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Not really sure why, but I love the 'X' guns featured on the drone sprue. Sure they don't have a role in the game, but I just find it cool that they are included.

Guess I am a tad weird.

 Inspector #264 wrote:
Not really sure why, but I love the 'X' guns featured on the drone sprue. Sure they don't have a role in the game, but I just find it cool that they are included.

Guess I am a tad weird.

I suspect we will see them on a lot of Scarecrow shoulders.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I suspect we will see them on a lot of Scarecrow shoulders.

Although I personally don't mind the look of the stock Scarecrow shoulder weapon I can see why that may well be the case, and with 4 per drone sprue and 4 drone sprues per stater box there will be plently to go round.

 infinite_array wrote:

Spoiler:

I like the "Grasshopper" drone idea they had in the update today.



I might do that for all my drones, as just designate between Spiders and Wasps based on what is/isn't on flying bases.

It looks like you have successfully captured the theme of the setting in your new card game.

This is not a good thing.

The setting of Maelstrom's Edge is a terrible match with the game you want to play in that setting. As has been said earlier in this thread, the Maelstrom is not a problem with a military solution, so the fighting that is the subject of the game has more in common with rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than anything worthwhile.

And now you've got a card game that draws attention to this flaw. The obvious objective for your fleet in this game is to salvage as much as you can from these four planets before they are destroyed. The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright. But since you don't want that, the victory conditions make it so that stopping somebody else salvaging X resources is just as good as you salvaging an additional X resources.

 AlexHolker wrote:
The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright.

Absolutely. If there's one thing that history has taught us, it's that humanity can always be counted on to find an amicable solution when resources are on the line...

 insaniak wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:
The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright.

Absolutely. If there's one thing that history has taught us, it's that humanity can always be counted on to find an amicable solution when resources are on the line...

But resources aren't on the line. Shooting the other guy doesn't make the Maelstrom come any slower and, I quote: "Planets are large enough that you and your opponent can syphon at the same time".

 AlexHolker wrote:
But resources aren't on the line. Shooting the other guy doesn't make the Maelstrom come any slower and, I quote: "Planets are large enough that you and your opponent can syphon at the same time".

How do you think most of the worlds' governments would respond to a neighbour sauntering onto their territory and setting up a mine?

I mean, it doesn't stop their mines from operating at the same time, so should be perfectly ok, right?

Are any of the factions openly at war? Do we know anything about how the aliens operate? Without knowing, we can only speculate, and I tend to favor Alex's interpretation instead of playing The Road....in Spaaaaaaace.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Are any of the factions openly at war? .

Whether they are or not, they're likely to be quickly enough if they start trying to steal each others' stuff.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:
The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright.

Absolutely. If there's one thing that history has taught us, it's that humanity can always be counted on to find an amicable solution when resources are on the line...

But resources aren't on the line. Shooting the other guy doesn't make the Maelstrom come any slower and, I quote: "Planets are large enough that you and your opponent can syphon at the same time".

I think you're confusing "Your wallet is big enough for two people to hold" with "Your wallet holds enough money for two people."

 AlexHolker wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:
The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright.

Absolutely. If there's one thing that history has taught us, it's that humanity can always be counted on to find an amicable solution when resources are on the line...

But resources aren't on the line. Shooting the other guy doesn't make the Maelstrom come any slower and, I quote: "Planets are large enough that you and your opponent can syphon at the same time".

Exactly history shows that 2 countries readily share their resources without resorting to war.... oh wait.
Survival brings the best and worst out of people, with governments is usual the latter.

 AlexHolker wrote:
It looks like you have successfully captured the theme of the setting in your new card game.

This is not a good thing.

The setting of Maelstrom's Edge is a terrible match with the game you want to play in that setting. As has been said earlier in this thread, the Maelstrom is not a problem with a military solution, so the fighting that is the subject of the game has more in common with rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than anything worthwhile.

And now you've got a card game that draws attention to this flaw. The obvious objective for your fleet in this game is to salvage as much as you can from these four planets before they are destroyed. The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright. But since you don't want that, the victory conditions make it so that stopping somebody else salvaging X resources is just as good as you salvaging an additional X resources.

You have to think of how the Maelstrom actually approaches in with the right timescale in mind. A world can be considered at the Maelstrom's Edge when there is roughly less than a human's lifetime remaining. The progress of the Maelstrom's advance can fluctuate, so nobody knows when it will hit for certain, but that's the rough timescale when things really start to go crazy because before that point a person living on that world is only worrying about what their children *might* have to face as opposed to facing it themselves directly.

Once that line is crossed, people really start to panic and governments, the rich and the military generally tend to evacuate leaving most people behind, because it doesn't make economic sense for them to do otherwise. There are obviously plenty of exceptions to this situation, but that would be the most common one. So that leaves a really long time (many decades) if you think about it, for crazy stuff to occur at a planet on the Maelstrom's Edge for those inclined to risk it.

While individuals trapped on a planet are very much focused solely on escaping, on a macro-level many factions are actually coming *back* to planets at the edge because those planets tend to be easy pickings for valuable resources (as their governments and military tend to be gone or severely weakened). They can literally spend decades pillaging these planets for those valuable resources. Whether or not those factions also save people depends very much on their worldview and a lot is dependent upon the individual commanders of the fleets/ships and how much they're willing to sacrifice the point of the mission (economic gain) in order to save lives.

So if you think about it, in a way the Maelstrom's edge is kind of like the wild west with a twist, in that there are tons of opportunities to get rich, lack of government stability, and a plethora of violence and opportunism going on. But whereas in the wild west people were looking to set up a life there for their future, on the edge people are looking to make what they can for as long as they can before getting the heck out of dodge (hopefully in time before the Maelstrom hits).

Or in short: because of the slow pace of the Maelstrom's advance, from a macro-level you shouldn't think of it like a crazy mad dash to save everyone like Battlestar Galactica or something where we could maybe imagine factions joining together selflessly to make happen. Instead, it is a long, long time for factions to actually try to exploit doomed worlds for their own gain moving forward.

Or another way to look at it as something from our world: imagine if there was a region of our world that was known to have great natural resources (say the middle east), but suddenly everyone knew it was going to disappear in about 100 years...but it could happen really anytime, and for some reason it was exorbitantly expensive a cost to leave the region. So all the governments and rich of the region would use their wealth to evacuate before there was any chance for them to get caught up in it. At that point, what do you realistically believe would happen? The probable truth is that all the powerful governments in the world would attempt to stake their claim to salvage as much oil from the region as possible before it went away, and would likely fight each other over it. Would there also be efforts to save the people? Absolutely, but if it was so exorbitantly costly to do so, the amount of people saved vs. the effort used to harvest resources would probably tip way towards the latter.

 Spiral Arm Studios wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:
It looks like you have successfully captured the theme of the setting in your new card game.

This is not a good thing.

The setting of Maelstrom's Edge is a terrible match with the game you want to play in that setting. As has been said earlier in this thread, the Maelstrom is not a problem with a military solution, so the fighting that is the subject of the game has more in common with rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than anything worthwhile.

And now you've got a card game that draws attention to this flaw. The obvious objective for your fleet in this game is to salvage as much as you can from these four planets before they are destroyed. The best way to do that is to not get into a pointless pissing match with the other fleet, if not cooperate outright. But since you don't want that, the victory conditions make it so that stopping somebody else salvaging X resources is just as good as you salvaging an additional X resources.

You have to think of how the Maelstrom actually approaches in with the right timescale in mind. A world can be considered at the Maelstrom's Edge when there is roughly less than a human's lifetime remaining. The progress of the Maelstrom's advance can fluctuate, so nobody knows when it will hit for certain, but that's the rough timescale when things really start to go crazy because before that point a person living on that world is only worrying about what their children *might* have to face as opposed to facing it themselves directly.

Once that line is crossed, people really start to panic and governments, the rich and the military generally tend to evacuate leaving most people behind, because it doesn't make economic sense for them to do otherwise. There are obviously plenty of exceptions to this situation, but that would be the most common one. So that leaves a really long time (many decades) if you think about it, for crazy stuff to occur at a planet on the Maelstrom's Edge for those inclined to risk it.

While individuals trapped on a planet are very much focused solely on escaping, on a macro-level many factions are actually coming *back* to planets at the edge because those planets tend to be easy pickings for valuable resources (as their governments and military tend to be gone or severely weakened). They can literally spend decades pillaging these planets for those valuable resources. Whether or not those factions also save people depends very much on their worldview and a lot is dependent upon the individual commanders of the fleets/ships and how much they're willing to sacrifice the point of the mission (economic gain) in order to save lives.

So if you think about it, in a way the Maelstrom's edge is kind of like the wild west with a twist, in that there are tons of opportunities to get rich, lack of government stability, and a plethora of violence and opportunism going on. But whereas in the wild west people were looking to set up a life there for their future, on the edge people are looking to make what they can for as long as they can before getting the heck out of dodge (hopefully in time before the Maelstrom hits).

Or in short: because of the slow pace of the Maelstrom's advance, from a macro-level you shouldn't think of it like a crazy mad dash to save everyone like Battlestar Galactica or something where we could maybe imagine factions joining together selflessly to make happen. Instead, it is a long, long time for factions to actually try to exploit doomed worlds for their own gain moving forward.

Or another way to look at it as something from our world: imagine if there was a region of our world that was known to have great natural resources (say the middle east), but suddenly everyone knew it was going to disappear in about 100 years...but it could happen really anytime, and for some reason it was exorbitantly expensive a cost to leave the region. So all the governments and rich of the region would use their wealth to evacuate before there was any chance for them to get caught up in it. At that point, what do you realistically believe would happen? The probable truth is that all the powerful governments in the world would attempt to stake their claim to salvage as much oil from the region as possible before it went away, and would likely fight each other over it. Would there also be efforts to save the people? Absolutely, but if it was so exorbitantly costly to do so, the amount of people saved vs. the effort used to harvest resources would probably tip way towards the latter.

I had opened this thread tonight to post a detailed and well thought-out explanation for why I wasn't going to play Maelstrom. But this post (the inverse Wild West angle) has managed to make me seriously rethink that.

I'd honestly like to see that desperado, lawless aspect played up more than the military-in-space stuff we've all seen a million times before. Hopefully future products put a greater emphasis on that.

Side question: Will the models be available for purchase separately when this goes to retail? (Will it eventually be available for retail?)

 Spiral Arm Studios wrote:
You have to think of how the Maelstrom actually approaches in with the right timescale in mind.

We are talking about planets which have suddenly acquired an expiration date. That's planets. Plural. At some point the abundance of a resource exceeds your capacity to exploit it, and unless you're building Dyson spheres that point comes well before impending doom opens up entire planets to being strip-mined.

We're also talking about resources that, if they aren't collected before the Maelstrom hits, will be lost (presumably) forever.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Spiral Arm Studios wrote:
You have to think of how the Maelstrom actually approaches in with the right timescale in mind.

We are talking about planets which have suddenly acquired an expiration date. That's planets. Plural. At some point the abundance of a resource exceeds your capacity to exploit it, and unless you're building Dyson spheres that point comes well before impending doom opens up entire planets to being strip-mined.

Government A and Government B send ships over to a planet.
Government A gets there first, and grabs up the best mining spots.
There's enough room for Government B to say "Shuck, A beat us to the best spots," shrug, and set up mining in the left overs. Or, B can launch a military attack against A.

Replace "best mining spots" with "more than their share of mining spots" if you want.

Keep in mind that these are people we're talking about. People with the well documented behavior of "We both got free stuff, but that person got more free stuff than I did. That's not fair, so I'm going to make sure no one gets anything."

The fact that there's enough room for both A and B to mine the planet isn't really going to be an obstacle to conflict.

Here's a quick colour of my female Epirian Contractor concept:

First thing that I noticed, one-strap kneepads. Nope. Those will be ankle guards/off the food entirely after 2 metres with your nose in the dirt.

I know its a minor thing, but it really jumped out at me as a solid annoyance in that sketch. Similarly, think about actually kneeling on those to take a firing position, the less angular knee pads of the models would, from what I can see of the models, get less in the way than ones that have the large flat surface like you included. At least for the way I shoot, and I don't think I'm too weird ha.

After that there's just a smattering of personal preference with bits and bobs of it, not that important.

 motyak wrote:
First thing that I noticed, one-strap kneepads. Nope. Those will be ankle guards/off the food entirely after 2 metres with your nose in the dirt.

That's what's on the Epirian minis, though, so I'm assuming he's stuck with that for consistency.

 motyak wrote:
First thing that I noticed, one-strap kneepads. Nope. Those will be ankle guards/off the food entirely after 2 metres with your nose in the dirt.

I know its a minor thing, but it really jumped out at me as a solid annoyance in that sketch. Similarly, think about actually kneeling on those to take a firing position, the less angular knee pads of the models would, from what I can see of the models, get less in the way than ones that have the large flat surface like you included. At least for the way I shoot, and I don't think I'm too weird ha.

Thanks for the input. I'm perfectly happy redoing them in favour of something more sensible, it's just something I'm not sufficiently familiar with that it leaped out at me as a flaw.

 insaniak wrote:

 motyak wrote:
First thing that I noticed, one-strap kneepads. Nope. Those will be ankle guards/off the food entirely after 2 metres with your nose in the dirt.

That's what's on the Epirian minis, though, so I'm assuming he's stuck with that for consistency.

Ah right. The shape of the knee pad on the models is more to my liking, so I think I glossed over it after ticking that off in my mind if that makes sense. With the flat topped ones in the sketch, I didn't like them, so I then saw the rest of it. Makes more sense.

Angel is up, and i'm afraid in my opinion it is a bit lacklustre.


Anyway, here you go.

So, here's the thing. I want Medge to survive and prosper. I want to be able to read Medge novels while building Medge minis that I will never paint. I want people to have enthusiastic discussions about the Medge background and rules. I want a Medge HHHobby. I gather that's what the creators were aiming for, too.

Unfortunately, the Kickstarter campaign doesn't seem to have lit the room on fire. This worries me because I'm afraid people who passed on the KS will have inertia against Medge when it comes out in retail. With only a few hundred backers worldwide, Medge will have a long uphill struggle to succeed based on local gaming clubs, word of mouth, and FLGS presence. Meanwhile, it's clear that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in the plastic tooling, the art, the game components, the fiction and the rules writing. If Medge is slow to earn that back, it will deter future expansion, which will give the game the stagnant feeling that can keep new players away. SAS already stated that the level of KS success will determine future retail pricing, box contents, and other stuff, which means we're looking at a more conservative retail release with likely less-attractive per-unit prices. In a market where Mantic and DFG have plastic troopers coming out every year or so, and where Miniature Market will dump last-years' losers at buy-it-now prices, the per-unit prices can make or break the game.

I don't want to do a complete post-mortem (or, uh, vivisection since the campaign is still live), but I do want to know why the KS didn't strike a spark and what it would take to get new backers in and old backers spending more. Since there's only a week left, I also want to think about what would make Medge's retail launch more exciting.


A lot of the more vocal abstainers have discussed their issues with Medge already, so I'll bring some of them up.

1. The box doesn't have enough plastic in it. One poster pointed out that plastic minis only do well in Kickstarters if they are sold by the bucket or if they are amazing sculpts. The consensus is that Medge's sculpts are "pretty good" with a few exceptions depending on the beholder, so they can't use the Kingdom Death/WWX/Wyrd approach. That leaves the Mantic "quantity is a quality that's ...better than our quality" approach. People have stated that they would buy Medge minis if they had enough to use in other games (i.e. more than 5 troopers per type) in case they don't like Medge's rules. So, if it is at all possible, more plastic in the box, or better yet as add-ons, could make the game more attractive. A bulk deal for the terrain sprues would not go amiss since every discussion about them ends up with a backer asking how many one should buy.

2. The rules. Some people love the rules. Some people don't. However, I suspect a good global campaign could draw in interest even from people who would prefer more elegant systems. I'll be blunt: this campaign feels like an attempt to capture that old 40k feeling from back when everyone loved 40k. Why was 40k so popular? Widespread participation (for many reasons). Why not have an Eye of Terror campaign that everyone can participate in? Give an invite to everyone who pledged for rules in one form or another, have some 'combat simulation' beta playtesting, and then begin the actual campaign so that the playtesters are rewarded with a chance to take part in something that will affect the greater Medge universe. If the results matter (even if they only affect one faction or one novel's story arc or one permanent character's bio), I bet it would bring a lot of enthusiasm to the rules and the fluff conjointly. I would like to see the rules, fluff and art for the other factions debuted for the campaign, even if it means those players have to proxy for those factions.

If everyone gets a terrain sprue in the package, why not have a contest? Make some base rules, such as a time limit of a week and a budget of $20, and see who can make the best terrain out of flower pots, fast food boxes, biscotti bins, CD spindles, etc. The winning terrain entries get to be used for the big action set pieces for a future novel or short story that will set the mood for another campaign... A Hobby for everyone.

3. The fluff. It is difficult to translate a Man Vs Nature setting into a Man Vs Man wargame. One can draw a tenuous path directly from "It's the end of the world as we know it" straight to "Everybody was kung fu fighting," but it clearly doesn't appeal to everyone. I personally find the response to such criticism unappealing, especially since in this thread it often takes the form of "suffering people gonna fight lol." Now, I've read the stories and I think the Hunter and the Scarecrow do a far, far better job of 'selling' the setting and the factions than all the blocky word blocks on the TLDR main campaign page. Most potential backers won't bother reading the fiction, though. So, my recommendation is for Medge to slaughter its darlings and start over. Can you describe each faction in 25-50 words? Can you give me a 100 word 'bolterporn' vignette for the coolest mini/unit/character in each faction? Basically, please give me the back of the book highlights now and some nice 3rd or 4th Edition Codex style write-ups for the factions with art and stories at retail launch? Better yet, look at the AT-43 army books that manage to fit in just as much character and background in a noticeably slimmer book.

Oh, and can we please have enough of the background to understand the remaining factions and why they fight? A whole second layer of motivation would really help. Do the aliens blame humanity for the Maelstrom? Do the broken want to defeat the capitalist foundations? What do the Karist upper echelons want? I feel that the coming of the maelstrom works less as the direct cause of action than as a reminder or accelerator for the more complex Man Vs Man motivations that propel each faction into action. "Asset Realization" is just not going to keep me interested for much longer than a Paul Verhoeven satire, and some people are tired of it already, at least in the context of a wargame. Let the novelists have the broader background, but please give us something a little more focused on combat, with goals that should be achieved by a military.

4. The community. When I heard that Dakka was making a game, the potential community involvement was the first thing that excited me. However, the threads have turned this into Medge's great weakness. People who are far less abrasive than I am have complained that they don't feel safe posting in Medge threads. They are still saying that. The community has absolutely not been welcoming. Yes, there is a lot of criticism, but that just means people care enough to comment in the first place. I don't even know what to say about this problem except that you can't expect Dakka to engage with your game if you won't engage with Dakka.

This was supposed to be a place of fun. Kickstarter threads should express the excitement of the backers, not stifle it.

5. Presentation. Medge has followed a very strict plan during the campaign. Unfortunately, it was missing the kind of pizzazz that makes for an event Kickstarter and the kind of selling that makes for a must-buy kickstarter. Mantic and CMON both have their own KS formulas, and I have no doubt that either of them could have taken the current Medge product, chaps and all, and made half a million with it. I've already posted some of my thoughts, and I've seen Buzzsaw comment on this, too. I would love to hear from the many people who are smarter and more experienced than I am. I would love to see Medge have a slick retail release that gets everyone's attention.



What will help Medge grow faster? What will sell you on it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, I just refreshed the main campaign page, and it looks a lot better than I remembered. Some of my observations are clearly obsolete.

Great post, Bob.

I was hoping to be excited by ME too, and lost interest almost immediately for a couple of reasons.

*The model aesthetics.
A common complaint, the models just did not catch my interest and I wasn't shown enough of the various model ranges to get past the models that were shown that I did not like. I think the longer than usual campaign window hurt in this area as new models were slowly trickled out and by the time the Scarecrows and the big robot were shown I had already made up my mind about not backing. Another issue was the model bases. Early in the campaign it was noted that the model bases may be revised at a later date, and there were questions about the use of round bases for infantry whether or not the flying units would stay on hex bases or move over to round plastic bases. Perhaps this was later addressed, but at the time the response was that the bases were still up in the air and things might get changed down the road. This was a major turn off for me as it gave the impression that ME was still unpolished. Coupled with the Empirians, it seemed like ME 2.0 was already being thought about which made me infinitely less interested in messing around with the initial 1.0 version.

And related, while it was great to have so much completed by SAS in time for the campaign, not being able to influence the direction of much of anything regarding the game or contents took away much of the excitement KS campaigns generate for me. Being told the models are finalized and legitimate complaints cannot be addressed or altered takes this from a crowd-sourced project to get a game into existence and shifts the entire campaign firmly in the "This is what we are doing, would you like to pre-order?"

Another issue I had was the perceived defensiveness of the creators, which coincides with one of your points below:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

4. The community. When I heard that Dakka was making a game, the potential community involvement was the first thing that excited me. However, the threads have turned this into Medge's great weakness. People who are far less abrasive than I am have complained that they don't feel safe posting in Medge threads. They are still saying that. The community has absolutely not been welcoming. Yes, there is a lot of criticism, but that just means people care enough to comment in the first place. I don't even know what to say about this problem except that you can't expect Dakka to engage with your game if you won't engage with Dakka.

My impression of the dialog between forum members and SAS staff/contributors was negative when early criticism of the Empirians were first making the rounds. The people associated with the game seemed extremely defensive that the Empirians weren't loved, and the real-world reasons given for why the sculpts looked and functioned the way they did made sense, but weren't satisfying. I don't care that the Empirians were the first attempt SAS made at plastic molded models, nor do I care that they learned a lot from the process. All I care about is that they are trying to convince me to buy what appears to be low quality models with limited pose-ability--and telling me I should be excited about the prospect! A few weeks later when select forum members got sneak peeks of the Empirians and gleefully posted how great they were, it all smacked of a ham-fisted viral marketing campaign. Why were these select people getting sneak previews? Who did they know? Why weren't these sneak previews announced to the public, such as "Come to the Game Shack on Saturday to see the Empirians in person!" or some other hype generating announcement. Instead, private gaming groups got sneak previews? WTH is that? It is weird.

Throughout this campaign there seemed to be various strata of community members with differing levels of involvement/information regarding the game. You had the regular forum members who were trying to get information to decide if they would back the campaign, you had another group who were also potential backers but had connections to get access to materials ahead of everyone else (such as previews of Empirians), then you had the contributors to the game who may have painted minis, or built terrain, or assisted in another fashion to get the game ready for public consumption and finally you had the SAS staffers. All of these groups were clamoring to receive and give information, and it was all disjointed and hard to follow. And it also left me feeling like there was an "in" crowd and the rest of us.

TL;DR- Perceptions of defensiveness on the part of SAS staff/contributors, along with uninteresting models, a slow release rate of information, and an inability to change aspects of the game/models already completed killed all desire to back the game.

I get the impression that if ME can survive long enough for a 2.0 version that it will be a great game to play. Currently it feels unpolished in places, overly polished in others (why do I need a card game and audio books when the base set of models have major flaws?) and doesn't seem to have its footing. At least not enough for me to gamble on buying in.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
1. The box doesn't have enough plastic in it. One poster pointed out that plastic minis only do well in Kickstarters if they are sold by the bucket or if they are amazing sculpts. The consensus is that Medge's sculpts are "pretty good" with a few exceptions depending on the beholder, so they can't use the Kingdom Death/WWX/Wyrd approach. That leaves the Mantic "quantity is a quality that's ...better than our quality" approach. People have stated that they would buy Medge minis if they had enough to use in other games (i.e. more than 5 troopers per type) in case they don't like Medge's rules. So, if it is at all possible, more plastic in the box, or better yet as add-ons, could make the game more attractive. A bulk deal for the terrain sprues would not go amiss since every discussion about them ends up with a backer asking how many one should buy.

Unfortunately, this is more a problem with Kickstarter and how people have come to perceive it as a result of past projects, than it is a problem with MEdge.

Too many projects have gone for the 'cram everything they can find into the box' approach to entice people to get onboard, and as a result, people have come to expect that in every project... if you don't have more minis that you can fit in a minivan, and a new stretch goal adding more minis every time someone refreshes the page, then you're not 'good value'...

The weird thing is that this attitude persists despite so many of the projects that tried that approach winding up delaying fulfillment by years[i], or just running out of money because the end result simply wasn't profitable or wound up actually costing them money... which is more or less the exact [i]opposite of what Kickstarter is supposed to be for.


SAS went for a more measured approach precisely because they want this game to be an on-going affair. So yes, there's less bonus stuff to set the world on fire. But what that actually means is that what's in the box is the stuff that SAS are certain that they can actually provide at that price, within the specified timeframe. So the draw for this kickstarter isn't 'bucketloads of free stuff'... it's 'a functional game, that can conceivably be delivered when the developer said it would be'... because so many of them simply aren't.

3. The fluff. It is difficult to translate a Man Vs Nature setting into a Man Vs Man wargame.

I really don't see this. 'Crappy catastrophe is happening... people act crappy as a result'. It's the perfect setting for a wargame.

You're right... it's not going to appeal to everyone. That's never going to be a designer's goal, though, because it's impossible.

Feedback on the setting has, from what I've seen, been largely positive. As in, really positive. People are excited about all of the possibilities inherent in it. And that's exactly what you want from a game setting.

4. The community. When I heard that Dakka was making a game, the potential community involvement was the first thing that excited me. However, the threads have turned this into Medge's great weakness. People who are far less abrasive than I am have complained that they don't feel safe posting in Medge threads. They are still saying that. The community has absolutely not been welcoming. Yes, there is a lot of criticism, but that just means people care enough to comment in the first place. I don't even know what to say about this problem except that you can't expect Dakka to engage with your game if you won't engage with Dakka.

So - you want the people behind the game to 'engage' with 'Dakka'... but you want them to be more hands off, so that people feel 'safe' to post their opinions?

I'm not sure you can have both.

There has been plenty of open discussion, from a community that (by and large) has been extremely welcoming. As far as I can recall, not one post has been removed from the News thread. Nor have any warnings been issued to anyone, other than general in-thread notes to get back on-topic. A whole bunch of moderators have posted in the discussion... because they're excited about the project, and it's something that they want to talk about.

If people are feeling 'stifled' as a result, then I would wonder if perhaps the issue might be more with their preferred way of presenting their opinion, rather than with the actual opinion itself. Ultimately, the same rules apply to MEdge threads as apply to any other part of the site. Opinions are welcome, and a lot of posters have managed to present theirs (positive and negative) without being whisked away in black cars in the dead of night.


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 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Early in the campaign it was noted that the model bases may be revised at a later date, and there were questions about the use of round bases for infantry whether or not the flying units would stay on hex bases or move over to round plastic bases.

I think you may have misread something there. There has never been any question about round bases for the infantry, and the hex bases for the flying units are fixed due to tooling costs. That was said right from the start.

The only question around bases was about whether or not the larger models would get them, which comes down to the campaign total.

A few weeks later when select forum members got sneak peeks of the Empirians and gleefully posted how great they were, it all smacked of a ham-fisted viral marketing campaign. Why were these select people getting sneak previews?

Because they went to an event where the models were being shown?

There's no big conspiracy here, unless everyone who went to Salute was in on it...

The one big problem to getting more money from existing backers is the lack of add ons.

At the moment the most enthusiastic supporter is likely to get (at best) 2 box sets (you can give away an extra rule book and tokens to help grow a local player base and feel good about it, paying for more than one extra to give away, nope not unless your rich) and some extra terrain sprues.

If they did allow add ons of the individual sprues at sensible prices (not even dirt cheap ones) they could probably pull in a fair bit more cash from enthusiastic supports who want to bulk out their faction of choice, plus a fair bit more from people who want stuff for other systems (mainly hunters, scarecrows, drones and minows rather than either sets of troopers from the comments

It also means there's no need for backers to make any choices, and choices mean looking at the page, thinking about desciions, chatting to others to see if they agree/disagree with what you've decided, arguing back and forth about wether this is good value, or that hunter is better than those pair of scarecrows etc

but they've chose not to do so to make fulfilment simpler/cheaper, fair enough, they know what their costs are likely to be in both cases

In terms of how they've handled the campaign I think they've mainly done what they can with what they have, a very particular and targeted vision of a 'tight' tournamentable rule set in an interesting universe with minis that look good at 'gaming' distances

Lots of us might casually think about playing a new game, but really in our heart of hearts we know most rule sets we pick up will not see much table time as either we, or our local groups will decide they either don't suit or just don't provide enough local opponents, so with the best will in the world rules are a 'tax' that most of us either pay willingly or grudgingly

The minis are to my eyes a mixed bag but then I prefer to look at mine at eye level, close up in a cabinet so I'm not the right target audience, but I'm sure a fair number of the 'ooh shiney' KS crowd are the same and so this was probably not going to get their cash

As to numbers, actually I think what's in the box is pretty good for the price, with only some of the huge money campaigns like Manitc/CMON doing better, so no complaints or suggestions there. If this had hit $500K I'd have hoped for more stuff but since it hasn't no complaints there

In terms of background we've had loads more than almost any other KS that started from zero, plenty of feedback from the writers, etc, stories, audio books etc and a couple of novels to pick up (although I think fast tracking the sale of the salute left overs would have been smart, unless there were only were a few left)

The KS comments has not worked, sadly, as there hasn't been a chatty community develop, but that's down to the backers (Spiral Arms staff have responded fast and in detail to questions, suggestions etc). This might actually be down to them NOT offereing pie in the sky, backers don't feel the need to come up with demands for Hawkmen, cthulhu, Resevoir dogs or whatever as they know they're not going to get them, so the casual arguing over what they'd like to see that later develops into more relevant (or irrelevant) chat doesn't happen, so the comments seem quite which means others don't post etc. I don't see how they could do more (other than banning all discussion on Dakka so we'd have HAD to use the KS comments)

The one misstep I think they did make was initially moderating the N&R thread too heavily (not deliberately I think, but since all the MODs wanted to see what was going on too much moderating got done), but that said those who were strongly negative were probably not going to buy in in a big way anyway, it just gave things a bit of an awkward look if the first day or two

 insaniak wrote:
There's no big conspiracy here, unless everyone who went to Salute was in on it...

And I wasn't talking about Salute. I was referring to American players who saw the models among their gaming group. In America. Oh, wait, sarcastic ellipses are need...

 insaniak wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
1. The box doesn't have enough plastic in it. One poster pointed out that plastic minis only do well in Kickstarters if they are sold by the bucket or if they are amazing sculpts. The consensus is that Medge's sculpts are "pretty good" with a few exceptions depending on the beholder, so they can't use the Kingdom Death/WWX/Wyrd approach. That leaves the Mantic "quantity is a quality that's ...better than our quality" approach. People have stated that they would buy Medge minis if they had enough to use in other games (i.e. more than 5 troopers per type) in case they don't like Medge's rules. So, if it is at all possible, more plastic in the box, or better yet as add-ons, could make the game more attractive. A bulk deal for the terrain sprues would not go amiss since every discussion about them ends up with a backer asking how many one should buy.

Unfortunately, this is more a problem with Kickstarter and how people have come to perceive it as a result of past projects, than it is a problem with MEdge.

I disagree.

I compared it to the GW starter boxes, which is obviously the crowd of folks ME is trying to cater to.

The contents, both in terms of quantity and quality, simply don't stack up.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

The one misstep I think they did make was initially moderating the N&R thread too heavily (not deliberately I think, but since all the MODs wanted to see what was going on too much moderating got done), but that said those who were strongly negative were probably not going to buy in in a big way anyway, it just gave things a bit of an awkward look if the first day or two

There's always going to be heavier moderation in threads that have more moderators active in them, simply because it makes it more likely that said moderators will see the things that need moderating.

That being said, the reaction to the mod presence in the news thread was noted, and a deliberate effort was made for the mods to all step back a bit.


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 cincydooley wrote:


I disagree.

I compared it to the GW starter boxes, which is obviously the crowd of folks ME is trying to cater to.

The contents, both in terms of quantity and quality, simply don't stack up.

GW has a lot more freedom to create loss-leaders than a new startup does.

That, and MEdge includes a lot of card components, something GW moved away from years ago, specifically to reduce the cost of their starter sets.