Someone in BGG pointed me to this forum, saying you might be interested by this game.
It's a boardgame with miniatures, designed by Frederic Henry (Rush'n'Crush, The Adventurers) and published by Monolith, a new publisher created to publish this game by Frederic Henry and Erwan and Loïg Hascoët, who already run Bombyx (Takenoko) and ran Hazgaard before that (Okko).
Adrian Smith is the lead artist, and there will be also a participation from Kekai Kotaki, Georges Cl4renko and Xavier Colette.
The sculptors are Stephane Simon, Yannick Hennebo, Gregory Clavilier, Jacques-Alexandre Gillois, Stephane N'Guyen, Thomas David and Mikh.
In this scenario based game, the players will play Conan and his allies, except one who will be their Opponent and will play all the enemy troops.
This game should be kickstarted in January 2015, for a release date at GenCon 2015. It will include at least 101 miniatures (of the 7 heroes: Conan, Shevatas, Hadrathus, Belit, Valeria, Zelata (and her wolf) and N'Gora, of unique enemy bosses: Thog, Thak, a necromancer, a giant serpent, a colossus, a mummy, Captain Zaporavo, Zogar Sag... and other more generic enemies: guards, bowmen, skeletons, pirates, picts...) of Zombicide quality plastic. The scale is 32mm.
There is a possibility, if there is enough interest, to have an add-on in the kickstarter with resin miniatures for the heroes and unique monsters.
Here's some of the art and the first sculpted miniatures:
I really hope you can manage to offer resin versions of the miniatures as the talent you've got in the way of scultors deserves to have their work show in the best possible way
and I'm prepared to pay what that sort of quality costs
I'm also keeping an eye on the game itself as a big Robert E Howard/Conan fan, especially if you get the campaign side of things more solidified
I would definitely be in for resin or HIPS plastic production. I can't get into PVC, even though I really love Conan and the look of the sculpts so far.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: I really hope you can manage to offer resin versions of the miniatures as the talent you've got in the way of scultors deserves to have their work show in the best possible way
and I'm prepared to pay what that sort of quality costs
I'm also keeping an eye on the game itself as a big Robert E Howard/Conan fan, especially if you get the campaign side of things more solidified
I agree with this. The quality of the art and sculpting deserves to be done in a high quality medium.
As a huge R.E.H fan I'm really excited by what this could become. I hope this project stays focused and doesn't turn into one of the bloated X low quality minis at each stretch goal campaigns.
I'd be far happier paying a premium for a boxed game with everything made to a high standard.
I agree with the resin crowd I get that 101 figures probably will be PVC, but at least make a premium version that offers the Heroes and some of the more awesome sculpts in resin.
PVC (pre-assembled?) probably is the best way to go to make the boardgame most saleable in the future,
but to get the most out of KS offering resin versions of the minis would help to bring in the mini addicts (and those who want to 'pimp out' their games), and I'm sure your sculptors can suggest quality resin casters to use
and more people = better KS (as long as you've done your sums right)
What's the problem? His work for Arena Rex is quite nice and this project should share quite a few stylistic similarities with the gladiatorial types he did.
What's the problem? His work for Arena Rex is quite nice and this project should share quite a few stylistic similarities with the gladiatorial types he did.
Sure, when it's done I'm sure it will be.
I trust him to sculpt something on time about as much as I trust the US government to be honest.
but he's oh so slow (and apparently has to be paid in full in advance so you have no real leverage to speed him up) EDIT: the last bit is wrong, thanks to grefven for setting me straight on this)
I would be (very) worried about delivery happening anything like on time if he has work still to do
(look at Arena Rex, very delayed, and MIKH still hasn't finished any of his stuff)
It won't stop me pledging (I really don't mind waiting for quality), but he is a red flag for those who expect delivery (roughly) on time
Really nice look, but I've had nothing but poor experiences in the "co-op vs. one player" structure, not having a 1v1 or co-op vs. game mode would be a deal breaker for me...
I'm not interested in the boardgame, but you have so many talented sculptors onboard, it would bea crime not to release the resin collectors' editions.
[...] apparently has to be paid in full in advance so you have no real leverage to speed him up
Not true, speaking out of own experience.
I think this may be a variable. I've got it from another gentleman in the industry that he does require payment up front.
But it's all good. He is a brilliant sculptor, regardless.
Perhaps so. But I've commissioned him myself, and without being "known" in the miniature industry, if there is someone a full payment would be required from is from someone like me, i.e. a person with no track-record.
Anyway, while an awesome sculptor, he does indeed take his time to complete his sculpts. Which I guess is both a good and a bad thing. Good because he obviously takes his work quite seriously and does extensive research. Bad because there might be delays. I don't mind waiting a bit longer if I know that the result will be so much better.
Unfortunately, he is sculpting the one mini which is holding just about everything up for ARENA REX - Leo the Lion.
It has also spawned this pic:
On topic here - WOW!
The art, the sculpts, the setting....fantastic!
Add me to the chorus clamoring for the ability to buy some of these awesome miniatures in resin.
Undoubtedly, PVC will show up here, but hopefully the option exists for some resin, and of course, hopefully someone 'figures out' PVC for this size/scale too...
Looks very promising. Loads of talented artists and sculptors, very popular IP. Should be huge.
I guess it will have to be PVC to appeal to the board game crowd, but I would love this to be HIPS, and I doubt they would have any trouble getting the required funding.
Pacific wrote: Now, we have to maintain the same level of emotional intensity (as shown by Mr Shatner there) until January 2015!
Seeing it inspired me to dig out my collection of R.E.H stories and the excellent Dark Horse Conan run Busiek did. So if nothing else it was fun to dive back into those.
Wehrkind wrote:Co-op vs game would be a big winner for me too. Co-op vs 1 isn't a deal breaker, but makes it harder to sell to some people I might play with.
spiralingcadaver wrote:Really nice look, but I've had nothing but poor experiences in the "co-op vs. one player" structure, not having a 1v1 or co-op vs. game mode would be a deal breaker for me...
Could you tell me what you didn't like about your co-op vs 1 experiences ? Having played the game, I could maybe tell you if it applies here.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well, seeing there is a lot of interest here for the game, I have a question for you. It has already been asked on Tric-trac and BGG, but maybe you could give your own point of view.
Fred Henry, Erwan Hascoët and the rest of the Monolith team are right now starting to think about how to organise Conan kickstarter in 6 months.
And so they are interested on what people interested in the game think on the subject.
So, what do you think Monolith should do to have a perfect kickstarter ?
What kind of pledges should there be ?
Should there be early bird pledges ? If so, which kind ?
Should there be exclusives ? If so of which kind ?
What do you think should be in the stretch goals ? Should the stretch goals be freely included in all pledges ? Limited to some pledges ?
Should there be add-ons ? If so, which ones ?
Please give us your opinion. Of course your advice may not be followed, but at least the team will read it and will think about it.
You probably want a fairly small level pledge for a mini or 2, or even just the core heroes set, then one for the base game and another for everything.
For exclusives; you want something desirable but not necessary for the game (so people don't feel left out), maybe alternative sculpts or an additional hero.
For add-ons; you'd probably want people to be able to buy additional mini's or maybe smallish artwork (postcards, etc).
For instance; I don't get the opportunity to play many boardgames but I love the Conan series and painting, so I'd debate getting the full box but I'd quite happily buy the heros set in metal/HIPS/Resin.
No early birds, and keep exclusives to alternative sculpts. Kickstarter exclusive rules really suck for anyone who doesn't have the scratch while the kickstarter is running- or people who for whatever reason never hear of it.
Keep the pledge levels simple, clear about the contents, and to a minimum. It becomes a bear to dig through twenty different pledge levels for painted sets, unpainted sets, one mini, two minis, two of the box game, three of the box game, five of the box game, etc.
Early birds are a bit of a risk, since they encourage people to "camp" at various levels with multiple accounts, which can cause backsliding pledge totals when they drop those extra accounts later. While they help fuel an initial rush, they can be devastating if they cause a backslide mid- to late- campaign. I probably wouldn't use EBs.
Alternate poses are good and standard or alternate resin casts of heroes / monster bosses would be good KS exclusive ways to get people to commit during the campaign. But to get a real blaze started, I'd recommend the following:
I don't know what REH licensing involves, but if I doesn't cost you extra, making KS exclusive REH heroes from other story lines (Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn, two man / lycanthrope sculpts of his werewolf hero de Montour, etc.) would put real incentive into backing the project during the KS rather than waiting for retail. Some will complain about not being able to get them at retail later, but there's no reason anyone NEEDS to have Solomon Kane or Kull etc. as playable heroes for a Conan game, since they're not even part of Conan's fictional world, and those characters are not ones you would likely produce for a Conan game otherwise in a general release. So really, no one would be "missing out" on anything, but including them would still stoke some serious fire under REH fans to get in right away.
Worth considering, I think, unless acquiring the licenses for those other REH heroes requires a lot of extra money on your part.
WOW - I think Herzlos, Sinful pretty much nailed it.
I am not sure about the statistics in what Vermonter is suggesting about EB's, but I agree that they are a double edged sword. You will have a lot of people camping an EB and deciding last hour if they want to keep it or not. You will get people pledging that are not that interested to begin with - it might sound odd, but a backslide of pledges has turned into an avalanche in some recent campaigns with a negative last day.
If you have some serious awesome stretchgoals - don't dangle them at the end with an overly optimistic goal, as that will instigate some rage quitting if it's not looking likely to happen. Coupled with the aforementioned fencesitters pulling pledges it's a bad recipe.
don't have competing early bird levels as this pretty much guarantees people camping all options before deciding on one near the end
If you choose to use early birds (and I do like them) have only one level with an early bird... whatever you consider your general level which will get any free stretch goals
this minimises the chance of people backing and pulling out
Rather than earlybird slots, you could try the other tactic of giving out something (like $10 credit) to those that joined in the first few days of the campaign in the pledge manager? That way you don't penalise people in the opposite timezone from you.
Communication is the other biggie. Communicate your stretches in advance, not just the next one. Tell people what is going on and answer their questions. The number of campaigns I've seen degenerate into flame wars because the person running it goes silent, or only ever posts once every few days and never answers any of the questions floating around...
I would prefer the same EB opened up at different time slots to give everyone a chance. In practice it's a different pledge level, but with the same content (if that makes sense) added at 8 hour intervals so 3X EB pledge levels total with the same content.
So you could accomplish it by having 'early birds' time based (with enough space to encompass all zones) rather then quantity based?
I wasn't sure if time based pledge levels was possible. I have seen discussion that pledge levels with a set number are limited to a maximum of 999. I've also seem campaigns offer a freebie to people who backed in week 1, for example. I think Mantic have done that one...
The benefit of this one is that it then attracts people for all (or specific) levels of the campaign, rather than one specific slot and means you don't need to manage an extra pledge level and you've provided *something* that attracts more people in at the level they feel comfortable with.
Wehrkind wrote:Co-op vs game would be a big winner for me too. Co-op vs 1 isn't a deal breaker, but makes it harder to sell to some people I might play with.
spiralingcadaver wrote:Really nice look, but I've had nothing but poor experiences in the "co-op vs. one player" structure, not having a 1v1 or co-op vs. game mode would be a deal breaker for me...
Could you tell me what you didn't like about your co-op vs 1 experiences ? Having played the game, I could maybe tell you if it applies here.
The issues I have run into with Coop vs 1 seems to be one of balance. If you have all good players, it works, or all mediocre players it works. If you have a mix, it gets iffy. One good player on the solo side makes the game seem horribly imbalanced as he stomps over the others who can't coordinate and plan as well, not only as themselves but also due to a fractured mind. One good player on the coop side vs a mediocre player makes the solo guy feel stomped by everyone in the room. There is also the problem of one good person on the coop side running his team like a puppet master, just telling everyone else what to do because they don't feel like they can decide. Some people are ok with that, but sometimes it just gets bad.
Also, the coop team needs a time limit. Otherwise they can sit and argue for hours while the solo guy reads a book (and likely some of the less involved coop players too.) That gets miserable.
Full coop is nicer for more casual groups, if only because it doesn't turn into 1v1 with lieutenants who don't really engage. Still, Coop vs 1 can work.
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As to the kick starter, please please please put in a level where you can get resin models only. I might not be able to spring for the full game, but I definitely want the models. Plus, if you are going to spring for awesome sculptors, you might as well get the best production quality out of the masters
Pacific wrote: Now, we have to maintain the same level of emotional intensity (as shown by Mr Shatner there) until January 2015!
Seeing it inspired me to dig out my collection of R.E.H stories and the excellent Dark Horse Conan run Busiek did. So if nothing else it was fun to dive back into those.
Right with you there, this has just inspired me to pull out my Conan anthology!
Each story seems to follow the plot of: arrive in new place -> find out about local treasure -> overcome nasty enemy, usually using brute strength -> find treasure, throw girl over shoulder and walk into the sunset
Wehrkind wrote:Co-op vs game would be a big winner for me too. Co-op vs 1 isn't a deal breaker, but makes it harder to sell to some people I might play with.
spiralingcadaver wrote:Really nice look, but I've had nothing but poor experiences in the "co-op vs. one player" structure, not having a 1v1 or co-op vs. game mode would be a deal breaker for me...
Could you tell me what you didn't like about your co-op vs 1 experiences ? Having played the game, I could maybe tell you if it applies here.
The issues I have run into with Coop vs 1 seems to be one of balance. If you have all good players, it works, or all mediocre players it works. If you have a mix, it gets iffy. One good player on the solo side makes the game seem horribly imbalanced as he stomps over the others who can't coordinate and plan as well, not only as themselves but also due to a fractured mind. One good player on the coop side vs a mediocre player makes the solo guy feel stomped by everyone in the room. There is also the problem of one good person on the coop side running his team like a puppet master, just telling everyone else what to do because they don't feel like they can decide. Some people are ok with that, but sometimes it just gets bad.
Also, the coop team needs a time limit. Otherwise they can sit and argue for hours while the solo guy reads a book (and likely some of the less involved coop players too.) That gets miserable.
Full coop is nicer for more casual groups, if only because it doesn't turn into 1v1 with lieutenants who don't really engage. Still, Coop vs 1 can work.
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As to the kick starter, please please please put in a level where you can get resin models only. I might not be able to spring for the full game, but I definitely want the models. Plus, if you are going to spring for awesome sculptors, you might as well get the best production quality out of the masters
I'm in complete agreement, the "co-op vs. 1" mechanic hinges heavily on the skill of the 1 as swinging the balance, with the secondary problem of a dominating player in the team. I've seen limited information used okay for the team, but it's still a problem. Also, if it's not balanced, then the one player or the rest of the players can be feel screwed by the game.
And yes, full co-op is nice for casual games.
On team vs. team or 1 vs. 1, both of those work, as long as the game is set up to balance properly then.
The only game I've seen that had a good 1 vs. everyone structure was Betrayal at the House on the Hill, because stuff is random enough and the game/setup is pretty fast.
Wehrkind wrote:Co-op vs game would be a big winner for me too. Co-op vs 1 isn't a deal breaker, but makes it harder to sell to some people I might play with.
spiralingcadaver wrote:Really nice look, but I've had nothing but poor experiences in the "co-op vs. one player" structure, not having a 1v1 or co-op vs. game mode would be a deal breaker for me...
Could you tell me what you didn't like about your co-op vs 1 experiences ? Having played the game, I could maybe tell you if it applies here.
The issues I have run into with Coop vs 1 seems to be one of balance. If you have all good players, it works, or all mediocre players it works. If you have a mix, it gets iffy. One good player on the solo side makes the game seem horribly imbalanced as he stomps over the others who can't coordinate and plan as well, not only as themselves but also due to a fractured mind. One good player on the coop side vs a mediocre player makes the solo guy feel stomped by everyone in the room. There is also the problem of one good person on the coop side running his team like a puppet master, just telling everyone else what to do because they don't feel like they can decide. Some people are ok with that, but sometimes it just gets bad.
I'm never buying another game where I will be forced to play "the evil dungeon master" vs. everyone else. Descent has been a tedious, irritating experience of lamely fulfilling other people's power fantasies (rather than genuinely challenging them) for me.
My only interest in this KS is the REH theme, and the quality of the sculpts shown.
I'll second Vermonter's opinion- I'm tired of being the bad guy. Every. Single. Game.
I'm the one who bought the damned games- I want to be the hero for once!
Part of the reason games like Galaxy Defenders, Gears of War, and their ilk have done well in my house is because my family knows I don't pull punches when we play, and they 'd rather have me on their side than against them.
The exception to that rule seems to only be Claustrophobia, but both sides are pretty balanced in that game, so maybe that's why it's never been an issue.
So you could accomplish it by having 'early birds' time based (with enough space to encompass all zones) rather then quantity based?
At 'only' a $10 discount or so, it shouldn't hurt if it absolutely blows up/goes nuts.
But, as with everything else, plan accordingly!
Not quite. The problem with early birds only really arises when there's multiple levels as some backers will claim one of each at the start and drop the ones they don't want later. Basing the bonus on joining date means they don't need to do that.
Conan has an original system enabling the Opponent player to have a real strategic game and not only be the bad guy.
Also, playing it is not much more complex than playing an hero. The game is different and more strategic, since you control more troops, but it still stays simple.
So, it doesn't have to be the owner of the game who plays it. Anybody can easily do it.
For me, even though the game mechanisms are completely different, the game felt a lot like Claustrophobia, which was cited earlier, in this respect.
Now, if there is really a big level difference between the players, it could of course be a problem. But the simplicity of the game should mitigate this. As the learning curve is easy, it shouldn't take many plays to improve someone level.
Also, the game enables coordination between the heros action. If the players are prone to AP and want to discuss between themselves every possible strategy, it could make a long wait for the Opponent player. Normally as the action possibilities are limited and quite intuitive, and since they are resolved with dice, it shouldn't be too bad.
Finally, there is a solo/cooperative mode under developpement, with an AI tailored for the game. It shouldn't be in the game box, as the designer feels that the 1 vs many mechanics is essential to the games, and that the Opponent game is one of the most interesting parts of the game, but it should be freely available online as a publisher-endorsed unofficial variant.
I hope this answered your questions. If you want more details, just ask, and I'll do my best to answer.
GM'd Co-op is just one type of game, and it has pros and cons.
I'm designing a GM'd Co-op game myself, and when doing that you pretty much have to accept that you are limiting your customer base.
You can mollify it to a certain degree by engineering variations that allow non-GM'd co-op or players v player play, but that can potentially be clunky and cludged.
For example, you could play an RPG like D&D in a PVP style with two players controlling their own party of characters, but the game doesn't naturally lend itself to that play style.
I think a big part of it, rules-wise, is related to game balance. In my experience, you balance a game differently for GM'd Co-op than you do for player v player.
One of the big drawbacks of GM'd Co-op, as several people here have pointed out, is that someone has to be the GM. This makes it harder to build a community of players, in some ways, because two players can't easily do their own things with the products, find each other, and play a game with what they have been working on. A GM'd game naturally takes more planning. You've got to get someone to GM, you've got to get a group of players together, and you've got to show up at the same place and time with the intention of playing the game together.
GM'd Co-op doesn't inherently lend itself well to spontaneous play. Being a self-contained board game can ease some of this pressure and inject a bit more spontaneity. For example, Super Dungeon Explore can be picked up very quickly and you can just grab a couple of folks from the room to fill out the party. Once you add in a leveling/experience system spontaneous play gets a degree more difficult.
In any case, I firmly believe that there should be more GM'd Co-op table top miniatures games on the market. It is a great formula that has many advantages and provides a distinctly different experience. I think these sorts of games will also help to bridge the gap between RPGs and miniatures games, and facilitate more world building and character building amongst miniatures games. This is not that wargamers don't engage in narrative development already, but I think GM'd Co-op games help to encourage more of it.
I like to see more GM'd Co-op games, but the designers need to accept that their audience will be more narrow if they market their game principally to table top wargamers/board gamers.
The sculpts here look really promising, I'd just like to add my voice to those earlier that were wanting to see these in resin and not just plastic. I love Conan (or anything by Robert E Howard really)!
That's cool, I can understand favoring 1vCoop. Including a monster AI deck sort of mechanic for straight coop is a good move for me definitely, even if it is downloadable only. That means I might be in for the whole game instead of just the models.
Before unveiling the Conan character, we want to make it last a bit! For now, I will only reveal the prep sketches quickly thrown on paper by Adrian Smith so we can choose a pose. We made our choice. What's yours?
Xavier Collette joined the team of artists and offers us today the first draft of his vision of King Conan for the Conan: Hyborian Quests boardgame. Of course, he will draw the same character on feet, so that we can make a miniature out of it!
We promise that next week, we'll show you the final version.
Vacations are over, so we can post again our traditional Monday picture.
Let's start slowly with a guard, pretty much cannon fodder. You'll have 10 of those in the base box.
A little "WIP" of the Demon from the Outer Dark, sculpted by Stéphane Nguyen and based on a concept artwork by Adrian Smith.
This Monday, you didn't get your traditional weekly update. So, we're catching up today! Drawn by Adrian Smith, meet Khosatral Khel, an almost invulnerable golem-like creature. Not really the kind of guy you wanna meet in a dark underground tunnel...
We're in the middle of the holidays and you are not very numerous, so we slowed the pace a bit. But in September, we'll hit hard again!
Meanwhile, here's an early figurine I'll let you follow the steps. This is the first Pict, sculpted by Stephane Simon. Actually the second, since he also sculpted the infamous Shaman Zogar Sag!
Here's a new WIP for Valeria by Yannick Hennebo, based on Adrian Smith's concept. A swamp demon is also being sculpted by Stephane Nguyen and Jacques-Alexandre Gillois should start a Conan soon.
New announcements will follow!
Yes, I know, today's Wednesday. But since we're back from Gen Con, my body tells me it's Monday. And Monday means Adrian Smith's update Art of adrian smith !
Here is the princess, the famous one from the first Pictish village scenario, to those who played the game. But she's also the generic princess you can find in numerous short novels by Robert E. Howard. In the game, she will be used regularly as an NPC in many scenarios.
The first Pictish warrior by Stephane Simon based on a concept by Adrian Smith ( Art of adrian smith ) is finished! Stephane will now take care of the 2-handed weapon wielding Pictish warrior, and then the Pictish archer!
Monday is a day we'll make you love!
You've already seen the beginning of Valeria's sculpture by Yannick Hennebo, here's now her concept by Adrian Smith
Looks like Stephane Simon started working on a second Pict...
In the base box, there will be five of each.
Who is this strange character Stephane Simon started sculpting this weekend?
This time, the question is no longer permitted. If you do not see who this character is... by Crom! It's just not possible...
Great Scott! Time flies! We've let you down a little lately... But it's just because we've been working like crazy to get everything ready. The proof picture. And we have tons of stuff like that in our drawers.
In case you wonder who the sculptor is: his name is Rafal Zelazo.
A new sculptor joined the team! Well, he's actually not a beginner, since Arnaud Boudoiron was one of the first Rackham sculptors who, among others, made the first Dirz, the troll, etc. Good old memories ^^. After a career in euro comics and American comics, he returned to his first love.
For his first Conan piece, he brilliantly carved a crossbowman. Upcoming: the giant snake!!
Here at Monolith, we still have a few tricks up our sleeve. Such as Georges Cl4renko, one of the artists we haven't presented to you yet. Georges will be illustrating all of the maps for Conan Hyborian Quests. For the moment, he has finished two out of four, the first being the Pictish village that some of you have seen during live demos. I'm pleased to reveal a small portion of the second one to you today: the tavern. Anybody who's played an RPG before will feel right at home here. The tables and chairs are still missing, this simply because they will be represented by 3D models so that the players can joyfully beat each other senseless with them!
This is looking amazing as hell. Picts by Stephane Simon... oh yes, don't mind if I do. Surely these must be made available in resin; only boardgame plastic would be sacrilege.
Azreal13 wrote: Well, they have still have to settle the image rights issue with me over using my physique for the sculpt of Conan...
So, a few more weeks.
Ah, I feel your pain brother; I bet you're stuck for long hours at the negotiation table when you'd rather be out slaying and pillaging, eh? I went through the same type of thing when Mierce Miniatures acquired the rights to sculpt Druc, the Meat-Hulk.
Erwan, Loïg and me, after a very long discussion, decided to delay the kickstarter opening to the first week of January 2015. But, and it is very important to underline it: there will be no delay on the release date. It will be at the latest GenCon 2015.
We could of course open the KS as soon as september, but then the miniatures would not be all sculpted, or worse, they wouldn't be as good as we want them to be. As we already wrote elsewhere, we want the best scuptors for this project. Well, it happens that some of these "top sculptors" will not be available before october for one and november and december for the others (they are already busy because of other major KS).
It is unthinkable for us to do without their talent and use instead less experimented artists. And, since we don't need funds to sculpt our miniatures, it seems to us completely useless to block for four more months the backers money.
Again, it is imperative for us that the players back us based on evidence and not on empty promises of quality. We are paying very expensively this quality, so we want our potential clients to be able to see it for themselves before they make their choice and thus before spending their first dollar.
The temptation to surf on the current "Conan" buzz was obviously strong, but we are still perduaded that taking our time to do things well is the key to the success of a project so ambitious. I imagine easily that some among you will be disappointed by this delay, but be aware that by doing so, it is our money and not yours, that we chose to block.
Conan is a game with an enormous cash-burn, and with this decision, we only postpone the moment in which we will get our money back. I assure you that it would have been much easier to take your money based on promises and keep it in our pockets 4 months before starting production. Even better, we could have used it to pay the game development without taking any risk. Some people here know how much this choice seemed easy and tempting. However the Bombyx brothers and me decided to set ourselves apart with an irreproachable conduct (as the kickstarter model leaves the door open to many types of scams which I imagine are most of the time unintentional) and it was thus decided to stay the course and distance ourselves from that choice.
One last thing : Since we have now three more months before us, I can guarantee you that there will be at least one campaign in the base game box.
Is there any clarification yet on exactly what they mean by "32mm" scale? Is that a measurement to the eyes, ie a normal human would actually be around 34-35mm tall?
Yodhrin wrote:Is there any clarification yet on exactly what they mean by "32mm" scale? Is that a measurement to the eyes, ie a normal human would actually be around 34-35mm tall?
This is a common misconception with Conan. The models wont be 1/32 scale but rather they will be 32mm tall from base to eye level, or at least a "normal" human will be
Also, since I don't think anybody has posted these yet, I'll just leave them here
Pirate sculpt in 3D by Gaël Goumon
Beginnings of a giant model by Arnaud Boudoiron. We're hoping to have this one for Essen next month.
An example of the scenery that will also be in the box! By Grégory Clavilier.
Thanks Panzar, that's a shame as it means I'll probably only pick up a couple of models rather than the whole whack(I try and aim for 30-31mm to the eyes on "average human male" models, so all my figs are broadly comparable). Might still grab that shiny Necromancer and a few characters to use as "tall people" if they're made available in proper resin though.
Conan by Monolith
October 13 · Edited
REH fans already probably know this amazing illustration from Brom representing Conan and Belit. We are very proud to announce that we have the rights to use it for our game and to make beautiful models out of them!
NSFW
Spoiler:
Conan by Monolith
October 14 · Edited
We're thoroughly preparing Essen, which starts in two days. A table is devoted to Conan on the Asmodee booth (thank you to them ). Before leaving, let me give you one last picture of what is being prepared by Elfried...
Can't wait for this to get going, this is the one KS on the horizon that I am perhaps looking forward to more than any other. Some of the names they have involved, that they want to make a 'true' reflection of the source material etc. - it's all really exciting!
Sounds like there is going to be a lot of stuff on at Essen this weekend, in amongst this, HQ25, Aliens vs. Predator previews and a lot more - wish I was going!
Pacific wrote: Can't wait for this to get going, this is the one KS on the horizon that I am perhaps looking forward to more than any other. Some of the names they have involved, that they want to make a 'true' reflection of the source material etc. - it's all really exciting!
I hate that scales of mins are getting bigger. This has stopped me from getting into more than one KS. But I will make an exception for this one. After all, IT IS CONAN. The quality of the minis is blowing me away.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I am really excited about Conan and Belit miniatures by Brom. This KS is getting better and better.
Conan by Monolith shared a link.
October 18
Conan video preview on BoardGameGeek!
Conan demos are running wild at the Essen fair. Very international demos, with German, French, Italian... and American players. Eric Martin from BoardGameGeek (BGG), who covers the Essen fair for the renowned website, honored us with a video presentation of the game. In full English, of course! You can watch the video by clicking on the link below. A good opportunity to also discover details about Conan: Hyborian Quests on BGG, with discussion forums on the game. The second link allows you see just the Conan video on Youtube.
Conan by Monolith
2 minutes ago
Lors notre séjour à Essen pendant lequel Goreto, Itaï, José et Jamie n'ont pas arrêté de faire jouer le public international (merci à eux !!!), nous ne vous avons pas dévoilé grand chose. On reprend donc le rythme avec notre premier Conan par Stéphane Simon !
During our stay in Essen during which Gihrmay, Itai, José and Jamie have not stopped playing the international public (thanks to them!), we have not revealed to you much. We therefore take the pace with our first Conan by Stéphane Simon! (Translated by Bing)
Ken Oakley wrote: I hate that scales of mins are getting bigger. This has stopped me from getting into more than one KS. But I will make an exception for this one. After all, IT IS CONAN. The quality of the minis is blowing me away.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I am really excited about Conan and Belit miniatures by Brom. This KS is getting better and better.
Conan by Monolith
October 22 · Edited
You wanna see something big? Something really disgusting? Here's Thog!!!! Sculpture by Stephane Nguyen based on a drawing by Adrian Smith.
My biggest reservation is still having to play as the overlord.
Tired of it. I've got a family of whiny babies who don't like me playing to the best of my abilities. They've got that hero mentality going on, where since they're playing the hero, they feel like they deserve to "win" the game more than I do.
This is one thing that Myth and Brimstone (and hopefully the new Super Dungeon Explore) are able to let us play against the game.
Let me play as Conan with my kids, thumping picts and squishing serpents, I'll be more than happy to pledge.
(Who am I kidding, I'll probably pledge anyways for the figure quality alone.)
Here's hoping there is some manner of PvE experience in the game. My wife pretty much refuses to play games against me, but a good game that doesn't take multiple hours that we can play together would be really good.
Conan by Monolith
October 24 · Edited
What about a new drawing by Adrian Smith before going to bed? Here's Zelata and her giant wolf!!! The model is ready and was sculpted by Gregory Clavilier.
Conan by Monolith
November 3 · Edited
Our "controversial" version of Thak is almost finished. It only lacks a (red) cape. Sculpt by Thomas David based on an illustration by Adrian Smith. Expected in the base box or a stretch goal ...
Conan by Monolith
November 4 · Edited
Mummmiiiiiiiiiiiies!!!
Conan by Monolith
November 5 · Edited
Today, I received the resin draws models and bases. What I have to do now is a nice prototype with all this for our Kickstarter shooting session set in november! The little blue thing on absorbent paper is a 3D printing test, we just had a small size issue with the file. Still, it worked. It's a pretty impressive machine to me.
Conan by Monolith
November 6 · Edited
The 400 people who have tried Frederic Henry's Conan game so far know that the Overlord controls his troops with his "Book of Skelos." It's a tray on which the Overlord moves his gems to determine his actions and the characters tiles that he can activate. So far, in our prototypes, the Book of Skelos was made of wood by a craftsman. But recently, Gregory Clavilier modeled the plastic version that will be included in the base box.
Conan by Monolith
November 7 · Edited
Here's one of the heroes who will be in the "Deluxe" box of the Conan project. Introducing Zelata the witch, who will come with her giant wolf, that she can control. Sculpture by Gregory Clavilier, based on a drawing by Adrian Smith.
Conan by Monolith
15 hours ago · Edited
Here's another digital sculpture by Gael Goumon: a black scorpion from Stygia... Gulp...
I'm not familiar with Zeleta the witch, is that a character from the books?
Yes, she helped Conan on several occasions:
When Conan was captured by Xaltotun, he was kept in Belverus, Nemedia. He escaped from Xaltotun and fled southwards into Aquilonia where he met Zelata with the Nemedian soldiers hot on his trail. The Nemedians caught up with him, and Zelata helped him by sending her wolf at the soldiers.
Later, when Conan had gained the Heart of Ahriman and gone to fight for the crown of Aquilonia, Zelata, together with Hadrathus, stopped Xaltotun from using his magic to destroy Conan's army.
khalli wrote:What I heard: the boards will be in thick cardboard that you unfold.
There will be 3 double-sided boards in the deluxe pledge (including 1 that will be in an early Strech goal). That means 3*2 maps:
- a pict village
- a swamp
- a boarding between 2 boats (I have played on this one, see my review a few days ago)
- an underground network
- a citadel
- a tavern (see above)
There will be 2 scenarios developped for each map in the box, but a website will be opened and will propose more scenarios, and tools for the community to build their own and publish them on the site.
I don't know how many boards will be in the base pledge, probably only 1.
Looks nice, but the Gencon or Bust seems ...optimistic for a project starting in January 2015. So best/earliest realistic hope is for post-CNY 2016, then?
I might be tempted to back if they include full co-op right in the box. If not... well, I've got a lot of other stuff in the meantime, so no excitement funding it a year in advance.
I get the feeling this one is definitely going to be worth the wait though.. That write-up on BGG sounds very cool (although I'm pretty sure Conan didn't meet Baal-Pteor in a tavern, wasn't that guy the 'strangler' in the temple that ends up getting strangled himself by Conan? ) - it almost reads like an RPG though, have to say am extremely excited by the prospect of both this game and the miniatures now!
I would be really excited for this..but an overlord game... it kind of kills it for me. The fact that the co-op rules will be download only makes me think they will just be an after thought, breaks my heart but I think I may have to pass.
I'll echo the sentiments for an optional co op mode, preferably straight out of the box.
I've got no qualms fighting it out with older family members, but the kids would much rather play with me than against me... at least for the time being.
Non-GM'd co-op is tough though. You have to design rules for the behavior of enemy models that is inherently predictable but nevertheless remains challenging and stimulating.
It has always worked very well with zombie-themed games, for obvious reasons. Mice and Mystics does a decent job of it, but the play-through can easily turn into either a cakewalk or a slaughterfest.
Replay value can also be a bit limited with that type of format. Once you've played through a scenario, you've done it and it doesn't really change much. You can try to build some randomization in, but the more you do that the more complex it gets and the more opportunities there are for the system to crack.
KD Monster has an interesting way to handle it with the monster behavior deck, but that's not terribly efficient if there are lots of enemy models on the table with different roles/abilities.
Anyone here get the electronic version of Ravage magazine?
Apparently it has a special feature on Conan this month, available for download now. I'll pick up a copy once it goes to paper version and post what is there if no-one else has already done so
hoy, Ravage readers! The digital edition of Issue #17 has been published online, and what an action packed issue it is. Beyond the striking cover, you’ll find so many exciting previews, reviews, and guides, you might have to read it twice to take it all in. Readers get an amazing preview of Monolith’s new Conan board game, bound to excite casual and die hard fans of the iconic barbarian. You’ll also get an early look at CMON’s newest game, Rum & Bones, that brings the MOBA video game genre to the table. We also got the chance to sit down with Justin Gary, the man behind the popular Ascension deck building game. As always, the wonderful General Consensus feature is here, along with game reviews, a BGGCon report, painting guides, and so much more. So hoist the sails, sit back, and sail off into this issue of Ravage.
For those of you with an electronic subscription, you will be able to download it now. Or you can buy single issues from Amazon or iTunes.
Ok, so here's a rundown of what the article covers:
- The base kickstarter set will include 2 (or 3 if stretch goals are met... so 3) double sided maps.
- Each map will come with 2 scenarios.
The game is being developed for 2-5 players, with 1-4 being the heroes and the last being the Overlord. It is, according to the article, essentially a scenario driven dungeon crawler.
Each character has a pool of stamina points that he can spend on actions each turn (attack, shoot, move, interact, defend and reroll a dice seem to be the ones listed). Movement is free. Stamina is regenerated at the start of the turn, but the number regained depends on your current state and what you're doing, for example resting will regain you more stamina than if you've just attacked someone and are in the middle of a fight.
Active characters regain 2 gems, but can do anything they want. Resting characters regain 5, but can only use defend or reroll actions.
Stamina is used as hit points, so your gem pool shrinks as you take wounds and only healing or potions will increase it again.
When attacking, each gem you add, gives you an extra attack, plus any weapon, terrain or situational bonuses. The armour value of your target (e.g. 3) negates that many successes before they start to take wounds. A standard soldier has 2 armour and 1 wound... so 3 successes would be needed to kill him (assuming the Overlord doesn't spend some of his gems to give him extra defense dice.
It then talks about different coloured dice for defense, so I assume the armour value automatically negates some hits and then you get extra dice to potentially avoid more damage. Apparently all the tests are the same principle. Spend gems, get X many successes above the Defense/pass score.
The article ends on a bit about how the maps have been designed to prevent getting stuck in a tight corridor and make things more dynamic... but doesn't really explain how.
Alex C wrote: As cool as the minis and tiles look, I'm staying the hell away from licensed projects. Something always seems to go wrong somewhere down the line.
Alex, I share your pain from AvP.
But, for this kind of thing I find it's best if you just pledge and then forget about it. It's like an alpha/early release of a PC game, you end up going back in 6 month increments to find out if if's now worth your time
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
It's valid, but they have said that the kickstarter box will have lots of things that the retail release won't. It will be interesting to see if they stick to that plan, or if that was just a rumour
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
It's valid, but they have said that the kickstarter box will have lots of things that the retail release won't. It will be interesting to see if they stick to that plan, or if that was just a rumour
Honestly I find that style of Kickstarter troubling. It gets to a point where you're obviously aiming to just make your money by direct-selling through the KS campaign and any sales you make of the much-reduced finished product later on is a bonus, which is great for the company but utter rubbish for the consumer since your choices are reduced to - paying up front and entirely on trust for a full product which may not meet your expectations or the maker's promises, or indeed may never arrive at all; or waiting until retail and getting an inferior product.
There are plenty of ways to incentivise backers without making large parts of the game inaccessible to retail customers.
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
It's valid, but they have said that the kickstarter box will have lots of things that the retail release won't. It will be interesting to see if they stick to that plan, or if that was just a rumour
Honestly I find that style of Kickstarter troubling. It gets to a point where you're obviously aiming to just make your money by direct-selling through the KS campaign and any sales you make of the much-reduced finished product later on is a bonus, which is great for the company but utter rubbish for the consumer since your choices are reduced to - paying up front and entirely on trust for a full product which may not meet your expectations or the maker's promises, or indeed may never arrive at all; or waiting until retail and getting an inferior product.
There are plenty of ways to incentivise backers without making large parts of the game inaccessible to retail customers.
The problem is that the economic model is completely different. As Fred Henry said, with KS, the publisher gets 90% of the money months before the release. With retail, they get 35% of the money a couple of months after the release. Fred Henry wants to get advantage of kickstarter to provide the best possible game for the backers.
But this game would be totally unsellable on retail, where it would cost maybe 250$ (against 120-150$ on KS). So they needed to lighten up the box in order to be able to sell it in retail at an acceptable price.
It doesn't mean what isn't in the deluxe box won't be available at some point at retail, but it is certain you won't be getting the same deal.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yodhrin wrote: Thanks Panzar, that's a shame as it means I'll probably only pick up a couple of models rather than the whole whack(I try and aim for 30-31mm to the eyes on "average human male" models, so all my figs are broadly comparable). Might still grab that shiny Necromancer and a few characters to use as "tall people" if they're made available in proper resin though.
About the miniature size, Monolith just posted a picture where Conan miniatures size is compared to that of other games miniatures (Helldorado, Rum and Bones, Rackam and Games Workshop)
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
It's valid, but they have said that the kickstarter box will have lots of things that the retail release won't. It will be interesting to see if they stick to that plan, or if that was just a rumour
Honestly I find that style of Kickstarter troubling. It gets to a point where you're obviously aiming to just make your money by direct-selling through the KS campaign and any sales you make of the much-reduced finished product later on is a bonus, which is great for the company but utter rubbish for the consumer since your choices are reduced to - paying up front and entirely on trust for a full product which may not meet your expectations or the maker's promises, or indeed may never arrive at all; or waiting until retail and getting an inferior product.
There are plenty of ways to incentivise backers without making large parts of the game inaccessible to retail customers.
The problem is that the economic model is completely different. As Fred Henry said, with KS, the publisher gets 90% of the money months before the release. With retail, they get 35% of the money a couple of months after the release. Fred Henry wants to get advantage of kickstarter to provide the best possible game for the backers.
But this game would be totally unsellable on retail, where it would cost maybe 250$ (against 120-150$ on KS). So they needed to lighten up the box in order to be able to sell it in retail at an acceptable price.
It doesn't mean what isn't in the deluxe box won't be available at some point at retail, but it is certain you won't be getting the same deal.
Two issues, the first being that viewing Kickstarter as a "business model" is exactly the problem I'm describing. The entire justification for asking people for their money up-front with no guarantees of delivery is that you are helping to bring a product to market that would otherwise never exist, using it as a way to efficiently extract money from customers may be good for the companies in question but it completely eradicates that core justification, and it's a huge "up yours" to retailers to boot. There is supposed to be some measure of altruism inherent in the role of the backer - you have spare disposable income, and by giving the creator that money up-front you not only ensure a product you like is being made you also help to make it available to other people, help support a creator, and maybe even help your local game store; but if the product is designed from the outset to target only the Kickstarter backers then that aspect goes away as well. Not everyone can afford to just throw money at every Kickstarter that vaguely intrigues them, some of us have to be selective, and both people who fit that description and people who can't back KS' at all are relying on both the "back everything" types and the content creators to not just blow a raspberry and flip them the bird with the "feth you Jack, I got mine" attitude that seems to underlie the "Kickstarter as business model" concept.
The second issue is that you're speculating. If a company actually states outright that they will make all the product from the Kickstarter available, in whatever form, to retail customers, fine, no problems. The question is not whether retail customers will be able to buy the additional content cheaply, it's whether they'll be able to buy it at all. People guessing that they might make it available at some point is not an outright statement. The creator saying "We might do it at some point in the future, maybe, if the stars align according to prophesy and our reading of the chicken entrails is favourable" is not an outright statement.
EDIT: And now your edit makes me even more annoyed, since now I've seen that pic I really want to go all-in but know I can't(I already have 4 KS waiting on fulfillment and other projects to deal with in the short term), so now it's not hypothetical; I will miss out on things I'd like to get and which would fit with my existing models.
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
It's valid, but they have said that the kickstarter box will have lots of things that the retail release won't. It will be interesting to see if they stick to that plan, or if that was just a rumour
Honestly I find that style of Kickstarter troubling. It gets to a point where you're obviously aiming to just make your money by direct-selling through the KS campaign and any sales you make of the much-reduced finished product later on is a bonus, which is great for the company but utter rubbish for the consumer since your choices are reduced to - paying up front and entirely on trust for a full product which may not meet your expectations or the maker's promises, or indeed may never arrive at all; or waiting until retail and getting an inferior product.
There are plenty of ways to incentivise backers without making large parts of the game inaccessible to retail customers.
The problem is that the economic model is completely different. As Fred Henry said, with KS, the publisher gets 90% of the money months before the release. With retail, they get 35% of the money a couple of months after the release. Fred Henry wants to get advantage of kickstarter to provide the best possible game for the backers. But this game would be totally unsellable on retail, where it would cost maybe 250$ (against 120-150$ on KS). So they needed to lighten up the box in order to be able to sell it in retail at an acceptable price.
It doesn't mean what isn't in the deluxe box won't be available at some point at retail, but it is certain you won't be getting the same deal.
Two issues, the first being that viewing Kickstarter as a "business model" is exactly the problem I'm describing. The entire justification for asking people for their money up-front with no guarantees of delivery is that you are helping to bring a product to market that would otherwise never exist, using it as a way to efficiently extract money from customers may be good for the companies in question but it completely eradicates that core justification, and it's a huge "up yours" to retailers to boot. There is supposed to be some measure of altruism inherent in the role of the backer - you have spare disposable income, and by giving the creator that money up-front you not only ensure a product you like is being made you also help to make it available to other people, help support a creator, and maybe even help your local game store; but if the product is designed from the outset to target only the Kickstarter backers then that aspect goes away as well. Not everyone can afford to just throw money at every Kickstarter that vaguely intrigues them, some of us have to be selective, and both people who fit that description and people who can't back KS' at all are relying on both the "back everything" types and the content creators to not just blow a raspberry and flip them the bird with the "feth you Jack, I got mine" attitude that seems to underlie the "Kickstarter as business model" concept.
The second issue is that you're speculating. If a company actually states outright that they will make all the product from the Kickstarter available, in whatever form, to retail customers, fine, no problems. The question is not whether retail customers will be able to buy the additional content cheaply, it's whether they'll be able to buy it at all. People guessing that they might make it available at some point is not an outright statement. The creator saying "We might do it at some point in the future, maybe, if the stars align according to prophesy and our reading of the chicken entrails is favourable" is not an outright statement.
EDIT: And now your edit makes me even more annoyed, since now I've seen that pic I really want to go all-in but know I can't(I already have 4 KS waiting on fulfillment and other projects to deal with in the short term), so now it's not hypothetical; I will miss out on things I'd like to get and which would fit with my existing models.
I agree with this, but I think the more important issue is that those numbers don't make any logical sense. 90% of the money before release versus 35% of the money after release? I don't see how that makes rational sense unless your only option other than KS is to sell through a distributor. But that doesn't make sense either.
Kickstarter is a marketing platform and a means of collecting money. In the grand scheme of things, it does not change your costs of production and distribution, except to make them larger, as KS takes an additional percentage. Although if you borrowed to finance a production run, 8% wouldn't be that unexpected anyway. If you can't afford to do a large volume production run up front, sure, Kickstarter can make that happen. But if your margin is so razor thin on a KS product that you can't afford to produce surplus units for retail release and at least break even on the production run, what is the point?
Kickstarter can so easily be used as a schill to entice customers into an impulse "buy" in which the creator has no actual obligation to deliver the product as advertised or indeed deliver it at all. That sort of no strings transaction is great for the project creator (in theory), but it sucks for the backer, and it sucks for the TTG market at large. Kickstarter is great in many ways, don't get me wrong, and I am not saying that this project (which I will probably back) is going to be a schill, but Kickstarter as a business model in the TTG industry has become a total schill, and so much business has been driven to Kickstarter that companies feel that they have to use Kickstarter in order to compete effectively.
This creates a sort of vicious cycle, and I think we are already starting to see some of the consequences of Kickstarter fatigue in the customer base. The shine is starting to wear off, but as it wears off, the cycle gets worse for companies that legitimately need upfront funds to get a new product developed and manufactured. As trust goes down, project creators have to do more and show more in order to earn that trust, and at some point you might as well just feth off or pay for production yourself because you can't afford to compete on the platform with established businesses using it as a marketing schill.
I want to see companies using Kickstarter that legitimately cannot afford either full development costs or production costs. I want to see products on Kickstarter that will hit retail release in virtually the same condition after pledges are fulfilled. I want to see Kickstarter used to create established companies that will continue to produce excellent products on their own dime.
This Conan thing has a load of money behind it already. The publisher has an IP license. It has a passel of expensive artwork. It has an IP consultant. It has already started production. This publisher is not hurting for upfront cash at all. That's a fact. The question one must ask is at what point did game publishers with the financial footing to independently engage in this level of development start needing Kickstarter in order to bring a product to market? They didn't. In such a context as this I flatly refuse to believe that Kickstarter is necessary to make this product a reality.
But I am a huge R Howard Conan fan, and if KS is the only way I am going to be able to get the product, so be it. But this 90% vs 35% thing is drinking the Kool-Aid.
You're making assumptions that (at least some of) the stuff like art, sculpts etc has been paid for
If the artist/sculptor believes in a project (or knows a project creator) they may well agree to do stuff for free to be paid for later after a KS funds )(or for other concessions)
(a good example of this is the significant amount of sculpting done by Fenris Games for Cthulhu wars without any up front payment... the KS did well so they did get paid, and they can also sell metal/resin versions of the minis)
I'm certainly not saying they haven't sunk a decent chunk of cash into the project, but whether they would have done so without the 'fast' payoff of a KS campaign ? who knows
(paying off a business loan faster is big attraction even for start up businesses with money to spend)
Or I suppose it's equally valid to wait until a retail release and find out if its worth buying when people already have the product in their hands. As long as everyone doesn't do that!
It's valid, but they have said that the kickstarter box will have lots of things that the retail release won't. It will be interesting to see if they stick to that plan, or if that was just a rumour
Honestly I find that style of Kickstarter troubling. It gets to a point where you're obviously aiming to just make your money by direct-selling through the KS campaign and any sales you make of the much-reduced finished product later on is a bonus, which is great for the company but utter rubbish for the consumer since your choices are reduced to - paying up front and entirely on trust for a full product which may not meet your expectations or the maker's promises, or indeed may never arrive at all; or waiting until retail and getting an inferior product.
There are plenty of ways to incentivise backers without making large parts of the game inaccessible to retail customers.
The problem is that the economic model is completely different. As Fred Henry said, with KS, the publisher gets 90% of the money months before the release. With retail, they get 35% of the money a couple of months after the release. Fred Henry wants to get advantage of kickstarter to provide the best possible game for the backers.
But this game would be totally unsellable on retail, where it would cost maybe 250$ (against 120-150$ on KS). So they needed to lighten up the box in order to be able to sell it in retail at an acceptable price.
It doesn't mean what isn't in the deluxe box won't be available at some point at retail, but it is certain you won't be getting the same deal.
Two issues, the first being that viewing Kickstarter as a "business model" is exactly the problem I'm describing. The entire justification for asking people for their money up-front with no guarantees of delivery is that you are helping to bring a product to market that would otherwise never exist, using it as a way to efficiently extract money from customers may be good for the companies in question but it completely eradicates that core justification, and it's a huge "up yours" to retailers to boot. There is supposed to be some measure of altruism inherent in the role of the backer - you have spare disposable income, and by giving the creator that money up-front you not only ensure a product you like is being made you also help to make it available to other people, help support a creator, and maybe even help your local game store; but if the product is designed from the outset to target only the Kickstarter backers then that aspect goes away as well. Not everyone can afford to just throw money at every Kickstarter that vaguely intrigues them, some of us have to be selective, and both people who fit that description and people who can't back KS' at all are relying on both the "back everything" types and the content creators to not just blow a raspberry and flip them the bird with the "feth you Jack, I got mine" attitude that seems to underlie the "Kickstarter as business model" concept.
The second issue is that you're speculating. If a company actually states outright that they will make all the product from the Kickstarter available, in whatever form, to retail customers, fine, no problems. The question is not whether retail customers will be able to buy the additional content cheaply, it's whether they'll be able to buy it at all. People guessing that they might make it available at some point is not an outright statement. The creator saying "We might do it at some point in the future, maybe, if the stars align according to prophesy and our reading of the chicken entrails is favourable" is not an outright statement.
EDIT: And now your edit makes me even more annoyed, since now I've seen that pic I really want to go all-in but know I can't(I already have 4 KS waiting on fulfillment and other projects to deal with in the short term), so now it's not hypothetical; I will miss out on things I'd like to get and which would fit with my existing models.
I agree with this, but I think the more important issue is that those numbers don't make any logical sense. 90% of the money before release versus 35% of the money after release? I don't see how that makes rational sense unless your only option other than KS is to sell through a distributor. But that doesn't make sense either.
Kickstarter is a marketing platform and a means of collecting money. In the grand scheme of things, it does not change your costs of production and distribution, except to make them larger, as KS takes an additional percentage. Although if you borrowed to finance a production run, 8% wouldn't be that unexpected anyway. If you can't afford to do a large volume production run up front, sure, Kickstarter can make that happen. But if your margin is so razor thin on a KS product that you can't afford to produce surplus units for retail release and at least break even on the production run, what is the point?
Kickstarter can so easily be used as a schill to entice customers into an impulse "buy" in which the creator has no actual obligation to deliver the product as advertised or indeed deliver it at all. That sort of no strings transaction is great for the project creator (in theory), but it sucks for the backer, and it sucks for the TTG market at large. Kickstarter is great in many ways, don't get me wrong, and I am not saying that this project (which I will probably back) is going to be a schill, but Kickstarter as a business model in the TTG industry has become a total schill, and so much business has been driven to Kickstarter that companies feel that they have to use Kickstarter in order to compete effectively.
This creates a sort of vicious cycle, and I think we are already starting to see some of the consequences of Kickstarter fatigue in the customer base. The shine is starting to wear off, but as it wears off, the cycle gets worse for companies that legitimately need upfront funds to get a new product developed and manufactured. As trust goes down, project creators have to do more and show more in order to earn that trust, and at some point you might as well just feth off or pay for production yourself because you can't afford to compete on the platform with established businesses using it as a marketing schill.
I want to see companies using Kickstarter that legitimately cannot afford either full development costs or production costs. I want to see products on Kickstarter that will hit retail release in virtually the same condition after pledges are fulfilled. I want to see Kickstarter used to create established companies that will continue to produce excellent products on their own dime.
This Conan thing has a load of money behind it already. The publisher has an IP license. It has a passel of expensive artwork. It has an IP consultant. It has already started production. This publisher is not hurting for upfront cash at all. That's a fact. The question one must ask is at what point did game publishers with the financial footing to independently engage in this level of development start needing Kickstarter in order to bring a product to market? They didn't. In such a context as this I flatly refuse to believe that Kickstarter is necessary to make this product a reality.
But I am a huge R Howard Conan fan, and if KS is the only way I am going to be able to get the product, so be it. But this 90% vs 35% thing is drinking the Kool-Aid.
When you pay a game via kickstarter, you pay when the KS finishes, months before the game is released. KS gets 10% and the rest goes to the publisher.
When you buy a game in retail, the game is already produced. You pay your game store, they pay the distributor while they all get a cut, and what remains for the publisher is about 35% of what you paid the gamestore. These are just facts. I don't see what is shocking in here.
As for money, the publisher indeed has money, but not enough to produce this game. All the money went into the game development to pay the IP, the sculptors, the artists, the designers, the communication...
It is a big amount of money, sure, but now what is left is pay the production itself. And that's what the KS is for.
So no, this game couldn't be made without kickstarter. To publish such a game with the traditional model would be a lose situation for everyone. To ensure that everyone gets its share, the game would need to be incredibly expensive, nobody would buy it, and everyone would lose money.
So, yes, KS will enable the publisher, of which the main designer is part, to create a game which couldn't have been made any other way. And the retail shops will also get a game, with less material, which they will be able to sell.
All this is just to say that the reason the Deluxe box won't be a in retail is for economic reasons. So, if the KS is a success, some of it could certainly find its way as an expansionto the retail store at some point. Yes, this last bit is speculation from my part, but why wouldn't they ?
When you pay a game via kickstarter, you pay when the KS finishes, months before the game is released. KS gets 10% and the rest goes to the publisher.
When you buy a game in retail, the game is already produced. You pay your game store, they pay the distributor while they all get a cut, and what remains for the publisher is about 35% of what you paid the gamestore. These are just facts. I don't see what is shocking in here.
As for money, the publisher indeed has money, but not enough to produce this game. All the money went into the game development to pay the IP, the sculptors, the artists, the designers, the communication...
It is a big amount of money, sure, but now what is left is pay the production itself. And that's what the KS is for.
So no, this game couldn't be made without kickstarter. To publish such a game with the traditional model would be a lose situation for everyone. To ensure that everyone gets its share, the game would need to be incredibly expensive, nobody would buy it, and everyone would lose money.
So, yes, KS will enable the publisher, of which the main designer is part, to create a game which couldn't have been made any other way. And the retail shops will also get a game, with less material, which they will be able to sell.
All this is just to say that the reason the Deluxe box won't be a in retail is for economic reasons. So, if the KS is a success, some of it could certainly find its way to the retail shop at some point. Yes, this last bit is speculation from my part, but why wouldn't they ?
First of all, no, you don't need to sell a product through a distributor. You can sell directly, which is pretty much exactly what Kickstarter is anyway. Direct sale is also how lots and lots of companies in the TTG market operate.
If the publisher can collect money for a product online via Kickstarter and get that product into the hands of individual customers, the publisher can do it through traditional online retailing as well if that's what it is interested in doing. Now, if you want to wholesale, that's a different story, but Kickstarter is not wholesale. Kickstarter is glorified direct sale to individual customers at a price point set by the project creator.
Wholesale/Distributor discount is not a legitimate reason, on its own, to necessitate a Kickstarter campaign. Development costs are also not part of COGS. If you've got a pile of cash invested into development, and it costs X/unit to manufacture the actual product, you can sell that product for more than the production cost and make a profit on the unit sale. You sell enough units, you make back the development costs, and now you are in the black.
If you sell through a distributor, ideally you make up the lower profit margin in volume. That's the idea. That's why you sell to a distributor. If either your expected sales volume or profit margin are too low to make selling through a distributor viable, sell the product directly. But in general, if your profit margin on a product is so low that you can't afford to sell it at a 50% wholesale discount, that's a pretty fundamental problem on its own.
The point is that rationalizing a Kickstarter campaign by comparing what is essentially a direct sale profit margin versus a wholesale discount is absurd. No one is obligated to sell via distributors in this market. Kickstarter is not a magical way to do an end run around wholesale discounts. Kickstarter is a marketing platform for direct sale pre-orders.
I get that Kickstarter can be a good way to pay for an expensive, large volume production run. I get it. But the criticism Yodhrin brought up was related to exclusive Kickstarter content. If you are using Kickstarter because you don't have the cash to pay for an expensive, large volume production run, fine. But how exactly does that have anything to do with providing exclusive content? How does Kickstarter have anything to do with COGS other than allowing a large production run which tends to lower COGS?
Once you do that production run, you have the units. If your production run is only so large as to fulfill the Kickstarter pledges, what was the point? Your goal must either have been to altruistically put a thing into the world (fine) or to pocket any excess funds, write off the product, and move on to another one-shot Kickstarter (not-so-fine).
If the product is something that you intend to keep producing, it can make sense to offer a discount off of MSRP to backers who are willing to put in money on faith and trust, use those pledges to order a large production run, fulfill those pledges with a portion of that production run, and sell the remaining units via retail. But to do that you can't set the pledge levels at COGS, can you? You still have to make a profit on those units to pay for the whole production run.
Offering exclusive content as part of the Kickstarter is economically backwards unless your goal is to increase unit sales. You want people to back the Kickstarter, so you put them in a position of having to back the Kickstarter to get the proper product. It does not make sense in terms of production costs because COGS tends to go down with volume. Putting more of the same stuff in a box makes sense, because you are already manufacturing that stuff. It ups the COGS for every unit, but maybe you do that instead of offering a more significant retail discount.
Anyway, the TLDR is that lots of folks are using Kickstarter like a marketing platform, and are encouraging impulse buys in order to get a nice, fat stack of cash with no strings attached. It is not about wholesale discounts and COGS.
I think when Kickstarter got big, everyone thought it was great for the consumer. But as time went on and more and more projects failed to deliver or delivered way below expectations, people have realized that Kickstarter is only great for the producer. And like you say, with producer trust eroding, Kickstarter is only great for established companies with the funds to prepare a lavish campaign steeped in beautiful artwork and finished miniatures.
kestral wrote: All of my kickstarter experiences have been with small scale stuff from small companies. I've been completely satisfied, for what it is worth.
Same here. But that's the way I view Kickstarter. The platform isn't ruined, but it is certainly a peculiar marketplace that can be very toxic for startups and small businesses in the TTG market.
What I don't like to see are the more negative aspects of the platform justified on spurious bases. In many ways Kickstarter is driven off of a pleasant fiction that does not always match up to reality. Perpetuating that fiction is not healthy in my opinion.
Mymearan wrote: And like you say, with producer trust eroding, Kickstarter is only great for established companies with the funds to prepare a lavish campaign steeped in beautiful artwork and finished miniatures.
Not true. I backed quite a number of little indie-projects and very few of them were dissapointing. You just have to keep in mind that there is always a risk involved. But then, sometimes ordering established products through an online merchant brings its own risks (thank you again, Rob Lane!).
Just don't back everything willy-nilly, weigh your options and your risks carefully and you'll be able to back lots of wonderful little projects which would have never seen the light otherwise.
Mymearan wrote: And like you say, with producer trust eroding, Kickstarter is only great for established companies with the funds to prepare a lavish campaign steeped in beautiful artwork and finished miniatures.
Not true. I backed quite a number of little indie-projects and very few of them were dissapointing. You just have to keep in mind that there is always a risk involved. But then, sometimes ordering established products through an online merchant brings its own risks (thank you again, Rob Lane!).
Just don't back everything willy-nilly, weigh your options and your risks carefully and you'll be able to back lots of wonderful little projects which would have never seen the light otherwise.
Yep. What's really fantastic though is that their stuff is up for anyone to enjoy after the KS; I couldn't afford to back the Oathsworn KS' at the time, but because of the KS backers and Oathsworn not being grasping "Kickstarter as business model" types, I can now go and buy the models. And that's all I want, companies to use Kickstarter to actually fund their products, not as a preorder system for a super-ultra-special-limited edition of their product that, providing it generates a surplus and they're in a good mood, might eventually lead to a much reduced "Afterthought Edition" being made available for the plebs.
Have the designers given though to a minis only pledge? They've got some fantastic models, and some talented sculptors. It would be a shame to limit these models to within-game only.
Even as add-ons, I'd be in on this one to get the figs. Not the game though, I have too many of those (and they're harder to hide from my wife!)
Ugh, that's sad news. As much as I love Conan, I have no interest in a boardgame/skirmish game at this point in my life (just don't have the time; it would be competing with RPG's and miniature painting). And I am wary of boardgame plastics; at the very least I would need to see a completely finished production cast before backing. I cannot help but think that the wonderful sculpting here will go to waste.
Ugh, that's sad news. As much as I love Conan, I have no interest in a boardgame/skirmish game at this point in my life (just don't have the time; it would be competing with RPG's and miniature painting). And I am wary of boardgame plastics; at the very least I would need to see a completely finished production cast before backing. I cannot help but think that the wonderful sculpting here will go to waste.
I think it is a fething crying shame to take such beautiful sculpts and manufacture them in PVC. Fething travesty. The DUST miniatures came out decently, but for every miniature that came out looking decent in PVC, I have seen a dozen more than came out looking like crap. The loss of fidelity and impossibility of cleanup take such pieces from artwork used as game tokens to interesting-looking game tokens.
grefven wrote: I agree, it's a shame these beauties will only be made in plastic, but I guess that this is more aimed to a wider market than just "miniature addicts"
But we wants it, we wants it, we wants the precious resin!
Seriously, though, I do feel it might be kind of a waste of money to employ such illustrious sculptors if these will only be PVC gaming pieces.
grefven wrote: I agree, it's a shame these beauties will only be made in plastic, but I guess that this is more aimed to a wider market than just "miniature addicts"
But we wants it, we wants it, we wants the precious resin!
Seriously, though, I do feel it might be kind of a waste of money to employ such illustrious sculptors if these will only be PVC gaming pieces.
Exalted. I absolutely 100% agree. Such talented sculptors, such beautiful sculpts, such potential for disappointment.
This has been a discussion ever since the thread started. I agree, the miniatures look too good (and certainly, the way they are displayed) for just plastic playing pieces, although at the same time I recognise that there is some crossover here in terms of what market they are trying to appeal to.
I wonder if there is the possibility that they might do a special resin cast set (as Mantic did with Dungeon Saga) for those prepared to pay for it?
Certainly might be something worth considering mentioning to them once the KS has launched and we get a full look at what they are offering.
Alpharius wrote: Definitely worth mentioning to them during the KS Campaign, but even more important to mention it to them ASAP, NOW, via their Facebook page!
Indeed. Those are some nice models, and they should absolutely consider mastering them separately before sending them off to China for PVC production. It won't take an unreasonable number of preorders to pay for production runs in resin. I honestly think it would be a better idea to set up a traditional pre-order than try to link it directly to the KS campaign. Personally, I wouldn't mind having the board game quality PVC casts and a set of resin miniatures. That way you could play the game out of the box without having to touch the models, and you'd have some rough and tumble pieces for carting the game around to the FLGS, packing in checked luggage, etc. And you'd have some nice pieces fit for careful cleaning and painting. But then it is easy to say that now without putting up any money, LOL.
It is disheartening to see those nice sculpts and imagine them with soft details and unassailable mold lines in some kind of brightly-colored PVC. Utterly disheartening.
Conan by Monolith
December 15 at 11:13am · Edited ·
We're in the home stretch: resins are cast, drawings are finished, layout and graphics are being finalized. Here's an example of a Conan character sheet with his equipment cards.
Resins...and hopefully not just the masters!
I can totally see a 'resin minis pledge' being available during the campaign.
I can totally see a 'resin minis pledge' being available during the campaign.
Ah, so at least there are resin masters. Even if it's only PVC, hopefully they'll keep some masters for later production in resin.
Edit: As for that character card...I am having some doubts about the game now... That card is busy, busy, busy. I am extremely dubious about things that have two numbers on them. 5/red, 4/orange, no number/orange, 4/2, no number/no color. What?
The item cards seem easy enough to interpret, except I don't understand the difference between a bonus die that you roll and a bonus die that you don't roll.
I'm seeing a Battle Axe that gives you one extra red die when you attack in melee, and one red die if you throw it. If you throw it, you drop it. If you use it in melee it is slow. It's weight is three weight units.
That's fine. Not knowing the game rules at all, I can get most of the info on the card. The character card on the other hand...whoa. I can speculate about most of it, but it is busy, busy, busy. You get movement penalties from weight, there's daytime effects and nighttime effects, there's different colored dice and different numbers of the colored dice, likely with different added modifiers....... At first blush I am concerned.
I see that there's different movement for running, jumping, climbing, and swimming, and stats for breaking in doors and murdering people. But are all of the characters going to have different values for these stats? Am I going to be checking Belit's climb stat every time she activates because all five of the characters have different climb stats? but I forgot that she's carrying 8 weights, and when she's carrying 8 weights she has -2 movement. Wait, how much is she carrying, let me check her items again...1, 3, 2, 1...no, she's at 7 weights. At 7 weights her movement is only -1, so she climbs at 7 movements.
Even if the game makes sense, they should drag their graphic designer out back and shoot him/her. (If you are the graphic designer, I don't mean this literally, and I understand that some clients are difficult to work with. Hang in there.)
Mymearan wrote: And like you say, with producer trust eroding, Kickstarter is only great for established companies with the funds to prepare a lavish campaign steeped in beautiful artwork and finished miniatures.
Not true. I backed quite a number of little indie-projects and very few of them were dissapointing. You just have to keep in mind that there is always a risk involved. But then, sometimes ordering established products through an online merchant brings its own risks (thank you again, Rob Lane!).
Just don't back everything willy-nilly, weigh your options and your risks carefully and you'll be able to back lots of wonderful little projects which would have never seen the light otherwise.
Yep. What's really fantastic though is that their stuff is up for anyone to enjoy after the KS; I couldn't afford to back the Oathsworn KS' at the time, but because of the KS backers and Oathsworn not being grasping "Kickstarter as business model" types, I can now go and buy the models. And that's all I want, companies to use Kickstarter to actually fund their products, not as a preorder system for a super-ultra-special-limited edition of their product that, providing it generates a surplus and they're in a good mood, might eventually lead to a much reduced "Afterthought Edition" being made available for the plebs.
So basically you want to reap the same rewards off other people risking their funds? That Oathsworn KS is frankly a terrible example of a well designed Kickstarter. For most of the Oathsworn projects, their backers paid more than people like you who bought at release. For example, the brewers were 16 for 4 figures in the campaign vs 3.20 each later. Why the hell would anyone back another one of their projects, since your only "reward" for paying early is also paying MORE? Unfortunately the model falls apart when everyone realizes this, and stops backing, so it never gets made in the first place.
Sorry man, there needs to be a good incentive to spend money early, potentially getting nothing in return. Exclusives are here to stay for smart campaigns.
These minis look great. They seriously need to do resin/metal versions, as spending all that effort on great sculpts only to turn them to soft PVC blobs is a damn shame.
Seems like we already have an initial answer (back on 12/11/14), and it isn't particualryl great:
Mad Martigan wrote: Hi guys,
Just got feedback from them - it is not in their roadmap as of today - they're game makers, not in the business of molding/printing figs.
Nevertheless, they'll keep an ear to this kind of requests...
I think we'll just all have to wait for the campaign in 20 days from now, to see if they make "figs only" add-ons.
Frankly, I have had the chance to try the game, in its early stage, when it was all meeples and paper, and the art from Adrian Smith was just a few pictures on an ipad. There was just one map, and only one scenario on it, we plaid it twice nevertheless, and when i sat by the overlord for the second round, it was a completely different game that took place... not only the mechanics are different, but the same scenario turned out completely different. We were made to stop through the night by the bartenders, as they were to close (no third round). We had tremendous fun, and the appeal was for the game itself, not the minis - we had no idea they would be so good-looking, nor that there would be that many. It just adds to the thrill, and explains why everyone who approached the game during its test phases got intoxicated.
Over here, I am too slow at painting, and I'll be thrilled when I am through the main minis - so I personnally won't go for a bucket full of minis, on top of the game : I'll spend my bucks on add-ons for extra maps and the handful of scenarios that will come with each one of them, but if you're a great painter, I can see why you would want another 100's of such figs.
voilà, hope this helps... Mad
So, yeah.
Still, may be if enough of us ask *during* the campaign?
Alpharius wrote: Seems like we already have an initial answer (back on 12/11/14), and it isn't particualryl great:
Mad Martigan wrote: Hi guys, Just got feedback from them - it is not in their roadmap as of today - they're game makers, not in the business of molding/printing figs. Nevertheless, they'll keep an ear to this kind of requests... I think we'll just all have to wait for the campaign in 20 days from now, to see if they make "figs only" add-ons.
Frankly, I have had the chance to try the game, in its early stage, when it was all meeples and paper, and the art from Adrian Smith was just a few pictures on an ipad. There was just one map, and only one scenario on it, we plaid it twice nevertheless, and when i sat by the overlord for the second round, it was a completely different game that took place... not only the mechanics are different, but the same scenario turned out completely different. We were made to stop through the night by the bartenders, as they were to close (no third round). We had tremendous fun, and the appeal was for the game itself, not the minis - we had no idea they would be so good-looking, nor that there would be that many. It just adds to the thrill, and explains why everyone who approached the game during its test phases got intoxicated.
Over here, I am too slow at painting, and I'll be thrilled when I am through the main minis - so I personnally won't go for a bucket full of minis, on top of the game : I'll spend my bucks on add-ons for extra maps and the handful of scenarios that will come with each one of them, but if you're a great painter, I can see why you would want another 100's of such figs.
voilà, hope this helps... Mad
So, yeah.
Still, may be if enough of us ask *during* the campaign?
Yea, well, it isn't about volumne of figures, it is about beautiful artwork being desecrated by manufacturing that does not do it justice. If it was just about the game, why pay top dollar for such high quality sculpts? They could have paid for middling quality sculpts for a fraction of the cost.
You pay for those sculpts to excite miniatures gamers. Why bother to get miniatures gamers excited by good sculpts just to manufacture them in a way which involves a significant loss of fidelity? It is sort of disingenuous. Clearly, someone was concerned about the quality of the miniatures, else why pimp the names of the sculptors? Why use that to market the product? Why come on DakkaDakka touting the miniatures and the artists just to say, 'we are game designers, so whatever with the miniatures'?
And frankly, looking at that character card, I have serious enough concerns about the rules that I'd like to play it before I buy it. I'll need to see the full game rules, or a substantive portion of them, before committing to the project. Anybody can say a game is good, but game designers who do what I see on that card are going to have to convince me there's nothing to be concerned about... The proof is in the pudding.
Mymearan wrote: And like you say, with producer trust eroding, Kickstarter is only great for established companies with the funds to prepare a lavish campaign steeped in beautiful artwork and finished miniatures.
Not true. I backed quite a number of little indie-projects and very few of them were dissapointing. You just have to keep in mind that there is always a risk involved. But then, sometimes ordering established products through an online merchant brings its own risks (thank you again, Rob Lane!).
Just don't back everything willy-nilly, weigh your options and your risks carefully and you'll be able to back lots of wonderful little projects which would have never seen the light otherwise.
Yep. What's really fantastic though is that their stuff is up for anyone to enjoy after the KS; I couldn't afford to back the Oathsworn KS' at the time, but because of the KS backers and Oathsworn not being grasping "Kickstarter as business model" types, I can now go and buy the models. And that's all I want, companies to use Kickstarter to actually fund their products, not as a preorder system for a super-ultra-special-limited edition of their product that, providing it generates a surplus and they're in a good mood, might eventually lead to a much reduced "Afterthought Edition" being made available for the plebs.
So basically you want to reap the same rewards off other people risking their funds?
Strawman argument. Quite apart from the fact that there are two benefits inherent to being a backer(seeing a project you want to happen happen, and getting it before everyone else), it's entirely possible to reward backers without also taking a massive squirty dump on future retail customers. Reasonable discounts, exclusive alternate sculpts(see Mierce's various helmed or unhelmed variants), even just plain old exclusive models as long as it's one or two and not dozens. Regardless, the core point of the KS is supposed to be that you back things you want to see made, not just for yourself but because you think the creator's work is worthwhile or fills a gap in the market that may otherwise remain unfilled; you have to be a special kind of selfish to want that, but only for you and other backers - I've backed 4 KS; Creature Caster, Raging Heroes TGG, Troll Outpost, and Twisting Catacombs, so what, by your reckoning I should brand anyone who later buys those things at retail as a freeloader?
Sorry man, there needs to be a good incentive to spend money early, potentially getting nothing in return. Exclusives are here to stay for smart campaigns.
You're going to have to help me here; where did I argue there should be no incentives? Oh yes, I remember now, I didn't. See above.
There is a lot of information on that card. A LOT. I'm sure a lot of it will come by second nature after a few playthroughs, but still- there's a lot of numbers and icons on that card.
Plus no co op.
I'm afraid of this game's chances of getting to my table.
I can't help but be reminded of Myth- lots of positive word of mouth from designer- guided playthroughs early on, yet when backers received it- hijinks ensued.
I'll wait and let my wallet pass final judgement on the project when the campaign comes close to wrapping up.
highlord tamburlaine wrote: There is a lot of information on that card. A LOT. I'm sure a lot of it will come by second nature after a few playthroughs, but still- there's a lot of numbers and icons on that card.
Plus no co op.
I'm afraid of this game's chances of getting to my table.
I can't help but be reminded of Myth- lots of positive word of mouth from designer- guided playthroughs early on, yet when backers received it- hijinks ensued.
I'll wait and let my wallet pass final judgement on the project when the campaign comes close to wrapping up.
Indeed. Also, I thought it was co-op, just co-opGM'd, like Super Dungeon Explore or HeroQuest.
As for the card, Jebus.
First, it is laid terribly in my opinion. That's a graphic design problem. That information could have been presented in a better, more space conscious, easier to reference manner without some of that distracting artwork. WTF is the cube? Is it magic, or smarts, or your skillz at geometry?
Second, the game is obviously designed to be fast and furious. That is what we have heard from gameplay descriptions, and the art style of the card is consistent with that. ASYMMETRIC SQUARES! WARM COLORS! RUNNING! JUMPING! RUNNING AGAIN! AXE! RUNNING SOME MORE! ARROWS! MORE ARROWS!
I'm all about a fast-paced game. Heck, when my game hits the market it will likely blow this game out of the water in terms of fast pacing. But fast-paced games do not mix well with LOTS OF NUMBERS! Oh my God are there lots of numbers. And the only reason to have all those numbers is so that different characters will have...DIFFERENT NUMBERS! It's all fine and good to have lots of numbers and 20 different ways to move, but the more BS you make your players do, the slower the game gets.
You realize that you are going to have to track your equipment weight, right? You are going to have to track it with no slider or marker or anything. You just have to remember it, or add it all up every time you move.
"Okay, so I have the battle axe, that's 3 weights. My leather armor is 2 weights, my sword is 2 weights, and my dagger is 1 weights. That's 8 weights...so I am at -1 movements."
"But you picked up the crystal skull gem, right? Isn't that 2 weights?"
"Yea, but this version of Conan can carry 12 weights."
"But at 10 weights he loses 2 movements, so you wouldn't have made that jump."
"Oh...yea, you're right. I guess Conan will have to drop his dagger to make that jump, or something."
You are likely going to be staring at your card half of the game instead of the board and the fancy miniatures.
And what is with the numbers with the dice colors? Is it number of dice, or a modifier? Conan has 5/red for melee, and a Battle Axe only adds one red die, presumably. So does Conan roll 5 red dice for melee, and only get one extra die for using a big damn battle axe? Or does the 5 add a modifier to the roll, and Conan rolls one red die for being a bad-, adds another red die for his big- axe, and then adds 5 to the roll?
Neither option seems like a terribly good idea to me. And what's with the tinted boxes and the arrows down at the bottom? Are you going to modify the character based on day/night conditions, how many skullz the character has, what equipment he is using, what weight he is carrying, AND what his tinted box level is?
And finally, how many different dice are there?!? I see three colors on Conan's card there: Yellow, Orange, and Red (because it is a fast and furious game, right?). Are those the only colors? Is there also Green and Blue? So now the players have to keep making sure that they have the right number AND color of dice every time they roll something. And then modify the results. I mean...seriously.
Hey there guys, My name is Jamie and I'm working with Monolith on the Conan board game!
I noticed we haven't been present here for a while now, my apologies for that! I had a good read through the thread and picked out a few of the reoccurring details though if I have missed something don't be afraid to ask!
Ok so:
The Models oh this is my favourite part, now bear in mind I am a long time tabletop wargamer so the models are a huuuge thing for me so I'm not going to bs you guys on this. Yes the sculpts are awesome, yes it would be an absolute travesty to have them massacred by cheap production methods so believe me when I say that we are not going to let this happen!
The models will be in PVC, it's the only way to reliably produce a game of this size (150+ models), however, they will be in the highest quality available like that used by The Others and Dust: Tactics.
Sadly we will not be producing resin casts of these models. AS much as we would like to, and we have had a lot of demand for these, it is a very complicated process when it comes to quality testing, shipping and customer service. So much so that it would undermine our main objective: producing a great game and getting it shipped out, on time.
But from one miniature gamer to another I can guarantee you that despite this, the PVC versions of these models will be well worth the wait!
Coop & 1vsX
Now this is a long subject. I actually interviewed Frédéric Henry for Ravage Magazine and he explained his thought process behind this, I'll have to check to see if I can eventually repost it here but in the mean time I will summarise:
The objective was to create a game that was both challenging and immersive. There are some very goood AI systems out there but you just can't beat having another player infront of you who is actively plotting against you and trying to catch you out. To incentivise this the "Overlord" is not just a simple GM, he plays with his own objectives and game mechanics which give him a totally different experience to those of the heroes. Fact: during demos at various events a lot of players were more interested in playing the overlord than the heroes!
So it really is a design choice, that being said it is understandable that this may put some people off. All I'll say is give it a chance, it may surprise you. There will be plenty of videos coming out during the campaign that will show you just what sort of game it is!
And so that leads us to Mr. Weeble1000. As the last comment I'll reply to this one directly.
Frankly you are one of the first to complain about the layout of the boards. Most find it very easy to understand once they know the rules, which are very easy to learn. The proof, during demo events it normally took about 10mins to explain the rules to all the players. Its also worth mentioning that these are still alpha designs, they may change in time but we are pretty pleased with how they are turning out so far.
Here in lies the problem though I think. I'm assuming you haven't actually seen anything about the rules or you might think otherwise, in which case you are in luck as I have here a short video explaining the main rules!
Give that a look and you'll see that the "Cubes" actually indicate what kind of dice you roll, of which there are 3 (yellow=weak, red=strong, orange=in-between), the arrows over some of them mean you get a free re-roll. Tracking weight is really not that difficult, when you pick up a new object you add its weight to that that you're currently carrying and if, by chance it goes over the number indicated on one of you skills (the small boxes below the main actions) then you lose that skill and cover it with a marker. Not that difficult to track as most players should be familiar with basic maths.
Also, it should be pointed out that Conan is not a "fast and furious" game. Jungle Speed or Escape are both "fast and furious", Conan is fluid and immersive. The idea being to live a real Hyborian adventure that feels authentic. Not just throw buckets of dice and remove spades of models from the board, after that, you can play as fast as you like. Anyway, check out the video, you sound like a really passionate gamer so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised
Well I am glad to know that the miniatures are a priority for you guys. the production values applied here thus far are very impressive so I do not doubt your desire to maintain the quality of the product. I have heard good things about the Dust studios plastic production but I personally have yet to have first hand experience with it. Have you guys had any molds tooled and if so have you cast any prototypes in the PVC yet?
Your response is much appreciated Jamie, if a little disappointing(in that resin is ruled out). Are Monolith at least open to considering a minis-only pledge?
I can understand if you don't want to offer individual figures for sale, given the logistics of dividing up a mass-production run intended for a board game, but if you were to offer, for example, a "just the minis" pledge equivalent to the model contents of the regular boxed game, and another "just the minis" pledge equivalent to the model contents of the "deluxe" box, it shouldn't be too difficult to "over order" batches of models relative to the number of actual boxed sets. You want people to buy and play your game, I get that as well, but at the end of the day speaking for only myself; it's only the models that interest me, I don't have time to devote to playing another game system, and I'd seriously hesitate to buy the whole game knowing that I'd be paying for a load of extra bits and bobs which would only either take up my already limited storage space or just get chucked in the bin.
Hesitation aside, the miniatures are still enough to interest me...but, can I ask; will you have some samples of your own sculpts in the material to show before the end of the KS? What I've seen of The Others is encouraging(Dust less-so), but a lot of us from the wargaming side of things have been heavily burned in the past by companies purporting to have cracked the super-special-secret recipe for producing high-quality models in PVC, and I think a lot of us will struggle to justify the likely substantial "sweet spot" pledge necessary to get all the models you'll be offering unless we can see some examples up-front.
As Yodhrin has said, I am one of those that hasn't been very satisfied with the quality of PVC. They can be good, but I'm not too keen to drop a couple hundred bucks on "it might be good", so I'll wait until some finished product has rolled around before I commit to a pledge/purchase.
While I'm in the same boat as Yodhrin and Sinful Hero in terms of being more interested in the minis than the game
other boardgame KS that have offered a minis only option (due to fan requests) have found that the uptake of this option did not justify the extra time/effort (for example Cthulhu Wars)
so while I might well benefit from it whether it would be worth the trouble I'm not sure
Dust studios does some bitching plastics. The Others model I have is incredible and surpasses most HIPS I've worked with and even some resin.
If dust studios is printing the game, I'm fairly confident the minis will be more than good enough (see: paintable) for what 99% of the painters out there can do.
Thanks for coming on here to weigh in on things Jamie, that is much appreciated!
Yodhrin wrote: You want people to buy and play your game, I get that as well, but at the end of the day speaking for only myself; it's only the models that interest me, I don't have time to devote to playing another game system, and I'd seriously hesitate to buy the whole game knowing that I'd be paying for a load of extra bits and bobs which would only either take up my already limited storage space or just get chucked in the bin.
Hesitation aside, the miniatures are still enough to interest me...but, can I ask; will you have some samples of your own sculpts in the material to show before the end of the KS? What I've seen of The Others is encouraging(Dust less-so), but a lot of us from the wargaming side of things have been heavily burned in the past by companies purporting to have cracked the super-special-secret recipe for producing high-quality models in PVC, and I think a lot of us will struggle to justify the likely substantial "sweet spot" pledge necessary to get all the models you'll be offering unless we can see some examples up-front.
+1 to all that; it's exactly how I feel.
cincydooley wrote: Dust studios does some bitching plastics. The Others model I have is incredible and surpasses most HIPS I've worked with and even some resin.
If dust studios is printing the game, I'm fairly confident the minis will be more than good enough (see: paintable) for what 99% of the painters out there can do.
OK, cool, that does sound pretty good. I don't have any experience of my own with the various plastics that have been used in board and war games these last couple of years (Zombicide, Mars Attacks, Dust etc etc), but I've seen some pictures that make me hesitant to buy unseen. I've also seen some pictures of a few of the beasts from The Others that looked spectacular, but it was never 100% clear to me if what was photographed was a finished production model or a resin master. But you actually own one in PVC then?
As I mentioned in my posts, I haven't had any exposure to the rules aside from a few written descriptions of gameplay experience.
Having watched the video, my concerns are somewhat allayed. Those numbers indicate the maximum number of stamina gems that can be dedicated to a particular action in a turn, yes? That is, Conan has a 3 in "manipulation," and can therefore only spend up to three stamina gems on manipulation in a given game turn, if I have the gist. Players spend their time managing stamina, and the state of the game is reflected on the cards.
Personally, I think tracking the state of the game is fine, but I am concerned (not having played the game) that there are a relatively significant number of gameplay states to keep track of.
Compare, for example, to a very simple game like Zombicide. In Zombicide you've got to track exp, up to five card slots (3 passive 2 active), and a very small skill tree. That's it. Very simple and reasonably clean, although the card slots can get a little jumbly.
Compare also to a relatively simple game like Mice and Mystics. Two active cards, three passive cards, 4 attributes modified by cards, and a small number of skills. Apart from items, there's two numbers of things to keep track of: wounds and cheese.
Compare to Super Dungeon Explore where you have up to four cards with a handy location layout to simplify equipment, and you are only tracking wounds and potions.
There's lots of other dungeon crawlers that one could compare to, but those are three good examples, I think. In my view, those three games are ordered in terms of complexity of gameplay and state of game tracking from simplest to most complex, comparatively: Zombicide, Mice and Mystics, Super Dungeon Explore (SDE). Much like Conan, SDE has the added complexity of multiple die types.
Conan seems, in view from afar, to be comparatively more complex, with more and more interrelated game states to track. My concerns are two-fold: First, does this complexity add depth to the game in a proportion satisfying in comparison to the complexity of gameplay? Second, how does this complexity impact speed of play?
Zombicide is a boneheadedly simple game in terms of the mechanics, but it offers a very satisfying depth of gameplay and can be played very quickly. Very small changes to the mechanics, such as swapping in a character with a different skill or altering the layout of the game board, cause comparatively dramatic changes to the way the game plays. There are only three differences between a runner zombie and a walker zombie, for example: Runners activate twice, Runners are below Fatties in ranged combat target priority, and there are fewer Runner miniatures in the box. That's it. Those very few differences nevertheless make Runner zombies a totally different threat than Walker zombies. In short, you get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of Zombicide's complexity. That's good.
In my opinion, SDE can be a little shallow in terms of the depth you get for your complexity. Mice and Mystics is fairly shallow as well, but makes up a lot of ground in overall simplicity of gameplay. My four-year-old can play Mice and Mystics with me, whereas if we played Zombicide, his juvenile decision-making would likely get all of the survivors killed.
From what I have seen with Conan, the basic mechanics of stamina seem to offer plenty of interesting depth, but there's a bunch of complexity otherwise mixed in. Looking in from the outside, so to speak, I have concerns about whether such complexity is necessary, and whether it adds meaningfully to the gameplay experience.
Why care so much about weight, for example?
If the answer is that weight does not mean much, then why bother to have it in the rules? If the answer is that weight is situational, and only important in certain scenarios, why not relegate it to scenario special rules? If the answer is that it is a critical limiting factor to keep characters powered appropriately, why not use a simpler system to limit item use/availability, such as item slots? If the answer is that overall item weight and its distribution throughout party members is an important resource to manage in most scenarios, what does the management of that collective resource add to the gameplay experience?
These questions are not strictly rhetorical, by the way, and I invite you to respond.
cincydooley wrote: Dust studios does some bitching plastics. The Others model I have is incredible and surpasses most HIPS I've worked with and even some resin.
If dust studios is printing the game, I'm fairly confident the minis will be more than good enough (see: paintable) for what 99% of the painters out there can do.
.....weeeelll.....If it is the model that I am thinking it is then there is a rather significant difference in the possibilities between it an the human sized models of the Conan game. The larger the model the " better " the detail. The smaller the model the more that detail fidelity will reduce. As per my knowledge, which admittedly, is all second hand. I still think there should at least be a set of plastic proto-types ready to show for the KS pitch. All the money spent in bells and whistles ( art ) coudl very easily have funded a tool and test run at least.
Yes, the size of the sculpts is is slightly larger because after the plastic molding the size is reduce a little,like the feet for example so we sculpt long feet because we know they will be reduce.Finally the size is like confrontation model, you can have an idea of the size with the photo with different models, imagine them a little bit smaller
tre manor wrote: Well I am glad to know that the miniatures are a priority for you guys. the production values applied here thus far are very impressive so I do not doubt your desire to maintain the quality of the product. I have heard good things about the Dust studios plastic production but I personally have yet to have first hand experience with it. Have you guys had any molds tooled and if so have you cast any prototypes in the PVC yet?
I have a fair few dust models in my collection (with more coming once my babylon stuff arrives!) so I can attest first hand to the quality of it. Buy models that come out already properly built an under-coated is awesome. I'm afraid I can't say for the moulds yet but the plan is to have something to show for the campaign if we can.
Yodhrin wrote: Your response is much appreciated Jamie, if a little disappointing(in that resin is ruled out). Are Monolith at least open to considering a minis-only pledge?
I can understand if you don't want to offer individual figures for sale, given the logistics of dividing up a mass-production run intended for a board game, but if you were to offer, for example, a "just the minis" pledge equivalent to the model contents of the regular boxed game, and another "just the minis" pledge equivalent to the model contents of the "deluxe" box, it shouldn't be too difficult to "over order" batches of models relative to the number of actual boxed sets. You want people to buy and play your game, I get that as well, but at the end of the day speaking for only myself; it's only the models that interest me, I don't have time to devote to playing another game system, and I'd seriously hesitate to buy the whole game knowing that I'd be paying for a load of extra bits and bobs which would only either take up my already limited storage space or just get chucked in the bin.
Hesitation aside, the miniatures are still enough to interest me...but, can I ask; will you have some samples of your own sculpts in the material to show before the end of the KS? What I've seen of The Others is encouraging(Dust less-so), but a lot of us from the wargaming side of things have been heavily burned in the past by companies purporting to have cracked the super-special-secret recipe for producing high-quality models in PVC, and I think a lot of us will struggle to justify the likely substantial "sweet spot" pledge necessary to get all the models you'll be offering unless we can see some examples up-front.
Cheers.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: While I'm in the same boat as Yodhrin and Sinful Hero in terms of being more interested in the minis than the game
other boardgame KS that have offered a minis only option (due to fan requests) have found that the uptake of this option did not justify the extra time/effort (for example Cthulhu Wars)
so while I might well benefit from it whether it would be worth the trouble I'm not sure
For the moment, there are no plans for a mini only pledge. The major problem being that due to amount of investment that has not only gone in to the minis themselves but also the game that is built around them, if we were do to a pledge like this its cost would be unfairly high compared to the price of the full boxed game. This may however change, anything is possible during the campaign and I would like to see this happen myself.
Whilst we are on the subject of games system however just note this is a board game, not really a tabletop system like 40k or other. A game of Conan should take you about 1h tops once you have the rules in mind (which as I mentioned before are very straight forward)
As for the PVC, we're not reinventing the wheel here, there is no super secret recipe here just tried and tested methods that have proven their worth. We will not only be using the highest quality methods but we also started planning for this from day one: a lot of the detail on the master sculpts is actually over exaggerated in order to accommodate some "shrinkage" from the PVC for example. We are committed to having great minis and are fully confident we can achieve this. As I said above, we hope to have some to show before the end of the campaign.
Sinful Hero wrote: As Yodhrin has said, I am one of those that hasn't been very satisfied with the quality of PVC. They can be good, but I'm not too keen to drop a couple hundred bucks on "it might be good", so I'll wait until some finished product has rolled around before I commit to a pledge/purchase.
Thats perfectly understandable, it's true that others have mucked it up in the past. Hopefully we'll have something to show you during the campaign otherwise there will still be a retail release at a later date
Trodax wrote: OK, cool, that does sound pretty good. I don't have any experience of my own with the various plastics that have been used in board and war games these last couple of years (Zombicide, Mars Attacks, Dust etc etc), but I've seen some pictures that make me hesitant to buy unseen. I've also seen some pictures of a few of the beasts from The Others that looked spectacular, but it was never 100% clear to me if what was photographed was a finished production model or a resin master. But you actually own one in PVC then?
Yes we do have real life examples of The Others PVC and let me tell you they look fantastic! There's a bit of wavy-base syndrome but nothing that can't be easily corrected.
As I mentioned in my posts, I haven't had any exposure to the rules aside from a few written descriptions of gameplay experience.
Having watched the video, my concerns are somewhat allayed. Those numbers indicate the maximum number of stamina gems that can be dedicated to a particular action in a turn, yes? That is, Conan has a 3 in "manipulation," and can therefore only spend up to three stamina gems on manipulation in a given game turn, if I have the gist. Players spend their time managing stamina, and the state of the game is reflected on the cards.
Personally, I think tracking the state of the game is fine, but I am concerned (not having played the game) that there are a relatively significant number of gameplay states to keep track of.
Compare, for example, to a very simple game like Zombicide. In Zombicide you've got to track exp, up to five card slots (3 passive 2 active), and a very small skill tree. That's it. Very simple and reasonably clean, although the card slots can get a little jumbly.
Compare also to a relatively simple game like Mice and Mystics. Two active cards, three passive cards, 4 attributes modified by cards, and a small number of skills. Apart from items, there's two numbers of things to keep track of: wounds and cheese.
Compare to Super Dungeon Explore where you have up to four cards with a handy location layout to simplify equipment, and you are only tracking wounds and potions.
There's lots of other dungeon crawlers that one could compare to, but those are three good examples, I think. In my view, those three games are ordered in terms of complexity of gameplay and state of game tracking from simplest to most complex, comparatively: Zombicide, Mice and Mystics, Super Dungeon Explore (SDE). Much like Conan, SDE has the added complexity of multiple die types.
Conan seems, in view from afar, to be comparatively more complex, with more and more interrelated game states to track. My concerns are two-fold: First, does this complexity add depth to the game in a proportion satisfying in comparison to the complexity of gameplay? Second, how does this complexity impact speed of play?
Zombicide is a boneheadedly simple game in terms of the mechanics, but it offers a very satisfying depth of gameplay and can be played very quickly. Very small changes to the mechanics, such as swapping in a character with a different skill or altering the layout of the game board, cause comparatively dramatic changes to the way the game plays. There are only three differences between a runner zombie and a walker zombie, for example: Runners activate twice, Runners are below Fatties in ranged combat target priority, and there are fewer Runner miniatures in the box. That's it. Those very few differences nevertheless make Runner zombies a totally different threat than Walker zombies. In short, you get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of Zombicide's complexity. That's good.
In my opinion, SDE can be a little shallow in terms of the depth you get for your complexity. Mice and Mystics is fairly shallow as well, but makes up a lot of ground in overall simplicity of gameplay. My four-year-old can play Mice and Mystics with me, whereas if we played Zombicide, his juvenile decision-making would likely get all of the survivors killed.
From what I have seen with Conan, the basic mechanics of stamina seem to offer plenty of interesting depth, but there's a bunch of complexity otherwise mixed in. Looking in from the outside, so to speak, I have concerns about whether such complexity is necessary, and whether it adds meaningfully to the gameplay experience.
Why care so much about weight, for example?
If the answer is that weight does not mean much, then why bother to have it in the rules? If the answer is that weight is situational, and only important in certain scenarios, why not relegate it to scenario special rules? If the answer is that it is a critical limiting factor to keep characters powered appropriately, why not use a simpler system to limit item use/availability, such as item slots? If the answer is that overall item weight and its distribution throughout party members is an important resource to manage in most scenarios, what does the management of that collective resource add to the gameplay experience?
These questions are not strictly rhetorical, by the way, and I invite you to respond.
I'd say Conan is, in it's essence, a very simple game. The only two game states that need to be tracked are stamina points (the main mechanic) and weight (this doesn't come into play that often, its mostly for scenario objectives and character definition, I'll go into more about that later). When you perform an action, you check to see how many gems you have left to possibly invest, pay them (yes, you are right, characters are limited to a certain number of gems per action per turn, heroes were horribly OP without this), the hero sheet indicates what colour of dice you roll per point, to which you add the ones indicated on your equipment cards.
How does this impact speed? Well, after one or two attacks most people will remember that Conan is a bit of a badass so he get's red dice so that's generally not a problem. Then all you have to do is find the right coloured dice. There's not many of them so unless you have a dice hoarder in the game it should be very easy to just identify them by colour, pick em' up and roll. All in all the mechanic is very fluid and very easy.
Much like Zombicide, swapping out a character has a big impact on how the game plays and there is a small but effective pool of different skills that define them. The enemies are normally fixed for the scenario and most of them, apart from your basic grunts, will have their own skill that will make life tough for the heroes. The difference is, whereas zombicide has a variable spawn of zombies (gettting loads of fatties and walkers is totally different to getting a medium size group of runners), Conan has an actual player controlling them so the outcome is a lot less predictable and generally more immersive. Not to say that it's better mind-you, I liek Zombicide a lot and that mechanic is perfect for that game, this is just something else.
As for younger children, I think all kids should get the opportunity to have Conan carve up a few monsters, however, the stamina management mechanic is a lot more subtle then say M&M's system so it wouldn't suit him as well.
Now for weight. You have to understand the weight mechanic wasn't something we wanted to implement but we had to and, in the end, it worked out really well.
The first reason is scenario objects: The test scenario we've been running for ages now is the Pict village where Conan and chums have to rescue a princess and kill the pict chieftain before escaping. Shevatas (the king of thieves) is one of the characters in this scenario. He has a skill called uncatchable, which means his movement is never obstructed by enemy models or skills. Very quickly a lot of people would use Shevatas to scout out the huts and find the princess (thats great, its what he's good at here) but then they would simply pick her up and sprint out the zone road runner style.
We wanted to stop him doing this (to an extent) so we came up with the weight system. The princess weighs 5, once Shevatas is carrying 5 weight he loses the uncatchable skill. So he's left with two choices, either he carries her and fights his way out (or lets his allies do it) or he drops EVERYTHING, picking her up with both hands and darting his way out as is his right. At this point however you are voluntarily turning your character into a princess delivery system, a bloody great one, but the downside is that you won't be able to do much else unless you go back and pick up your gear.
Secondly it allows us to indirectly infuse each character with an actual sense of individuality and being. There is no "class" system in Conan, everyone is just simply a hero but Shevatas, for example, has very low weight thresholds. It means that if you want to make the most of what makes the king of thieves the king of thieves then you want to favour little equipment and armour (which generally weighs the most). As an example, Shevatas can just about get away with his dagger, a crossbow and a buckler before he starts to lose skills. It wouldn't make sense to see a thief in plate mail darting through hordes of enemies, it wouldn't feel right, it wouldn't feel Conan and creating a real Robert E. Howard experience is what this game is all about! That being said nothing stops you from slapping some full plate, a tower shield and a massive sword on him. Game wise he'll be an ok fighter and fairly resilient but will that make up for what he'll lose (ie mostly everything else), not really.
Conan himself on the other hand has quite high thresholds so he can get away with carrying a lot more equipment before he starts to lose benefits, as befits the mighty barbarian of legend. I say this but the truth is there will be multiple versions of Conan, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Their is a "thief" Conan for example, who will have fairly low thresholds like Shevatas but his skills will mark him out as a bit less mobile but more fighty whilst retaining your standard thief skills.
So as I think you can tell, yes the weight system adds a small layer of complexity to the game but what you actually get back out of it, ie more character and immersion, is well worth the 2mins it takes to explain the rule. Also of note, unlike Zombicide, where you are nigh on constantly searching zones and picking up/swapping out objects. It doesn't come into play that much in Conan. Items are generally found in chests or on certain monsters/bosses so you won't have to "manage" this resource very often.
The only game I play where "weight" it a thing is Shadows of Brimstone, and its really just how much you can be a packmule and carry. It has no other effect on the game. To me thats bag space, and its fitting for a very indepth D&D type game.
For this game, it just seems really lame. I understand your trying to show how its needed but its going to be something that will make me not back it and im sure others aswell.
You said the princess is 5 weight, and if the guy has 5 or more he cant be uncatchable.
You also mentioned how it doesent come into play very often. So why not remove it and say for that mission that if the guy has the princess, he looses uncatchable. Simple. This takes out weight and the numbers but thematically makes sense.
If you need a weight system, make it far more simpler. Conan can hold 12 weight. No more. The fact that every so often you loose movement will really boggle it down more then you think.
Combat system, story telling, and miniatures will sell your game. Weight is something that is just a pain in the butt in about any system.
str00dles1 wrote: The only game I play where "weight" it a thing is Shadows of Brimstone, and its really just how much you can be a packmule and carry. It has no other effect on the game. To me thats bag space, and its fitting for a very indepth D&D type game.
For this game, it just seems really lame. I understand your trying to show how its needed but its going to be something that will make me not back it and im sure others aswell.
You said the princess is 5 weight, and if the guy has 5 or more he cant be uncatchable.
You also mentioned how it doesent come into play very often. So why not remove it and say for that mission that if the guy has the princess, he looses uncatchable. Simple. This takes out weight and the numbers but thematically makes sense.
If you need a weight system, make it far more simpler. Conan can hold 12 weight. No more. The fact that every so often you loose movement will really boggle it down more then you think.
Combat system, story telling, and miniatures will sell your game. Weight is something that is just a pain in the butt in about any system.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you there, I can't really imagine many people seeing an equipment system as a definite reason to write the game off. It is of course your right to be the exception though.
The thing is that it's not just uncatchable that this system helps correct. I used Shevatas as an example because that was genuinely the situation that brought it all about but their are more skills then just movement related ones. Valeria has ambidextrous, how can you fight with two weapons and carry a person? If you're cornered and the only means of escape is jumping over a wide chasm then you're going to have a lot of trouble doing so with a full set of armour and a princess in your arms. We can't just list off all these skills either, it would be a nightmare graphics wise and what would happen if we introduced new character skills later? Or what if you wanted to carry 2 princesses (twins Basil!)? what would happen then?
The weight system fixes a load of issues and ensures that you get a boat load of freedom in your actions but without loosing the immersive and cinematic feel of the game. All that whilst being one of two things you have to keep track of and compared to most games some of us are used to making sure (A+B+C)<Y isn't that hard. It's not even a hard limit either, you can go over Y, you may just have to change up your strategy and expectations if you do, giving you even more choice!>
Thanks WhelpSlayer and Somon S. I am always leery fo plastic production mostly for the odd shrinkages and the examples I have handled personally. I have wanted to explore plastic production for my own products but have always hesitated.....maybe now I will not hesitate. Thanks and best of luck!
Tre, what I will say is that much has been oft promised with PVC, and the production results have frequently failed to live up. Dust miniatures are decent, sure, but I am always leery of folks promising something that has consistently failed to deliver.
Not to rub in salt, but others have claimed to be able to offer a lot with a certain production process that didn't deliver as promised. In this market, we know resin has a very good track record, we know white metal has a good track record, and we know that HIPS has had a good track record. Not so with PVC.
Concerns are justified.
As for the Conan rules, thanks for the in depth reply Jamie. At the end of the day, no game designer is going to make everyone happy, and in my view frank, candid discussion about design philosophy is a good thing, so I appreciate your willingness to discuss the game mechanics.
I will say, however, that stamina is a resource that is used to track many game states. If the heroes did not have separate limits on how much stamina could be dedicated to certain actions, then it would be simpler, and I expect play would be faster. But as you mentioned, this lets heroes dominate by, say, Conan throwing 8 stamina into attacks and 3 into rerolls for those attacks.
You've got to run down problems where you find them, but there is a trade off. It seems that weight was also a layer of complexity added to solve fundamental problems arising from core mechanics and scenario design.
Fair enough, but weight is a piece of annoying bookkeeping. Some players hate that, as the post above indicates. And it is a fair criticism in my opinion. The more you make your players count, add, etc. the more mental effort it takes to play the game.
Without stamina limits on actions, for example, you don't need to count, literally. You just move gems around until they are gone. With stamina limits, you've added lots of counting. It seems small, right? And I hear this response a lot when I talk about game design. Who can't count to 2, or 3? That's not the point though. The point is the mental operation you have to perform over and over and over again. It adds up. Why else do you think you see a potential player writing off the game just on the basis of adding up equipment weight?
Zombicide, for example (it is a good point of comparison as lots of people know the rules and have gameplay experience), requires very little counting. Mostly you count when adding exp, right? And I daresay lots of players would say that moving those sliders is the least enjoyable part of the game. You can glance at your character card and see that it is less than full of cards. A wound card eats up an item slot...fantastic design element as it sits right on your card and doesn't require you to go through a mental calculation. Those things add up.
I like the core mechanics of stamina. It seems fun, fluid, and fairly simple. From what you described, it looks like y'all have had to add a few layers in order to keep the core mechanic balanced and functional in both the short and long term.
How deep is the design process into character and scenario design? Has the system been stress-tested over a wide range of different scenarios, heroes, and equipment? I'm hearing a lot of this Pict Village scenario, and problems that popped up in playing through that scenario. I'm sure lots of work has gone into the system, but I am curious about how robust you have found it.
Hmm. I'll probably end up pledging, but whether it sticks until the end or not will depend on seeing some examples of the finished(unpainted, because painting can hide all sorts of sins) PVC models. I get that there'll be a retail release, but honestly I'd probably not be interested, as I expect you'll end up having a fair few KS-exclusive models(which, knowing my luck, will be the ones I want most ).
Can I ask, will your models be pre-undercoated ala Dust, or just bare plastic? Honestly I'd prefer the latter, as if the models do end up being really good quality I'd want to paint them properly, using my own preferred techniques, so I'd just end up having to strip them anyway.
Happy new year everybody !
We have a date! Conan on Kickstarter will launch on January 12th, at 1:00 p.m. on the East Coast of the United States (UTC-5 ), 10:00 a.m. on the West Coast (UTC- 8), 6.00 p.m. in the UK (UTC + 00 ) and thus 7:00 p.m. in France (UTC + 1). There will be early birds, so check it out!
Early birds... Backing the Kickstarter to get all of the content isn't enough, now you've got to pledge to the Kickstarter early before you lose out.
I get the utility of early bird pledge levels, but it fans that impulse purchase flame. Hopefully it will only be priority fulfillment slots or a few dollars off.
It works though, which is partly the annoying part. I'm going to be checking the project when it launches...
If 'm online anyway there's some incentive to pledge early,
but basically if an EB slot (small extra discount, an extra mini, earlier fulfilment) is all that makes you jump in you don't really want the stuff enough to be backing a KS
(I'll make an exception for really significant limited options, something like KS resin pledge level is something worth going out of your way for, but they are very few and far between)
They also tend to be yet another "up yours, bub!" to the Oz/NZ/Asian community, since most companies don't bother to do a second batch at a time convenient for them(asking folk to get up/stay up to 2, 3, 4am is taking the term a bit too seriously, IMO).
Hi.
before all, excuse my broken english.
I can understand that some of you don't like the idea of EB but you have to understand that we have invested so much money in the project that wen can't afford a fail. EB proved by the past to be an efficient tool. EB put the focus on the project on KS. We need this visibility. So EB are a kind of win to win deal : you contribute to give us visibility and we offer you a discount. It s a way to thank those who give us visibility. Nothing more.
I think people will just have to get over the miniature material aspect of this game and realise it's not for them as I have gotten over the fact it's not the co-op game I'm after so it's not for me and won't be baking it, but I hope it does really well as I love everything about Conan.
I am sure you guys will be very successful with this Fred. I just personally have a strong distaste for early bird pledge levels. People are going to be in on this in droves. You guys have what appears to be a great product and an eager fan base.
Fred Henry wrote: Thx Tre Manor. I m really sorry for those who are angry about EB. I can now understand the reasons. But anyway you can never have everybody happy.
Aint that the truth. You guys have put good money in the right places, in my opinion, and I am excited about the end product. I have not decided whether to back the campaign or to wait for normal retail release, but I will continue to follow Conan news in any case.
You are planning to release the game via retail after the KS project is fullfilled, right? What is your plan for the company as a whole, now I am thinking about it? Are you planning on a Kickstarter business model, and can we expect to see Conan expansions on Kickstarter if this campaign is successful? Do you have plans to develop/publish different games?
Hi Weeble.
Yes, there will be anyway a retailer version of Conan. But, because of the business model it can't be the same version, wich would be to expensive. Actually it will be the basis box without any SG.
If the KS is succesful there will be thematic expansion for Conan (Kush, Hyrkania, ...). But I don't know if we will pass by KS.
Yes we will publish other games. Actually we are currently living from game publishing since many years. I live from my games royalties and my partners from their games compagnie (Bombyx). But we are slow. We can't publish more than a title per year even if we do just that.
Actually I currently not know if we will use KS for the next game because of the extra work KS is.
Fred Henry wrote: Hi Weeble.
Yes, there will be anyway a retailer version of Conan. But, because of the business model it can't be the same version, wich would be to expensive. Actually it will be the basis box without any SG.
If the KS is succesful there will be thematic expansion for Conan (Kush, Hyrkania, ...). But I don't know if we will pass by KS.
Yes we will publish other games. Actually we are currently living from game publishing since many years. I live from my games royalties and my partners from their games compagnie (Bombyx). But we are slow. We can't publish more than a title per year even if we do just that.
Actually I currently not know if we will use KS for the next game because of the extra work KS is.
Just wait till the Kickstarter campaign starts, .
You've got to babysit those things day and night. I'm sure your campaign will do decently. I'd hazard to guess that you will raise at least six figures, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 300K is my guess. That's a guess without seeing the campaign page, prices, content, or how y'all are running it. But based on the license, the artwork, and the front end marketing y'all have done, I think that's a reasonable guess presuming that the campaign is run competently.
Fred Henry wrote: I live from my games royalties and my partners from their games compagnie (Bombyx).
Definitely place your partner's game business experience onto the home page. While too many backers treat KS as a store, you'll create more confidence in your first project by including this information, as well as the games your partners produced. Nice to see Takenoko there!
First of all a happy new year to you all, hope you guys had fun! Sorry I haven't been back in a while but as you can imagine things have been pretty hectic here, getting ready for next monday!
Also I see someone let Fred out of his cage. So now you've all met the man behind the magic
Anyways, enough on that, off we go again!
weeble1000 wrote: Tre, what I will say is that much has been oft promised with PVC, and the production results have frequently failed to live up. Dust miniatures are decent, sure, but I am always leery of folks promising something that has consistently failed to deliver.
Not to rub in salt, but others have claimed to be able to offer a lot with a certain production process that didn't deliver as promised. In this market, we know resin has a very good track record, we know white metal has a good track record, and we know that HIPS has had a good track record. Not so with PVC.
Concerns are justified.
Concerns are indeed always justified, despite what I may say you are more then right to have doubts. I will say one thing however. You talk about "this market" and that's something you have to be very concious of when taking material into account. This is a board game, not a miniatures game, as such certain things are required of it. These restraints are what have made us turn away from Metal and resin.
I'm not even going to go into the subject about the complexity of managing multiple pledges or managing factory print runs but to put it simply: Metal would make the box far too heavy and resin is too fragile, the replacement we would have to ship out would be a nightmare. Also we are talking about a product that is meant for a general audience, not experienced modelists, they need to be able to take the models out the box and slap them on the table, no questions asked.
Sorry if it seems like I've gone off the beaten track there but it leads back to this: We are determined to do the best we can with the constraints placed upon us by the industry. We have always wanted high quality models in our game and so we have taken the necessary steps to make it a reality.
I say all that but you can still have doubts
weeble1000 wrote: As for the Conan rules, thanks for the in depth reply Jamie. At the end of the day, no game designer is going to make everyone happy, and in my view frank, candid discussion about design philosophy is a good thing, so I appreciate your willingness to discuss the game mechanics.
I will say, however, that stamina is a resource that is used to track many game states. If the heroes did not have separate limits on how much stamina could be dedicated to certain actions, then it would be simpler, and I expect play would be faster. But as you mentioned, this lets heroes dominate by, say, Conan throwing 8 stamina into attacks and 3 into rerolls for those attacks.
You've got to run down problems where you find them, but there is a trade off. It seems that weight was also a layer of complexity added to solve fundamental problems arising from core mechanics and scenario design.
Fair enough, but weight is a piece of annoying bookkeeping. Some players hate that, as the post above indicates. And it is a fair criticism in my opinion. The more you make your players count, add, etc. the more mental effort it takes to play the game.
Without stamina limits on actions, for example, you don't need to count, literally. You just move gems around until they are gone. With stamina limits, you've added lots of counting. It seems small, right? And I hear this response a lot when I talk about game design. Who can't count to 2, or 3? That's not the point though. The point is the mental operation you have to perform over and over and over again. It adds up. Why else do you think you see a potential player writing off the game just on the basis of adding up equipment weight?
Zombicide, for example (it is a good point of comparison as lots of people know the rules and have gameplay experience), requires very little counting. Mostly you count when adding exp, right? And I daresay lots of players would say that moving those sliders is the least enjoyable part of the game. You can glance at your character card and see that it is less than full of cards. A wound card eats up an item slot...fantastic design element as it sits right on your card and doesn't require you to go through a mental calculation. Those things add up.
I like the core mechanics of stamina. It seems fun, fluid, and fairly simple. From what you described, it looks like y'all have had to add a few layers in order to keep the core mechanic balanced and functional in both the short and long term.
How deep is the design process into character and scenario design? Has the system been stress-tested over a wide range of different scenarios, heroes, and equipment? I'm hearing a lot of this Pict Village scenario, and problems that popped up in playing through that scenario. I'm sure lots of work has gone into the system, but I am curious about how robust you have found it.
I think you nailed it with your first sentence there. You can never make everyone happy. So what we've done is stayed true to our principles and tried to design a game that makes us happy and others too. Sure there may be a few things that could of been done in some other way but in the end the mechanics do what we want them to, infusing a healthy dose of immersion, fun and action with a boat load of Conan. So far, it seems people (yourself included, I think) are happy with it so we can chalk it up as a success
It's normal that you hear a LOT about the pict village, its been our demo scenario since we started showing the game around. What a lot of people don't realise is that it contains a lot of very important mechanics and design philosophies inherent to the game and is therefore a very good scenario to get feedback on as this can then be applied to the majority of other scenarios.
We of course have loads of other scenarios which are mostly untested by the public (the exception to this is the swamp village scenario that has been made into a 3D board and shown at a few other events in France). These however have undergone intensive in house testing by many different players so we are confident in their solidity.
Yodhrin wrote: Can I ask, will your models be pre-undercoated ala Dust, or just bare plastic? Honestly I'd prefer the latter, as if the models do end up being really good quality I'd want to paint them properly, using my own preferred techniques, so I'd just end up having to strip them anyway.
As far as I'm aware, the models will not be undercoated.
weeble1000 wrote: You are planning to release the game via retail after the KS project is fullfilled, right? What is your plan for the company as a whole, now I am thinking about it? Are you planning on a Kickstarter business model, and can we expect to see Conan expansions on Kickstarter if this campaign is successful? Do you have plans to develop/publish different games?
I'll just add to what Fred said. Monolith's goal is to create immersive games that contain a huge range of models and other materials brought to life by the best, most inspiring industry experts. Conan is the first of these games. If it works out then you can expect to see a lot more big projects like this from us.
Finally, I don't want to flog a dead horse and my personal feelings aside, EB's are just part of the KS system now, the majority of people expect them and, as they always say, your absence is noted more then your presence. As has already be said, our's will only be a question of $10. No exclusive models or anything of the sort.
Finally, to finish on a high note, nobody has posted this yet so I'll leave it here for you all to enjoy
I could care less about EBs. Save $10-20 or paying attention to jump up the que, heck it's almost a game within a game. Limited edition miniatures are what really piss me off... in KS campaigns or with pre-orders. See I can always get more money, but since I lack a time machine I can't get stuff that I wasn't aware of in the past.
I'm on the fence to be quite honest. I'm sure the KS will be worth it, but I have a lot of money sunk in other hobby stuff and might just wait for retail. If I have to wait for a year to play the game, then I can make a lot more than the KS money in that year.
WhelpSlayer wrote: If it works out then you can expect to see a lot more big projects like this from us.
So does this mean you are planning on a Kickstarter business model for Monolith?
That is, are we going to see this Kickstarter project followed by a further Kickstarter project followed by a further Kickstarter project, and so on?
Will each campaign include stretch goals for content not included in the retail releases? Will such content be made available as separately purchasable expansion products?
What discount over MSRP do you plan on providing via Kickstarter campaigns? Are backers going to receive the 'base' retail product at retail cost with the addition of 'free' stretch goals that retail customers will have to purchase separately?
What is your expected Kickstarter delivery date versus expected retail availability? Will Monolith be retailing directly, working through distributors, or both?
At the end of the day, if I want this product, I have to decide, as a consumer, whether I want to buy it via Kickstarter or buy it via subsequent retail release. The Kickstarter campaign will clearly get funded (unless your initial funding goal is 'realistic', but as y'all seem to be following the trends, I expect it will be...$30,000.00), so the factors are:
1: Availability of content 2: Date of Availability 3: Cost
If I will have to wait a year for Kickstarter delivery, and only a few months post KS delivery for retail release, date of availability favors retail release. Unless the product has basically been manufactured, I expect Kickstarter pledge reward delivery will take at least 8-12 months depending on the funding level, complexity of pledge levels, and complexity of stretch goals. In short, why should I tie up $100-$200 of FY 2015 hobby money for 12 months when I can either buy the game off the shelf in 2016 or even ask my wife to get it for me for Christmas. If you can turn around pledge reward delivery within six months, and retail release won't be until Q1 2016, then date of availability could favor backing the campaign.
If the base game clocks in at $90-$100 (which I expect is your plan) and the 'sweet spot' pledge level is ~$100 (which I expect is your plan), then if stretch goals include a bunch of stuff I don't really need (e.g. superfluous extra game tokens), cost favors waiting for retail release, as I would otherwise be getting stuff I probably wouldn't buy anyway. If the stretch goals include attractive expansion content (e.g. map tiles, playable heroes with game tokens, scenarios with lots of printed materials and/or game tokens) then the savings over retail might side in favor of backing the campaign, but any savings have to compete with the wait time to receive the product. Heck, if I kept the $200 in an interest accruing account for 12 months, the interest might offset a meaningful portion of the value of any 'free' stretch goals.
If attractive content is exclusive to the campaign, the amount and quality of exclusives dictates whether it sides in favor of backing the campaign. Too many attractive, gameplay necessary exclusives will kill my interest in the campaign (e.g. Heroes with associated game tokens, scenarios with associated printed gameplay materials such as tiles, cards, etc.). A few gameplay optional exclusives could pique interest in the campaign (e.g. Alternate game tokens for Heroes, luxury component upgrades). Gameplay unrelated exclusives would tend to favor backing the campaign (e.g. exclusive designer notes/diaries, cool swag, art prints, etc.)
Getting quite stoked for this now, ready to crush some foes with some mighty thews, and panther like reflexes while treading softly through the jungle as if a tiger!
I just read this in a post by Frederic Henry in a BGG thread:
If we are losing potential backers just for 10 bucks that's not a big deal neither. We are not beguing for money, we are selling a game that we have been working on for more than two years. Nothing vital for people. We are just speaking about a game.
With respect, Fred, [Edit: I got upset when reading your post].
Attitudes like that really piss me off. Companies that don't want my money don't get my money.
It would be one thing to say something like, "Our goal is to make this campaign as successful as possible so that we can get as many copies of Conan and as much content into the hands of gamers as possible. EB's seem to have been helpful to campaigns in the past and we are going to offer EB pledge levels. I understand that there different opinions about EBs and that some people dislike them. We are going to stick with our plan as is and launch with EB pledges, for better or worse. At the end of the day, we have a fantastic product that I am very excited about putting into the hands of gamers around the world. I would love for everyone to help us bring the project to life and, EB's notwithstanding, I think you will be very excited about what the campaign has to offer!"
That would be a fine thing to say. That would be a positive message. I really hate a 'don't like it, don't buy it' attitude. Same thing with the game mechanics discussion that I have been getting a bit of from Jamie. Just because you can't make everyone happy doesn't mean people should feth off if they don't like your game rules. Why not say 'Try it. I think you'll like it. I think it will surprise you. It is what it is, we made choices we felt were good on the whole, it isn't going to change at this point, but I love it and I think you will too if you give it a try'.
Again, that's a positive message. A designer needs to be internally aware that you can't please everybody, because your game will be a fething unplayable mess that nobody likes if you try to make everybody happy. But you don't tell people that you are writing them off.
Might be worth noting that there could be some cultural/linguistic barriers here Weeble. Think forum communication is always difficult enough as it is (so much depends on the way in which something is read), and you have to multiply that several times when you are communicating across languages.
Certainly, I'm not getting anything dismissive, or anything other than a great enthusiasm for the product information they have posted so far, and they've actually gone to some lengths to try and answer your questions and comments.
As a fan of R E Howard's writing and the resultant Conan mythos I'm excited to see what the game contents will be and what pricepoint will be the sweetspot for this KS.
I don't mind the boardgame plastic minis, the sculpts that have been shown so far make me optimistic about the final product. If there's an appealing pledge level my hobby budget can afford I'd be happy to get a fun game with minis that would paint up nice but that I don't have to feel compelled to paint. I already have plenty of fantasy miniatures in my painting que and others that are already painted that I can use to augment the game if I want.
I don't understand the EB hate. I thought the goal of kickstarter is get projects funded and if EBs help creators reach their funding goals then they're worth doing. There are various types of EBs that will engender different opinions and levels of appeal but that's a creative choice. If I see a project that I want to back I don't care if they offer EBs or what kind of EBs they offer I just want the project to fund so I get the stuff I want. I don't see EBs as anything more than another pledge level but I'm a fairly laid back guy.
Pacific wrote: Might be worth noting that there could be some cultural/linguistic barriers here Weeble. Think forum communication is always difficult enough as it is (so much depends on the way in which something is read), and you have to multiply that several times when you are communicating across languages.
Certainly, I'm not getting anything dismissive, or anything other than a great enthusiasm for the product information they have posted so far, and they've actually gone to some lengths to try and answer your questions and comments.
I got the same impression several times previously, and wrote it off. I'm not jumping to a conclusion based on one post. Later in the BGG thread Fred does explain that there might have been a cultural misunderstanding/language barrier issue with the way that statement of his was interpreted by readers other than myself.
I don't think there is. I read his explanation, and it did not alter my impression. Fred's explanation was that what he really meant was that he did not want to stick a customer with a product the customer would not be happy with. To me, that explanation isn't any better.
From that explanation, Fred is saying that he doesn't want my business if I am going to be unhappy with the product. What in the heck does that mean? How can Fred pre-judge whether I will be the 'right' customer for the product? How about making the best product that you can, communicating honestly about it, and letting the customer decide.
It's sour grapes. If a customer wasn't going to buy the product because the discount wasn't good enough, we didn't want that customer anyway. Forget that.
First, forget it because it is a bad attitude to have towards customers, and an even worse attitude to have towards potential customers considering the purchase of a product that does not yet exist. It is an even worse attitude to have when you are about to hold out your hand and beg for money. Because that's what Kickstarter is, begging for money, as much as Fred want's to say that's not what Monolith is doing. If the company wasn't begging for my money, it wouldn't need to be using Kickstarter.
Second, forget about it because Monolith is engaging in a Kickstarter formula designed to produce a blockbuster campaign on the back of thickly layered marketing schill. And From what Jamie has said, that's the Monolith business plan. It isn't even just about this one product. That's the way the company intends to operate, because that's where the big money seems to be. You don't put all this effort into a campaign like this without your sights set on replicating a Zombicide Season 3, Relic Knights, or Shadows of Brimstone.
If all Monolith really wanted was tight group of dedicated customers that were 'right' for the product, we wouldn't be looking at a Kickstarter formula aimed at acquiring a couple million dollars from ten thousand backers. Monolith's representatives are behaving in an inconsistent and disingenuous way, which I don't appreciate. How hard is it to be honest about what you are doing?
Maybe this is a problem with Kickstarter. You can get sucked into this notion that you A) have to use Kickstarter in the first place, and then B) have to do all of these things you aren't comfortable with in order to make the campaign successful. I've heard that story from several project creators. You're invested, you're locked in, it's go big or go home.
How are we going to be big? Well, what did CMoN do? What did Flying Frog do? What did Soda Pop do? We have to do that, right? We have to pour money into marketing. We have to do early bird pledge levels. We have to offer exclusive content. We have to do this thing and that thing and on and on so we can have a huge campaign and make a million dollars. Wait...holy crap. How did we get so far from where we started, back when all we wanted to do was get this awesome game into the hands of people that might love it?
In the subtext of Monolith's communications I am reading frustration, annoyance, stress, and fear, and the fething campaign hasn't even launched yet. Can you imagine what might be happening in the Kickstarter comments this month? Kickstarter comments...the fifth circle of Internet Hell. At the very least, that does not inspire confidence in the company or the product.
Don't forget that these guys have said that because they have already invested so heavily into the product, the Kickstarter has to be successful. I'm not pulling this stuff out of nowhere. Stop complaining...we didn't want your business anyway...we have to do this to make the Kickstarter successful...we can't put out the product we want without Kickstarter...
And personally, I don't care if Monolith thinks Kickstarter is a Devil's deal or not, I'm not going to be part of it. There's a list of companies as long as my arm all run by dedicated, hard-working enthusiasts putting out fantastic products that deserve my support. Putting money into Conan would mean taking money out of their pockets, and I'm not willing to do that if I don't think the folks putting out a product deserve my support, regardless of how good the product may be.
Alpharius wrote: Yeah, same here - I don't think they're seriously thumbing their noses at anyone.
I concur.
It strikes me that a well prepared KS project needs to developed to the point that it will be ready to go into production once the campaign ends and that requires the creators to be at a point with the game/miniature line/whatever that is past the point where they are looking for much feedback. If a development team has an idea, builds on it, works through however many iterations of rules they need to create a final ruleset they like, designs and prototypes game pieces/minis, playtests it enough to smooth out any gameplay issues then they can present it to people and have them take it or leave it. They're presenting a product that they believe is awesome and hope that enough people share that opinion so it gets funded.
I've seen the idea put forth in multiple dakka threads that Kickstarter has changed; that creators have to do more than just present an idea and ask for money to develop it into a viable product. A successful tabletop KS now needs to be more developed with a lot of the prep work and testing done to show backers what they'll be getting and inspire confidence that it will fund and be produced within a reasonable timeframe. If we want creators to present a more finished product then we shouldn't be upset if they're past the point of being able to adjust it to please everyone/anyone that suggests a change.
For example, based on the sculpts we've seen I'd also like to have the option to buy resin casts of them but I'm glad Monolith isn't doing them. Their explanation regarding why they're not going to offer resin casts makes sense, they've set up their business plan to make a board game and they're going to stick to their plans. That's good, I want a development team to be confident in their plan and not make sudden changes especially the type of changes that would add the kind of complexity to a campaign that typically leads to cost overruns and missed deadlines. I don't want to see them shoot themselves in the foot by making a change that they would struggle to fulfill. That's the kind of seat of the pants management that typically leads to angry posts, unhappy backers and frustrated creators.
Communication seems very hit and miss with KS projects. I've been happy with the handful of KS projects I've backed but the communication in each of them has been very different. I'd hate to see something that seems to boil down to word choice and verbiage bring any hostility to this thread. I'm hopeful that this project is successful regardless of whether or not I personally back it because I enjoy the source material too much to want to see it consigned to nothing more than inane movies and mediocre videogames these days.
Alpharius wrote: Yeah, same here - I don't think they're seriously thumbing their noses at anyone.
Spoiler:
I concur.
It strikes me that a well prepared KS project needs to developed to the point that it will be ready to go into production once the campaign ends and that requires the creators to be at a point with the game/miniature line/whatever that is past the point where they are looking for much feedback. If a development team has an idea, builds on it, works through however many iterations of rules they need to create a final ruleset they like, designs and prototypes game pieces/minis, playtests it enough to smooth out any gameplay issues then they can present it to people and have them take it or leave it. They're presenting a product that they believe is awesome and hope that enough people share that opinion so it gets funded.
I've seen the idea put forth in multiple dakka threads that Kickstarter has changed; that creators have to do more than just present an idea and ask for money to develop it into a viable product. A successful tabletop KS now needs to be more developed with a lot of the prep work and testing done to show backers what they'll be getting and inspire confidence that it will fund and be produced within a reasonable timeframe. If we want creators to present a more finished product then we shouldn't be upset if they're past the point of being able to adjust it to please everyone/anyone that suggests a change.
For example, based on the sculpts we've seen I'd also like to have the option to buy resin casts of them but I'm glad Monolith isn't doing them. Their explanation regarding why they're not going to offer resin casts makes sense, they've set up their business plan to make a board game and they're going to stick to their plans. That's good, I want a development team to be confident in their plan and not make sudden changes especially the type of changes that would add the kind of complexity to a campaign that typically leads to cost overruns and missed deadlines. I don't want to see them shoot themselves in the foot by making a change that they would struggle to fulfill. That's the kind of seat of the pants management that typically leads to angry posts, unhappy backers and frustrated creators.
Communication seems very hit and miss with KS projects. I've been happy with the handful of KS projects I've backed but the communication in each of them has been very different. I'd hate to see something that seems to boil down to word choice and verbiage bring any hostility to this thread. I'm hopeful that this project is successful regardless of whether or not I personally back it because I enjoy the source material too much to want to see it consigned to nothing more than inane movies and mediocre videogames these days.
Yea, but Prestor (sorry about the yea but), I wasn't commenting about the nature of the product not being subject to change. I was commenting about the way Monolith's representatives have communicated about the nature of the product.
I provided examples of what I think would have been happy, productive ways to communicate that information. It wasn't communicated like that, and in my mind was communicated in a way that was dismissive, which to me is a big ol' red flag.
Jamie has put a lot of effort into communicating, and I appreciate that. But there's a clear subtext to his and Fred's communications that I absolutely do not like. As I mentioned previously, I noticed it a few times and wrote it off. But it is a pattern exhibited repeatedly by multiple of the company reps. That's bad. You can't pass that off as one person or an isolated instance of miscommunication. It seems to me to be a prevalent attitude in the company. Adrian Smith's awesome artwork puts a nice cover over it, but it's there.
I don't begrudge you having a different opinion though.
Edit: I'll just add this note here. I think Jamie should handle all of the communications for the Conan project. He does a good job of handling touchy, persistent questions in a positive way.
Respectfully I don't see what they've said as being markedly different from what you would prefer them to say. You're entitled to your opinion and it's as valid as any other opinion but I don't get the same vibe from it that you do. Different strokes for different folks and all that.
I'll wait and see how things look when the KS goes live. Recently, exchange rates and shipping fees make it hard for me to justify backing overseas KS projects but maybe Conan will be too enticing for me to pass up. If it isn't then I'll just go back to waiting for some other Conan-esque board game/skirmish game to pop up so I have something to do with my RBG minis.
Fred Henry wrote: Hi.
before all, excuse my broken english.
I can understand that some of you don't like the idea of EB but you have to understand that we have invested so much money in the project that wen can't afford a fail. EB proved by the past to be an efficient tool. EB put the focus on the project on KS. We need this visibility. So EB are a kind of win to win deal : you contribute to give us visibility and we offer you a discount. It s a way to thank those who give us visibility. Nothing more.
weeble1000 wrote: I just read this in a post by Frederic Henry in a BGG thread:
If we are losing potential backers just for 10 bucks that's not a big deal neither. We are not beguing for money, we are selling a game that we have been working on for more than two years. Nothing vital for people. We are just speaking about a game.
With respect, Fred, [Edit: I got upset when reading your post].
Attitudes like that really piss me off. Companies that don't want my money don't get my money.
It would be one thing to say something like, "Our goal is to make this campaign as successful as possible so that we can get as many copies of Conan and as much content into the hands of gamers as possible. EB's seem to have been helpful to campaigns in the past and we are going to offer EB pledge levels. I understand that there different opinions about EBs and that some people dislike them. We are going to stick with our plan as is and launch with EB pledges, for better or worse. At the end of the day, we have a fantastic product that I am very excited about putting into the hands of gamers around the world. I would love for everyone to help us bring the project to life and, EB's notwithstanding, I think you will be very excited about what the campaign has to offer!"
Prestor Jon wrote: Respectfully I don't see what they've said as being markedly different from what you would prefer them to say.
And what Fred wrote there doesn't sound so great next to what he wrote about not begging for money.
In all fairness, I could be a little extra touchy because I don't like big, splashy KS projects like this and I might be subconsciously looking for a way to talk myself out of backing the project. That's certainly possible.
In re-reading Jamie's posts just now they seem perfectly fine. Fred's posts don't get a pass on a second read-through though, so I will remain stiff-necked there. And I think this stuff about needing to use Kickstarter to get the 'proper' version of the product into people's hands for an affordable price is total bullgack.
Anyone at Monolith want to back that up with some numbers?
Who are you using for the printed materials? What's the MOQ? What is your projected order quantity? Do you already have a spot in the production schedule? Have you already paid deposits? What's your profit margin on the retail release version? How much does your margin drop if you include the content you think should be included? What content is it that you think should be included in the 'proper' product, for that matter? How many stretch goals will it take to get to that amount of content? What's your profit margin on the 'sweet spot' pledge level with those 'free' stretch goals? Have you accounted for that? How does you number/amount of pledges impact your COGS?
Obviously, no one at Monolith is going to discuss the bulk of that, or at least not in any detail. And most likely not after I crapped all over the campaign in a couple of posts. From my own experience, I just don't see how doing a Kickstarter project magically makes it possible to offer the 'proper' product at an 'acceptable' price. How much of your market are you saturating with these 'premium' Kickstarter units, presumably with a COGS way too high for retail release? Yet you maintain a margin over COGS in the Kickstarter itself high enough to pay Kickstarter's percentage, pay Amazon's percentage, pay shipping, cover any unexpected expenses, and pay for a run of those cheaper, less complete, retail release versions.
If the game is, what, $100 retail let's say, and you want a COGS that's no more than 40% of that, then you want to COGS around $40, right? You've got to pay for your tools for the miniatures. That's, errrrmmm...I think that's $6,000 per tool from Dust, but I could be wrong. Your miniatures are probably 4-8 per frame I'm guessing, depending on if any have multiple parts (probably not, right?) and overall size. Then you have to pay whatever amount per shot depending on the order quantity. Those tool costs are fixed, and don't go into your COGS, per se, but if you haven't paid for them already, you'll be using your KS money for that I presume. You've got to pay for the box, the Hero dashboards, cards, custom (albeit simple) dice, rulebook, scenario maps, vacuformed trays (I'm guessing), the stamina gems, that Overlord tray thing, and I'm guessing a couple of punch boards. All of that requires a bunch of setup costs that essentially get amortized over the order quantity, and therefore your COGS goes down when order quantity goes up, correct?
Are the printed materials all being done by the same company, e.g. Panda Game Manufacturing, or will you be using different suppliers for the various components and packing in house? As Dust is doing the miniatures, I assume Monolith is doing the final packing unless you are shipping the miniatures to the printer.
So in all of that, where does Kickstarter give you the ability to sell a certain proportion of your various production runs at a lower margin even though the COGS are actually going to increase as your stretch goals get unlocked, while your pledge dollars per unit remain fixed? This is presuming that your stretch goals unlock content that you weren't going to produce otherwise...or are some of those stretch goals going to be 'putting components back into the box'?
Are you planning to take a portion of the materials produced as stretch goals, include them with the stretch goal eligible pledge rewards, and package the remainder as separate retail products? Are you going to offer them as add-ons?
weeble1000 wrote: How are we going to be big? Well, what did CMoN do? What did Flying Frog do? What did Soda Pop do? We have to do that, right? We have to pour money into marketing. We have to do early bird pledge levels. We have to offer exclusive content. We have to do this thing and that thing and on and on so we can have a huge campaign and make a million dollars. Wait...holy crap. How did we get so far from where we started, back when all we wanted to do was get this awesome game into the hands of people that might love it?
Actually, speaking of these companies...
CMON's nature of exclusives and EB's bit them with their Eurogame, Dogs of War. Eurogamers (ie. BGG) doesn't buy into EB's, exclusives, and involved campaigns -- and probably doesn't like paying additional shipping, either. DoW made 66K, possibly not enough to cover the costs of molds in the campaign. Soda Pop Miniatures partnered with CMON then split off with its own Forgotten Kings KS campaign, which didn't have exclusives or EB's.
Speaking of which, SPM did make over a million dollars and reached its project goals early in its campaign without the need for exclusives or EB's.
FFP had some very negative feedback from BGG with its over-underpriced EB's, specifically the mine carts. They ended up backtracking with the mine carts and offering credit. Very messy. In the end, FFP lost money, cut costs, and produced miniatures with poor details.
Reaper doesn't use EB's. Dwarven Forge doesn't use EB's. MegaMiniatures doesn't use EB's. Stonemaier Games doesn't use EB's. Impact Miniatures doesn't use EB's. Stonehaven Miniatures doesn't use EB's. MegaCon Games does not use EB's. The "KS Best Practices & Lessons Learned" FB group does not endorse EB's.
Every time I ask for studies, research, or proof that EB's work, I never receive anything to back up the statements EB proponents make. It's the Five Monkeys all over again.
weeble1000 wrote: How are we going to be big? Well, what did CMoN do? What did Flying Frog do? What did Soda Pop do? We have to do that, right? We have to pour money into marketing. We have to do early bird pledge levels. We have to offer exclusive content. We have to do this thing and that thing and on and on so we can have a huge campaign and make a million dollars. Wait...holy crap. How did we get so far from where we started, back when all we wanted to do was get this awesome game into the hands of people that might love it?
Actually, speaking of these companies...
CMON's nature of exclusives and EB's bit them with their Eurogame, Dogs of War. Eurogamers (ie. BGG) doesn't buy into EB's, exclusives, and involved campaigns -- and probably doesn't like paying additional shipping, either. DoW made 66K, possibly not enough to cover the costs of molds in the campaign. Soda Pop Miniatures partnered with CMON then split off with its own Forgotten Kings KS campaign, which didn't have exclusives or EB's.
Speaking of which, SPM did make over a million dollars and reached its project goals early in its campaign without the need for exclusives or EB's.
FFP had some very negative feedback from BGG with its over-underpriced EB's, specifically the mine carts. They ended up backtracking with the mine carts and offering credit. Very messy. In the end, FFP lost money, cut costs, and produced miniatures with poor details.
Reaper doesn't use EB's. Dwarven Forge doesn't use EB's. MegaMiniatures doesn't use EB's. Stonemaier Games doesn't use EB's. Impact Miniatures doesn't use EB's. Stonehaven Miniatures doesn't use EB's. MegaCon Games does not use EB's. The "KS Best Practices & Lessons Learned" FB group does not endorse EB's.
Every time I ask for studies, research, or proof that EB's work, I never receive anything to back up the statements EB proponents make. It's the Five Monkeys all over again.
I agree with you.
I was imagining what the guys at Monolith might be thinking. It doesn't matter whether it is rational. What I wrote there is consistent with what Fred was saying about EBs on BGG. At least in the sense that they were justifying them on the basis of having to do 'what works'. I get the impression that they are trying to run a CMoN style campaign, even though it makes them somewhat uncomfortable. As I said, maybe they feel that they have to do it to be successful...but this is at odds with Fred saying it isn't about the money. It just doesn't square. If your goal isn't to have huge, money-making campaign, why do something that you don't really want to do just because it was what several blockbuster campaigns did? You do it if that's the kind of campaign you want to run.
Ultimately, I could give a crap about EB pledge levels. I don't appreciate the project creators being disingenuous and dismissive. How hard is it to be honest? This is just another splashy, blockbuster Kickstarter to 'fund' a product that will absolutely otherwise hit retail release organized by a company whose entire business model appears to be to launch superfluous Kickstarter campaigns which they justify with a bunch of marketing schill.
On top of that, they are being dismissive about potential customers who don't agree with their BS. So from my perspective, who cares what the product is like. I'll take a pass on it. Welcome to the problems with Kickstarter, Monolith. I guarantee you'll see more reactions like mine as the campaign progresses.
Alex C wrote: Quite the 18-pack that Conan has there...
Inevitably with an impossible to clean mold line running down the side of it. Thanks PVC.
Curious.
I've had plenty of luck cleaning mould lines off of PVC models from multiple companies, with relative ease.
It's probably sheer luck though. I bet I just got lucky and got good casts.
Possibly. I haven't had trouble with old lines either, but several of my Relic Knights figures(Cerci) are quite hard to salvage. I'll have to paint faces on several of them, and many are terribly thin. There are quite a few mold lines as well, but they aren't that difficult to remove. It's just a bother I haven't got the will to deal with yet.
Stuff like the Noh from Relic Knights have been a snap to clean up.
I'm not sure you even need to "go big" anymore. I think it's a matter of understanding how to sculpt for the medium. Details necessarily need be deeper and more pronounced. While in the Chibi style, I think the Arcadia Quest models or the newer Zombicide models (especially the artist box ones). The detail on them is quite crisp and I've not seen any hard to clean mould lines on any of them.
It's a newer medium, and understanding how to sculpt to that new medium takes some time.
Weeble I don't understand the problem with my statement. I think you misunderstand what I exactly mean (probably because of my broken english).
I want to do a big KS, because I want to do something big. What I want is that people remember Conan in the same way I remember Heroquest. I want the game to be something important. It s why I want the game "in the proper hands". We all have other ways to earn our life. Monolith will not provide any income for us. I'm at the origin of Monolith and I don't need Monolith for living. I need Monolith for doing something really big. And yes, I'm not begging for money : I m selling a game. A finished game. That s really different. People who will pledge will do it because they think the deal is fair enough. If they are not convinced by the deal I don t want them spending their money in something they dont want. I want the maximum of "interested by the game himself" people. Because I want people happy with the game. All is not about money. Money is just a way to do something big. That s not arrogance, I just mean it. Conan is just about please ourself and people who will buy it. You just don t think in the way I do. I m probably a terrible seller, ok, but I prefer tell the truth that searching to seduce consummers. If I did so much play testing in all the France it s because I wanted people knowing for what they could pledge and don t just send promises. I really don t understand your problem with me.
I think that, with this material, experience definitely matters.
CMON probably has that now?
Monolith is using a factory that should also have it?
Of course, I still think that not using PVC is still best at this point, but that isn't often possible, due to all the Usual Suspects listed earlier in this thread - I think!
Fred Henry wrote: Weeble I don't understand the problem with my statement. I think you misunderstand what I exactly mean (probably because of my broken english).
I want to do a big KS, because I want to do something big. What I want is that people remember Conan in the same way I remember Heroquest. I want the game to be something important. It s why I want the game "in the proper hands". We all have other ways to earn our life. Monolith will not provide any income for us. I'm at the origin of Monolith and I don't need Monolith for living. I need Monolith for doing something really big. And yes, I'm not begging for money : I m selling a game. A finished game. That s really different. People who will pledge will do it because they think the deal is fair enough. If they are not convinced by the deal I don t want them spending their money in something they dont want. I want the maximum of "interested by the game himself" people. Because I want people happy with the game. All is not about money. Money is just a way to do something big. That s not arrogance, I just mean it. Conan is just about please ourself and people who will buy it. You just don t think in the way I do. I m probably a terrible seller, ok, but I prefer tell the truth that searching to seduce consummers. If I did so much play testing in all the France it s because I wanted people knowing for what they could pledge and don t just send promises. I really don t understand your problem with me.
There does not seem to me to be any problem with a language barrier. You seem to communicate your point perfectly well enough, and your statements seem consistent.
First, I don't think I am the only person in the world who would experience some consternation regarding repeated statements about wanting the product to be 'in the proper hands'. If by that you mean "I want people to love the product," then you are communicating that in a really terrible way, and that doesn't have anything to do with a language barrier.
Wanting people to love your product is different from not wanting someone to buy the product who will not like it. The difference is pre-judgement of the potential customer, and that's a huge difference. The latter is a don't-like-it-don't-buy-it attitude, which is a really bad attitude to have. It is dismissive, rather than inviting. It communicates that you would rather not have someone's business than address their questions/concerns/viewpoints/etc. Like I said earlier, if you don't want my money, you aren't going to get my money.
Your comeback is, 'I don't want your money if you aren't going to be happy with the product.' The product does not exist yet! If it does exist, then Kickstarter should pull your campaign, as it violates the terms and conditions. If the product does not exist, how can you possibly say who will or will not be happy with it? So all you are really saying is, 'I don't want to hear your ing because I don't need your business'.
That is a really crappy attitude, especially when you have your hand out looking for a gift. As a backer, I cannot see the product. I cannot properly evaluate it. I cannot return it or request a refund. I cannot argue that it is not as advertised, not up to spec, or not merchantable. I can't even complain if it fails to deliver.
So questions are natural, expected, and rational. Concerns are justified. Evaluation of your character and temperament is perfectly reasonable.
Second, having an exclusionary, dismissive attitude is not consistent with wanting your project to be "big." You also can't tell me it isn't about money without giving me the numbers when you are so obviously attempting to follow a tried and tested profit-generating formula. Explain to me why Monolith won't make money off of Conan. Give me the numbers, all of the numbers.
If it isn't about making money, you won't be bothered by sharing details like COGS, development expenditures, investment sources, and so forth. Because if it isn't about making any money, you aren't running a business. So give me the numbers. Explain it to me. If you "prefer to tell the truth than seduce consumers," tell me the truth.
Why are you using Kickstarter if the product is already created? Why will Monolith not be making money off of Conan?
I don t told you Monolith will not make money. I told it will not make incomes, that s different. Anyway you are just trolling so I will stop to spend my time with you. And you are right : I don t want your money. We definitivly don t share the same philosophy.
Fred Henry wrote: I don t told you Monolith will not make money. I told it will not make incomes, that s different. Anyway you are just trolling so I will stop to spend my time with you. And you are right : I don t want your money. We definitivly don t share the same philosophy.
Ah, yes, you did say that Monolith wasn't paying you. I'm sorry about misinterpreting that.
So, if it isn't about money for you, because Monolith isn't paying you, is it about money for Monolith?
And what is your relationship with Monolith? Are you an owner/operator? If so, what is your ownership stake?
And for the record, asking tough questions is not trolling. As Kickstarter's Trust and Safety page says:
Creators are responsible for their projects. When you back a project, you’re trusting the creator to do a good job, so if you don’t know them personally or by reputation, do a little research first. Kickstarter doesn’t evaluate a project’s claims, resolve disputes, or offer refunds — backers decide what’s worth funding and what’s not.
What creators can do
Be open. Let everyone know who you are and what you want to accomplish. You’re asking people to work with you toward a common goal — and it’s a lot easier for them to do that when they know where you’re coming from.
Be responsive. Do your best to answer backers’ questions and address their concerns, quickly and thoroughly. It’s a great way of showing people that you’re reliable, available, and committed to your project.
Be honest. Sometimes it’s tempting to “sell” your project with a glossy pitch and assurances that the work will be easy. But backers can trust you much more when you’re being straightforward and honest. Give them a real look at the work you’re doing, and be frank about the risks and challenges involved.
Be open. Let everyone know who you are and what you want to accomplish. You’re asking people to work with you toward a common goal — and it’s a lot easier for them to do that when they know where you’re coming from.
Be responsive. Do your best to answer backers’ questions and address their concerns, quickly and thoroughly. It’s a great way of showing people that you’re reliable, available, and committed to your project.
Be honest. Sometimes it’s tempting to “sell” your project with a glossy pitch and assurances that the work will be easy. But backers can trust you much more when you’re being straightforward and honest. Give them a real look at the work you’re doing, and be frank about the risks and challenges involved.
He's done all of those things. You just haven't liked his answers.
Be open. Let everyone know who you are and what you want to accomplish. You’re asking people to work with you toward a common goal — and it’s a lot easier for them to do that when they know where you’re coming from.
Be responsive. Do your best to answer backers’ questions and address their concerns, quickly and thoroughly. It’s a great way of showing people that you’re reliable, available, and committed to your project.
Be honest. Sometimes it’s tempting to “sell” your project with a glossy pitch and assurances that the work will be easy. But backers can trust you much more when you’re being straightforward and honest. Give them a real look at the work you’re doing, and be frank about the risks and challenges involved.
He's done all of those things. You just haven't liked his answers.
I don't agree that Fred, or Monolith, has done all of those things.
First, Fred has said that he is "selling a [finished] game." That doesn't necessarily square with Kickstarter's terms and conditions, nor the explicit, written contract between backers and project creators.
Second, Fred has said that "Monolith will not provide any income for us," which I presume means that he and others are not paid employees of Monolith. Either that or he meant Monolith would not be making a profit, but I don't think that's what he meant from the context. If it was, then that is also what I meant by Monolith "not making any money," and those concerns were evaded rather than answered in a straightforward manner.
Further, if Fred is an owner of Monolith, saying that it isn't about money for him because the company is not paying him an income is somewhat less than straightforward. If he owns all or part of the company, and the value of that company increases, Fred would likely benefit financially. In fact, depending on the specifics of the operating agreement, if Fred was an owner of Monolith, he could directly receive a portion of the Kickstarter funds perfectly well within the bounds of Kickstarter's terms and conditions.
Third, Fred has stated that the Kickstarter campaign is necessary to allow Monolith to offer a 'proper' version of the Conan product at a price point that is not viable via retail. I have asked for that statement to be substantiated, and the associated questions I posed have not been addressed by Monolith, either in whole or in part.
Having posed these important questions, as recommended by Kickstarter, Fred has decided to label me a troll and refused to address them.
What backers can do
Explore the project page. It should tell you everything you need to know, including details about the project and information about the creator who’s vouching for it. Don’t forget to read the comments (to see what others are saying) and any updates (to see how the creator communicates with backers). The “Risks and Challenges” section is especially worth a look.
Read what others say. If you’re not sure about something, you can look elsewhere on the web. Does the creator have an online presence, or past work you can look at? Do people say good things about them? If you’re curious about the thing they’re creating, you can look into that, too. Has it been tried before? What happened then?
Ask questions. If there’s something you want to know about a project, ask the creator — there’s an “ask” button at the bottom of each project page. And if you come across anything suspicious, just let us know — there’s a “report this project” button on each page. That feedback helps us make sure no one’s trying to abuse the system.
First, Fred has said that he is "selling a [finished] game." That doesn't necessarily square with Kickstarter's terms and conditions, nor the explicit, written contract between backers and project creators.
I think we can agree that a game being "finished" is far different than a game being "produced." To produce the game to the quality standards they want is probably going to be high, which is where the funds from the KS are needed.
Second, Fred has said that "Monolith will not provide any income for us," which I presume means that he and others are not paid employees of Monolith. Either that or he meant Monolith would not be making a profit, but I don't think that's what he meant from the context. If it was, then that is also what I meant by Monolith "not making any money," and those concerns were evaded rather than answered in a straightforward manner.
Further, if Fred is an owner of Monolith, saying that it isn't about money for him because the company is not paying him an income is somewhat less than straightforward. If he owns all or part of the company, and the value of that company increases, Fred would likely benefit financially. In fact, depending on the specifics of the operating agreement, if Fred was an owner of Monolith, he could directly receive a portion of the Kickstarter funds perfectly well within the bounds of Kickstarter's terms and conditions.
I guess, and I don't intend for this to be flippant or rude, but I guess I'm not sure why that even concerns you. I don't quite follow how the company value, or how they pay their employees, is really any of the concern of the backer. For me, in regards to money from the KS is being spent, all I expect in regards to transparency is a pie chart that breaks down estimate costs for the game's production. You know, like this:
If a project doesn't have that am I overly concerned? No. But those charts do help allay any fears with projects from less well known publishers.
Third, Fred has stated that the Kickstarter campaign is necessary to allow Monolith to offer a 'proper' version of the Conan product at a price point that is not viable via retail. I have asked for that statement to be substantiated, and the associated questions I posed have not been addressed by Monolith, either in whole or in part.
Having posed these important questions, as recommended by Kickstarter, Fred has decided to label me a troll and refuse to address those questions.
Again, I'm not entirely convinced that's any of our business as backers. I understand that we disagree on this point, and that's okay. As you've alluded to, and as Kickstarter has made clear, backers are NOT investors, nor are they consumers. KS Backers are effectively giving charitable donations (speaking of.....can I write KS funding OFF?!?! ).
I don't disagree with you that transparency is good in a project. We do disagree on the level of detail owed to us in that transparency, and we certainly disagree about early birds.
I guess, and I don't intend for this to be flippant or rude, but I guess I'm not sure why that even concerns you. I don't quite follow how the company value, or how they pay their employees, is really any of the concern of the backer.
It should absolutely be the concern of the backer, due to the nature of crowdfunding. But more importantly, it speaks to the willingness of the project creator to be honest and straightforward, which you said had been done. Making misleading statements is not being honest, direct, and straightforward.
Fred Henry wrote: Weeble I don't understand the problem with my statement. I think you misunderstand what I exactly mean (probably because of my broken english).
I want to do a big KS, because I want to do something big. What I want is that people remember Conan in the same way I remember Heroquest. I want the game to be something important. It s why I want the game "in the proper hands". We all have other ways to earn our life. Monolith will not provide any income for us. I'm at the origin of Monolith and I don't need Monolith for living. I need Monolith for doing something really big. And yes, I'm not begging for money : I m selling a game. A finished game. That s really different. People who will pledge will do it because they think the deal is fair enough. If they are not convinced by the deal I don t want them spending their money in something they dont want. I want the maximum of "interested by the game himself" people.
Just a few minor points:
* If you want "big", you want to attract more backers. Which means you need to accommodate more of their demands, from EB's to resins. OTOH, If you're going for "the best we can do with what we have", certainly a more narrowly focused KS is not a bad thing, especially for your first project. Cthulhu Wars offered miniatures, but had so few takers that the offering was not worth it (the prices were on the high side, and some pledge levels were a better price).
* If your selling point was "the game", focusing the pre-launch campaign on the sculpts was not the way to do it. It's easier, but that's not how you sell gameplay. Dark Darker Darkest, I think, did a good job on explaining the game before launch, although they made other mistakes that hurt the campaign. We've already discussed how much of a stink boardgamers on BGG will make about EB's. If you're selling a "game", you don't want these discussions from boardgamers derailing your work.
* EDIT: Check your ego in at the door. Anything negative you say can cost you hundreds of dollars in funding. Anything negative posters defending your stance may cost you even more. Again, you don't want to affect your campaign with a few negative words. See points 2 and 4 of this article, but also keep 3 in mind: http://www.raintoday.com/blog/check-your-ego-at-the-door-and-other-business-growth-tips/
Again, I'm not entirely convinced that's any of our business as backers. I understand that we disagree on this point, and that's okay. As you've alluded to, and as Kickstarter has made clear, backers are NOT investors, nor are they consumers. KS Backers are effectively giving charitable donations (speaking of.....can I write KS funding OFF?!?! ).
I don't disagree with you that transparency is good in a project. We do disagree on the level of detail owed to us in that transparency, and we certainly disagree about early birds.
I am not making a statement about what level of transparency is owed. I am making a statement about being honest and straightforward. If a project creator is telling backers that the reason for using Kickstarter is X, the project creator should expect to address questions related to that statement, to support it.
It was the project creator's choice to make that statement. In my view, that statement is potentially misleading. From what I understand of production costs, the ways in which that statement could be quite frank are far less than the ways in which it could be less than true, misleading, or outright false.
I have explained why I think it is misleading. Thus far, Monolith has not addressed these concerns. This, also, goes against the Trust and Safety recommendations of Kickstarter that I quoted previously, and which you said that Fred's statement had adequately met.
Be responsive. Do your best to answer backers’ questions and address their concerns, quickly and thoroughly. It’s a great way of showing people that you’re reliable, available, and committed to your project.
I have been reading all of these posts and I'm personally getting tired of the negative posts. I'm excited about the game and the miniatures and don't appreciate the negativity of one person on here. As stated, you don't have to support the game, just move on and let the rest of us be excited.
Ken Oakley wrote: I have been reading all of these posts and I'm personally getting tired of the negative posts. I'm excited about the game and the miniatures and don't appreciate the negativity of one person on here. As stated, you don't have to support the game, just move on and let the rest of us be excited.
They may feel that others want to know that information, and personally I'm glad they ask the questions they do. Of course it being PVC means I'm waiting for retail anyway.
Ken Oakley wrote: I have been reading all of these posts and I'm personally getting tired of the negative posts. I'm excited about the game and the miniatures and don't appreciate the negativity of one person on here. As stated, you don't have to support the game, just move on and let the rest of us be excited.
I get it Ken. It is a fair point to make, and I have been worried about cluttering up the news thread with this stuff. If you are just looking for updates about cool new stuff for the game, it would suck to keep seeing the thread bumped with discussions about the nature of the project, etc.
I'm not sure where a better place to discuss it would be, but I doubt anyone from Monolith is going to chime in anymore in this thread about it. So that'll probably calm it down.
I'm certainly not going to beat a dead horse anymore than I already have. If people want to discuss it, and the discussion is productive, I'll continue discussing it, but I will refrain from returning to the topic on my own initiative. When I was reading through the various BGG threads about the project, those posts by Fred really touched a nerve.
Sinful Hero wrote: They may feel that others want to know that information, and personally I'm glad they ask the questions they do. Of course it being PVC means I'm waiting for retail anyway.
Sorta ditto. I'd prefer seeing a business plan for a project, but gave up asking long ago, since pretty much everyone else treats KS like a store and I knew I'd never see such a plan.
Apparently, two partners of Monolith work or worked for Bombyx, and, while plastic miniature KS almost always have delays, never (?) go belly-up like some mental miniature KS have done. The plastic molding process has a barrier to entry that metal and resin miniatures don't.
So, Fred, how about telling us something about your and your partner's business experience? Five days to kill some time before the KS!
Alpharius wrote: You, or no one else, have seen a case where "Early Bird" pledge slots 'worked'?
Really?
Those are also some pretty...interesting claims about the campaigns listed.
I'm detecting a bit of...bias in these statements!
Well, none of you guys have shown me any research or conclusions by experienced KS project managers.
I mean, there's the anecdotal evidence of all the KSes that have EBs that have done over $700K....
Personally, I think the outcry about the EBs is absurd. If a trivial price difference is that much to a backer (and yes, $10 is trivial), then I have to question whether or not one should really be spending their money on the KS in the first place. I'm sure there's some nonsense about principle that one could claim, but it's like complaining I got gas on Thursday for $2.00 a gallon and on Saturday you had to pay $2.20 a gallon at the same station.
Well, I pledged for over 1K for KS plus maybe half that for holiday shopping and other online sales. So multiple $10's add up -- enough to pledge for another $100 KS.
ced1106 wrote: Well, I pledged for over 1K for KS plus maybe half that for holiday shopping and other online sales. So multiple $10's add up -- enough to pledge for another $100 KS.
Yes, we're talking about money again.
So....your explanation is that you can't spend $10 more on one thing because you bought too many other things?
Thats...that's a tough pill for me to swallow with a straight face.
And that, of course, completely ignores TVM, which makes it even funnier that people are complaining about saving $10 on an EB.
Agreed, I find it baffling. I think it adds evidence to my theory that a lot of people don't view Kickstarter as buying a product, but buying an "experience." It seems the only explanation for why people would get so worked up about a $10 no exclusives EB. They are missing out on being the special snowflake who was there from the beginning, getting an EB puts you in the "in" crowd of commenters on the project. It lets you make casual threats to drop your EB in the project comments if the creators aren't instantly responding to your messages on FB or the latest stretch goal doesn't do it for you. Getting an Early Bird pledge makes you the hipster. "Dude, I was into this project like waaay before it was so mainstream."
Ken Oakley wrote: I have been reading all of these posts and I'm personally getting tired of the negative posts. I'm excited about the game and the miniatures and don't appreciate the negativity of one person on here. As stated, you don't have to support the game, just move on and let the rest of us be excited.
Well said! It happens in many threads.
Automatically Appended Next Post: January 12 may be the first time I get in on a Kickstarter.
There are lots of things I am conscientious about as a consumer; I won't buy from McDonalds, after reading an article about working conditions in their factories making kid's meals toys, or from Amazon UK because of their tax avoidance. I have a friend who buys Nokia phones, because their's are one of the only phones that have elements that are not sourced from the war-torn Congo. Another who won't buy Gilette razors because of their massively sanctimonious dropping of sponsorship of Tiger Woods ( )
I guess how far up this scale you see '$10 early bird' is down to the individual. Although, I would probably put it underneath even the last one!
Genoside07 wrote: I still plan to back this... but it took me reading 3 pages of posts trying to figure out "EB" meant "Early Bird"
I think what it helps to understand about Early Bird pledge levels is that it is a level of annoyance on top of other annoyances. Lots of people feel like they are getting taken for a ride on Kickstarter. They feel suspicious of the motivations of the project creators, and they know that they are giving up a lot in order to be part of a Kickstarter campaign.
With Kickstarters like Conan here, where there is a comparatively huge amount of investment into the product, when the product has already been 'finished' and is basically being pre-sold, when we all know it will see regular retail release whether we back the project or not, when there has been a large amount of pre-campaign marketing, and so forth, the 'experience' in backing the campaign is not so much about being part of making something possible, but in getting the sweetest deal you can in order to offset the downsides of backing a Kickstarter campaign.
For many people, consciously or not, that is the experience, because you know all of those things going in. You are being sold to, you are being sold to aggressively. You are being encouraged to get in early, do it now, don't wait to evaluate the product, do it now, pay now, buy now, look at all this stuff, get excited, pay now, pay now, look at how many people are doing it, look at what they are getting, you are going to miss out, you are going to kick yourself later, buy now... And you know that Early Bird pledge levels are part of that marketing schill. However you slice it, they are designed to help encourage an impulse purchase, they are designed to help short circuit your consumer wariness.
So going in, even the concept of Early Bird pledge levels leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths. Without explaining any of that, people can seize on and complain about something more tangible, like not getting the $10 discount, or feeling like they need to waste their time refreshing the website to get in quickly, or feeling like they need to get up at an odd hour of the day/night to even have a chance to be part of something that is being marketed to them.
From a broad perspective, Early Bird pledge levels are an aspect of these types of Kickstarter campaigns that are easier to complain about, but in my view, the consternation is about a lot more than merely an EB pledge level.
Yeh I think this woudl make for a great thread unto itself. I certainly would feel a lot less inhibited about my own remarks if I do not feel i am derailing someone else's marketing thread.
I have to agree with Weeble on this. EB's are just a manipulation to get over the first funding goal quickly so the creators can get you to then adjust your pledge upward to " unlock " the first stretch goals.
weeble1000 wrote: I think what it helps to understand about Early Bird pledge levels is that it is a level of annoyance on top of other annoyances. Lots of people feel like they are getting taken for a ride on Kickstarter. They feel suspicious of the motivations of the project creators, and they know that they are giving up a lot in order to be part of a Kickstarter campaign.
Have you considered that types of Kickstarter projects and you might just not be a good fit? And potential big projects in particular just seem to piss you off. You seem to have came into the thread with a massive chip on your shoulder. You've complained about the material, you've complained about the mechanics, you've complained about the 10 measly bucks off for EB's (out of, wha,t a $200 game?). You're looking for conspiracy theories everywhere, and admit you're doing so partly to talk yourself out of pledging. You've basically said to the project creators "I dont really want your sucky game so twist my arm to get me in" and when they declined, you griped about that. You're the definition of "unpleasable fan base" in regards to this product. No wants to court that in the crucial early phase of a campaign, because then you'd be threadcrapping in the comments section and bringing the negativity there.
Seriously, we direct people to other threads when they bring up Maelstrom in the Mierce thread because its nonproductive. Can we take the"ethics" of Kickstarter to another thread? Kickstarter is far from perfect. But it is a way to get product development moving along faster, even for things that would be produced eventually on their own (such as Reaper Bones line, faster expansions for Shadows of Brimstone, etc). So yes, there is a benefit to running a campaign even with everything sculpted and the rules written (because it adds supplemental material quicker). Some of us might actually want to talk about the game.
I have to agree with Weeble on this. EB's are just a manipulation to get over the first funding goal quickly so the creators can get you to then adjust your pledge upward to " unlock " the first stretch goals.
And Black Friday doorbusters are an incentive to get you into the store and potentially buy other items before you spend your money at another store. That's how marketing works. Large Kickstarter campaigns run on early hype, and many people won't back an unfunded project (even though they don't lose your money if it doesn't fund). So there's a huge benefit to making funding first day or early enough for others to jump in.
Compare two Antimatter Games projects, The Good the Bad and the Scaly, which didnt fund, to the Rise of the Draconids, which did. The first however had a funding goal of $10,000, the second of $3000. The second, however, was smaller in scope, and built the additional faction starters by piecemeal. But because it funded quicker, it ended up with roughly than twice the total (and 30% more backers). The projects ultimately unlocked roughly the same figures, but funding sooner certainly helped the momentum of the follow up campaign. I will point out, that neither project had early birds. IMO, the benefit of EB's is to fund quickly by encouraging the type of backer that fence sits to jump in before its funded because there's a greater financial benefit for doing so. Ideally, they're handed out if you pledge on the first day, rather than having X units, to avoid screwing over different time zones.
But really, we're talking 10 bucks, as opposed to Wyrd's through the Breach campaign where you missed out on multiple exclusive figures if you didn't pledge the first day.
I believe I said candidly just a day or so ago in this thread that I could be touchy about this particular campaign because I do not like these types of Kickstarter campaigns and am subconsciously looking for an excuse to not back it.
So...yes, I have considered that.
I am a huge Howard fan, love his Conan works, really enjoy Adrian's artwork, and like to play co-op board games. So I am very excited about this project. I just wish it wasn't on Kickstarter.
I mentioned aspects of the rules that I found concerning, and engaged in a rather productive dialog about it. I like game mechanics, I design games myself, I play a lot of games, and this game looks interesting. So I want to know more about the game and the way it works. I don't want to put a couple hundred into a game I won't like. And the material is a concern because until recently we did not know what it was going to be. I think many of the models are fantastic, and was excited about high fidelity casts, but now we know that they are going to be PVC, which demands MUCH more scrutiny.
I don't want to drop $200 thinking I'm going to get X and wind up getting Y. Fred has directly said he doesn't want that. And I have not demanded ANY change to the campaign or the product. I simply want to know what I would be getting into. Part of that involves evaluating the creators, because I don't know Fred from Adam.
But if y'all want to keep this thread focused on news, I already said I would leave it be unless people were interested in discussing things further. So if that's what you want, I've already said I'm happy to do that.
I believe I said candidly just a day or so ago in this thread that I could be touchy about this particular campaign because I do not like these types of Kickstarter campaigns and am subconsciously looking for an excuse to not back it.
So...yes, I have considered that.
The question was mainly rhetorical, and I indicated I was aware you don't like them.
I am a huge Howard fan, love his Conan works, really enjoy Adrian's artwork, and like to play co-op board games. So I am very excited about this project. I just wish it wasn't on Kickstarter.
Well... it is (or will be shortly). So that ship has essentially sailed. At this point I'm reminded of the old joke
Patient - "Doctor, it hurts my arm when I do this" *flails arm spastically*
Doctor "Easy cure... Don't do that"
If its bothering you, just stay out of the campaign. If it hits retail, and gets good reviews, hey, great, Maybe consider buying at that point. Because lets face it. If its a big campaign, the ship date's gonna slip, there's going to be some mold issue, a stretch goal is probably going to be poorly priced, etc. Do you really want to deal with that when you have to hold your nose to pledge on kickstarter in the first place? I can't help but thing that would be less stressful.
Edit - just saw your edits, and I agree. If anyone wants to start a new thread, I'd be happy to jump in. Sorry for dragging this even more off toping by pointing out how off topic its gotten lol.
So does this mean you are planning on a Kickstarter business model for Monolith?
In no way, shape, or form.
Monolith is still a young company, I am but a humble community manager and I can't speak for the higher ups but what I will personally say is that I believe a lot of Monolith's future will be decided by Conan and as Fred said above, a KS is a LOT of work (no, seriously) and if Conan works out well they may not have to go through it for their next project (This is what I meant by Project: The game, not the KS, but I should of been more precise about that).
weeble1000 wrote: Attitudes like that really piss me off. Companies that don't want my money don't get my money.
I'm going to ask both parties to chill out here, I understand where you're both coming from but I don't think you guys do. I know you've stated you don't believe it's a language thing but let me say this: It is. I've known the guy long enough to know this is not his kind of attitude, Fred wanted to try and put as much effort into communicating in English as he does in French (where he is very present, to the point that I nearly never have to intervene on French forums). To me it's an admirable effort but his English is lacking and it does sometimes create touchy misunderstandings like this.
That being said this is what Fred is really trying to say:
We don't want your money for the sake of your money. We want you to want "The Game" and invest in it just like we have invested 2 years of work into it. If you are that fussed about 10$ that you would intentionally miss out on the already amazing stuff we have planned for you (trust me, I've seen the pledge levels, this game is a steal) then you're obviously not the kind of person that would of bought the game anyway. We're not turning people away because they don't agree with us, they are turning themselves away and sadly there's very little we can do about that apart from just moving on.
weeble1000 wrote: I really hate a 'don't like it, don't buy it' attitude. Same thing with the game mechanics discussion that I have been getting a bit of from Jamie.
Ummm, I'm not sure where this came from but, Ok. My posts were never meant to promote this kind of attitude. We are well aware that you can't please anyone (want an example? go to our BGG page, there's a guy who gave us a score of 1 because we're "not Heroquest") but we have tried to please as many as possible. That being said if I did come across such I apologise, my words were simply meant to positively construct our point of view, not bash yours or those who do not agree.
weeble1000 wrote: Anyone at Monolith want to back that up with some numbers?
Sure!
Artwork: $50,000 (Adrian Smith, Brom, Paolo Parente, Kekai Kotaki, Georges Clarenko, Xavier Colette, Naïade and others I can't name yet)
Scenarios: $30,000 (Antoine Bauza, Ludovic Maublanc, Croc, Bruno Cathala, Laurent Pouchain, Pascal Bernard and others I can't name yet)
Sculpting and tooling: $80,000 (Stéphane Simon, Jacques-Alexandre Gillois, Thomas David, Mikh, Stéphane N'Guyen, Aragorn Marks, Yannick Hennebo, Arnaud Boudoiron, Gregory Clavilier, Elfried, Rafal Zelazo, Gael Goumon and others I can't name yet)
Licence: $40,000 plus royalties
So as you can see, its a fair amount of investment. Why am I dropping names though? Because its important to highlight that these people aren't cheap but they deserve every penny. Every single one of them is an industry veteran with many games, models or projects under their belt. Why do I say this? Because it relates back to what we wanted Conan to be: a blockbuster and we couldn't do that without having the best of the best on board. Now I get the idea from your comments that you don't really like this kind of project and all the bells and whistles that it entails (communication, publicity, etc) but it is what it is. Now all of that money was invested by the good people of Monolith, from their own pocket. There is no business angel, no silent partner, just a huge amount of cash that they have had to fork out, in advance, to see their dream become a reality. As such I'm going to ask for a bit of leniency if they seem touchy or on-edge this close to the campaign. You have to understand they each personally have a lot riding on this. That's how they wanted it however, say what you will but with a project this big and this ambitious Kickstarter is THE means to an end. I could go a lot more into it (and am more than happy to do so if needs be) but as others have said, it's a topic best left for another thread. What I can assure you is that we've gone into it fully concious of what it entails and with our own set of principles. Their are many who disagree with us and by the time my keyboard cools down in just over a months time there will no doubt be many more but we will stick to our guns and do what we first set out to do.
Now then, about this whole money situation. This is where we really go down the rabbit hole to the magical land of misunderstanding. Once again this goes both ways and whilst I'm on the matter I will be having words with Fred so this kind of thing doesn't happen again but as I said before, Fred would never go out of his way to insult anyone, this is just a bit of stress before the big game.
First of all I'm going to be firm with you here Weeble. You can ask people for this kind of information, but in no case should you hold it against them is they choose not to respond. That is VERY sensitive information that is the core of someone's business. I'm sure if I asked you to divulge all the inner workings of your personal affairs you'd be pretty uncomfortable too. I've shared with you what numbers I can (also note that we have been very open about the money we have invested for some time now too) and I think most people here would find that fairlydecent of us but I will not reply to your other absurd demands. It's a stupid thing to ask of any business and you have to remember that Monolith is a business. I feel that this is the part that was the most "lost in translation" as they say however actually thinking that they intend to make no money off of a game is very naïve. With all the good will in the world, and I can assure you Monolith has a lot of that, there are salaries to pay, rent, food for their cats, etc. Is this an exercise in cheap money grubbing though? No. We just want to get the game of our dreams our their and any money made will no doubt go into developing the company so that we can make even more games like this. I don't have a clue how much money Fred stands to personally make out of this but knowing him it will probably be just enough to cover what he invested and the rest will go to the company.
As you quoted Kickstarter, let me quote the text that you'lll find on our Ks page:
Apart from being huge fans of Conan and Robert E. Howard, we have been working in the gaming industry for many years now. Frédéric Henry is the author behind some incredibly successful games such as The Adventurers, TimeLine, CardLine and The Builders. Erwan and Loig Hascoët are the founders of Bombyx, a respected publishing company with many great games in their catalogue such as Takenoko, The Builders and Abyss. Monolith was created so that we could make the game of our dreams: Conan. HeroQuest was a big part of our gaming culture as kids and we wanted to recreate the joy and immersion we felt for that game back then. For us, Conan was the perfect licence to bring these feelings to the tabletop once again, remastered in a modern game that drew from all the best advancements in art, sculpture and game play. So as to stay as true to Robert E. Howard as possible, we brought Patrice Louinet on board, a world renowned expert in this author's work. This gives us a degree of authenticity that is almost unheard of in a product like this. Patrice has approved all the contents of the standard and deluxe box sets as well as all of the stretch goals. Patrice ensuring authenticity for anything REH, but the game will also take inspiration from some non-canon areas which were mentioned by Robert E. Howard but not fully developed. However, we have always emphasised on keeping the spirit of Howard's work in mind whilst under the strict supervision of Paradox Entertainment, owners of the Conan property. We have strived to bring only the best, world renowned experts on board with Conan.
And also our "Why Kickstarter?" section:
Conan has had a lot more money invested in it than the majority of board games. The fabrication costs are also very high due to the sheer amount of material contained within the box: Multiple large gaming boards, a plastic control tile, as well a huge amount of high quality plastic models. If we were to apply the margins of a classic development cycle, the cost of the box set and the stretch goals would be far too high, around $250. The process of desintermediation that is inherent to Kickstarter allows us to reduce this price down to something far more manageable and in line with other large board games. It also allows us to take the product directly to our target audience.
Now of course that won't answer every question but I feel its a pretty good start. Plus I'm always here if people want to know something more specific and there's even more on the KS page including a full list of all the participants (with links to their respective pages) as well as a very complete description of our shipping and refund policy, which I think you will find more than fair. A bit off topic I know but I thought I'd mention it as someone else brought it up.
Finally, the reason I'm calling you out like this Weeble, is because I think you've somehow picked up the wrong end of the stick here and, due to your exchanges with Fred I'll admit, turned a non-existent molehill into a mountain, a statement that others have expressed. As such you have tried to discredit the name of Monolith and a personal friend of mine, something I cannot brook, hence my tone. Do not misunderstand me, I am not fobbing you off, trying to personally insult you nor expecting you to not respond to this. I am simply setting a very misleading point straight for the benefit of others who may be interested in this project. If you do however have any more queries concerning the rules, the models or Monolith's work then I am more then happy to discuss them. Whilst we're being honest, I very much enjoyed discussing the rules with you but I suggest we put this whole rant about the inner business workings, Kickstarter theories and EB's behind us. If you really want to discuss that then please take it to another thread.
Right, now we've got that ugly business out of the way, on to some more interesting stuff!
Alex C wrote: My wife just noticed that even Conan's knee has abs...
And you would be right my friend, they do indeed! Don't worry it's intentionally over exaggerated to accommodate for PVC shrinkage. Same goes for that incredibly manly 18 pack (that are actually just his ribs). What you have in that photo is one of the original resin recasts.
Alex C wrote: Quite the 18-pack that Conan has there...
Inevitably with an impossible to clean mould line running down the side of it. Thanks PVC.
I've had plenty of luck cleaning mould lines off of PVC models from multiple companies, with relative ease.
I'll echo this, I've never had any trouble with cleaning mould lines off pvc. I just received a early batch of Journey: Wrath of Demons models which are of a superb quality and the very few mould lines I could find on them came off very easily.
I think I got most of them there, but there was quite a lot so if I missed someone's question then please feel free to flag it up! Otherwise continue to fire away, I will be here as always
Here is what it says about the two planned pledge levels, though again this may have changed somewhat in the meantime:
The retail game : around $80-$100, 2 boards (4 maps, at least 8 scenarios), 50 to 60 minis.
The deluxe game : around $120-$150, this box will only be available through Kickstarter. It will include the same content than the base box, plus 2 exclusive heroes, around 30 exclusives minions (undeads), 1 exclusive boss (Thog) and scenarios.
WhelpSlayer wrote: You can ask people for this kind of information, but in no case should you hold it against them is they choose not to respond. That is VERY sensitive information that is the core of someone's business.
I get that Jamie. That's what I meant when I said that it probably would not be offered. I should have also mentioned that there are good reasons for not offering that level of detail.
I appreciate the other information that you have supplied. I will, however, say that the loss of rights/protections via Kicstarter really goes both ways, and the kind of information a business operating within the 'normal development cycle' can well expect to keep proprietary/confidential is much more fair game in a crowdfunding scenario. Backers are "helping to create new things," as opposed to "buying something from a store," and because Kickstarter "doesn’t evaluate a project’s claims, resolve disputes, or offer refunds," backers are expected to independently evaluate the project creator. Whether or not you can deliver what you claim is a pretty critical evaluation in this context, as I think you will agree.
In a retail context, there's often no question about whether you can deliver, because the product is in hand, and if you don't deliver, the purchaser has explicit recourse. Here, the collective experience Monolith has is significant, but how much experience does the company have with operating via crowdfunding?
So while I did request very sensitive information, the fact is that you are claiming to offer a $250 retail product for $80-$100. That's around a 60% discount, which sounds like an aggressive distributor discount. If you will forgive a bit of pot-stirring, a claim like that should provoke questions about the viability of the project. And if you will forgive my impertinence, it is Monolith who has made that claim, which happens to be broadly in line with Fred's statements.
I really don't want to be disrespectful, but you guys are the ones saying these things. And you are also consistently saying "plastic" in referring to the miniatures, when that terminology is known to be contextually misleading. Surely you know the potential for confusion involved in using unspecific terms like that in this market, right? Again, these are choices you guys are making in your efforts to market this product. "Plastic" is a buzz word that you are using deliberately. But we know that you don't mean "High Impact Polystyrene."
You can easily come back with an explanation for why using the word "plastic" is not a material misrepresentation, but at the end of the day, it is walking the line between honesty and misrepresentation. And come on, you know that too, don't you?
Oh man I REALLY want to say something about this but upon my honour I cannot, all I can say is that I have of course seen all the pledges and let me tell you that they a choc-a-block with gear and they are a lot cheaper than you would expect!
Alex C wrote: I'm still kinda leery about licensed projects after the AvP debacle.
We were too, which is why we spent over $40,000 acquiring the full rights to the brand (as specified above) so I can assure you there will be no such troubles here.
Alex C wrote: Also wary of first-time projects after being burned/disappointed by several.
Well I can't deny that, as Monolith, this is their first project however this is not the first game that they've made/published together. They know what they are up against.
weeble1000 wrote: I get that Jamie. That's what I meant when I said that it probably would not be offered. I should have also mentioned that there are good reasons for not offering that level of detail.
I appreciate the other information that you have supplied. I will, however, say that the loss of rights/protections via Kicstarter really goes both ways, and the kind of information a business operating within the 'normal development cycle' can well expect to keep proprietary/confidential is much more fair game in a crowdfunding scenario. Backers are "helping to create new things," as opposed to "buying something from a store," and because Kickstarter "doesn’t evaluate a project’s claims, resolve disputes, or offer refunds," backers are expected to independently evaluate the project creator. Whether or not you can deliver what you claim is a pretty critical evaluation in this context, as I think you will agree.
In a retail context, there's often no question about whether you can deliver, because the product is in hand, and if you don't deliver, the purchaser has explicit recourse. Here, the collective experience Monolith has is significant, but how much experience does the company have with operating via crowdfunding?
So while I did request very sensitive information, the fact is that you are claiming to offer a $250 retail product for $80-$100. That's around a 60% discount, which sounds like an aggressive distributor discount. If you will forgive a bit of pot-stirring, a claim like that should provoke questions about the viability of the project. And if you will forgive my impertinence, it is Monolith who has made that claim, which happens to be broadly in line with Fred's statements.
I really don't want to be disrespectful, but you guys are the ones saying these things. And you are also consistently saying "plastic" in referring to the miniatures, when that terminology is known to be contextually misleading. Surely you know the potential for confusion involved in using unspecific terms like that in this market, right? Again, these are choices you guys are making in your efforts to market this product. "Plastic" is a buzz word that you are using deliberately. But we know that you don't mean "High Impact Polystyrene."
You can easily come back with an explanation for why using the word "plastic" is not a material misrepresentation, but at the end of the day, it is walking the line between honesty and misrepresentation. And come on, you know that too, don't you?
As much as I do enjoy our verbal jousting, I honestly can't help but feel that after all this you really are out for Monolith's blood. I may just be imagining things but anyway, I digress.
No. Don't try to back peddle out of this. You specifically demanded sensitive information, including details about an individual's personal earnings, multiple times, without showing any signs of saying "that it probably would not be offered" (not that saying such a thing makes a blind bit of difference). That, sir, is not on.
As for creator/pledger protection, yes, it does go both ways. In the current situation, should things fail, Monolith stand's to lose a lot more then anyone else. No member of the public needs to worry about loosing their money thanks to the comprehensive "no questions" refund policy we are running (you can read more about that on our KS page soon). As stated before though, a lot of money has been invested into this, money I'm sure people would like to see returned eventually as well as the fact that the name of Monolith and all its collaborators, myself included, are attached to this. Now let me tell you something about myself: I'm not going to put my own name to a project if I don't think it's going to succeed or if the people behind it are incompetent.
Speaking of which, no, the guys behind Monolith don't have any experience with Kickstarter however I, and the rest of the consultants they have brought on board, do. Between us we actually have an awful lot of Kickstarter experience.
I don't really want to discuss figures again, however I will say one thing: Distributor margins. You seem like a smart guy, I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Now we can get to the thing I take personal offence at. You are actually implying that I am attempting to obscure and mislead the gaming community by using the word plastic? I have written the acronym "PVC" so many times on this forum and others recently I think I may of worn those letters off my keyboard. I have tirelessly been telling people about the pros and cons of PVC compared to other materials, I've even made a point of comparing ours to other known PVC ranges. I don't think anyone here would agree that I am trying to tell them our models are anything but PVC. That being said, here's my "explanation for why using the word "plastic" is not a material misrepresentation": PVC IS plastic. Outside of the modelling community, the 99% probably doesn't know the difference between PVC, Hard plastic or restic. So am I comfortable using the term plastic in a general sense? Yes. If anyone then wants to discuss the precise details about it then, as I have proven many times above, I am more then happy to discuss it. So to answer your question:
No mate, I don't. I actually have a thing called dignity which generally stops me from outwardly lying to or manipulating people like that, which is actually what you may be trying to do with such a statement, but as I said above: I may be imagining things.
That aside, Thank you for the encouragement guys, keep the questions coming
I don't have to walk away from anything Jamie. This is what I wrote:
weeble1000 wrote: Obviously, no one at Monolith is going to discuss the bulk of that, or at least not in any detail.
But if you are going to make bold claims without putting any meat on them, I am absolutely going to rhetorically demand that you "show me the numbers." Your response is to say that you can't show the numbers but that we should take your word for it. Fair enough, but for some people, your word just isn't going to be good enough.
Plenty of successful project creators across the breadth of Kickstarter have discussed the business side of their projects in far more depth than Monolith has been willing to do, so it is also not without precedent.
As for the plastic thing, you might be saying PVC here, after folks asked about it, but your Kickstarter page is going to be saying "plastic." As I predicted, your response was to say that PVC is plastic, which is certainly true, as I mentioned in my post. But that statement you quoted from the Kickstarter page describes both a "plastic control tile" and "plastic models." They aren't both made of the same type of plastic, are they?
You can say 'It's simpler to just say plastic because lots of people don't know the difference.' But that's the point, isn't it? People don't know the difference and have different ideas about what the word "plastic" means. And to a large segment of the potential backers you are marketing to, the word "plastic" does have a rather specific connotation. I am saying that this is something you are most likely well aware of.
Look, my overall point is that you folks at Monolith are following a formula, a formula that tends to put form over substance. Describing your models as "high quality plastic" is part of that formula because terms like "PVC" or "vinyl" tend to have some negative associations. I personally don't think that's a choice you are making for the sake of clarity. I'm not saying that you haven't been willing to describe your models as being manufactured in PVC. All I am saying is that on the front of your Kickstarter page you have decided to to use the phrase "high quality plastic," most likely because it sounds better.
Be honest. Sometimes it’s tempting to “sell” your project with a glossy pitch and assurances that the work will be easy. But backers can trust you much more when you’re being straightforward and honest. Give them a real look at the work you’re doing, and be frank about the risks and challenges involved.
It comes with the platform Jamie. I don't need a "real look" at what a retail business is doing when I am buying something off the shelf. You guys chose to use Kickstarter instead of taking a portion of your rather significant upfront funds and putting the product on the market. So you don't really have room to complain when somebody wants to look under the hood.
Can the bickering go to PM please? I'm sure I'm not alone in getting tired of wading through walls of text complaining about this, that and the other in what is supposed to be a news thread.
Alex C wrote: Can the bickering go to PM please? I'm sure I'm not alone in getting tired of wading through walls of text complaining about this, that and the other in what is supposed to be a news thread.
Yea, I'm done. Sorry again. I'll leave the thread alone from now on.
Pacific wrote: Weeble, honestly mate I think you would be better off putting your intelligence, writing ability (and time) into something more worthwhile.
The fething KS hasn't even started yet and you've already moved past the word count acceptable for a novella..
Exalted. Yep. You are totally right, although I did break my own rule and check the thread again...
So, to make it more positive and on topic.
What sorts of scenarios might we expect in the game? And what are your favorite R. E. Howard themes you'd like to see in Conan?
Personally, if there isn't a giant snake already, that's what I would love to see. If you think about the number of times Conan encounters giant snakes in Howard's stories, it is pretty startling. I'm sure one could make some kind of Freudian interpretation of that, but I always just figured he was writing on a deadline and snakes are kewl!
There is a Youtube video (BGG I think) where they have a demo scenario with Conan trying to save a princess from a Pict camp and kill the Pict Chieftain.
A Giant Snake was in the scenario but didn't do anything (it was a very basic demo). I think the mini they used was the Hordes Tatzylwyrm, so I don't know if they've shown the actual one they're making yet.
EDIT: Giant Snake render is in the spanish interview on Youtube.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Monolith/WhelpSlayer:
I know the game isn't taking any influence from the movies, but I would like to make the suggestion that camel-punching should be in the game somewhere.
Also, I really hope that if there's a "kill all enemies" scenario, that the mission objective should be thus:
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women"
Maybe a "Crom laughs at your four winds. He laughs from his mountain" spell-resistance ability?
And of course the diabolical sorcerers and necromancers!
Yea, winged ape-demons would be cool.
The black men from the Pool of the Black one would be pretty cool to see also, or scenarios inspired by that story. Outrunning a giant, seemingly sentient green river of death? Yes please!
Eh, I think w1000's posts are entirely reasonable, or at least expected. Well, I'd certainly ask these questions to a random stranger who asked for $100 from me!
That's different ape man. I believe it is a reference to Rogues in the House, as opposed to Queen of the Black Coast, which is what Alph was referring to.
I'm a wee bit disappointed in that snake though. I had always imagined the giant snakes to be...simply giant, honestly. Adrian's art is better than the sculpt on that one. I think the spikes are too pronounced in the sculpt. In any case, giant snake box is ticked though!
Ah! Finally we can get back to the interesting stuff!
weeble1000 wrote: What sorts of scenarios might we expect in the game?
Well there are 4 maps in the base box, each with 2 completely different scenarios: Pict Village, Tavern, Swamp, Fortress. Each of them have suitably flavoured scenarios from defending a village from a pict attack, a good old bar brawl, stopping a dark ritual and a Jailbreak to name but a few.
These scenarios use all the models in the main box and any additional models that come along will also have their own unique scenarios.
weeble1000 wrote: Personally, if there isn't a giant snake already, that's what I would love to see.
We couldn't make a Conan game without a giant snake! I see someone has already beat me to the punch. This is actually one of my favourite models so far and I fear that the photo doesn't do it justice!
There was actually a discussion at one point to put a camel model into the game as a sort of easter egg but sadly we pulled it in favour of more useful models! Plus the fact that we are trying to remain as true as possible to the books, as good as the Arny films were. We may still try and sneak a reference in though, who knows
Right then, let me just put my howardian nerd cap on here:
That isn't actually an ape-man, it's a man-ape (a very significant difference for Howard)! His name is Thak and he is the main antagonist from the story Rogues in the House.
Right then, let me just put my howardian nerd cap on here:
That isn't actually an ape-man, it's a man-ape (a very significant difference for Howard)! His name is Thak and he is the main antagonist from the story Rogues in the House.
Nailed it. The cloak, of course, is a dead giveaway.
About the maps, how are they produced? What I mean is that are they composed of a particular tile set, or are they contiguous foldout boards?
I am mainly curious about whether players will be able to re-arrange the layout of the maps for additional gameplay variety.
weeble1000 wrote: About the maps, how are they produced? What I mean is that are they composed of a particular tile set, or are they contiguous foldout boards?
I am mainly curious about whether players will be able to re-arrange the layout of the maps for additional gameplay variety.
The boards are 2 piece fold outs, like a classic board game. The tiles are not interchangable a la Zombicide.
My wife was curious if the Overlord player has any choice in what models he/she uses for the game, or if it's strictly determined by the scenario?
Also, is the Overlord players' deployment predetermined? Or do they have some flexibility there?
The Overlord doesn't have much flexibility in terms of units/deployment as they have been balanced for each scenario. That being said, nothing stops you from swapping out some pict warriors for pict archers and seeing how it goes
Your right Weeble, there are a lot of repeat sculpts. What game doesn't have them? That didn't stop us from enjoying the hell out of all those old adventure board games a lot of us grew up with.
Plenty of recent mini heavy games had a bunch of repeats as well.
Who knows, maybe they'll mix in some alt sculpts down the line. They already are with the skeletons.
Repeats should attract the casual value backers at the $90 level, and cost practically nothing to make relative to funding for a new mold for an additional sculpt. Repeats, of course, can be used to make armies for other games. And, assembly-line style, they'r easier to paint!!
Sinful Hero wrote: I forget, how much was shipping estimated for the US? I'm being tempted to bite.
The Kickstarter page says they were estimating shipping to the US for the standard core box to be at around $15. I assume the King pledge would be slightly more with the extra stuff added in. Not to mention the added stretch goals.
This is not that appealing to me as primarily a painter. I'm not impressed with the plastics/sculpts, especially with the characters. It really does look like the plastics limited what they could do.
I'll keep watching and see if some of the stretch goals draw me in. But, I'm not likely to play it as a board game, and I've already bought a couple board games for the minis and not been impressed.
Sinful Hero wrote: I forget, how much was shipping estimated for the US? I'm being tempted to bite.
The Kickstarter page says they were estimating shipping to the US for the standard core box to be at around $15. I assume the King pledge would be slightly more with the extra stuff added in. Not to mention the added stretch goals.
The Barbarian has the stretch goals as well- have they mentioned if they will add to the shipping total?
Sinful Hero wrote: I forget, how much was shipping estimated for the US? I'm being tempted to bite.
The Kickstarter page says they were estimating shipping to the US for the standard core box to be at around $15. I assume the King pledge would be slightly more with the extra stuff added in. Not to mention the added stretch goals.
The Barbarian has the stretch goals as well- have they mentioned if they will add to the shipping total?
Here's what they put under the shipping info section:
"Shipping costs will be applied once the Kickstarter is over so as to allow us to calculate the exact costs when taking into account all the unlocked stretch goals and optional purchases. We want to be as fair as possible, therefore, postage costs cannot be generalised as this would leave some backers penalised. We have reached an agreement with Asmodee for deliveries in North America and Europe as well as other carriers in the USA, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and China. Our first estimations for a Core Box indicate that shipping to the USA should cost $15, $30 for Australia and Hong Kong, between $10 and $15 for the EU and $50 for Singapore and South America. Please bear in mind that these prices will vary depending on the quantity of additional material unlocked during the campaign as well as your choice of carrier."
So it probably will increase the price, it just depends on how much of it there is.
I get that 101 figures probably will be PVC, but at least make a premium version that offers the Heroes and some of the more awesome sculpts in resin.
load of money behind it already. The publisher has an IP license. It has a passel of expensive artwork. It has an IP consultant. It has already started production. This publisher is not hurting for upfront cash at all. That's a fact. The question one must ask is at what point did game publishers with the financial footing to independently engage in this level of development start needing Kickstarter in order to bring a product to market? They didn't. In such a context as this I flatly refuse to believe that Kickstarter is necessary to make this product a reality.
