I needed to let FaB DB go.
This is extremely hard for me, as FaB DB has felt like my firstborn child, a project that I took from conception to reality within a short period and continued to be the leading platform for Flesh & Blood players for over 3 years. At that point, my time on the project had started to wane, and other great projects like Fabrary started to pop up, giving the Flesh & Blood community a platform that filled the gaps that FaB DB missed, and with a passion that I had lost (not due to any shortcomings of the game, but for personal reasons).
FaB DB will forever be the project that kicked off my entrepreneurial spirit, and I have LSS to thank for that.
FaB DB was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to my ambitions. A year and a half later, Alex Truell and I launched The Rathe Times - Flesh & Blood's premiere news website and publishing platform. It debuted during a time when there was very little content for the game, and to a quality that is rarely seen in hobby spheres. Add to this unique features like audio narration, and the Rathe Times fast became a content powerhouse supporting a broad range of views and authors. Earlier this year we also updated the website for 2.0, with a cutting edge design (that I will be submitting for awards in the near future).
Not long after Rathe Times was launched, I also launched Teklo Labs, a data aggregation website that looked at individual card performance based on over 500,000 decks that had been published via FaB DB to that point. Unfortunately, the site ended up costing a considerable amount due to its data requirements, and with no monetisation plans on the table needed to be shut down late last year. It wasn't money lost, however, as I learned so much about graph databases, data aggregation, and a whole lot more.
Not all is lost
Many players prefer FaB DB for a few key reasons: design, user experience, and performance chief among them. These are areas I pride myself in. For that reason, as of today, FaB DB is now open source and may be forked by anyone who wishes to take over the project, completely free - no limitations imposed. I've done this because although I no longer have the time to support the project, I know there are many out there who have offered to help in the past, whom may want to take up the mantle and continue its development.
Anyone who forks the project can monetise it however they like, whether that be ads, subscriptions, whatever - the code is now in the public sphere, and I hold nothing over you in regards to financial reimbursement, ownership or anything else. My only request is that the code that I open to the public remains free; you cannot assume any rights over the original codebase. Otherwise, the code is yours to do with as you please. I present this as a final gift to a community that has been so incredible to me, in hopes that my hard work continues to live on, while I move on to my dream project.
Where to from here?
My dream project, Halcyon Online, kicked off in early 2023, when I realised that I wanted to get back to a form of game development that started my programming career. This project is based off over 20 years of game design documents and iterations, and has been a core focus of mine for the past 12 months.
The Rathe Times, will continue to live as a content powerhouse, now with over 60 authors on its roster, and an updated website that we launched in March of 2024, a redesign that is hitting the objectives that I setup for myself during that period.
If you're interested, you can read my follow-up article where I talk about the lessons learned crafting FaB DB, lessons that will guide me within the business sphere, driving my ambitions to create the most successful MMO RTS of all time.
Also - I'm not done with the TCG space! I have so many ideas, and nowhere near enough time - but the next time you see me here, will likely be with a project that will be set to dominate the TCG sphere globally, if a similar project has not already been done in that time :P
Thank you
I would be remiss were I not to thank some key individuals in my building of FaB DB and its subsequent projects.
First - LSS, and in particular, James White. When I reached out to LSS to ask permission for building such a project, James White was immensely supportive. LSS also reached out to me to help them with some development projects, and FaB DB at one stage leveraged its massive community to provide translations to LSS for their cards as they prepared to launch Flesh & Blood across the world. FAB was so inspirational to me as a game that I built not 1, but 3 separate projects, and will continue to support projects for the game, for some time to come.
Alex Truell, Rathe Times' Editor-in-chief. Alex has been monumental both with FaB DB and the Rathe Times - it was he who wrote some of the first articles for FaB DB, and helped to get Rathe Times off the ground from a content perspective. His grasp of the english language, excellent writing skills and commitment to a project for a game that he loves is nothing short of astounding. Individuals like Alex are what make projects like this one so great to work on. People are what matter when it comes to any endeavour.
Finally, to the players who use FaB DB on a daily basis - you are who the project was made for, and it is you who gave me so much inspiration, feedback and support to build a project that was so rewarding from a fulfilment perspective. Those of you who have not built projects that others use on a daily basis - it is an amazing, humbling feeling to know that your work is lovingly used by so many. And it is also to you players to whom I apologise - I wish I had the desire to continue to work on FaB DB as a core project, but alas - fate has other plans for me.
It's hard to say goodbye to FaB DB, but for me personally it's the right thing to do. If you feel you have the right skills and energy to support the project, feel free to fork the repository and launch your own project based on the codebase I have lovingly developed over the past 4 and a half years.
Finally, if you like the idea of a MMO RTS game, or are intrigued by what it means, please do come and follow the project's progress as I spend the time, effort, energy and money to make this dream become a reality.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me and my projects over the past few years - you are all amazing.
