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 Mr Morden wrote:
I agree and understand that a digital update is needed for the surprising amount of issues in the current rulebook.

However I don't own or want a tablet and my phone has buttons (!) so I will have to print it off. Personally I would prefer a new book

Yea, that's also what I'm saying. Make it a living book online, and you can print it from there for people who want a physical one. FedEx usually has 30% off coupons, and you can print just the rules and skip the fluff/read it online/print it separate and get a rulebook for far cheaper then if they make a rulebook

The fluff and flavor of the DZC physical book is one of my most treasured gaming possessions. I'm really looking forward to being able to carry around the DFC book and read it at my leisure. The new Mantic sourcebook? Have to leave it at home, or stop reading when my wife wants to play Sim City.


It's important to note that the book is far more than a collection of rules. The DZC book is worth reading for its own sake. The Halo Fleet Battles books? Those were collections of rules, the kind of joyless flappity-froo a person might accidentally run over twice while cleaning his trunk. Put that crap on an iPad. I've spent at least an hour more gaining hobby fun from the Robogear pamphlet.

Living rule books are great, but don't drop the distinctive rule books that make a game feel special.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The fluff and flavor of the DZC physical book is one of my most treasured gaming possessions. I'm really looking forward to being able to carry around the DFC book and read it at my leisure. The new Mantic sourcebook? Have to leave it at home, or stop reading when my wife wants to play Sim City.


It's important to note that the book is far more than a collection of rules. The DZC book is worth reading for its own sake. The Halo Fleet Battles books? Those were collections of rules, the kind of joyless flappity-froo a person might accidentally run over twice while cleaning his trunk. Put that crap on an iPad. I've spent at least an hour more gaining hobby fun from the Robogear pamphlet.

Living rule books are great, but don't drop the distinctive rule books that make a game feel special.

str00dles1 wrote:

nekooni wrote:

str00dles1 wrote:

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
@compel that came direct from a hawk employees mouth at the Cardiff preview day in Firestorm Games.

And Dave has told people at events since launch that Point Defense should be different, that you pull your PD pools together, but without a video or it written anywhere (anywhere being a place that is legit) its all hearsay. Sure, the goal is a perfect book, but that never happens, with any company, ever, as we are humans.

the best thing they could do is make a digital living rulebook for this, and DZC really to edit rules and fix things. Super easy for them, and players. And if you really want, you can print it yourself.

A Living Rulebook is fine for SMALL rulebooks like X-Wing where there's only a few core rules and all the remaining stuff is printed on cards anyway.

I hate using PDFs or anything digital at the table. I've always and will always prefer a hardcover, regular formatted book, preferably in German. And yes, I'm willing to pay extra for each and every one of those features. Had to do so for D&D in the past and would do that for other games, too. It's just that much more convenient.
But a Living Rulebook absolutely kills the ability to offer such a book. I'm not going to buy a new version every month, obviously. So thanks, but no, thanks.

So you prefer buying multiples of the same book, because its physical for you? Seems a little silly. Look at Dropzone 1.0 Lots of errors. Hence why 1.1 was released. Its not fun buying the same thing. Its a digital age. Many games are moving to free rules online, or digital rules. FFG has tons of free/digital rules. (And Descent from FFG is no small game, along with the growing Mansions of Madness 2 and soon to be Imperial assault)

It saves the company a lot of money if they can throw up some PDFs online and let the use print them out for 10 cents or less a page. Its very expensive to edit the book, then send it to be professionally printed out. A lot less people buy it at that point.

If this book was like a normal sized/layout book it wouldn't be bad, but I don't know anyone who enjoys the layout it currently has. Takes up a ton of space. Hence why I use my Ipad to play Dropfleet using dflist.

Also its fine for Hard cover DND books, as they don't really get Errata's since they have gone through the mass versions, and 5th really fixed things. Its also not a war-game. War-games are completive so you need a lot of rule checks. DND is very free flow and use whatever you want to it, so not a good comparison for books.

I simply expect them to put in proper QA effort. That is why dnd doesnt have 4.1, 4.2, 5.1 or 5.2 rulebooks.each edition in dnd is a rewrite that had to be QAed again.
And hardcover is the reason why i dont want a living ruleset, not sure what your point is with the rebuying ...

Still nothing from Hawk, but it sounds like some of the lost are starting to get their shipping notices at least so I'll take that as a hopeful sign.

nekooni wrote:

I simply expect them to put in proper QA effort. That is why dnd doesnt have 4.1, 4.2, 5.1 or 5.2 rulebooks.each edition in dnd is a rewrite that had to be QAed again.
And hardcover is the reason why i dont want a living ruleset, not sure what your point is with the rebuying ...

Just a quick aside, I remember 3.5 DnD...

So do i - ive played it a lot. Its the only one though.

FYI: Received my package in the meantime...

TBH I still have to cooldown a bit before I make a final decision how to proceed with this.

str00dles1 wrote:
There is quite a lot to errata, so I easily see them doing a 1.1 version, just like Dropzone has.

That's a bummer, though... and I went through that with DzC as my whole group bought in heavily. The rules need to be a higher priority, imo - it was our main turnoff and looks to be here, as well. It's why I was excited about Andy Chambers, but I think his involvement was only at the start and I'd love to see them task him with more. Especially if they're needing to errata already! The rules and balance really have to be solid, it's what gives smaller (although that's relative!) games like theses legs and help them last.

Their models are gorgeous, but if they're hiring I think this should be a major focus, or at least commissioning someone to get things really tight!

 RiTides wrote:

Their models are gorgeous, but if they're hiring I think this should be a major focus, or at least commissioning someone to get things really tight!

On a good note, at least it's not like Warmahordes 3.0. If this is all we are complaining about is spelling mistakes, that is so much better than trying to change how the game plays at least.

Got my package. At first flip-through, the rule book was everything I hoped it would be. I actually squeed when I saw the annotated cross-section.

As for the sprues... It's no use. I see them. I start to shake and cough...

Haha, well done Bob

And I agree it's a gorgeous book! Just hope they can keep things tight on the rules, and hopefully make any errata quickly . Obviously they're right on in focusing on finishing the last shipments first!

Another week and nothing. How many months is it going to take Hawk to answer our emails and send out our pledges? This is getting beyond any reasonable slack I might have previously given them.

I received my rewards, but never got a shipping notice, nor did I receive a reply to my emails or my KS message.

Just hang in there. We're all pulling for you.

 mdauben wrote:
Another week and nothing. How many months is it going to take Hawk to answer our emails and send out pledges? This is getting beyond any reasonable slack I might have previously given them.

Judging from the FB group they're making progress, more and more people are being contacted and/or getting their shipments/shipping notices. They'll get around to yours at some point. I'm really sorry you're apparently on the lower end of that list :(

nekooni wrote:

 mdauben wrote:
Another week and nothing. How many months is it going to take Hawk to answer our emails and send out pledges? This is getting beyond any reasonable slack I might have previously given them.

Judging from the FB group they're making progress, more and more people are being contacted and/or getting their shipments/shipping notices. They'll get around to yours at some point. I'm really sorry you're apparently on the lower end of that list :(

It would help if Hawk would just post some updates on their stupid Kickstarter page with progress reports. Even a once a week posting to say "we identified 12 missing pledges this week and got them shipped" would go a long way towards making me feel more confident that something was being done. Just another example of the incompetence that seems to be dogging this Kickstarter.

Progress reports draw people from areas that are higher priority.

And some people do not realize that once certain buttons are pushed it becomes extremely expensive to stop them again. Once the production for retail sarts and the shops place their order changing dates is no longer possible, except you really want to bleed money. You can´t just hire some people, you have to train them, too.

Kickstarter Updates are fairly inexpensive - and are usually greatly appreciated too!

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
Progress reports draw people from areas that are higher priority.

Considering the continuing storm of bad press being generated by the KS I would consider taking a half hour a week to post a progress report to be fairly high priority.

Well, they could either post, week after week, that they work on the shipping out of parcels or just send them out. I prefer the latter.

The storm of bad press is rather a small group being very vocal. As it seems the majority is quite happy with what they got.

Btw, there is no TT-KS where everyone is happy, no matter how hard you try. A certain percentage of backers will always have problems getting their parcels for differing reasons.

Some things Hawk could have done better. But considering how e.g. even CMON manages to still get the packaging of their products wrong time after time (i look at you game-boards with damages), even after so many KS they are doing not that bad for their first KS.

If we ran into Problems like with Palladium I would be completely on your side. But the issues we have here are more of the lesser ones, though they are not that nice for those being on the receiving end.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
Progress reports draw people from areas that are higher priority.

And some people do not realize that once certain buttons are pushed it becomes extremely expensive to stop them again. Once the production for retail sarts and the shops place their order changing dates is no longer possible, except you really want to bleed money. You can´t just hire some people, you have to train them, too.

Oh come on. A proper long-form progress report would take maybe half an hour, a quick one like "we did 12 pledges this week" would be more like "get the number, type a line and done - 5 minutes". It's not rocket science to write a status report of your project. I do this every week for more than one project.

And noone I know is complaining about the quality of the product, just the quality of the service and delivery times and communications. I have my pledge since december, but that doesn't change how badly they communicate(d) and how easy it would be to fix that.

Doing proper updates will not cost them much right now, but not doing it costs them a TON of goodwill with the community and that will translate to sales lost in the long run.

Anyone know what email address you're supposed to contact Hawk on regarding Kickstarter orders? I've had this ongoing issue since end of September and I've sent three emails with no response. I know they say they're looking into issues and not to email them multiple times, but I've not even had an acknowledgement email.

Ask them about dropzone Commander and theyll Reply in a day. Use that Reply to get angry and theyll answer your second E-Mail.
Its a shame you have to trick them into it but that seems to be the best and only way.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:

The storm of bad press is rather a small group being very vocal. As it seems the majority is quite happy with what they got.

10%-20% of the KS backers haven't gotten their orders because Hawk didn't know they even existed. We had to find that out on our own after the whole 'spiel' on the Beasts of War video where they admitted they messed up, why and how they were fixing it. What they didn't know was that they were missing a few hundred backers in the queue... Stuff happens, mistakes happen, stuff gets delayed... I'm still waiting on my Brimstone stuff, not happy to wait, but I can understand why I'm waiting. This is not even Murphy, this is his sad little brother Incompetence.

The stuff looks amazing. That the rulebooks need extensive FAQs, that happens (a LOT) with games, especially miniature wargames. It might have been a good idea to post the pdf to backers before going to print, they would have been able to get a massive amount of proofreading that way.

So I can absolutely understand why people are happy with what they've gotten, but a not insignificant amount of people haven't gotten anything... Just because they are a minority doesn't make them wrong.

Hawk isn't doing this because they are evil, this happened because they have horrible, horrible logistical skills! And unless everyone there broke their hands the last month, they have no excuse for not posting an update with a status update.

For what it's worth I love my DFC space station set, lots of options and neat little greebles. They should follow it up with a modular transport or other ship set.

Manage to make this Not-The-Enterprise and a long-planned Space Fleet conversion.

Yeah, the Station pack is pretty awesome - although I've had some problems during assembly with how parts go together (or dont) - there's room for improvement, but that's really complaining at extra high level - what that kit is capable of is awesome and very unique - the most modular alternative space stations I could find were like "put these 5 parts in any order you want", so on a totally different level.

What I'm really missing are pieces to turn one of the stations into a shipyard / repair station - or just something to dock ships to.

It might have been a good idea to post the pdf to backers before going to print, they would have been able to get a massive amount of proofreading that way.

Being among other things a professional editor... that´s only a good idea if the proof-readers are already quite experienced. Very often it creates more work than it helps. Cause someone has to go through every report and compare it to the files and very often people don´t even adhere to the format for handing in proofs, which creates even more work.

If backer information is missing that can have a lot of causes. Just a simple thing as using an older database-version can cause it. As soon as more than one company is involved in something things get complicated. From the outside is close to impossible to judge what has happened, so one better stays away from pointing fingers.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
For what it's worth I love my DFC space station set, lots of options and neat little greebles. They should follow it up with a modular transport or other ship set.

Manage to make this Not-The-Enterprise and a long-planned Space Fleet conversion.

Very nice work, Kyoto!

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:

It might have been a good idea to post the pdf to backers before going to print, they would have been able to get a massive amount of proofreading that way.

Being among other things a professional editor... that´s only a good idea if the proof-readers are already quite experienced. Very often it creates more work than it helps. Cause someone has to go through every report and compare it to the files and very often people don´t even adhere to the format for handing in proofs, which creates even more work.

If backer information is missing that can have a lot of causes. Just a simple thing as using an older database-version can cause it. As soon as more than one company is involved in something things get complicated. From the outside is close to impossible to judge what has happened, so one better stays away from pointing fingers.

The core issue (to me) isn't that they "lost" data, but it's how they're handling that, and their lack of communication.

Saw the thread title change, any particular reason? Seems like the overwhelming majority of backers got their pledges shipped and received months ago and now there are a few outliers.

RoninXiC wrote:
Ask them about dropzone Commander and theyll Reply in a day. Use that Reply to get angry and theyll answer your second E-Mail.
Its a shame you have to trick them into it but that seems to be the best and only way.

I can sadly confirm that was the only way I've received contact. I titled my email Dropzone Commander and received a response in hours as opposed to silence for months.