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Oil Secret Weapon, tellthe factory to get fethed, we want photos and it's not up to them!

I'm going to have to agree with DarkTraveller on this. KSs really really need to start planning their projects a bit more carefully and people need to stop giving free passes to KSs that get delayed. As a project creator, it's your responsibility to make sure the project ships out on time or at least have definite shipping times. What's wrong with saying oh, this extra stretchgoal will make it so that I have to split into waves shipping. It's not a new thing. DFG has done it, Mantic has done it, people should research KS before launching their own to see what they can do to help minimise pitfalls.

Also, can't say I'm too pleased we can rush out Mantics deadzone boards cause of contractual obligations but SW has no such contract with WGF to make sure they rush out the other stuff on time as well.

I'd have no problem with the idea that I was backing a project to get it started instead of making a pre-order if there was no projected delivery date. But since when I gave them my (significant amount of) money they were telling me December and now that they HAVE my money they are saying "maybe May" I am not happy.

Again, the "they're not the worst KS out there" really has no bearing whatsoever. Cops do not fail to arrest someone for smacking their wife because others have tortured/killed theirs.

This is akin to going into McDonalds and paying for a hamburger and they tell you "it'll be here next Tuesday...maybe."

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:

This is akin to going into McDonalds and paying for a hamburger and they tell you "it'll be here next Tuesday...maybe."

Given that they told you up front "it might be here Tuesday, maybe" and you're upset that the "maybe" part did in fact mean that it might be later, my sympathies are low. Estimated shipping times are estimated. Its not a pre-order system with a hard release date. As others have said, if you cant grasp that, don't pledge. In this case, the delay isn't really the fault of the project creator, other than taking the factory at their word on the estimated TAT. He even built in longer estimated shipping to account that more molds takes longer to create, which is a good policy that not enough creators do.

Also, the Deadzone got done first because its ONE fething TILE and a simple flat design that caused no mold milling issues, unlike the other ones. The tiles elevationscomplexity are what caused multiple molds to need to be redone, and that's been the main source of the delay, along with other mold issues (wrong heights on the streets).

Bossk_Hogg wrote:
Also, the Deadzone got done first because its ONE fething TILE and a simple flat design that caused no mold milling issues, unlike the other ones. The tiles elevationscomplexity are what caused multiple molds to need to be redone, and that's been the main source of the delay, along with other mold issues (wrong heights on the streets).

Is that the reason? Honest question because earlier in the thread there was mention that Mantic would have to refund backers for the Deadzone tile if it didn't ship by a certain date and that is why the tile jumped ahead of the shipping queque. That reason gives the impression to SWM's backers that Mantic's backers are more important than they are which is not an ideal impression for a company to give to it's supporters.

The fact that you're comparing backing this project to buying a hamburger explains the attitude. As I said earlier, you are looking at this project differently than many other backers. Many of us aren't passive, we just had very different expectations as to where our money was going.

My concerns with projects like these are quality and budget. If the quality slips and/or if the money raised ends up being insufficient to complete to project, that is when I will consider this to be poorly organized.
Production issues for a brand new product are to be expected, especially when there are limited options for third party production. The worst I can say is that delivery dates were optimistic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
'The attitude' meaning your and others stance. Again, I don't think your complaints are unreasonable in the context with which you approached the project.

That's the impression I got. Look at it. Its a flat tile with a grid scored in it. The source of the other mold issues has been detail and height related. On top of that, its 1 tile vs. 16. If they others were only 1 repeating tile as well, we'd all have our stuff (and it would look lame lol). Its also important to note that Mantic is handling their UK (and I believe Europe) shipping. Mantic essentially paid to have the tiles shipped when they were ready, and sent them out themselves because they were bundling them with their own Deadzone shipments. Delaying them would have required Mantic to pay an additional shipping cost, which wasn't factored in. Since SWM also got theirs in the US at the same time, they went ahead and sent them out. At the time, the only thing done was the scrapyard tiles, but the shipping cost to get them added in was too prohibitive without Mantic subsidizing the whole thing, as it cost as much to ship those 182 tiles as it will to do all the others combined (almost $4400 to ship 182 sets). He goes a bit into that in update 109, and I imagine there are more logistics issues than disclosed. Basically it was only financially viable because otherwise Mantic would have to make 2 shipments (and they didn't collect for that) AND still pay to get them there or alternately refund everyone and scrap the project.

Original plan was to ship Scrap in October, Streets in December, Hills in Feb and Temple in April.

The initial delay in the scrap yard was that the molds were messed up, and delayed 6 weeks because of the complexity. After that, the additional raised height caused the spacers to have to be redone. At that point, scrap and urban streets were supposed to ship in December. But the factory screwed up on the molds for some of the street tiles by making the roads curb height (and thus the curbs even higher). So it was back to making more molds on those. The came Chinese New Year, which more or less screws everything up 2-4 more weeks. At that point, everything was to be done in March, meaning the Temple would actually be a bit early, but again, WGF ran into some kind of delay.

I get people are frustrated, I was hoping to have mine to start over my Christmas vacation. SWM really should have factored in some more wriggle room. 4 months from end of the kickstarter to the shipping of the first set was simply unrealistic, no matter what the factory claims they could do... it takes 2 weeks+ to get a container from China to the US alone and over 5 days per mold (assuming they can mill 24/7). But by and large, the faults have been the part of the factory, who was overloaded with other work ahead of the tiles in the queue.

Bossk_Hogg wrote:
That's the impression I got. Look at it. Its a flat tile with a grid scored in it. The source of the other mold issues has been detail and height related. On top of that, its 1 tile vs. 16. If they others were only 1 repeating tile as well, we'd all have our stuff (and it would look lame lol). Its also important to note that Mantic is handling their UK (and I believe Europe) shipping. Mantic essentially paid to have the tiles shipped when they were ready, and sent them out themselves because they were bundling them with their own Deadzone shipments. Delaying them would have required Mantic to pay an additional shipping cost, which wasn't factored in. Since SWM also got theirs in the US at the same time, they went ahead and sent them out. At the time, the only thing done was the scrapyard tiles, but the shipping cost to get them added in was too prohibitive without Mantic subsidizing the whole thing, as it cost as much to ship those 182 tiles as it will to do all the others combined (almost $4400 to ship 182 sets). He goes a bit into that in update 109, and I imagine there are more logistics issues than disclosed. Basically it was only financially viable because otherwise Mantic would have to make 2 shipments (and they didn't collect for that) AND still pay to get them there or alternately refund everyone and scrap the project.

Original plan was to ship Scrap in October, Streets in December, Hills in Feb and Temple in April.

The initial delay in the scrap yard was that the molds were messed up, and delayed 6 weeks because of the complexity. After that, the additional raised height caused the spacers to have to be redone. At that point, scrap and urban streets were supposed to ship in December. But the factory screwed up on the molds for some of the street tiles by making the roads curb height (and thus the curbs even higher). So it was back to making more molds on those. The came Chinese New Year, which more or less screws everything up 2-4 more weeks. At that point, everything was to be done in March, meaning the Temple would actually be a bit early, but again, WGF ran into some kind of delay.

I get people are frustrated, I was hoping to have mine to start over my Christmas vacation. SWM really should have factored in some more wriggle room. 4 months from end of the kickstarter to the shipping of the first set was simply unrealistic, no matter what the factory claims they could do... it takes 2 weeks+ to get a container from China to the US alone and over 5 days per mold (assuming they can mill 24/7). But by and large, the faults have been the part of the factory, who was overloaded with other work ahead of the tiles in the queue.

Great post, but you are kinda making my point for me (my bold emphasis).

There were feths up throughout this whole campaign. SWM fethed up by misjudging how long things would take, possibly because WGF fethed up estimating their own part in this equation, not to mention the issues with the various tiles that needed to be addressed after the campaign ended. Couple those feth ups with the Mantic tile issue and you are left with solutions that are not ideal, and result in people getting frustrated. When some of those people vent their frustration and suggest that SWM should do something to make amends for the feth ups they are labeled as whiners or accused of looking for freebies, when, as it appears from the communication between the project creator and his backers, this campaign was flawed from the start and has blown well past the estimated delivery date.

Usually when companies feth up on this scale some sort of carrot is dangled to keep customers happy. Granted this is a different from a regular retail release getting fethed up, but still, the sentiment is the same. SWM done goofed and some of SWM's supporters are losing their patience. That is fundamentally bad for SWM, especially if they hope to crowd fund again because threads like this one can be used as evidence of why you might NOT want to support their efforts.

Now, SWM's last update was promising as Mr. Justin indicated that there were some big lessons learned with this campaign which is great. But he still needs to address the elephant in the room which is his pissed off backers. SWM is entirely within their right to do nothing, ship the tiles whenever they are completed and write off this campaign as a learning experience paid for with a hit to their reputation. OR, they could do something nice for the backers who have been waiting months for items that will likely still take many more months to produce in order to win back some good will.

 DaveC wrote:
The big positive coming out of that update is that WGF need to get the boards out and shipped to clear space in their warehouse, these are bound to be taking up a huge amount of space so they now have a motivation to get a move on.

Yeah I was excited to read that

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Dreamforge should have made bigger kits then! From what we heard, there is a whole suite of products ready to go, in the warehouse floor since January.

I know, right?

another update - well that's my Arena Rex terrain sorted now which will deliver first (money on SWM).

Project Update #111: Ruined Temple -- IS AMAZING!
Posted by Secret Weapon ♥ Like

I received 14/16 of the Ruined Temple test shots today, and they're amazing. I'll let the photos do the talking.



A shot of all 14 tiles quickly clipped together.



The two amphitheater tiles, side-by-side. Adding the second design is one of the changes I made based on your feedback.



The large tomb tile... complete with a PIT FULL OF SKULLS! (because, really, we kind of had to.)



The small tomb tile.



And a close-up shot of one of the two pits full of skulls that come in the complete tile set.



One of several rubble piles



And a view of the entire table from the other side.

So, where does this leave us?

I still need to give each tile a careful examination before I'll sign off, but I do expect to approve them tomorrow. The last of the test shots -- I still need to approve 6 after this -- will arrive while I'm at Adepticon, but I'll get them approved as soon as I get home. This includes an improvement to the Urban Streets tile with the workable security barrier.

In short, all of the tiles have been milled, and it simply remains for me to approve them for production. The approval process should be wrapped up by 10-April -- but manufacturing has already begun on the tiles that have already been approved. There are giant piles of tiles in the WGF factory now just waiting to be boxed up.

Barring unexpected disaster at this point that means that the tiles SHOULD be ready to leave China at the end of April or beginning of May.

Which means, really, that this is just about it.

I will send out another update asking folks for final address changes, but please hold off on sending in a new address until that update goes out. We're a bit overwhelmed over here, and I don't want to miss you. Having one window will make it much easier to manage.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Seriously, I literally could not have done this without you. Having the tiles in-hand for approval is like a dream come true. The quality is fantastic, and the designs are unmatched in the gaming world.

You'll have your tiles soon.

YAY!
PS: I'm changing the name....

When this set goes to retail it's going to do so under a different name. Right now the leading options are "Forgotten Temple" and "Forgotten City," to help differentiate the tiles from the "Ruined Temple" bases, which don't actually match. I'll get the final word on this... well... within two weeks, I suppose.

Tomorrow I'll paint up two of the tiles to take for the Adepticon display. YAY! AGAIN!

Very promising news!

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

Great post, but you are kinda making my point for me (my bold emphasis).

The thing is, they accepted someone's estimate of when it would ship, just like we accepted SWM's. And that's all that is, an estimate, which can unfortunately be wrong (and was in this case). Sorry, I just ultimately disagree we're owed anything beyond an apology for the delays and a promise of better on the next round. Chalk it up to differing opinions.

On a more constructive note, the temple set looks good and easy to use/place other buildings on.

Bossk_Hogg wrote:
Sorry, I just ultimately disagree we're owed anything beyond an apology for the delays and a promise of better on the next round. Chalk it up to differing opinions.

We aren't owed, for sure. As I said, SWM can do nothing and ship when they ship and leave those people miffed at the situation feeling miffed. But I don't think that is a good business decision. Balls were dropped here and offering a token something as an apology for those set backs would do a lot to smooth things over.

Bossk_Hogg wrote:
On a more constructive note, the temple set looks good and easy to use/place other buildings on.

Agreed! That looks like a fun set (barring the pit of skulls). I especially like the small tomb tile with the four graves.

 DaveC wrote:
another update - well that's my Arena Rex terrain sorted now which will deliver first (money on SWM).

Arena Rex indeed!

I'm sad I didn't get that one now!

Retail it is though - Ruined Forgotten Temple City FTW!

No way, it has to be Forgotten Ruined City Temple!

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

Great post, but you are kinda making my point for me (my bold emphasis).

The thing is, they accepted someone's estimate of when it would ship, just like we accepted SWM's. And that's all that is, an estimate, which can unfortunately be wrong (and was in this case). Sorry, I just ultimately disagree we're owed anything beyond an apology for the delays and a promise of better on the next round. Chalk it up to differing opinions.

On a more constructive note, the temple set looks good and easy to use/place other buildings on.

As someone who does production, estimates to ship are pretty important. Sure we can go over it but we've never gone 4+ or 10+ months over it. You'll find you lose customers when that happens

Were there plans to open the pledge manager back up, or did I miss that already happening?

Good news that is sorely welcome I dare say.

The Ruined such-n-such looks fantastic. The skull pit is entirely justified in this instance I think. A pit of skulls is in keeping with the theme of an ancient temple.

It's not like they've been tossed out into a hole in a field somewhere. That'd just be stupid and no company in their right minds would do that.

I've been lucky with Kickstarters that I've backed and delays have been minimal (two months at most).

It does make me appreciate how much organisation, work and pre-planning must go into a weekly release schedule from more established companies.

Of course they probably have the advantage of development cash already in place and being able to plan years in advance.

When are the ruined roads shipping?

I believe that plan is still to ship all the tiles at once isn't it?


Or did you mean shipped from China?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Is that the reason? Honest question because earlier in the thread there was mention that Mantic would have to refund backers for the Deadzone tile if it didn't ship by a certain date and that is why the tile jumped ahead of the shipping queque. That reason gives the impression to SWM's backers that Mantic's backers are more important than they are which is not an ideal impression for a company to give to it's supporters.

One tidbit I'd forgotten, from the SWM kickstarter page:

NOTE: All pledge levels include worldwide shipping - we have partnered with Mantic Games in the UK, The Combat Company in Australia, and others, to make it easy for our international customers to get their orders as easily as possible. Add-on items from our existing catalog will be shipped from our California warehouse separately from your pledge reward and additional shipping fees may apply.

My spider sense tells me that since SWM is depending on Mantic to ship internationally, they're going to keep their contract with mantic.

In short, I doubt it's mantic's backers that are more important, but the overall business relationship between SWM and mantic. But that's a total guess.

 Portugal Jones wrote:

You want to see a Kickstarter where heaping all the gak you can shovel onto the creator is justified, check out this dumb fether.

That's telling people to stick it where the sun don't shine!

 Polonius wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Is that the reason? Honest question because earlier in the thread there was mention that Mantic would have to refund backers for the Deadzone tile if it didn't ship by a certain date and that is why the tile jumped ahead of the shipping queque. That reason gives the impression to SWM's backers that Mantic's backers are more important than they are which is not an ideal impression for a company to give to it's supporters.

One tidbit I'd forgotten, from the SWM kickstarter page:

NOTE: All pledge levels include worldwide shipping - we have partnered with Mantic Games in the UK, The Combat Company in Australia, and others, to make it easy for our international customers to get their orders as easily as possible. Add-on items from our existing catalog will be shipped from our California warehouse separately from your pledge reward and additional shipping fees may apply.

My spider sense tells me that since SWM is depending on Mantic to ship internationally, they're going to keep their contract with mantic.

In short, I doubt it's mantic's backers that are more important, but the overall business relationship between SWM and mantic. But that's a total guess.

I'd still say that the biggest reason is there were a lot less difficulties in getting one fairly simple tile done, as opposed to the vastly more complex multi-tile sets

Sining wrote:

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

Great post, but you are kinda making my point for me (my bold emphasis).

The thing is, they accepted someone's estimate of when it would ship, just like we accepted SWM's. And that's all that is, an estimate, which can unfortunately be wrong (and was in this case). Sorry, I just ultimately disagree we're owed anything beyond an apology for the delays and a promise of better on the next round. Chalk it up to differing opinions.

On a more constructive note, the temple set looks good and easy to use/place other buildings on.

As someone who does production, estimates to ship are pretty important. Sure we can go over it but we've never gone 4+ or 10+ months over it. You'll find you lose customers when that happens

Unfortunately the manurfacturer (WGF) is pretty much the only game in town right now. The screwed over customers (SWM, and ultimately us), don't have many other options for plastic wargaming manufacturers in China. I believe its more or less them, Renedra, or go home.

Update #112

Apr 1 2014
Ruined Temple - FINAL TILES
9 comments
9 likes

The last of the Ruined Temple tiles arrived today, and you'll see why they didn't make it into the first test run -- the milling was INSANE!



This is the second rubble tile - and those blocks are massive!





Next up is what I've been calling the ziggarut tile -- although the rest of Lost-Ruined-Forgotten-Temple-City or whatever we wind up calling it is pretty flat, I wanted one tile that took full advantage of the height difference.







So, what's left?

I'm still waiting on test shots for several Urban Streets tiles, and the packaging quote. All of that should be waiting for me when I get back from Adepticon. Once that's done, they'll start running tiles to meet the order, and we're on track to ship by May.

MADNESS!

Stay tuned for more, including some shots of the display setup at Adepticon - where I plan to put out a Display Board for each of the themes.

Dang, those are looking good! Those are seriously comparable to GW's plastic Realm of Battle tiles in quality. I may need to pick up a few for my Dark Angels for a display board.

They really are cool looking. Hopefully they get their production issues sorted out and people can buy this stuff retail. I'd be a customer.

Reading threads like this makes me even more weary of ever backing any KS campaign.

Adepticon~

(Walls are WIP casts)

Is that a painted Rolling Hills table?