@ Buzzsaw: Ah okay, but I still don't think not including the furry stuff will necessarily harm the campaign.
For example, if they wanted to raise a ton of cash they could make some mecha ponies and sell them alongside the other stuff... it would make a lot of money from a particular crowd (see the Impact! Miniatures Chibi RPG minis KS for an example of the kind of cash people will pony up. :p).. but it would be an absolutely *horrible* idea in terms of being suitable for the gaming system in general and would turn off the other backers.
It worked well for Impact! because they were already selling to anime fans/ people who liked SDE and other kinds of adorable chibi stuff.
Here the target market is different, and the furry stuff feels like less of a natural fit for their setting, whereas it works well in Infinity (which has a variety of wolfmen and catgirls) since that game is anime-inspired and has a target audience that laps it up.
A lot of the issue is down to them not having a really good vision for the furry factions as far as I can tell. This is often something a lot of companies fail at when they try to do a furry army... for example AT-43's Karmans and the Mantic Veer-myn aren't exactly armies that you take very seriously. AT-43 made a good effort by having them as buddhist monk-ies but this effort was undermined by the hilarious cigar chomping minis in bubble helmets.
scarletsquig wrote: @ Buzzsaw: Ah okay, but I still don't think not including the furry stuff will necessarily harm the campaign.
For example, if they wanted to raise a ton of cash they could make some mecha ponies and sell them alongside the other stuff... it would make a lot of money from a particular crowd (see the Impact! Miniatures Chibi RPG minis KS for an example of the kind of cash people will pony up. :p).. but it would be an absolutely *horrible* idea in terms of being suitable for the gaming system in general and would turn off the other backers.
It worked well for Impact! because they were already selling to anime fans/ people who liked SDE and other kinds of adorable chibi stuff.
Here the target market is different, and the furry stuff feels like less of a natural fit for their setting, whereas it works well in Infinity since that game is anime-inspired and has a target audience that laps it up, so to speak.
A very good point: it really depends on what people mean by "furry". The Brushfire version, like the classic Robin Hood anthropomorphic character, is obviously a bit too outlandish.
More "realistic" things, like say the Scarrans from Farscape? That I think would work very well in-universe.
^ Pretty much anything from Farscape is really good, most of the alien races for that show were really well thought-out and unique. Farting slugmen aside.
Here the target market is different, and the furry stuff feels like less of a natural fit for their setting, whereas it works well in Infinity (which has a variety of wolfmen and catgirls) since that game is anime-inspired and has a target audience that laps it up.
Yeah this is a good point Squig, at the end of the day furry characters may simply not fit at all in the GoA universe and that's that. I think the real issue is that Dark Space Corp don't seem to have a full grasp about what is "believable" in this game either, and every idea that gets presented is up in the air and immediately fracturing the community. In fact I'm not a 100% sure what the overall theme of this game even is, other than "sci-fi", which when you think about it means very little. Its why I brung up the furry thing, because it (and the female representation thread) kinda sums up my worries over this project. I'm really worried that the whole "design by committee" approach they are taking is going to remove any unique or interesting ideas just because a few loud mouths say so and we just end up with a "Shade of Grey" wargame/miniatures range.
It's still early days for this project, and hope everything gets sorted out, I don't wish to come off as somone who wants to see this project fail because it's really not the case.
BTW I would like to apologise to everyone for derailing the thread like that, the whole furry thing was started by me, very sorry
Here the target market is different, and the furry stuff feels like less of a natural fit for their setting, whereas it works well in Infinity (which has a variety of wolfmen and catgirls) since that game is anime-inspired and has a target audience that laps it up.
Yeah this is a good point Squig, at the end of the day furries characters may simply not fit at all in the GoA universe and that's that. I think the real issue is that Dark Space Corp don't seem to have a full grasp about what is "believable" in this game either and every idea that gets presented is up in the air and immediately fracturing the community. In fact I'm not a 100% what the overall theme of this game even is, other than "sci-fi", which when you think about it means nothing. Its why I brung up the furry thing, because it (and the female representation thread) kinda sums up my worries over this project. I'm really worried that the whole "design by committee" approach they are taking is going to remove any unique or interesting ideas just because a few loud mouths say so and we just end up with a "Shade of Grey" wargame/miniatures range.
It's still early days for this project, and hope everything gets sorted out, I don't wish to come off as somone who wants to see this project fail because it's really not the case.
BTW I would like to apologise to everyone for derailing the thread like that, the whole furry thing was started by me, very sorry
Don't apologize, you've honestly crystallized the over-arcing problem this campaign has: what exactly is it all about?
Like I said earlier about the Hansa: it's a very competently made, very generic... guy. There is just nothing about him that let's you know what universe he is from. He doesn't "read" Star Wars, or Firefly, or Terminator, or 40k, or Infinity, he's just... there.
So far their aesthetic seems to be a lack of aesthetic.
The fact that they want the basic aesthetic of the universe to be determined by the masses I some of the primary reasons I'm not backing. If I wanted to try and create my own sci fi universe to turn into a game, I'd try to.
It's a shame, because I like the proposed "living" nature of the game portions they've proposed....there's just nothing there to convince me to back.
scarletsquig wrote: @ Buzzsaw: Ah okay, but I still don't think not including the furry stuff will necessarily harm the campaign.
For example, if they wanted to raise a ton of cash they could make some mecha ponies and sell them alongside the other stuff... it would make a lot of money from a particular crowd (see the Impact! Miniatures Chibi RPG minis KS for an example of the kind of cash people will pony up. :p).. but it would be an absolutely *horrible* idea in terms of being suitable for the gaming system in general and would turn off the other backers.
If they wanted a ton of money, they'd have concepts and greens of hyper-masculine heroic-looking humans with big kick-arse guns in chunky armour. Something in between GW's own Marines and Mantic's Enforcers and Gears of War's troopers or Master Chief from Halo. We all know that this is what sells, it's a popular sci-fi trope, and if furries fit then this surely also fits in/can be shoehorned into their background. A well-designed space trooper would also work as proxies for other games including 40k. With a good design and some good sculpts, they'd sell a gakload.
Seriously, a gakload. Far more than furries or space apes or catmen or androgynous humans. They don't have to actually be space marines or covered in skulls and bad latin. They just have to have the heavily-armoured and armed look.
Don't apologize, you've honestly crystallized the over-arcing problem this campaign has: what exactly is it all about?
Like I said earlier about the Hansa: it's a very competently made, very generic... guy. There is just nothing about him that let's you know what universe he is from. He doesn't "read" Star Wars, or Firefly, or Terminator, or 40k, or Infinity, he's just... there.
So far their aesthetic seems to be a lack of aesthetic.
Well said, and yes, the furry issue is a good point and worth the discussion that we had. I like Hansa, and as I said earlier, I would totally buy him as a random cool looking model from Hasslefree for 4 quid. On the other hand, nothing about him says "super-cool limited edition figure" or inspires me to buy a force of them.
scarletsquig wrote: @ Buzzsaw: Ah okay, but I still don't think not including the furry stuff will necessarily harm the campaign.
For example, if they wanted to raise a ton of cash they could make some mecha ponies and sell them alongside the other stuff... it would make a lot of money from a particular crowd (see the Impact! Miniatures Chibi RPG minis KS for an example of the kind of cash people will pony up. :p).. but it would be an absolutely *horrible* idea in terms of being suitable for the gaming system in general and would turn off the other backers.
If they wanted a ton of money, they'd have concepts and greens of hyper-masculine heroic-looking humans with big kick-arse guns in chunky armour. Something in between GW's own Marines and Mantic's Enforcers and Gears of War's troopers or Master Chief from Halo. We all know that this is what sells, it's a popular sci-fi trope, and if furries fit then this surely also fits in/can be shoehorned into their background. A well-designed space trooper would also work as proxies for other games including 40k. With a good design and some good sculpts, they'd sell a gakload.
Seriously, a gakload. Far more than furries or space apes or catmen or androgynous humans. They don't have to actually be space marines or covered in skulls and bad latin. They just have to have the heavily-armoured and armed look.
Don't apologize, you've honestly crystallized the over-arcing problem this campaign has: what exactly is it all about?
Like I said earlier about the Hansa: it's a very competently made, very generic... guy. There is just nothing about him that let's you know what universe he is from. He doesn't "read" Star Wars, or Firefly, or Terminator, or 40k, or Infinity, he's just... there.
So far their aesthetic seems to be a lack of aesthetic.
Well said, and yes, the furry issue is a good point and worth the discussion that we had. I like Hansa, and as I said earlier, I would totally buy him as a random cool looking model from Hasslefree for 4 quid. On the other hand, nothing about him says "super-cool limited edition figure" or inspires me to buy a force of them.
This. For a few bucks, I'd toss him in an order, and even double that price as a LE figure I'd get him but $30-35 pledge level is just a bit much. I looked over the pledge levels today, and they're not really offering much of a discount the way the Sedition Wars or Zombicide boxed game did.
My view of a universe designed by fan committee is that you have the danger of getting an incoherent bunch of crap which annoys as many people as it pleases. However, if the ideas are sifted carefully you hopefully would get some good ones you wouldn't have thought of by yourself. I do believe a good production designer is needed to impose a rational aesthetic to the look and feel of everything.
cincydooley wrote: The fact that they want the basic aesthetic of the universe to be determined by the masses I some of the primary reasons I'm not backing. If I wanted to try and create my own sci fi universe to turn into a game, I'd try to.
It's a shame, because I like the proposed "living" nature of the game portions they've proposed....there's just nothing there to convince me to back.
The thing is, it's not going to be determined by the masses or designed by committee really. Rick and the central team do have a strong vision of how things should be (though admitedly you have to read a lot of different bits of the website/forum to piece it together).
Yes they have asked for feedback and input, but it doesn't mean they have to listen to it all and end up with a lowest common denominator muddle. They will (hopefully!) sift all the ideas for the good ones that improve their original concept.
There is a risk that people may get annoyed if their ideas aren't incorporated of course, due to an expectation that they have a say. But they'll just need to be grown-up about it.
If you want to get a handle on Rick's vision for the game, watch the Beasts of War video. It's the clearest explanation yet:
Yes, its not so much designed by a committee but croudsourshing for interesting ideas and concepts, I still find the vision and overall description of what it is foggy though.
Personally and while I am a backer and supporter, I am not that intrigued by most of what is on the table, if you find it odd, I am in to see what Rick can design, as a wargame rules collector and as an amateur game designer I am quite intrigued to see how he tackles the essential wargame problems, how he manages to differentiate from the other wargames, at what levels he thinks the table is saturated and other such stuff, that's why my input is zero, I would love to see a pristine creation and while I do not have it, I would rather not contaminate it with my own Bias too.
Like I said earlier about the Hansa: it's a very competently made, very generic... guy. There is just nothing about him that let's you know what universe he is from. He doesn't "read" Star Wars, or Firefly, or Terminator, or 40k, or Infinity, he's just... there.
So far their aesthetic seems to be a lack of aesthetic.
I like Hansa a lot, it's a beautiful sculpt. He does look like a normal guy (albeit with big muscles and a massive 'tache), but that is a selling point to me.
We all see so many models that for something to be attention-grabbingly different it would have to be pretty "out there", which would be bad I think. I don't want weird poses, enormous weapons, huge armour. We get enough of that in 40k and Warmachine (though I like them both).
This model is quite understated, but realistic and very well done. This setting will hopefully have a plausible feel to it, which will set it apart from the two biggest games out there, both of which are doused in lashings of fantasy. Hansa is the first step in achieving that "realistic" tone.
True, Hansa could just about fit into an IG army, but he'd be the coolest dude on the table
It's not immediately obvious to look at, but elements of the setting's technology do come through in the sculpt - those metal plates all over him are not ordinary armour, just the metallic structure that generates his forcefield. Almost everyone has fields in this game, rather than hard armour. That gun he has is a nifty compressor gun, draft rules for which Rick posted the other day.
Personally and while I am a backer and supporter, I am not that intrigued by most of what is on the table, if you find it odd, I am in to see what Rick can design, as a wargame rules collector and as an amateur game designer I am quite intrigued to see how he tackles the essential wargame problems, how he manages to differentiate from the other wargames, at what levels he thinks the table is saturated and other such stuff, that's why my input is zero, I would love to see a pristine creation and while I do not have it, I would rather not contaminate it with my own Bias too.
Well, I am a backer too.
The funny thing though, IMO, appears to be that in the game they want to make, they are shooting very much for a "stimulation" approach. One of the few thing almost all GoA-Backers seem to be able to agree on is that 40K is to "gamist", lacking the sort of verisimilitude and fluff-rule-correlations they hope to create in GoA. Rather unique basic stats like TECH and COM, the whole Nano-spin layered right into the rules, the "micro-fluff" in all those weapon-stats, etc.. .
So this isn't really the attempt to build the "D10-miniature-skirmish-game-rules" to rule them all. It looks like it want to be a very simulation-focused, high-verisimilitude set of rules for the GoA setting, which in turn (as pointed out frequently) isn't really that "clear" yet, which IMO creates something of a chicken-and-egg problem.
The thing is, it's not going to be determined by the masses or designed by committee really. Rick and the central team do have a strong vision of how things should be (though admitedly you have to read a lot of different bits of the website/forum to piece it together).
Yes they have asked for feedback and input, but it doesn't mean they have to listen to it all and end up with a lowest common denominator muddle. They will (hopefully!) sift all the ideas for the good ones that improve their original concept.
There is a risk that people may get annoyed if their ideas aren't incorporated of course, due to an expectation that they have a say. But they'll just need to be grown-up about it.
That´s exactly what they are doing. They said that they have a core vision but are still open to include things if they are well-conceived and make sense within the universe.
And to be honest, that´s how in a silightly different way 40K began its life back then. Rick was always someone to listen to what fans of the game wanted and tried to incorporate the good ideas (if the managment let him).
cincydooley wrote: The fact that they want the basic aesthetic of the universe to be determined by the masses I some of the primary reasons I'm not backing. If I wanted to try and create my own sci fi universe to turn into a game, I'd try to.
It's a shame, because I like the proposed "living" nature of the game portions they've proposed....there's just nothing there to convince me to back.
The thing is, it's not going to be determined by the masses or designed by committee really. Rick and the central team do have a strong vision of how things should be (though admitedly you have to read a lot of different bits of the website/forum to piece it together).
See, I think that's the problem, and that I got the impression that I got that this was poorly put together. I, and I'm sure a lot of people are going to do the same, just took a look at the kickstarter page, decided there wasn't enough there, and took a pass on the whole thing. Not a whole lot of people are going to read through the endless forum pages, which at this point are filled with super-nerds discussing the finer technical points of the game.
It comes down to the elevator pitch. If you can't make your pitch in 30 seconds to someone in an elevator, you're not very good at your job. They should have come right out and said, "There's an artifact built by an ancient alien race called the Gates of Antares, it allows alien civilizations to travel to a specific area and meet up. There's conflict because X,Y,,Z."
I know people differentiate between a "true" kickstarter and a pre-order service, but when you look at the preliminary work Zombicide or Sedition Wars, it's like night and day.
See, I think that's the problem, and that I got the impression that I got that this was poorly put together. I, and I'm sure a lot of people are going to do the same, just took a look at the kickstarter page, decided there wasn't enough there, and took a pass on the whole thing.
Yeah, that's a fair point. You certainly have to work for it a bit at the moment, and clearly someone willing to work to find out the info must already be pretty interested anyway.
A casual passerby on the Kickstarter probably wouldn't see much of the potential and vision I think is there.
Hopefully as they continue to add more meat to the kickstarter page that might change, but it does seem that visuals are what will hook in the majority of people. Partly because you can see the pictures and go "wow" in an instant, without having to read lots of text to get to the exciting bits. Hopefully some more will be arriving soon.
Hopefully as they continue to add more meat to the kickstarter page that might change, but it does seem that visuals are what will hook in the majority of people.
That is not true.
Every Kickstarter needs a "hook", as you say. And while "visuals" are certainly one possible hook, the one this Kickstarter project used out to catch the fish is the celebrity name-dropping of "Rick Priestley".
It's as much honey to lure the flies as snazzy visuals are, and it's clearly worth USD 100.000,- or more at the very least. That's no pocket-change. The Kickstarter-page and DSC-forums are full with comments that say "Rick-can-do-no-wrong-so-I-back-this"
If I start a Kickstarter for "Zweischneid's new sci-fi wargaming universe" and one green to start, I doubt I'd get even 1% of that.
For some reason, however, people seem to think that a "visual-hook" is morally inferior or less "true" to the Kickstarter vision than the "celebrity-name-hook", which strikes me as rather odd. And, as good as the "Rick-Priestley-hook" is, it just might not be half-a-million-dollar good.
Hopefully as they continue to add more meat to the kickstarter page that might change, but it does seem that visuals are what will hook in the majority of people.
That is not true.
Every Kickstarter needs a "hook", as you say. And while "visuals" are certainly one possible hook, the one this Kickstarter project used out to catch the fish is the celebrity name-dropping of "Rick Priestley".
It's as much honey to lure the flies as snazzy visuals are, and it's clearly worth USD 100.000,- or more at the very least. That's no pocket-change. The Kickstarter-page and DSC-forums are full with comments that say "Rick-can-do-no-wrong-so-I-back-this"
If I start a Kickstarter for "Zweischneid's new sci-fi wargaming universe" and one green to start, I doubt I'd get even 1% of that.
For some reason, however, people seem to think that a "visual-hook" is morally inferior or less "true" to the Kickstarter vision than the "celebrity-name-hook", which strikes me as rather odd. And, as good as the "Rick-Priestley-hook" is, it just might not be half-a-million-dollar good.
well not 100% agree, miniwargaming generated 60k+ USD to create the Dark Potential... and there is no "celebrity-name-hook". to be hones, the Rick Priestley does not convince me to back it up, as what i can see is GW "mind set".
I would back it up ANY system as long is creative AND I can see models or at least some advanced sculpts or 3D renders.
Hopefully as they continue to add more meat to the kickstarter page that might change, but it does seem that visuals are what will hook in the majority of people.
That is not true.
Not entirely sure, but you may have misunderstood me. I should have made it clearer.
I meant that visual images in general seem to be what will win most people (not all, by any means) to a particular miniatures game kickstarter. Seems self-evidently true. Lots of people in this thread have said they won't pledge until they see miniatures.
I didn't mean that the current visuals on this project are its hook, since there are hardly any visuals yet. I agree Rick's name was the initial hook for GoA. But there is more there now than just his name in my opinion, with lots more coming. With a bit of luck
Well, I pledged today. Just at the £25 level, to get the finished rulebook and Hansa. I may pledge more if I get to see some cool looking miniatures, but I surely do need to se a little bit more first.
I suppose that's a good way to think of it. If you go in at £25, you know exactly what you're going to get. - There's no uncertainty there about whether you'll like the models or not, since you'll always be able to use your own ones.
At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Compel wrote: I suppose that's a good way to think of it. If you go in at £25, you know exactly what you're going to get. - There's no uncertainty there about whether you'll like the models or not, since you'll always be able to use your own ones.
Very true, but I wonder if that $25 wouldn't have been a $100 pledge if they actually showed you what you were going to get in the box set. Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster was full of pics, they all looked great, and it far exceeded its goal.
Granted there's a line between a true kickstarter and a pre-order service, but there's again the question of why are we supposed to drop $100-200 on this game if the game's creators weren't initially willing to drop $100-200 on some sketches of what the game's races are supposed to look like, or on some greens that would have given us a better idea what the game is all about.
I love the Starship Troopers game, which had no kickstarter, and bought several copies of the basic game. I would spend to get the box game, but right now I'm holding back, due to the lack of info. laffe only bought the basic level, due to the lack of info.
I wonder if there's not a few people like me and laffe out there
There's a note on the top of their KS page now - is it new?
Quick Note: Kickstarter doesn't take your pledge until the end of the campaign (Feb 28th in our case), so if you're thinking of pledging, why not do it now - it'll really help us out! you can always come back later and change your pledge through the pledge manager - Thank you!
Looks like an attempt to combat the inertia that the campaign now has.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Nod. With the postage added, we're talking about close to $45. I guess it's not likely to hit it's goal, and so they won't actually be taking the $45 from us, so there's that..
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Arent most "serious" attempts at wargaming rules usually $30-50 though? Thats pretty in line with what most companies offer including Warlord's rulesets some of which which Rick wrote
Now granted it is easier to fork over when the book is out to entirely know how the game is gonna be like with reviews and stuff. I know many people who disliked/dropped Bolt Action when they found the rules too movie like by reading forum posts and reviews.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Arent most "serious" attempts at wargaming rules usually $30-50 though? Thats pretty in line with what most companies offer including Warlord's rulesets some of which which Rick wrote
Now granted it is easier to fork over when the book is out to entirely know how the game is gonna be like with reviews and stuff. I know many people who disliked/dropped Bolt Action when they found the rules too movie like by reading forum posts and reviews.
When we talk about going in just for the rulebook, the issue I have is really Rick Priestly vs The Internet.
Aside from cincy's post above which makes a great point (I also have no interest in trawling through their forums) I'd probably buy a rulebook from RP if it had good reviews, or possibly sight-unseen from a KS like this if I trusted it to be written by RP and had a strong visual direction. When I say "vs The Internet" - I mean the whole "design by committee" aspect puts me off, and massively so. The linked thread on gender politics? The argument between Hansa and Hansolo-a? Most of the threads on that board? No thanks, I don't really want to buy in to their vision, sight unseen. :(
With campaigns that have a bunch of models/greens/concept art pieces, that risk is negated somewhat.
scipio.au wrote: There's a note on the top of their KS page now - is it new?
Quick Note: Kickstarter doesn't take your pledge until the end of the campaign (Feb 28th in our case), so if you're thinking of pledging, why not do it now - it'll really help us out! you can always come back later and change your pledge through the pledge manager - Thank you!
Looks like an attempt to combat the inertia that the campaign now has.
I can confirm what Melcavuk said - that note was there right from the start.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Arent most "serious" attempts at wargaming rules usually $30-50 though? Thats pretty in line with what most companies offer including Warlord's rulesets some of which which Rick wrote
Now granted it is easier to fork over when the book is out to entirely know how the game is gonna be like with reviews and stuff. I know many people who disliked/dropped Bolt Action when they found the rules too movie like by reading forum posts and reviews.
Are we talking about rule sets that have been played and discussed for years, with a built-in gaming scene?
I recently downloaded free Mantic KoW and Warpath rules, Free Infinity rules, free Judge Dredd rules, free pdf rules for...I don't know, friends of Reaper Brian? I can get one of the more highly regarded fantasy rulesets for $10 and plenty of cheap SF rule sets. Untested committee-enhanced rules for $30 don't sound like a good bargain at all.
I get that a big selling point is that it's a "Rick Priestley" game. That just isn't enough for me. The green of Hansa I nice, I guess , but tat this point there just isn't a ton that sucking me into the universe. At this point, ill wait for skirmish rules set in the Sedition Wars universe, which I'm really really starting to like.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Arent most "serious" attempts at wargaming rules usually $30-50 though? Thats pretty in line with what most companies offer including Warlord's rulesets some of which which Rick wrote
Yes, you're right.
£25 for a glossy rulebook plus a high quality limited edition figure looks like good value to me.
cincydooley wrote:Call me crazy, but I shouldn't have to watch an hour long video to understand what the game is about......
I agree, and the kickstarter features a wall of text, with too little info on what the game is about, the factions of the game. pictures, etc and too much text that drones on and on about nothing.
kenshin620 wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Arent most "serious" attempts at wargaming rules usually $30-50 though? Thats pretty in line with what most companies offer including Warlord's rulesets some of which which Rick wrote
I agree that the price is fair, but usually kickstarter toss in a bit of a discount, to get people pledging versus picking it up later. Maybe that *is* the discount price, and they're already pulling a GW, trying to charge a premium price for what we're not really sure is a premium product.
On the furry stuff: I generally consider anthropomorphic animals the worst of both worlds, but this picture from Magic: the Gathering is one I rather like.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
Arent most "serious" attempts at wargaming rules usually $30-50 though? Thats pretty in line with what most companies offer including Warlord's rulesets some of which which Rick wrote
Now granted it is easier to fork over when the book is out to entirely know how the game is gonna be like with reviews and stuff. I know many people who disliked/dropped Bolt Action when they found the rules too movie like by reading forum posts and reviews.
When we talk about going in just for the rulebook, the issue I have is really Rick Priestly vs The Internet.
Aside from cincy's post above which makes a great point (I also have no interest in trawling through their forums) I'd probably buy a rulebook from RP if it had good reviews, or possibly sight-unseen from a KS like this if I trusted it to be written by RP and had a strong visual direction. When I say "vs The Internet" - I mean the whole "design by committee" aspect puts me off, and massively so. The linked thread on gender politics? The argument between Hansa and Hansolo-a? Most of the threads on that board? No thanks, I don't really want to buy in to their vision, sight unseen. :(
With campaigns that have a bunch of models/greens/concept art pieces, that risk is negated somewhat.
Well I suppose
In fact one thing I am wondering is when are they gonna throw down the hammer and say "hey guys thanks for all the suggestions but we really need to print this book now"
Okay, WHY is there no art up yet? I get the feeling that the team is giving up due to it. I remember the Trollforged kickstarter blasting them out at incredible speeds. A new creature would be announced, some brand new artwork shown by the next day, sometimes even quicker. Then everyone would give a bit of input and the artist would make the necesary changes in no time! I personally suggested a change to one of the aliens which caught on among others and it was not even a few hours until we saw a rough mock-up of the idea.
At this point I don't even care if the art is any good or not, I just need something! Maybe one of the pledgers on dakka could suggest that they recruit a digital artist the same as Trollforged did as that allows them to make changes to the image much easier than paper and pencil?
1) The enthusiasm and energy that Priestly has for this universe is painfully lacking in the actual campaign,
2) It's very clear that Priestly had some very definite ideas about the universe, the factions, what races would look like and so on,
3) The collaborative elements of the pitch are painful to listen to. Like, time-share pitch in Florida painful.
4) This is stupidly ambitious. They aren't trying to make the rules for a skirmish game, or a mass battle game, or an RPG/persistent unit game... they're trying to make all three at once?!
That said, some rather interesting small insights into GW culture around 55minutes.
Overall, watching that just reinforced the feeling that this campaign is just... off. Seriously, listening to Priestly talk about the universe he has created, it's a fine example of "infectious enthusiasm", but it just grinds to a halt when they get into the mechanics of how the community is involved. Then you actually go to the forums, and there is just so much... stuff.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: At $25, I would agree with you. At 25GBP, a rulebook and a mini just don't seem like a good value anymore. Especially if the rules aren't your main interest.
To me the rules are the main focus. At least for now. I got tons of unpainted lead, but I'm always interested in reading new rules. Of course, seeing new shiny stuff will always tempt me, like Hansa. Therefore I think they need to show more concept art at least.
Watching the BoW video you can see Rick is clearly enthusiastic about the universe he has in his head, and it actually gave me a lot of insight i didnt have so was useful.
However i also think many people can be bad on camera, i.e. shy, it sounds daft but you would be amazed how introvert people can become when on cam, but i may be wrong.
The MMO\Online world in unison thing was a bit off, but in principle a more fluid campaign system could be very welcome, unlike the 13th black crusade GW did where ....nothing happened, some chaos improvement, some imperial entrenchment.
I will stick with the campaign as i like the idea of the universe and the look of Hansa (awaiting wardrones start-up hopefully this week), there are over 35 days to go and its almost at £100k so there is deffinate interest, and it is a good concept, but a bit more images and such starting to creep out, a bit more playing with the game mechanics, which i believe we are getting a skeleton pre alpha rules to test soon too (from what i got on the vid) so lots to come hopefully.
I love Kev sculpt, but I'm totally cold regarding rules. One thing is clear to me if a group of seasoned creators, publishers don't put their money where their mouth is why should we? Some artwork should have been done by now.
I really need to see the wardrones. Considering how important they apparently are to the game, or at least how important I assume they are since every faction makes use of them, it could make or break it for me. And I don't like the few concepts they showed so far, too G1 Transformer.
Although, for some reason it seems like I can't pledge. I tried £27 for the rulebook and Hansa and all of my cards give me the same "Well this is embarrassing" error over and over. I don't know if it's because it's in the UK or what.
NAVARRO wrote: I love Kev sculpt, but I'm totally cold regarding rules. One thing is clear to me if a group of seasoned creators, publishers don't put their money where their mouth is why should we? Some artwork should have been done by now.
This.
I should be the target for this game, but the more (or less) I see the more apathetic I become, Show some artwork, make some minis and make some rules.
I'm just not enthused. The Hansa is a great figure, but as a Kickstarted exclusive for a Kickstarter that's failing, there's no point in getting excited about it. The ambition of the team seems to be exceeding the length of their grasp, never before has a team so untried asked for so much of so many with so little.
I wonder if there are simply too many SF Kickstarters around recently to allow the wargamer userbase to keep funding them all, or even to have interest in them all.
Kilkrazy wrote: I wonder if there are simply too many SF Kickstarters around recently to allow the wargamer userbase to keep funding them all, or even to have interest in them all.
Not only that but some miniatures publishers ( that had no KS) are already complaining this was the worst christmas ever.
Kilkrazy wrote: I wonder if there are simply too many SF Kickstarters around recently to allow the wargamer userbase to keep funding them all, or even to have interest in them all.
Well, Warpath and Thon the Game are both likely to go up within the first half year. We'll see than I guess. Next Sedition Wars expansion will likely also hit this year (possibly without KS).
While I agree that some of it is getting a bit melodramatic/overly poetic, I sadly think the Doom and Gloom will be with us to the end on this one.
Yes and no.
I think what will (likely) "make or break" it is the Wardrone. There are some ~450 backers in at the starter box or above. Meaning they have pledged for 20 (starter box) or multiples of 40 (feeder and mutliples) of the wardrone unseen. If the wardrone is gak, I expect this'll sink fast.
On the other hand, there are some ~250 backers in "waiting", including a good 100 in the GBP 1,- pledge and a few more (like me) in the GBP 25,- pledge. If the wardrone persuades those to move up, it'll be back on track at least, with new vigour in the trends and projections.
Might wanna call it the "half-a-million-dollar-sculpt" right now. I don't envy the sculptor sitting on it right now
Kilkrazy wrote: I wonder if there are simply too many SF Kickstarters around recently to allow the wargamer userbase to keep funding them all, or even to have interest in them all.
Not only that but some miniatures publishers ( that had no KS) are already complaining this was the worst christmas ever.
I think there's some truth in what Killkrazy says here, but the "Priestly factor" I think makes this one stand out - at least enough to get way more people to take an initial look at it than it would have otherwise. Unfortunately, for the many reason we've discussed, it's not particularly sticky or appealing from that point.
I have the feeling that the "worst Christmas ever" deal may be in part related to all these kickstarters. While people do go a bit "above and beyond" in their KS spending (in the same way they go nuts on eBay auction bidding), something like the Kingdom Death KS takes a lot of hobby money out of circulation. Add in things like Reaper, Mantic's pair, CMON's series... Speaking for myself at least. I've been meaning to get around to making decent sized orders with Puppetswar, Vic Minis, Eureka, Forgeworld and a couple of other places, but KS has eaten a lot of that disposable income. I'm sure Forgeworld wouldn't notice the difference nearly as easily, but the smaller places take a lot less to feel a hit.
Having said that, I feel that if this one was more attractive from the get-go, the money would be found.
Kilkrazy wrote: I wonder if there are simply too many SF Kickstarters around recently to allow the wargamer userbase to keep funding them all, or even to have interest in them all.
I think it's failing on its own merits. Even if we had more information, the post-singularity setting seems like a poor fit for this sort of game.
Kilkrazy wrote: I wonder if there are simply too many SF Kickstarters around recently to allow the wargamer userbase to keep funding them all, or even to have interest in them all.
I think this is definitely part of the problem. Especially in terms of how this KS is presented compared to the others - Reaper Bones for instance, which had an instant appeal with its diagrams and little map. This one you have to do a lot more digging to find the meat inside - and there is a lot of meat. It's just that to an outsider it looks rather unprocessed at the moment. Watch that Rick Priestly video, spend some times on the forum, and you will find that's not the case and there is actually the potential for a massive, rump-steak the likes of which we haven't seen before (OK.. I will stop the meat analogy now.. )
I think what will (likely) "make or break" it is the Wardrone. There are some ~450 backers in at the starter box or above. Meaning they have pledged for 20 (starter box) or multiples of 40 (feeder and mutliples) of the wardrone unseen. If the wardrone is gak, I expect this'll sink fast.
On the other hand, there are some ~250 backers in "waiting", including a good 100 in the GBP 1,- pledge and a few more (like me) in the GBP 25,- pledge. If the wardrone persuades those to move up, it'll be back on track at least, with new vigour in the trends and projections.
Might wanna call it the "half-a-million-dollar-sculpt" right now. I don't envy the sculptor sitting on it right now
Just bear in mind that the 1 quid level also gets you the Pre-Alpha, Alpha and Beta rules, and access to their forums when/if the project goes on. It'd be ...optimistic to assume that most of those pledges will jump to 100 quid on the appearance of a single nice model.
On the other hand, there are some ~250 backers in "waiting", including a good 100 in the GBP 1,- pledge and a few more (like me) in the GBP 25,- pledge. If the wardrone persuades those to move up, it'll be back on track at least, with new vigour in the trends and projections.
Might wanna call it the "half-a-million-dollar-sculpt" right now. I don't envy the sculptor sitting on it right now
Thats a fantastic way to look at it to be honest Zweischneid. Hopefully the sculptor is VERY good under pressure.
This could be the first KS I throw in on. I love the social aspect, being able to partake in episodes sounds fantastic. Being a recovering MMO addict, I think that's what is missing for me is engagement and interactivity with the community at large where our actions count.
That said, I don't like polished sci fi. I like the grit of 40k, Orks and Chaos. Before I invest financially, I want to make sure that there is a faction I want to invest myself in. The first thing I would look at in MMO's is the factions. So let's see a bit more! It doesn't even have to be models for me, concept sketches would do.
I have the feeling that the "worst Christmas ever" deal may be in part related to all these kickstarters. While people do go a bit "above and beyond" in their KS spending (in the same way they go nuts on eBay auction bidding), something like the Kingdom Death KS takes a lot of hobby money out of circulation. Add in things like Reaper, Mantic's pair, CMON's series... Speaking for myself at least. I've been meaning to get around to making decent sized orders with Puppetswar, Vic Minis, Eureka, Forgeworld and a couple of other places, but KS has eaten a lot of that disposable income. I'm sure Forgeworld wouldn't notice the difference nearly as easily, but the smaller places take a lot less to feel a hit.
Having said that, I feel that if this one was more attractive from the get-go, the money would be found.
That's my feeling too, so many high profile KS are draining all the money away from other companies... strange times and I wonder if on the bottom line these KS's are actually not in the best interest for the industry. We do have to wait and see.
Every time I check this thread I'm hoping to see discussion of the daily updates.
Unfortunately, every time I check this thread it's a half-dozen armchair generals opining about the failure of the KS or just people saying they're not backing.
So let me get this straight, when the thread's title is "Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread" we should be talking about how the Kickstarter should be run, but not about the content? In that case, can we have an "Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread CONTENT ONLY" thread?
So let me get this straight, when the thread's title is "Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread" we should be talking about how the Kickstarter should be run, but not about the content? In that case, can we have an "Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread CONTENT ONLY" thread?
Well what content shall we be discussing? The Hansa Green is now a few days old so we kind of already talked about that unless someone wants to bring up the butt plates again or how he looks like Nappa with a longer stache. Theres the rules but, for me personally I don't really have too much of an interest reading another ruleset so I don't have much input on that. And then we have all the stuff like the fluff and wotnot that their forums are discussing but from the few posts about those in here I'm not sure how many people want to talk about that.
And then theres the stuff we want to talk about but dont have anything on, like the War Drones
judgedoug wrote: Every time I check this thread I'm hoping to see discussion of the daily updates.
Unfortunately, every time I check this thread it's a half-dozen armchair generals opining about the failure of the KS or just people saying they're not backing.
So let me get this straight, when the thread's title is "Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread" we should be talking about how the Kickstarter should be run, but not about the content? In that case, can we have an "Beyond The Gates of Antares - Official Kickstarter Thread CONTENT ONLY" thread?
How about you simply talk about this KS period... I mean if you're going to open a thread for every possible discussion regarding this KS you would flood the forum... Keep it simple.
I don't get this fixation some of you have that every path of discussion that does not follow what you wish to read should not belong in this topic... as long as is about BTGOA its all good in my book.
Yes I went a bit offtopic analysing a bit of KS's in general...so sorry if it somehow stressed you out.
judgedoug wrote: Precisely. I keep checking the 'official Kickstarter thread' to see if anyone's discussing the recent rules preview regarding actions and reactions.
Instead just a bunch of "not supporting this", "the figure shoulda been han solo", and "here's a copy paste of what i posted on the official forums".
Start it up!
You wanna discuss those things, give a run down. Do a "the good, the bad, and the ugly" of rule-proposal X and invite others to comment.
judgedoug wrote: Precisely. I keep checking the 'official Kickstarter thread' to see if anyone's discussing the recent rules preview regarding actions and reactions.
Instead just a bunch of "not supporting this", "the figure shoulda been han solo", and "here's a copy paste of what i posted on the official forums".
How does it look, the preview that is...?
From what I see, I'm impressed, but there is an issue with the KS not taking the amazon payment/ paypal.
when the project itself started asking for my particular card info, I had to hold fast till I get home and see what is really going on there.
My thoughts? THAT is whats killing this one. The rules and fill of the game look pretty cool. I really want in, but not until I can fork up some real honest GBP's to throw it's way.
Can't do that out of a hole in the ground.
Question- Does that guy and the rest of the range look like they will go well with the sedition wars minis?
Like the sculpt, following this one with great interest, but the issue of the projects funding has me out for a few more weeks.
I am honestly interested in the left and right limits of what exactly fanz/ funders are able to influence, and if they honestly want feedback on fluff/ races, or not.
judgedoug wrote: Precisely. I keep checking the 'official Kickstarter thread' to see if anyone's discussing the recent rules preview regarding actions and reactions.
Instead just a bunch of "not supporting this", "the figure shoulda been han solo", and "here's a copy paste of what i posted on the official forums".
IMO the rules aren't anything to be excited about, they seem to be a combination between Tomorrow's War and Infinity with some minor "novelties" thrown in.
For me that's two strikes down against this game:
1st I really dislike the "... and YOU" design method. It has a tendency to either produce bland things like their "Hansa" miniature or to be influenced by vocal minorities that just shout every one else down (and alienate a large part of the playerbase in the process).
2nd the rules are nothing to write home about and nothing that other rule sets haven't done before in one way or another.
The two remaining things that still have the potential to set this game apart are the miniatures (and I really hope we don't get more bland "Hansa" when they choose to unveil the WarDrones) and the "Real-Time Dynamic Gaming Universe" that we know almost nothing about...
chris_valera wrote:It comes down to the elevator pitch. If you can't make your pitch in 30 seconds to someone in an elevator, you're not very good at your job. They should have come right out and said, "There's an artifact built by an ancient alien race called the Gates of Antares, it allows alien civilizations to travel to a specific area and meet up. There's conflict because X,Y,,Z."
Now that is getting right to the heart of the matter. I've read the entire Kickstarter page, half a dozen pages of this thread and part of the official website - and your throwaway line is the first actual description of the in-game universe.
The fact that after half an hour, I was none the wiser about what they want me to buy into is precisely what stopped me buying anything.
The model looks nice, the have a lot of faith in the team and the options for getting on-board are reasonably priced - and I have the money to help out.
But I still don't know if I want to! I haven't see a single bit of background, army concept nor model range which would hook me and get my wallet out of my pocket. I know, I know, it's chicken and egg... but give me something to buy into and I'll throw my money at the screen.
So, DSC, what is the elevator pitch? In 50 words, describe the universe, if that's possible?
I backed this Kickstarter within 10 minutes of it going live. I based my decision on the rep of the team. But people that do that will be a very small minority of the number of backers required.
Most people will want to base their decision on a rational evaluation of what GoA is all about and what they will get for their money. Because the proposition has been pitched so poorly that is difficult for people to do. It requires a significant expenditure of time on both the Kickstarter page and the DSC website to get any feel and understanding for what it's all about. Most people quite reasonably won't invest that amount of time.
Given the £300k goal of this Kickstarter its more about the minis than the rules. That sum isn't required to put together a set of rules. They need lots of people who will make the bigger pledges for the minis. With no concept art worth a damn and only one green 38 days in, it all requires a lot of faith.
I think that if the project gets off the ground and achieves its funding goal then it will become a successful system. But the lack of proper planning before launch may sadly doom it to failure to raise the cash. But with 38 days to go there is still everything to play for. Assuming the team at DSC have smelt the coffee and now have a lot of art and greens in production behind the scenes, that are about to appear, they may yet pull it out of the bag. I for one hope so.
It seems like their website has plenty of information that is pretty easy to find. For example, there is a quick general background of the universe, with some links to more details on some specific things, here:
http://www.darkspacecorp.com/the-universe/
That's my feeling too, so many high profile KS are draining all the money away from other companies... strange times and I wonder if on the bottom line these KS's are actually not in the best interest for the industry. We do have to wait and see.
It'll be hilarious if a "good idea" like crowdsourcing ends up being a plague that kills of minor-league miniatures companies in droves, leaving only a handful locked in a perpetual Kickstart cycle. And by hilarious I mean lethal for the hobby as a whole.
I don;t think Rick was bad on camera, just shy. LOL at the GW-criticisms though.
NAVARRO wrote: I love Kev sculpt, but I'm totally cold regarding rules. One thing is clear to me if a group of seasoned creators, publishers don't put their money where their mouth is why should we? Some artwork should have been done by now.
Mr. Burning wrote: I should be the target for this game, but the more (or less) I see the more apathetic I become, Show some artwork, make some minis and make some rules.
Way too many people are saying stuff like this, myself included. Although if the images and greens of the figures were fantastic, I'd put money in.
I think what will (likely) "make or break" it is the Wardrone. There are some ~450 backers in at the starter box or above. Meaning they have pledged for 20 (starter box) or multiples of 40 (feeder and mutliples) of the wardrone unseen. If the wardrone is gak, I expect this'll sink fast.
On the other hand, there are some ~250 backers in "waiting", including a good 100 in the GBP 1,- pledge and a few more (like me) in the GBP 25,- pledge. If the wardrone persuades those to move up, it'll be back on track at least, with new vigour in the trends and projections.
Might wanna call it the "half-a-million-dollar-sculpt" right now. I don't envy the sculptor sitting on it right now
True that. Images and info are coming kinda slowly, and a few people predicted we're only going to see two, maybe three greens. The images they have aregood, but too blurry to really make a judgement, one way or the other.
Dez wrote: This could be the first KS I throw in on. I love the social aspect, being able to partake in episodes sounds fantastic. Being a recovering MMO addict, I think that's what is missing for me is engagement and interactivity with the community at large where our actions count.
That said, I don't like polished sci fi. I like the grit of 40k, Orks and Chaos. Before I invest financially, I want to make sure that there is a faction I want to invest myself in. The first thing I would look at in MMO's is the factions. So let's see a bit more! It doesn't even have to be models for me, concept sketches would do.
I want to see more proof-of-concept in the form of inished figures too, but you could always paint your figures all rusted out and worn with rust effects and salt masking, like Orks or Ogre Kingdoms.
I have the feeling that the "worst Christmas ever" deal may be in part related to all these kickstarters. While people do go a bit "above and beyond" in their KS spending (in the same way they go nuts on eBay auction bidding), something like the Kingdom Death KS takes a lot of hobby money out of circulation. Add in things like Reaper, Mantic's pair, CMON's series... Speaking for myself at least. I've been meaning to get around to making decent sized orders with Puppetswar, Vic Minis, Eureka, Forgeworld and a couple of other places, but KS has eaten a lot of that disposable income. I'm sure Forgeworld wouldn't notice the difference nearly as easily, but the smaller places take a lot less to feel a hit.
Having said that, I feel that if this one was more attractive from the get-go, the money would be found.
That's my feeling too, so many high profile KS are draining all the money away from other companies... strange times and I wonder if on the bottom line these KS's are actually not in the best interest for the industry. We do have to wait and see.
An old article from Marcus King says that if you start up a game store, with the sole purpose of discounting, you really just drain money from other retailers.
Miraclefish wrote: So, DSC, what is the elevator pitch? In 50 words, describe the universe, if that's possible?
I was actually going to post something like this to the GoA fourms, can they actually give a run-down of what the races are like, can we get a rundown of the actual races in the game and what their power and abilities are? ie "The Tyranids are an extragalactic alien race, whose sole purpose is the consumption of all forms of genetic and biological material in order to evolve and reproduce. Tyranid technology is based entirely on biological engineering. Every function is carried out by living, engineered creatures, each of which collectively forms the Hive Fleet, directed by a single Hive Mind. They seek only to consume all organic life and cannot be reasoned with or deterred in this quest. They are known for attacking in massive swarms of basic troopers, overwhelming an enemy with sheer weight of numbers." etc etc
Albino Squirrel wrote: It seems like their website has plenty of information that is pretty easy to find. For example, there is a quick general background of the universe, with some links to more details on some specific things, here:
http://www.darkspacecorp.com/the-universe/
Both of those come directly from the main menu on the website, so they aren't exactly obscure.
They are the ones asking for money--they should do the work. DSC should be shoving this info at us like a bad infomercial. Making us click off the KS page, away from where the money button is, is just not good. If they are the ones doing the pitch, the ones who want our money, why are we expected to do all the work?
They also posted their bug-people fluff as an update.
(wall of text ahead)
Spoiler:
Today's update is all about the Isorian Shard and how they came to be:
THE ISORIAN SHARD
In ages past the world of Isori stood at the forefront of human civilisation, renowned throughout all of Antarean space for its pioneering dimensional research, its vast fleets and its unrivalled prosperity. According to Isorian legend, the planet was amongst the first of Earth’s settlements, the first to be fully terraformed, and the first to establish its own colonies independently of Earth itself. Isori was hailed as a paradise where want and strife had been dispelled by the power of advanced science and rational government. Of the three great human civilisations of the Sixth Age the Isorian Senatex was the largest and most powerful, ever expanding its beneficent influence over the millions of human and alien worlds of Antarean space.
A prolonged series of inter-dimensional tremors wrought havoc with the wormhole nexus and brought the Sixth Age to a cataclysmic end. The gates that held human civilisation together collapsed and the soaring trans-dimensional towers of Antares toppled into the star’s photosphere. Following this unparalleled disruption to the fabric of space-time, none of the connecting wormholes survived intact, although some were to prove more heavily damaged than others. The Builders had foreseen such events, however, as they foresaw so much of what future ages would bring. Their great trans-dimensional machine slowly set about the work of rebuilding itself. Over the following centuries many wormholes were reconstructed and reconnected by the internal processes of Antares. Like a wounded creature the nexus slowly healed and the ancient gateways began to open once more. Those lying at the periphery of the quake were recovered relatively quickly. Some wormholes were re-routed so that distances between worlds were now significantly longer than before. However, not all the worlds of the Spill were recovered; many of the most densely populated worlds remain lost to this day, their gateways yet to emerge from the photosphere of Antares.
During this long period of isolation many human colonies failed altogether. Thousands of advanced civilisations declined to barbarism. Only in a very few places was the light of knowledge carried onwards. One such place was Isori, with the ample resources of the Isorian system behind it. The time of isolation cut Isori from all the other worlds of Antarean space, but it did not prove devastating to Isorian civilisation as it did to so many other worlds, human and alien alike. The Isorians merely pondered the universe as they now perceived it, and predicted a future where even the vast resources of Isori would be exhausted. None then knew whether the wormholes would ever reopen or when. The Isorians cast their eyes upon the galaxy about them and upon the nearest stars.
Several other solar systems lay within twenty-five light years of Isori’s sun Isor, though none were part of Antarean space. Only spacecraft travelling at near-light speeds could journey to these remote stars. Isorian exploratory drones had already investigated the closest two, revealing possible sources of raw materials and at least one rocky world that might one day be terraformed and settled. Because it took a spacecraft at least ten years to reach even the closest of these new worlds, and five years for any information to come back, no manned missions had ever been attempted. With the coming of isolation all that would change.
Applying their vast technical skills the Isorians began to improve space drives and discovered ways to increase the endurance of spacecraft and their crews. The flexible nature of space-fabric had long been understood, and the Isorian’s used their knowledge to build ships capable of reaching para-light speeds previously thought to be practically impossible. This reduced the time taken to reach the stars by almost half, and within a few decades the first colonies had been established within the Oblon and Tsates systems. Although these advances made it possible to travel to new planets, the Isorian colonies were still separated by a communications link of five years in the case of Oblon and nearly eight for Tsates. Only a constant armada of drone craft could hope to maintain either colony. Over hundreds of years these first Isorian colony worlds became established, though never fully independent, and the Isorians prepared to expand to even more distant stars in local space.
By the time the Isorians have settled five solar systems they had built up a network of far-flung colonies separated by years of travel and communication time, but serviced by drone fleets moving constantly between then, connecting the Isorian worlds to each other and to Isori itself. It was only after almost a thousand years of real-space expansion in this way, that contact was re-established with Antares and the Isorians were able to reconnect with the wider universe of Antarean space. As more wormholes became functional, Isori found itself once more the leading light of a new human renaissance. The Isorians revisited many of the most populous and technically advanced worlds of the Sixth Age and found them abandoned or fallen to barbarism. Having carried the torch of human knowledge during the long darkness, the Isorians were able to rekindle the spark of civilisation wherever they found human survivors. The new civilisation spread rapidly thanks to the development of integrated machine intelligence –IMTel - by the Isori Senatexis as a means of conveying technology to the new Isorian colonies of local space. Other worlds that had preserved and even developed new knowledge were absorbed into the new civilisation, feeding the IMTel and further promoting the spread of technologies. As more and more worlds emerged into Antarean space, they were joined with the new Isorian led civilisation. The civilisation became known as the Concord of Humanity a union of independent IMTel Shards bound together by shared machine intelligence. And so the Seventh Age began, and the Concord spread throughout the worlds of the great Spill, until it encompassed half the human worlds of Antarean space.
Meanwhile back upon Isori a strange thing had happened. A drone ship exploring a new star system some twenty five light years from Isor had gone missing. Of course, it took nearly twenty five years for that information to be known, and by the time the Isorians knew what was happening their most distant colonies had been attacked and wiped out. The Isorians mobilised their fleets and so began the centuries long struggle between the Isori Senatex and the strange alien race of Tsan Kiri. Of the Tsan Kiri the Isorians knew nothing at first, except that the Tsan Kiri were a race at least as technically advanced as the Concord and in many ways more so. The two races strove for mastery not only in battle, but also in the technologies vital to both. Analytic probes released clouds of nanobots onto Tsan Kiri worlds to infiltrate alien machinery. Alien spore fields infected Isorian planets and gnawed their way into the IMTel data bases. Of course, those data bases were protected – incompatible data was rejected – just as the Tsan Kiri technology armed itself to repel the attempts of Isorian probes to subvert it. Battles ranged over the Isorian colonies, and as the fighting neared Isori itself the balance of power swung in favour of the defenders. The sheer distances of interstellar space meant that the Isorians were able to bring their forces to bear upon an enemy whose own lines of communication were stretched across more than twenty light years of space.
When the Isorians went over to the offensive the two civilisations had been at war for nearly two hundred years. In that time the Isorians had met their foes upon the battlefield innumerable times, had fought them in the depths of space, and had contested asteroids and the very stars themselves. They came to know their enemy very well. Unusually, the Tsan Kiri were a silicon-based life form, in appearance almost spider-like, though possessed of great intelligence and uncompromising ferocity. They had destroyed several near-neighbouring races before encountering the human colonies of Isori. Using near-light speed drives they had built an empire of a dozen or so star systems. Their homeworld lay almost forty light years from Isori – a huge distance over which to wage an interstellar war.
As the Isorians gained ascendancy upon the battlefield so to they began to overcome the resistance of the Tsan Kiri technology. Much of this alien technology was based upon a biomechanical principle that was inherently incompatible with human technology just as it was resistant to it. Ironically, it was the Tsan Kiri themselves who provided the Isorians with the means to infiltrate their technical base. The aliens had devised a silicon-carbon interface spore as a means of attacking the Isorian IMTel at source. At first this was successful and the machine intelligence of the Tsatean Shard was corrupted giving the Tsan Kiri access to all the knowledge of the IMTel. What the Tsan Kiri hadn’t appreciated was that IMTel, deprived of its layers of defence by the interface spore, rather than rejecting the influence of the Tsan Kiri technology very quickly merged with it. Unaware of what had happened spacecraft carried the modified IMTel from Tsate to Isori. Soon the new hybrid IMTel had spread into Antarean space itself and to the worlds of the Concord. This half-human half-alien IMTel brought many new wonders to the worlds it reached, and many other strange things beside, for the IMTel was as much a reflection of the living creatures who formed a part of it as it was machine.
It took some hundred of years more for the Isorians to overcome the Tsan Kiri, whose homeworld they found incinerated and lifeless – abandoned by the last of the aliens as they fled from Isori’s resurgent armies. But by now the Isorians carried new technologies that combined the best of both civilisations. Isorian troops were protected by phase armour and their bodies encased in bio-silicon interface suits. If the Isorians presented something of an alien appearance that was not perhaps surprising – for the nanobot clouds of the hybrid IMTel filled the air, flowed in the water, and pulsed through the living tissue of Isorians and all the worlds touched by the new IMTel.
As the new hybrid IMTel spread wider it encountered other planetary IMTel increasingly remote from the original source of Isori. These distant worlds of the Concord had evolved sufficient differences to the Isorians that their IMTel proved incompatible. It wasn’t that this created any antipathy, simply that the two vast integrated intelligences no longer recognised each other – they were no longer integrated. They had become incompatible. The Isorian IMTel and Concord now formed two separate civilisations that shared a common ancestry, but which were unable to interface. Their populations, driven and moulded by integrated machine societies, neither recognised this as a problem nor considered it a problem they could address. They simply divided. They had become, through no human will or intent, incompatible. The worlds that were host to the Isorian IMTel now formed a part of a new and separate entity: the Isorian Shard.
I like the Isorian background, especially the length of the war being determined by the sheer distances. Also, how the two civilisations (Concord/Isori) became divergent, and neither race was particularly troubled by it. The two NuHu races have a wonderfully detached vibe.
Charles Rampant wrote: I like the Isorian background, especially the length of the war being determined by the sheer distances. Also, how the two civilisations (Concord/Isori) became divergent, and neither race was particularly troubled by it. The two NuHu races have a wonderfully detached vibe.
Yes. Fluff is good.
But again I have to wonder. Would it have killed them to add a rough sketch or two of what they have in mind? Maybe even alternative "visions" for the community to like/dislike/discuss. Not even the slightest pencil-drawing?
There was a good bit near the beginning where it mentioned that some of the most populous worlds of the 6th age are still cut off, waiting for the relevant gates of Antares to repair themselves.
You can just imagine a rather dramatic campaign "episode" in the future, where one of those gates to who-knows-what comes back online.
Zweischneid wrote: They also posted their bug-people fluff as an update.
(wall of text ahead)
Spoiler:
Today's update is all about the Isorian Shard and how they came to be:
THE ISORIAN SHARD
In ages past the world of Isori stood at the forefront of human civilisation, renowned throughout all of Antarean space for its pioneering dimensional research, its vast fleets and its unrivalled prosperity. According to Isorian legend, the planet was amongst the first of Earth’s settlements, the first to be fully terraformed, and the first to establish its own colonies independently of Earth itself. Isori was hailed as a paradise where want and strife had been dispelled by the power of advanced science and rational government. Of the three great human civilisations of the Sixth Age the Isorian Senatex was the largest and most powerful, ever expanding its beneficent influence over the millions of human and alien worlds of Antarean space.
A prolonged series of inter-dimensional tremors wrought havoc with the wormhole nexus and brought the Sixth Age to a cataclysmic end. The gates that held human civilisation together collapsed and the soaring trans-dimensional towers of Antares toppled into the star’s photosphere. Following this unparalleled disruption to the fabric of space-time, none of the connecting wormholes survived intact, although some were to prove more heavily damaged than others. The Builders had foreseen such events, however, as they foresaw so much of what future ages would bring. Their great trans-dimensional machine slowly set about the work of rebuilding itself. Over the following centuries many wormholes were reconstructed and reconnected by the internal processes of Antares. Like a wounded creature the nexus slowly healed and the ancient gateways began to open once more. Those lying at the periphery of the quake were recovered relatively quickly. Some wormholes were re-routed so that distances between worlds were now significantly longer than before. However, not all the worlds of the Spill were recovered; many of the most densely populated worlds remain lost to this day, their gateways yet to emerge from the photosphere of Antares.
During this long period of isolation many human colonies failed altogether. Thousands of advanced civilisations declined to barbarism. Only in a very few places was the light of knowledge carried onwards. One such place was Isori, with the ample resources of the Isorian system behind it. The time of isolation cut Isori from all the other worlds of Antarean space, but it did not prove devastating to Isorian civilisation as it did to so many other worlds, human and alien alike. The Isorians merely pondered the universe as they now perceived it, and predicted a future where even the vast resources of Isori would be exhausted. None then knew whether the wormholes would ever reopen or when. The Isorians cast their eyes upon the galaxy about them and upon the nearest stars.
Several other solar systems lay within twenty-five light years of Isori’s sun Isor, though none were part of Antarean space. Only spacecraft travelling at near-light speeds could journey to these remote stars. Isorian exploratory drones had already investigated the closest two, revealing possible sources of raw materials and at least one rocky world that might one day be terraformed and settled. Because it took a spacecraft at least ten years to reach even the closest of these new worlds, and five years for any information to come back, no manned missions had ever been attempted. With the coming of isolation all that would change.
Applying their vast technical skills the Isorians began to improve space drives and discovered ways to increase the endurance of spacecraft and their crews. The flexible nature of space-fabric had long been understood, and the Isorian’s used their knowledge to build ships capable of reaching para-light speeds previously thought to be practically impossible. This reduced the time taken to reach the stars by almost half, and within a few decades the first colonies had been established within the Oblon and Tsates systems. Although these advances made it possible to travel to new planets, the Isorian colonies were still separated by a communications link of five years in the case of Oblon and nearly eight for Tsates. Only a constant armada of drone craft could hope to maintain either colony. Over hundreds of years these first Isorian colony worlds became established, though never fully independent, and the Isorians prepared to expand to even more distant stars in local space.
By the time the Isorians have settled five solar systems they had built up a network of far-flung colonies separated by years of travel and communication time, but serviced by drone fleets moving constantly between then, connecting the Isorian worlds to each other and to Isori itself. It was only after almost a thousand years of real-space expansion in this way, that contact was re-established with Antares and the Isorians were able to reconnect with the wider universe of Antarean space. As more wormholes became functional, Isori found itself once more the leading light of a new human renaissance. The Isorians revisited many of the most populous and technically advanced worlds of the Sixth Age and found them abandoned or fallen to barbarism. Having carried the torch of human knowledge during the long darkness, the Isorians were able to rekindle the spark of civilisation wherever they found human survivors. The new civilisation spread rapidly thanks to the development of integrated machine intelligence –IMTel - by the Isori Senatexis as a means of conveying technology to the new Isorian colonies of local space. Other worlds that had preserved and even developed new knowledge were absorbed into the new civilisation, feeding the IMTel and further promoting the spread of technologies. As more and more worlds emerged into Antarean space, they were joined with the new Isorian led civilisation. The civilisation became known as the Concord of Humanity a union of independent IMTel Shards bound together by shared machine intelligence. And so the Seventh Age began, and the Concord spread throughout the worlds of the great Spill, until it encompassed half the human worlds of Antarean space.
Meanwhile back upon Isori a strange thing had happened. A drone ship exploring a new star system some twenty five light years from Isor had gone missing. Of course, it took nearly twenty five years for that information to be known, and by the time the Isorians knew what was happening their most distant colonies had been attacked and wiped out. The Isorians mobilised their fleets and so began the centuries long struggle between the Isori Senatex and the strange alien race of Tsan Kiri. Of the Tsan Kiri the Isorians knew nothing at first, except that the Tsan Kiri were a race at least as technically advanced as the Concord and in many ways more so. The two races strove for mastery not only in battle, but also in the technologies vital to both. Analytic probes released clouds of nanobots onto Tsan Kiri worlds to infiltrate alien machinery. Alien spore fields infected Isorian planets and gnawed their way into the IMTel data bases. Of course, those data bases were protected – incompatible data was rejected – just as the Tsan Kiri technology armed itself to repel the attempts of Isorian probes to subvert it. Battles ranged over the Isorian colonies, and as the fighting neared Isori itself the balance of power swung in favour of the defenders. The sheer distances of interstellar space meant that the Isorians were able to bring their forces to bear upon an enemy whose own lines of communication were stretched across more than twenty light years of space.
When the Isorians went over to the offensive the two civilisations had been at war for nearly two hundred years. In that time the Isorians had met their foes upon the battlefield innumerable times, had fought them in the depths of space, and had contested asteroids and the very stars themselves. They came to know their enemy very well. Unusually, the Tsan Kiri were a silicon-based life form, in appearance almost spider-like, though possessed of great intelligence and uncompromising ferocity. They had destroyed several near-neighbouring races before encountering the human colonies of Isori. Using near-light speed drives they had built an empire of a dozen or so star systems. Their homeworld lay almost forty light years from Isori – a huge distance over which to wage an interstellar war.
As the Isorians gained ascendancy upon the battlefield so to they began to overcome the resistance of the Tsan Kiri technology. Much of this alien technology was based upon a biomechanical principle that was inherently incompatible with human technology just as it was resistant to it. Ironically, it was the Tsan Kiri themselves who provided the Isorians with the means to infiltrate their technical base. The aliens had devised a silicon-carbon interface spore as a means of attacking the Isorian IMTel at source. At first this was successful and the machine intelligence of the Tsatean Shard was corrupted giving the Tsan Kiri access to all the knowledge of the IMTel. What the Tsan Kiri hadn’t appreciated was that IMTel, deprived of its layers of defence by the interface spore, rather than rejecting the influence of the Tsan Kiri technology very quickly merged with it. Unaware of what had happened spacecraft carried the modified IMTel from Tsate to Isori. Soon the new hybrid IMTel had spread into Antarean space itself and to the worlds of the Concord. This half-human half-alien IMTel brought many new wonders to the worlds it reached, and many other strange things beside, for the IMTel was as much a reflection of the living creatures who formed a part of it as it was machine.
It took some hundred of years more for the Isorians to overcome the Tsan Kiri, whose homeworld they found incinerated and lifeless – abandoned by the last of the aliens as they fled from Isori’s resurgent armies. But by now the Isorians carried new technologies that combined the best of both civilisations. Isorian troops were protected by phase armour and their bodies encased in bio-silicon interface suits. If the Isorians presented something of an alien appearance that was not perhaps surprising – for the nanobot clouds of the hybrid IMTel filled the air, flowed in the water, and pulsed through the living tissue of Isorians and all the worlds touched by the new IMTel.
As the new hybrid IMTel spread wider it encountered other planetary IMTel increasingly remote from the original source of Isori. These distant worlds of the Concord had evolved sufficient differences to the Isorians that their IMTel proved incompatible. It wasn’t that this created any antipathy, simply that the two vast integrated intelligences no longer recognised each other – they were no longer integrated. They had become incompatible. The Isorian IMTel and Concord now formed two separate civilisations that shared a common ancestry, but which were unable to interface. Their populations, driven and moulded by integrated machine societies, neither recognised this as a problem nor considered it a problem they could address. They simply divided. They had become, through no human will or intent, incompatible. The worlds that were host to the Isorian IMTel now formed a part of a new and separate entity: the Isorian Shard.
So now you know!
I thought you were joking or speaking loosely at first, but that really is just about the entirety of Update #27. 1,800+ words of exposition unmarred by even a hint of concept art.
FYI, yesterday they needed to make 5,295 GBP per day to fund. Today it's 5,450 GBP.
TBF though, 40k fluff used to have good long bits of text to really get you into the army\faction you liked, but now its all a muchness, pics and fluff we have read many times that is trimmed down a lot from what came originally.
I for one am happy to see a good fleshed out story for how the factions carry on in the universe, as this is a development of a whole gaming universe, not just a set of rules to move men about a table.
I would like to see more art\designs, the early photoshop drawn stuff is great but its not much, seeing the various factions, or follow up this text update with isorian images would be cool.
still there are plenty days to go for stuff to come out.
While I applaud them putting out some fluff, I've unfortunately become jaded through the years. I'm not going to read an 1800-word essay without art to go with it.
The reason is that this is a miniatures wargame, not a novella, so I don't want to imagine what the Isorian Shard might look like in my mind's eye. I want to see it. Because I'm just not going to buy figures I dislike based on fluff I might like. Miniatures gaming is a visual and tactile medium. I'd have read the fluff in condensed form, such as the Tyranid synopsis that Chris posted. - yes, I'm lazy. But it's their job to sell it to the people on the fence. I'm not willing to spend the time to dig deep into their webpage, forums etc, because at this stage I don't care enough. I did listen to the interview on BoW as my "background music" while running a couple of WoW raids, and it was alright to listen to but didn't inspire me to open my wallet...
I've checked the recent updates, and looked at the weapon stats stuff briefly. There's a lot of range bands at work which remind me a little of RT-40k and also (one of the editions of) Warzone back in the day. I could see it involving quite a lot of book keeping across units.
I recently pulled my pledge for this game down to £1, and if things don’t improve before the end I’ll probably pull it completely. Here is why:
I originally signed up for this because the concept seemed very cool to me. Add to that the fact that they have some really great names (not just Rick Priestly, but a lot of the sculptors too) and I thought they were onto a winner. I also liked the idea of helping with the design and initially helped in this too, the fact that there were no greens/concept didn;t bother me because these things would come once they got an idea of what we wanted.
However, we are now nearly half way through the KS and, so far, we have seen only 1 green – and whilst I do like it I don’t think it is anything massively special. There have been lots of good ideas on the forum (and some real crap too) but a lot of them have now lost their momentum because so many days went by without anything coming from the BTGoA team. Really they should have been putting out concept scetches of the ideas for people to start commenting on so that the momentum of the good ideas could be kept going, but we haven’t had anything. In fact, other than the BoW video and a few posts on their own forums I’m not entirely sure what they are doing all day as it looks like very little is getting done on the game. Now maybe a lot is being done, but as this is a “Community game” then they really need to be telling us what they are doing if they want our money. Releaseing more “fluff” is all well and good – but this KS is not short of “fluff” what they need is more substance.
I was also a little disappointed that we were not shown any of the concept art for Hansa. I understand that they made him due to the most popular opinions on the forums (which whilst not my own choices I admit were the most popular) but surely – if this really is “US” designing they could have release 2/3 concept pictures and asked us to vote on the best, and then we could have (and this has a little with the removal of the butt plates and the fact he is now bald) helped during the production of the mini too. This didn’t happen and the sculpt was essentially done off designs that we have never seen, and nothing formal was put in place for us to comment on the progress of the mini either.
So my big advice to DSC if they want me to put my pledge back. I need to see what it is you are doing, I need to see what it is that you have come up with so far from the ideas that have been generated. I also would like to see a little more direct guidance now that the “thought free for all” is over, something like “here is A and B, what do you like/not like out of each and well then make C – the amalgamation of the 2”.
I believe I've read somewhere on one of the forums that Kev White doesn't use concept sketches - he sculpts directly from a written brief. Therefore his WIP green basically was the concept sketch.
None of the three actual members of Darkspace Corp is an artist - Rick, John and Rik are rules/fluff guy, business guy and software guy respectively. All of the artists and sculptors involved are freelancers, not part of the project team itself. If they want artwork or greens they have to pay people to produce them. I know it's frustrating for some, but they can't magic up concept artwork out of nowhere.
The same goes for the people calling for 3D renders of models - when it's been repeatedly stated that the sculptors will be using traditional methods, not digital. They'd have to hire a 3D artist to produce such imagery, which then probably wouldn't be used for the models anyway.
Well, that fluff isn't particularly inspiring. It's very long winded, dry and, frankly, nothing about it feels new.
Wormholes/warp travel, the collapse of the human galaxy-wide empire into darkness, isolated worlds being rediscovered... I know he made 40K, but that doesn't mean he can stick a new label on it and call it the Gates of Antares!
pgmason wrote: I believe I've read somewhere on one of the forums that Kev White doesn't use concept sketches - he sculpts directly from a written brief. Therefore his WIP green basically was the concept sketch.
None of the three actual members of Darkspace Corp is an artist - Rick, John and Rik are rules/fluff guy, business guy and software guy respectively. All of the artists and sculptors involved are freelancers, not part of the project team itself. If they want artwork or greens they have to pay people to produce them. I know it's frustrating for some, but they can't magic up concept artwork out of nowhere.
The same goes for the people calling for 3D renders of models - when it's been repeatedly stated that the sculptors will be using traditional methods, not digital. They'd have to hire a 3D artist to produce such imagery, which then probably wouldn't be used for the models anyway.
Not sure why that would be an impediment. Adam Poots (Kingdom Death) did neither the art, renders or sculpts himself. It was and is all done by the various freelancers that work with him under his art direction (the only thing he actually does himself, appear to be the game-rules). And he is/was just a 20-something guy on his own with nowhere near the industry-connections (at least when he started preparing for the KS many years ago) of a Rick Priestley or Kevin White.
The Kickstarter page has from day one had an explanation of their "Miniature Development Process". Point 1 of this four stage process says "The initial stage of the development involves out team of concept artists creating a series of thumbnail sketches..."
My reading of this is that DSC are saying 'give us £300k and we will commission Opus Artz to do some design work. But during the Kickstarter phase we will just cobble together what we can'. Unfortunately that is a chicken and egg problem. People don't want to pledge until they have seen the concepts and preferably greens.
Guys, concept sketches are not "magic wizard voodoo" that you have to pay thousands for, especially when they are up for peer-review and don't have to be 100% perfect on the first pass.
I do illustration/ design myself. It's a matter of sitting down for 3 hours with a pencil and paper and then 3 hours later you have a concept. $50-$100 per piece is the general going rate, it's not expensive.
Full-colour, highly polished art from Opuz Arts, one of the major pro studios that is hired by big corporations for AAA video games, though... yes, that *will* cost you, through the teeth, but since when has a KS ever needed that? Pencil sketches from are fine for concepts.
Not hard to hire a freelancer either, there are a ton of different sites out there that can be used where you will find thousands of people with sci-fi art portfolios who are happy to be hired.
You don't even have to look outside the wargaming industry if you don't want to, there are a lot of freelance artists working for various companies, a lot of them happy to work short notice or evenings/weekends to get a job done.
scarletsquig wrote: Guys, concept sketches are not "magic wizard voodoo" that you have to pay thousands for, especially when they are up for peer-review and don't have to be 100% perfect on the first pass.
I do illustration/ design myself. It's a matter of sitting down for 3 hours with a pencil and paper and then 3 hours later you have a concept. $50-$100 per piece is the general going rate, it's not expensive.
Full-colour, highly polished art from Opuz Arts, one of the major pro studios that is hired by big corporations for AAA video games, though... yes, that *will* cost you, through the teeth, but since when has a KS ever needed that? Pencil sketches from are fine for concepts.
Not hard to hire a freelancer either, there are a ton of different sites out there that can be used where you will find thousands of people with sci-fi art portfolios who are happy to be hired.
You don't even have to look outside the wargaming industry if you don't want to, there are a lot of freelance artists working for various companies, a lot of them happy to work short notice or evenings/weekends to get a job done.
This is it precisely: give me an hour on deviantArt and I'll get you a dozen artists that will put together concepts. How is it that Darkspace Co, with all their industry connections, either don't seem to be able to find these artists or, more strangely, don't seem to want to use them?
It's not like they could whip up good stuff overnight... but people have been talking about the lack of material for at least two weeks. Concept art simply isn't expensive enough that the people behind this project couldn't arrange it. So they don't want it.
Okay, that's fine. Like TtB they want to reinvent the wheel. But guys, if you're going to do that, don't set your minimum funding goal at just under half a million US. Seriously, had they gone for 100,000 GBP, they would be in stretch goals already, and frankly, the whole thing would be better off.
Here is a rough guideline to the timeings I would have expected for the KS - bearing in mind they have gone for 60 days as opposed to 30.
Day 1-3 general hype building by posting of forums that they exist and interacting with said forums to allay fears of missing greens and concept
Day 4-14 Collection of fan feedback on designs of all the races as to what they want to see. At the end inform fans/pledgers that any new ideas are still welcome, but probably won't make it into the KS
Day 14-18 Amalgamating all that information into 2/3 options (with concept art) for everything they want to release at launch
Day 19-24 Voting on the 2/3 options for each thing they want to release.
Day 25-35 Work in progress shots of the First "batch" of greens, taking fan/pledger feedback on how it is looking and any changes now that it is "3D"
Day 36-46 Work in progress shots of the Second "batch" of greens, taking fan/pledger feedback on how it is looking and any changes now that it is "3D"
Day 47-57 Work in progress shots of the Third "batch" of greens, taking fan/pledger feedback on how it is looking and any changes now that it is "3D"
Day 57-60 Work to try drum up that final level of pledges.
Now in all of that you have only had to produce 1 set of concept art, say 2-3 pieces for each choice and maybe 3-4 choices per faction, with 3 different factions (I'm still not entirely sure how many factions there are in this) and you are looking at 36 pieces of concept art - I really don't think - given that I budgeted 4 days to produce it that that is too bad, OK you might need 2-3 people working on it but we still arn;t talking massive money if you are trying to launch a brand new company.
Instead we are upto day 22 and still seem to be at the taking suggestions form anyone and everyone - and nobody seems to have any idea what suggestions are being taken onboard by DSC and arn't.
It's a real shame because I think it's a fantastic idea - I just think they are not promoting it very well.
Rick will be answering questions from 8pm (a little under an hour from now) and online for an hour at least, maybe more if we get lots of people on and you want more!
I've always thought Reddit was a pretty un-user friendly system, but there are some really interesting comments on there especially about some of the old-time GW stuff. Well worth a read for that, and for the amount of idiots posting nonsensical questions of course.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Interesting comments on the War Drones:
Question:
WarDrones
Will these be different kits for different factions?
Will they be (multi-part) plastic?
How many optional builds (roughly) will there be for the WarDrones?
When will we be able to see some WarDrone visuals?
To answer the last question first - we are hoping to have some work in progress (WIPS) for you to see next week.
We are actually progressing two different designs - one of which we will make in plastic to start with - with part of getting the design right involves making some original prototypes at actual size - and that's what we're doing now. Which ever of these we make as a plastic kit we will include options within the kits to represent the different human factions. We will also make available separate customising pieces which will work with the plastic kit. But we won't make more than one plastic kit to start with - maybe further down the line The kits will be multipart plastics yet. But we wil also make some WarDrones in metal. There are different designs of WarDrone anyway - so having a variety in metal will be a good way of doing that. These could be different factions - but they could also be different weapon or equipment fits, heavy duty 'Siege' WarDrones and so on.
The kits will be poseable - so lots of options - there will also be options for armament within the kit.
Seems like DSC is working to remedy the lack of substance (models, concept art) available right now. It could push many into taking the plunge but I question whether it would be enough.
"We are actually progressing two different designs - one of which we will make in plastic to start with - with part of getting the design right involves making some original prototypes at actual size - and that's what we're doing now. Which ever of these we make as a plastic kit we will include options within the kits to represent the different human factions. We will also make available separate customising pieces which will work with the plastic kit. But we won't make more than one plastic kit to start with - maybe further down the line The kits will be multipart plastics yet. But we wil also make some WarDrones in metal. There are different designs of WarDrone anyway - so having a variety in metal will be a good way of doing that. These could be different factions - but they could also be different weapon or equipment fits, heavy duty 'Siege' WarDrones and so on.
The kits will be poseable - so lots of options - there will also be options for armament within the kit."
Schedule
"We intend to have more work in progress next week - we had planned on having something more to show this week but the snow has slowed things down a bit and we've not been able to meet with our sculptors as we wish. We have a chap working on Boromite Overseers, we have some WarDrones on the way, and a few other try outs waiting in the wings."
"youare right there when it comes to concepts and models and we are working on that right now - we intend to have more work in progress on models next week, and more concept art over the neext few weeks. We are also putting together an initial outline of the game design which we will have first the first week in Feb. So, what you can expect is more concepts, more WIP models, and more on the games design incuding the real time dynamic games universe over the next few weeks - with more and more info towards the end of the KS. Obviously, we can't do everything within the timeframe of the KS, there's an awful lot of hard work ahead of us yet, but we hope to be able to give a much clearer picture before the KS ends."
Question:
You're carrying a shock maul with just two charges left, and you're in a room with Hitler, Thatcher and Celine Dion. Who do you hit and why?
Celine Dion... twice.
The other two will take care of each other.
Rick
Question:
Many creative people find the adjustment to seeing direct feedback from anonymous fans online to be difficult, especially as many fans can be blunt or harsh when it comes to putting opinions up on forums. How have you found the reaction to Gates of Antares so far? Has seeing the negative feedback around the details (or perceived lack there of) on the Kickstarter page been difficult for DSC?
Oh I worked for GW for nearly three decade and my skin has thickened to the point where it could resist a laser cannon!
Actually I really do find feedback useful - even when it's negative - though I do prefer it not to be rude! If someone really goes over the top I don't let it bug me - someone being passionate about your game isn't that bad a thing is it - I just try and pick out the real points from amongst the language. If you let yourself be swayed by the way someone expresses themselves you can miss good points - so I try to stay very cool about the whole thing. It's 'the heart that feels and the head that thinks' sort of thing - like any kind of creative process you have to take the excitement and passion and then use that, but the act of creation should be utterly cold and dispassionate.
Blimy I'm starting to sound like a Literary Criticsm course!
Here's a quick summary of the questions and answers that pertain to GoA that came out of that session, sorry for the colours just need to highlight actual questions
WarDrones
Will these be different kits for different factions?
Will they be (multi-part) plastic?
How many optional builds (roughly) will there be for the WarDrones?
When will we be able to see some WarDrone visuals?
We are hoping to have some work in progress (WIPS) for you to see next week.
We are actually progressing two different designs - one of which we will make in plastic to start with - with part of getting the design right involves making some original prototypes at actual size - and that's what we're doing now. Which ever of these we make as a plastic kit we will include options within the kits to represent the different human factions. We will also make available separate customising pieces which will work with the plastic kit. But we won't make more than one plastic kit to start with - maybe further down the line The kits will be multipart plastics yet. But we wil also make some WarDrones in metal. There are different designs of WarDrone anyway - so having a variety in metal will be a good way of doing that. These could be different factions - but they could also be different weapon or equipment fits, heavy duty 'Siege' WarDrones and so on.
The kits will be poseable - so lots of options - there will also be options for armament within the kit.
Simians: The Pansimians - I call 'em Sims - occupy their own worlds within the Determinate, the Concord and the Isorian Shard - but I reckon most are part of the Determinate. That means there are any number of Sim run societies and empires - as well as Sims that mix in to the factions. One Sim world I'm just briefed the models for is a small empire in the Determinate, with a dimorphic population of larger warrior Sims and smaller techy Sims, those are quite fun!
Freebooters will be the next faction to get detailed up!
One of the areas that has been busiest on the BtGoA forums so far has been the universe background section, with users submitting their own ideas about the factions and sub-races within the Panhumans and Pansimians especially. Have any of the directions that the community have taken on these threads surpised you? Are there any that are completely different from what you had in mind, or do they mesh quite well with your ideas?
There's been lots of useful discussion on the Pans and Sims (as I tend to shorten these) including lengthy debate on the pro's and con's for 'furries'!
I often go back and check out these sections as I approach a write-up - because you don't always catch every post and there are so many posts now sometimes you forget where you read something!
There have been a few posts that are so close to ideas I've been playing with that it's a bit spooky - like the dimorphism idea - but then I suppose ideas do tend to suggests themselves and a comment from one person wil often spark off a similar line of thought in two or more others.
I'm really pleased to see so many ideas on the table - it really gives me confidence that this game could be enormous given time!
WIPs We intend to have more work in progress next week - we had planned on having something more to show this week but the snow has slowed things down a bit and we've not been able to meet with our sculptors as we wish. We have a chap working on Boromite Overseers, we have some WarDrones on the way, and a few other try outs waiting in the wings.
Inches vs Cm I am cool with cm or inches - cubits even - really it makes little difference to me as a designer. I must admit I'm not wholly sure whether cms would be well received in the USA - which is a significant market - the UK is fairly neutral in terms of who used what metric - Europe is sensibly baffled by inches but the European market is relatively small. The UK, USA and English speaking world is by far the biggest market.
What if Kickstarter fails? Well we're very confident that we will make it! But should by some terrible calamity we fall short of our target we will definately be carrying on with the project - it's just got too much going for it to stop now! There are other ways of raising funding and we'll get there one way or the other
Reaction to Feedback and Critisisms so far:
Oh I worked for GW for nearly three decade and my skin has thickened to the point where it could resist a laser cannon!
Actually I really do find feedback useful - even when it's negative - though I do prefer it not to be rude! If someone really goes over the top I don't let it bug me - someone being passionate about your game isn't that bad a thing is it - I just try and pick out the real points from amongst the language. If you let yourself be swayed by the way someone expresses themselves you can miss good points - so I try to stay very cool about the whole thing. It's 'the heart that feels and the head that thinks' sort of thing - like any kind of creative process you have to take the excitement and passion and then use that, but the act of creation should be utterly cold and dispassionate.
Could you give us a couple of little nuggets of detail about the game that haven't been revealed yet, but that you're pleased with and think might capture people's imagination? Maybe one on background, one on gameplay and one on minaitures? Or something like that.
OOoooo we do try and keep you guys up to speed on the website. The only tip I can reveal is that we're currently working on some very interesting collaborative projects that we're hoping to announce before the end of the KS.
In terms of the game I'm preparing a new section on the shooting rules at the moment - and one of the things I really like about this is the idea of using targeter reticle markers to 'mark' targets - allowing troops to guide shots to their targets - I know it's the sort of thing modern armies do already - so its not exactly surprising - but it's really neat being able to build up the reticle markers and make a fixed position untenable. Need to get it working properly next
What inspired you to invite the general public to help shape the GoA universe and system? The idea of running a huge online universe where everyone participates - that's just great isn't it! So I have to say - pure meglomania
How heavily will Terrain feature in GoA? So far we have tended to play around ruins and jungly terrain - because that's what we have - and I do feel that games play better when the terrain forms a part of the game itself - rather than something that just 'gets in the way'.
I'm looking at getting some terrain pieces made for the system too - more on that later!
Rick
How much of a "vision of the universe" did you have as KS was launched?
Have the forum comments changed your vision? much?
And what did You originally think Hansa should look like?
Yea I had a good overview but only a few points of detail - and the thing I've found is that the KS demands detail! So I've been working away at some specifics - I've just put a lot of flesh onto the Isorian Shard for example. The tricky thing is working on a bit of background - then a bit of the rules - then a bit of background - and you end up getting pulled from pillar to post - which is quite exciting in a way!
I had a picture of Hansa as quite a thin, rangy sort of guy, but more like Clint Eastwood in his spag western days - but that just shows my age I think!
What is it about designing for the hard science based future that appeals to you? 40k was obviously not, but Necromunda brought a less fantastic, more Cyberpunk vibe and you obviously still hold great affection for it, so when swinging further to the "serious" side of things with GoA, what about the hard science world do you find to be more fertile soil for creation?
Well I loved all kinds of SF when I was younger - largely gave up reading it in my 30's - and now I'm catching up again! So, I've always had a taste for something less fanciful than 40K. 40K was such a strong flavour, and so different from what was out there in terms of SF gaming when it was new, that the mystical, pseudo-religious stuff just overwhelmed what science I actually put into the original game. One of the things that went by the board - for example - was any kind of logic to warp travel. I worked out all the journey times and everything - and the reason the Space Marines were spread out sop thinly was because you couldn't just travel instantly from one place to another. But that was ignored when it came to organising shop based campaigns and promotions, and soon it came to be ignored in the background, novels and so on - so in the end you have this huge galaxy that might as well be a single planet for all the difference it makes.
Phew - got a bit ranty there - anyway - with GoA I've set the mobility based on warpgates - and that makes it much easier to expand the back story without breaking the internal logal or sweeping it under the carpet... as it were
On the possibilities of more videos with BoW Yes Warren is fantastic at getting to the nub of things and keeping the conversion focussed! We are going to do more videos with the BOW team before the KS is done. I also did a separate session on games design with Warren - so that should be available shortly.
Rick
Perhaps the new skirmish version of GoA will overtake Necromunda, and replace it. Is that A plan Mr P? Plan - no not yet - Dream well yes - one can always dream!
Rick
What is your favourite sculpt and if you wouldn't mind posting a pic of the model you have painted that you are the most proud of. Fave sculpt? Well for GW I guess the Green Knight by Mike Perry is up there - I've always liked the Perry's stuff - the animation and posing is just so natural.
I shall have to dig out some of my work! Actually, Warhammer Ancient Battles was full of my painted Romans! I tend to lavish more time on historicals than SF or fantasy because at GW I was surrounded by fantastic painters and I know I could never match that!
Rick
Do you have an ETA on the Alpha rules? We are aiming for alpha April and I think it's actually Sept for the beta - I'm planning on having a basic rules outline ready for the end of Jan but I keep posting work in progress onto the development forums so as I do it. I'd be finishing off the shooting rules now but I'm here!
There have been many, many long threads arguing backwards and forwards about whether or not metals, plastics, resins or resiplastics are the way forward - and in all cases a consensus has never been reached.
I will say that having plastic for the 'grunts' (whatever they may be), then a more detailed but also expensive medium for the character and other pieces (so either resin or metal) seems to be almost universally popular with manufacturers, I think for both cost reasons but also for the production of the miniatures themselves.
Rick has stated several times that he wants most of the 'grunts' in plastic - but, the level of success of the Kickstarter will determine how much of those models will be in plastic.
Though from the initial description on 10 point models, those guys will be single piece. Wonder how many of the figures will be mono posed even if they're plastic (and which plastic are we talking about? Since it is an "old" dev team with a partnership with WL I'm jumping the gun and assuming hard plastics......possibly by renedra)
Miraclefish wrote: Well, that fluff isn't particularly inspiring. It's very long winded, dry and, frankly, nothing about it feels new.
It's a historical overview. It's kind of like trying to promote your modern skirmish game by posting Wikipedia's introduction on the American Revolution.
pgmason wrote: I believe I've read somewhere on one of the forums that Kev White doesn't use concept sketches - he sculpts directly from a written brief. Therefore his WIP green basically was the concept sketch.
None of the three actual members of Darkspace Corp is an artist - Rick, John and Rik are rules/fluff guy, business guy and software guy respectively. All of the artists and sculptors involved are freelancers, not part of the project team itself. If they want artwork or greens they have to pay people to produce them. I know it's frustrating for some, but they can't magic up concept artwork out of nowhere.
That would then simply be DSC ponying up some personal money to get these things commissioned before the KS began. They're asking for half a million dollars. I don't think it would be unreasonable for them to have spend a few grand of heir own money in getting some art prepared for it. (Art being concept art, a few greens already done, etc.)
I will say that having plastic for the 'grunts' (whatever they may be), then a more detailed but also expensive medium for the character and other pieces (so either resin or metal) seems to be almost universally popular with manufacturers, I think for both cost reasons but also for the production of the miniatures themselves.
Right. It's not just the cost of plastic tooling - it's the leadtimes and development times. Once a miniature is finished, you can have it in production in days in metal. You're looking at leadtimes measured in months for plastic miniatures. Add to that the extended development period and I think it's obvious that metal is the best way to get a large variety of nice miniatures out of the door in as short a time as possible.
Metal's not an impediment to variety (old Citadel ranges should be testament to that!) and I'd rather have a nice variety of good quality metal miniatures (old metal IG) than some horrible plastics just because "they're poseable ooh!" (Catachans).
angryboy2k wrote: Right. It's not just the cost of plastic tooling - it's the leadtimes and development times. Once a miniature is finished, you can have it in production in days in metal. You're looking at leadtimes measured in months for plastic miniatures. Add to that the extended development period and I think it's obvious that metal is the best way to get a large variety of nice miniatures out of the door in as short a time as possible.
Metal's not an impediment to variety (old Citadel ranges should be testament to that!) and I'd rather have a nice variety of good quality metal miniatures (old metal IG) than some horrible plastics just because "they're poseable ooh!" (Catachans).
Not to draw the discussion into the argument of which material is better, but I prefer working with plastic because it's easiest for me.
Anyone guess as to what the collaborative projects could be?
Not to draw the discussion into the argument of which material is better, but I prefer working with plastic because it's easiest for me.
How is it easier? Plastic models seem like a lot more work to me.
Ignoring basing, here's a comparison:
Hansa (one piece model):
1. Clean up 1 moldline.
2. Drill out gun barrel.
3. Glue into base.
4. Paint.
Space Marine (10-piece plastic model):
1. Clean up 10 moldlines.
2. Drill out gun barrel.
3. Glue torso together.
4. Dry assemble with blu-tac to get pose right.
5. Stick legs and torso together. Keep arms, shoulder pads, head and backpack separate for now.
6. Stick these parts to rods, lollipop sticks or whatever.
7. Paint sub-assemblies.
8. Complete assembly of finished model.
Not to draw the discussion into the argument of which material is better, but I prefer working with plastic because it's easiest for me.
How is it easier? Plastic models seem like a lot more work to me.
Ignoring basing, here's a comparison:
Hansa (one piece model):
1. Clean up 1 moldline.
2. Drill out gun barrel.
3. Glue into base.
4. Paint.
Space Marine (10-piece plastic model):
1. Clean up 10 moldlines.
2. Drill out gun barrel.
3. Glue torso together.
4. Dry assemble with blu-tac to get pose right.
5. Stick legs and torso together. Keep arms, shoulder pads, head and backpack separate for now.
6. Stick these parts to rods, lollipop sticks or whatever.
7. Paint sub-assemblies.
8. Complete assembly of finished model.
You're not comparing plastic vs. metal there, but rather mono-pose vs. multi-part plastic.
For example, a mono-pose plastic model (like the Terminators in Space Hulk) are as easy, if not easier to assemble than a metal or resin mono-pose model, but the clean-up of these models is naturally easier (it is easier to file, scrape, etc, plastic).
And if the metal or resin model is multi-part and requires anything like pinning, then all of a sudden it is absolutely no contest which is easier.
Simply put, plastic is the easier medium to work with, while the complexities of assembly depends on the style of model (regardless of what medium it is made in).
You're not comparing plastic vs. metal there, but rather mono-pose vs. multi-part plastic.
Deliberately. What you said about multipart resin/metal kits is true, of course, but the example I made a few posts up compared old metal (one piece) IG regiments with the (multipart) Catachans. Most people who talk about plastics aren't thinking of monopose miniatures but rather multi-part models with the concomitant long lead time needed to get both the models and the tooling right.
Hansa's a single-piece model. He's an example of how single-piece metal models can be great; people don't need to (and shouldn't) get stuck in the mindset of "plastic is the only way to have variety in an army". Simply put, I'd rather have an army of 40 different "Hansa equivalents" than 40 "plastic space marines" (insert your preferred multipart plastic kit here). And it'd be faster to assemble and less hassle to paint.
Deliberately. What you said about multipart resin/metal kits is true, of course, but the example I made a few posts up compared old metal (one piece) IG regiments with the (multipart) Catachans. Most people who talk about plastics aren't thinking of monopose miniatures but rather multi-part models with the concomitant long lead time needed to get both the models and the tooling right.
Hansa's a single-piece model. He's an example of how single-piece metal models can be great; people don't need to (and shouldn't) get stuck in the mindset of "plastic is the only way to have variety in an army". Simply put, I'd rather have an army of 40 different "Hansa equivalents" than 40 "plastic space marines" (insert your preferred multipart plastic kit here). And it'd be faster to assemble and less hassle to paint.
And that's the rub between the mono-pose vs. multi-part concept.
History has shown us that you're typically unlikely to see 40 different metal models of the same 'type' of model. Instead they tend to make as few as they can get away with.
Which of course means the models look great in small groups but then when massed on the table one player's army looks strangely familiar to any other player's army of the same faction.
So multi-part tends to shine in making each player's army more unique, while mono-pose (be they plastic, resin or metal) are obviously easier to assemble and paint but lose the overall army individuality.
Ultimately we're really talking about player preference here. Some people don't mind the extra work required for multi-part in exchange for the freedom of individuality. Others prefer the easier set-up and the (generally) more dynamic posing of mono-pose models.
yakface wrote: [
History has shown us that you're typically unlikely to see 40 different metal models of the same 'type' of model. Instead they tend to make as few as they can get away with.
I respectfully disagree. Only *recent* history (at GW) has shown us that - and I suspect that GW's "3 poses in a box of 5" is strongly correlated with the large amount of time their sculptors spend on plastic kits. Before GW's plastic kits became so numerous, they had massive amounts of metal miniatures in as much variety as anyone could want. As I've said before, even the squats had 180 different models - 30 of them are shown here: http://www.solegends.com/citcat19911/c2053squats-02.htm Most of the squat models came out between 1987 and 1989 and then that was it. Or what about gobbos? There's 70 different goblin poses just in the red catalog (http://www.solegends.com/citcat19912/index.htm) and they look way more interesting than the current boxes of plastic GW makes.
yakface wrote: [
Which of course means the models look great in small groups but then when massed on the table one player's army looks strangely familiar to any other player's army of the same faction.
Plastic has the advantage of poseability. If you're good at it, you can tell a story with your models. If you're not good at it, your models will look the same as everyone elses. The important thing in my view though is the variety within a force. People believe (I think as a result of recent GW history) that metal models = no variety and only multipart plastics can provide the variety today's gamers want. I can't agree with that opinion and I think that GW's back catalog and the logistics of model-making should bear me out.
yakface wrote: [
So multi-part tends to shine in making each player's army more unique, while mono-pose (be they plastic, resin or metal) are obviously easier to assemble and paint but lose the overall army individuality.
Ultimately we're really talking about player preference here. Some people don't mind the extra work required for multi-part in exchange for the freedom of individuality. Others prefer the easier set-up and the (generally) more dynamic posing of mono-pose models.
Other than that, from a production standpoint plastics have the disadvantages of 1. upfront expense, 2. long leadtime, 3. sucking away your sculptor's time (when he could be making more great metal models bwahah).
scipio.au wrote: Yeah, tell Yakface (the owner of this board) off for discussing something relevant to the kickstarter just because you don't want to read it!
Looks really, really impressive, possibly Infinity or McVey level of detail. Now needs a pro-level paintjob, and details of the next minis and concept art to be shown!
Certainly I think if they had another 2 or 3 characters of that quality it would help the KS massively.
We can expect the Wardrones to be unveiled soon (not sure how soon soon is) and there was mention on the live chat that the Boromites (one of the selectable credit rewards) are currently in the hands of a designer/artist (no sure if we're looking at greens or concept art there) so thats another thing to look forward to.
As a proponent of metal models, I will have to disagree to the depiction of metal models and how "easy" plastic models are depicted to work with.
I believe most of the bad impressions about metal models come from GW, whose casting quality always left much to be desired, there are other manufacturers out there that do wonderful metal models that need as little work as the plastic ones including no need for pinning.
For me, comparing metal and plastic models of equal quality, they are about the same to work with, the big question is single cast or multipart and if multipart with what design in mind.
Personally, multipart plastics are blunt because the vast majority is build with the "modularity" in mind, giving wide poses so that the many different parts will fit with minimal effort, this also makes accessories look stuck in there, since they have no organic integration with the sculpt, been again made to fit as generic as it could be.
There is a reason why the new Spacehulk terminators and genestealers looked so good and dynamic, they were made as single posed models without any interchangeability or modularity in mind, of course they also illustrate the biggest problem plastic has, undercuts.
Metal models even multipart are in their majority designed to be self contained models, this makes them at good hands dynamic, fluid and organic, something plastic models usually are not because they are not made in such a way.
With all that been said, Plastics are geared towards mass armies, their nature and cost gear them towards that, for GoA were 40 models tops per side is what I understand I would rather have metal models, even single cast that have character and dynamic poses, than 3-4 blunt plastic multi part multi posed kits to justify their existence.
Just backed it last night, looking forward to this. I have to admit I've been somewhat puzzled and disappointed by much of the hostility on here towards the project, especially the naysaying based on not being as immediately successful as the Ogre or Sedition Wars kickstarters were (despite that they also raised much of their funds only in the last few days before finishing).
Vaktathi wrote: Just backed it last night, looking forward to this. I have to admit I've been somewhat puzzled and disappointed by much of the hostility on here towards the project, especially the naysaying based on not being as immediately successful as the Ogre or Sedition Wars kickstarters were (despite that they also raised much of their funds only in the last few days before finishing).
I must admit I am continuously puzzled and disappointed by the fact that the in-depth critique and analysis offered by the Dakka community to help make Rick Priestly his half-a-million dollars is constantly being dissed as "hostility" and "naysaying".
That is simply wrong and, ultimately, doing the project itself a great disservice by taking the focus away from the things that need to be addressed for it to succeed, as we all want it to.
I'm not saying criticism is a bad thing by any means or that it shouldn't be brought up, there are entirely relevant criticisms, but some are...uncharacteristically doomsday-ish or that really should be entirely separate business strategy oriented discussions.
pgmason wrote: I believe I've read somewhere on one of the forums that Kev White doesn't use concept sketches - he sculpts directly from a written brief. Therefore his WIP green basically was the concept sketch.
None of the three actual members of Darkspace Corp is an artist - Rick, John and Rik are rules/fluff guy, business guy and software guy respectively. All of the artists and sculptors involved are freelancers, not part of the project team itself. If they want artwork or greens they have to pay people to produce them. I know it's frustrating for some, but they can't magic up concept artwork out of nowhere.
That would then simply be DSC ponying up some personal money to get these things commissioned before the KS began. They're asking for half a million dollars. I don't think it would be unreasonable for them to have spend a few grand of heir own money in getting some art prepared for it. (Art being concept art, a few greens already done, etc.)
This has been pretty much the biggest issue so far, considering that Rick & Co have apparently been working on this for six months before the Kickstarter even began and its pretty much implied that this project is Ricks "baby", so his possibly been planning this project for a long time, why nothing "solid" to show for it? Have they honestly been working on this project for that long and at no point thought to themselves "maybe we should create some early concepts, maybe a green or two?". I understand that Rick & Co are game designers not artist, but surly they understand wargaming is largely a visual medium and the first thing a large portion of wargamers are going to look for are cool miniatures and concepts, not walls of text.
I fully understand what the GoA team are trying to achieve with this project, and I'm very interested in it, but what I don't understand is the logic/method they are using in order to achieve it. Either way I look forward to seeing the wardrones, hopefully this project will pick up, of course depending on how everyone responds to them.
Rolt wrote: This has been pretty much the biggest issue so far, considering that Rick & Co have apparently been working on this for six months before the Kickstarter even began and its pretty much implied that this project is Ricks "baby", so his possibly been planning this project for a long time, why nothing "solid" to show for it? Have they honestly been working on this project for that long and at no point thought to themselves "maybe we should create some early concepts, maybe a green or two?". I understand that Rick & Co are game designers not artist, but surly they understand wargaming is largely a visual medium and the first thing a large portion of wargamers are going to look for are cool miniatures and concepts, not walls of text.
I fully understand what the GoA team are trying to achieve with this project, and I'm very interested in it, but what I don't understand is the logic/method they are using in order to achieve it. Either way I look forward to seeing the wardrones, hopefully this project will pick up, of course depending on how everyone responds to them.
Perhaps it's not so much that it never occurred to them as much as they are trying to sell the make-your-own wargame aspect of Gates of Antares. Having fully fleshed out concept work and greens would have been fantastic to many of us. It would've given us a starting point for discussion on what we liked and didn't like with the designs. Dark Space Corp might have felt otherwise, figuring we might interpret such efforts as undermining community involvement in design and therefore detrimental to GoA's appeal.
Just spitballin' here.
Edit: Financial costs associated with potentially poorly received designs (and the necessary redesigns) would also be undesirable. Whereas having the designs built by developer and community interaction and then commissioning artwork and greens based on that would be cheaper by avoiding the initial, throw-away cost.
Vaktathi wrote: I'm not saying criticism is a bad thing by any means or that it shouldn't be brought up, there are entirely relevant criticisms, but some are...uncharacteristically doomsday-ish or that really should be entirely separate business strategy oriented discussions.
The thing is... look back at the Sedition Wars, the Mantic Kickstarters and others that have featured heavily on Dakka. They have all been pretty much the same.
Yes there are a lot of posts which feature heavily the words 'I' and 'My' (usually in italics), those will always come in seemingly every page in the thread, but the most we can do is continue to post comments regarding new material about the Kickstarter as and when it is released. So I hope some of the really keen Dakkaites can continue to post regarding these, rather than just getting into slagging matches backwards and forwards, which in turn put off people who have something constructive to say.
Anyway! So my post isn't hypocritical, here are a few other titbits (sorry if they have been posted already!)
- A summary of the questions posted last night during the Reddit (which was tremendous fun, and funny at times, despite Reddit being about as usable as some kind of Linux system from 1995) on the forum http://www.darkspacecorp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=614
Pretty interesting regarding the War Drones - looks like a multi-part, customisable kit. Particularly liked the idea of them being altered for different roles, such as the 'heavy seige drone'. Apparently the 'Sims' race is now nearing completion, but the next miniatures on show will be the 'boromites' (who just have to be dwarves ) or the War Drones.
- Hansa has gone to Golem Painting Studio to be painted like one of their French girls.
Edit: Financial costs associated with potentially poorly received designs (and the necessary redesigns) would also be undesirable. Whereas having the designs built by developer and community interaction and then commissioning artwork and greens based on that would be cheaper by avoiding the initial, throw-away cost.
Either way, it's not for lack of funds. They run big ads on BoLS, TGNs, all the big sites (Dakkadakka too). A 160 x 600 ad of the sort they have on BoLS costs them about 2 1/2 grand a month Source: (BoLS Ads).
Others are likely not quite as expensive, but they're not free either.
As said, their logo, website design, video-animation, etc.. are all high polish too, even if they look a bit "stock-sci-fi-graphic" at times.. Those don't come for nothing either.
So they are willing to sink a few grand to advertise it. If, in light of this, they choose not to invest in even the most simple of sketches, I can only think it has some purposeful decision behind it. Not simply a lack of financial means.
I am withdrawing. To be honest, I have lost my faith in Rick and gang after reading all the fluff, watching the videos, and reading about gameplay.
It really seems like their spin on Mass Effect, Ancient warp gate left behind by previous beings.... As I look at Hansa I feel the Sci-Fi direction they are taking is not one I am really interested in. I do hope they get funded and they can bring their dream to light. They will just have to do it without me.. After they launch the game I will read reviews and follow Dakka, if it turns out to be a lot of fun and their models look good I will invest at that time.
Zweischneid wrote: Either way, it's not for lack of funds. They run big ads on BoLS, TGNs, all the big sites (Dakkadakka too). A 160 x 600 ad of the sort they have on BoLS costs them about 2 1/2 grand a month Source: (BoLS Ads).
Others are likely not quite as expensive, but they're not free either.
As said, their logo, website design, video-animation, etc.. are all high polish too, even if they look a bit "stock-sci-fi-graphic" at times.. Those don't come for nothing either.
So they are willing to sink a few grand to advertise it. If, in light of this, they choose not to invest in even the most simple of sketches, I can only think it has some purposeful decision behind it. Not simply a lack of financial means.
Certainly they have enough money between them to get the work done. The logo and whatnot are their purview so no additional input was needed. Which they're claiming is not the case for the actual game elements. My point was simply on avoiding 'unnecessary' costs from their perspective; measure twice, cut once.
So I'm with you in that it had to have been a choice not a limitation.
And pledge cancelled. I have to say this looked interesting in the beginning, but several things have led to me pulling out:
- The whole designed by you thing, to me, seems lazy and unhealthy for a game with this much ambition. Plus it's another insular community forum with vested interests where those with the most time to spend posting and reposting get what they want. I just want a complete ruleset dammit, I don't want to write it for you!
- No defined look or feel. No real artwork or concepts at all. Surely they must have something to show by now?
- Kickstarter by wall of text without much content. Even the back stories are a little dull
With sedition wars, we already had a compelling set of models with their interesting concepts and backgrounds. The sculpts and paint jobs were top notch and the value was excellent.
GoA just has Hansa and his generic space soldier look. You know the kind, part way through a movie or tv programme where the hero's are attacked, 12 Hansa's show up, make a flashy scene, give the hero's a little trouble and are finally mercilessly slaughtered...
Nah SW is my current choice for the foreseeable future when it comes to Sci-fi gaming - AoS will be out this year, so I'll get a second SW fix!
I am in the same boat as zedmeister. I had considered pledging but they have wasted away an entire month with very little to show for it. My money has gone to fund some space corridors instead!
Hey Zed & Cain (and everyone else) you guys might as well give this project a second chance till next week, apparently they will have the Wardrones WiPs and possibly some Pan-human/Boromites concepts up as well. Its best to see what direction they take with the wardrones at least since they will be a heavy deciding factor in the overall look of this uinverse/game and if they don't work for you, well thats no issue.
Edit: Financial costs associated with potentially poorly received designs (and the necessary redesigns) would also be undesirable. Whereas having the designs built by developer and community interaction and then commissioning artwork and greens based on that would be cheaper by avoiding the initial, throw-away cost.
Either way, it's not for lack of funds. They run big ads on BoLS, TGNs, all the big sites (Dakkadakka too). A 160 x 600 ad of the sort they have on BoLS costs them about 2 1/2 grand a month Source: (BoLS Ads).
Others are likely not quite as expensive, but they're not free either.
As said, their logo, website design, video-animation, etc.. are all high polish too, even if they look a bit "stock-sci-fi-graphic" at times.. Those don't come for nothing either.
So they are willing to sink a few grand to advertise it. If, in light of this, they choose not to invest in even the most simple of sketches, I can only think it has some purposeful decision behind it. Not simply a lack of financial means.
I don't think any of that advertising was around at the launch. It was only after the Kickstater funding stuttered and when I and others suggested on the official forum that advertising might be good idea that some started to appear. That's an easy catch up job that you can add mid stream.
What's not so easy is to come up with is quality concepts and greens if you didn't have them planned at outset. It now seems they are scrambling to do that and some stuff is going to be put up next week. But it would appear that this may not be following the collaborative process outlined on the Kickstarter page but may be work that has been rushed to a more advanced stage.
It will be interesting to see what appears next week and what form it takes.
Rolt wrote: Hey Zed & Cain (and everyone else) you guys might as well give this project a second chance till next week, apparently they will have the Wardrones WiPs and possibly some Pan-human/Boromites concepts up as well. Its best to see what direction they take with the wardrones at least since they will be a heavy deciding factor in the overall look of this uinverse/game and if they don't work for you, well thats no issue.
Just a friendly suggestion.
Oh I am keeping an eye out of course! The fact that I already have 200+ models from other kickstarters already is also keeping me at bay for the moment!
With sedition wars, we already had a compelling set of models with their interesting concepts and backgrounds. The sculpts and paint jobs were top notch and the value was excellent.
Secition Wars or Zombiecide were NOT Kickstarters.
They were Pre-Order manouvers disguised as kickstarters. It is the way "CoolMiniorNot" uses the Kickstarter platform to sell their stuff.
Thinking that a Miniature game or tabletop game project has to be already designed, sculpted, cast, painted before making the video for the Kickstarter is just wrong.
A project needs money from the base, to support all the development. The final ammount of money needed for production, for making copies of the miniatures and print the books that money can come out with pre-order.
What the guys form coolmini did with those games was a pre-order move. A FALSE Kickstarter.
Oh I am keeping an eye out of course! The fact that I already have 200+ models from other kickstarters already is also keeping me at bay for the moment!
200+ kickstarter miniatures..... what the hell have you been doing!, do you really hate your bank balance that much.
With sedition wars, we already had a compelling set of models with their interesting concepts and backgrounds. The sculpts and paint jobs were top notch and the value was excellent.
Secition Wars or Zombiecide were NOT Kickstarters.
They were Pre-Order manouvers disguised as kickstarters. It is the way "CoolMiniorNot" uses the Kickstarter platform to sell their stuff.
Thinking that a Miniature game or tabletop game project has to be already designed, sculpted, cast, painted before making the video for the Kickstarter is just wrong.
A project needs money from the base, to support all the development. The final ammount of money needed for production, for making copies of the miniatures and print the books that money can come out with pre-order.
What the guys form coolmini did with those games was a pre-order move. A FALSE Kickstarter.
They were able to upgrade games and push them to print sooner. It's not CMoNs fault they've had cogent campaigns with tons of visuals and actual direction and BtG is a convoluted mess hidden behind massive walls of text and other users that are supporting it simply based on Priestleys pedigree and not actual content.
At this point I would welcome some of Priestley's personal napkin doodles, even if they are just stick figures with little diagram bubbles that say "nanotech butt plates go here--->".
With sedition wars, we already had a compelling set of models with their interesting concepts and backgrounds. The sculpts and paint jobs were top notch and the value was excellent.
Secition Wars or Zombiecide were NOT Kickstarters.
They were Pre-Order manouvers disguised as kickstarters. It is the way "CoolMiniorNot" uses the Kickstarter platform to sell their stuff.
Thinking that a Miniature game or tabletop game project has to be already designed, sculpted, cast, painted before making the video for the Kickstarter is just wrong.
A project needs money from the base, to support all the development. The final ammount of money needed for production, for making copies of the miniatures and print the books that money can come out with pre-order.
What the guys form coolmini did with those games was a pre-order move. A FALSE Kickstarter.
Let not have a "This doesn't fit my definition of what a kickstarter should be!" debate.
BtGoA should not need $475,000.00 to get off the ground. I'm pretty sure that there isn't a miniature game in the history of miniature gaming that had that kind of cash infusion right off the bat.
The number of comments on the KS page is telling IMO. All the activity is obviously on the forums etc. so you need to be the sort of person that wants to dig in to all of that in order to be engaged by the enthused backers.
Melcavuk wrote: Presenting the final Mr Hansa, pre-painting ofcourse.
He's still got the ass-plates, what the hell?! I thought they said they'd get rid of these in the video?!
I gotta say, this project never looked all that good for me, and the goal to raise money keeps getting higher and higher...
plastictrees wrote: The number of comments on the KS page is telling IMO. All the activity is obviously on the forums etc. so you need to be the sort of person that wants to dig in to all of that in order to be engaged by the enthused backers.
What turned me off the forums is when I voiced a few concerns about the lack of info/images, they gave me a GW-esque, don't like it, GTFO response. That's fine if you're GW, but you can't really do that when *you're* the one going around hat in hand, looking for donations. The guys on the fourms seem really oblivious.
For both reasons, if I do pledge money, my cash will be going towards the Bughunt Corridors, which look simply superb.
Oh I am keeping an eye out of course! The fact that I already have 200+ models from other kickstarters already is also keeping me at bay for the moment!
200+ kickstarter miniatures..... what the hell have you been doing!, do you really hate your bank balance that much.
Well ya know. Dreadball, Trollforge, Sedition Wars, Dreamforge... It piles up pretty fast!
Come to think of it. That adds up to waay more that 200. More like, ahem. 400. Oh what have I done?!
I think the buttplates actually look pretty cool. I can understand the dislike, but I don't agree with it.
chris_valera 497777 5210788 wrote: For both reasons, if I do pledge money, my cash will be going towards the Bughunt Corridors, which look simply superb.
You were never in for this project anyway. To be honest, most of your posts in this thread come across as trolling.
Let not have a "This doesn't fit my definition of what a kickstarter should be!" debate.
Quite. While comparing the advantages to rolled out content vs. the Gates of Antares development stage might be on topic--let's try and avoid subjective arguments on what Kickstarter is or isn't. Kickstarter has hosted the project---so let's keep this thread on the topic of Gates of Antares--not the ideological underpinnings of Kickstarter. Thanks.
Let not have a "This doesn't fit my definition of what a kickstarter should be!" debate.
Quite. While comparing the advantages to rolled out content vs. the Gates of Antares development stage might be on topic--let's try and avoid subjective arguments on what Kickstarter is or isn't. Kickstarter has hosted the project---so let's keep this thread on the topic of Gates of Antares--not the ideological underpinnings of Kickstarter. Thanks.
Arseplates aside, the more I think about it, the more I'd be concerned about the whole community driving direction idea. For me, it comes across as needing a technoutopian "one community" where everyone is fair and just. In reality, the forum will just be a mass of competitions where different groups try to get what they want. The metagame will become massive, it won't take long for groups to form to try to game the system and how can you tell that battle x logged as happening right now is even going ahead or isn't being swung to the benefit of certain groups.
Soon the background won't really matter as forum alliance y is busily concerned in ensuring that forum group z suffers, no matter what the cost to the game...
This is assuming no management or control capability of any kind on the part of the forum and development staff, which sounds rather dubious, and that the playerbase will turn into a ****show, which isn't necessarily the case.
Similar theories have worked well in other cases (Legend of the 5 Rings comes to mind where the story generally follows the successes of the tournament circuit), and there's lots of games where forum player groups aren't constant jerks to each other the way they often are with Warhammer/Magic.
It's certainly possible it all goes to pot, but lets not make it out like it's a certainty.
Vaktathi wrote: This is assuming no management or control capability of any kind on the part of the forum and development staff, which sounds rather dubious, and that the playerbase will turn into a ****show, which isn't necessarily the case.
Similar theories have worked well in other cases (Legend of the 5 Rings comes to mind where the story generally follows the successes of the tournament circuit), and there's lots of games where forum player groups aren't constant jerks to each other the way they often are with Warhammer/Magic.
It's certainly possible it all goes to pot, but lets not make it out like it's a certainty.
That's assuming everyone comes to the one forum where they all agree to be policed. But human nature is against them if they are hoping that people won't even try to game the system a little. If this becomes big, then it'll be even more of a problem.
zedmeister wrote:
That's assuming everyone comes to the one forum where they all agree to be policed.
That's quite an easy problem to control then, you only collect and act on information when it's done through the channels you've set up for that task.
But human nature is against them if they are hoping that people won't even try to game the system a little. If this becomes big, then it'll be even more of a problem.
That's true enough of anything, but it's also why the final say and determination would be up to the game development staff and not just plugged into an algorithm and blindly applied without some oversight.
Still doesn't preclude efforts to game the system.
I can see two possible scenarios:
1 - In order to preserve the background, they tighten up the whole live universe thing up so much to prevent metagame abuse and attempts to game the system, that it stops being a live universe but a heavily moderated universe with only after action reports or similar (so battle reports, really).
2 - the metagame becomes so rampant, that they'll allow alliances and corporations and guilds. If this should happen, the backstory will really become an afterthought as diametrically opposed races (as per the backstory) will be in the same alliance fighting side by side.
Extremes? Perhaps, but the whole live universe thing and community driven ideal just sounds so ambitious with its own inherent challenges that it could sink the game by itself...
Well, showing up on the forum and showing your willie to everyone is not exactly what I would call good manners and so I am not surprised they did not love you that much.
Normally the saying goes that Germans are the ones that have doubts and doubts, but reading this thread we have to rewrite sayings. Quite some would not even recognize a good project if it would dance naked before them.
Good projects are most often not the ones with alle the blingbling and shiny stuff, but they do have substance at the core, which this KS does have. OK it takes a leap of faith somewhere, but in the end one it is duely rewarded. And that´s what I can see in this project.
Quite some would not even recognize a good project if it would dance naked before them.
Good projects are most often not the ones with alle the blingbling and shiny stuff, but they do have substance at the core, which this KS does have. OK it takes a leap of faith somewhere, but in the end one it is duely rewarded. And that´s what I can see in this project.
That's an arrogant attitude to take with quite a lot of snobbery thrown in - something that will put potential backers off. I just hope it isn't representative of the community as a whole. I've pulled out of this because there is no substance there as yet. There are some nebulous concepts and an ambition there but the lack of, well, anything even though we are half way through the kickstarter isn't a good thing. Poor show.
However, I still can be convinced and my canceled pledge reversed - they really need to pull something huge out of the hat to get this going or enthusiasm will wain and despair will set in...
I'd agree there is no need to get nasty to potential or non-backers, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and it is only by gauging the community that anyone can adapt and improve, there is alot of lively discussion going on over on the GoA forums however for now I know alot of people here are eagerly awaiting modelling greens and concept art that has been promised to arrive soon. I think once we see wardrone and possibly some Pan art it will be the decider of in or out for alot of the maybes.
Personally I've invested but I can understand why some people are holding off for now, I just hope the upcoming greens are enough to convince people.
You call it snobbery, I call it being realistic and let´s be honest, quite some folks on DakkaDakka are not very realistic. Give them a well run company and they would run it into the ground within a month.
And it is better to only have those people on board that don´t leave the boat when it is not sunshine than having to try to please every whim of some fine-weather-people.
Sorry, for being direct and honest, but worked quite well for me and my surrounding for the last 38 years, so why should I change.
I've probably been guilty of appearing hostile to some of the critics, and I'd like to apologise for that. I just find it weird that the very things that are making me so excited about this project - getting in on the ground floor at the beginning of development, having an input on the design and building the universe - seem to be the same things putting other people off. Maybe its because I'm a wannabe game designer myself, but I find it incredible that others aren't as enthused as I am.
I'm in at the £25 level at the moment, because it's all I can afford at the moment. If I had the money, I'd be in for the £125 Feeder at least.
Duncan_Idaho wrote: You call it snobbery, I call it being realistic and let´s be honest, quite some folks on DakkaDakka are not very realistic. Give them a well run company and they would run it into the ground within a month.
And it is better to only have those people on board that don´t leave the boat when it is not sunshine than having to try to please every whim of some fine-weather-people.
Sorry, for being direct and honest, but worked quite well for me and my surrounding for the last 38 years, so why should I change.
Or, to read it another way: "We don't want your sort round here" and "It's my way or the highway". Nice way to encourage potentials - you're not really selling this very well at all are you.
Realistic is about having something more than a nebulous concept. I don't expect a finished product. I expect to see basic concepts, ideas, direction, style which is not asking much - if they want me and others to be a patron of this, then they need to do more and judging from the comments, I'm not the only one. In fact, to me a lot seems to be gambling on the concepts for the Wardrones - these concepts really, and I mean really, need to deliver. That's a hell of a task for a small set of models.
I really want to be in on this, but I can't see anything that excites me at present (I was even down for the limited edition rulebook).
pgmason wrote: I've probably been guilty of appearing hostile to some of the critics, and I'd like to apologise for that. I just find it weird that the very things that are making me so excited about this project - getting in on the ground floor at the beginning of development, having an input on the design and building the universe - seem to be the same things putting other people off. Maybe its because I'm a wannabe game designer myself, but I find it incredible that others aren't as enthused as I am.
I'm in at the £25 level at the moment, because it's all I can afford at the moment. If I had the money, I'd be in for the £125 Feeder at least.
Oh, I am.
I am in the Mantic Warpath 2.0 feedback thread (with Alessio Cavatore being at least as "celebrity" as Rick P.), the DreamForge Iron-Core rules development. I looked at the freely available (pre-Kickstarter) rule sets for things like Wrath of Kings, Kensai and others. I've been meaning to give the freely available Wild West Exodus beta-rules a look. Thon the Game also went to some great few months of community-driven rules development for their soon to come sci-fi miniature wargaming Kickstarter.
All of those have some distinct advantages over the GoA one IMO.
- They are "free" to participate in for the community, making you feel less exploited as not even "free labour", but "labour that actually pays for the privilege"
- They have test-rules published as pdfs to actually look at and try out.
- They are all have preliminary artwork, concepts or even some miniatures already to give you an idea on where it is going.
That´s my personal opinion and not someone elses. If you can´t live with it, your problem. But don´t blame others for my opinion.
I would be with you if we were a few days before the KS ends, but it is not even half-time. They have time until the last day to deliver. If they have not delivered until then, it´s their problem.
I am in with my pledge (£190), i am happy at the finished Hansa and am looking forward to the next green project as i really like the drone idea.
Some Ishard concept images would be good for me.
However no money has left my bank, i am happy for it to sit there until we know more, i think next week will be sink or swim in terms of getting funding.
If by final week there isnt anything more than hansa, a drone and maybe one other green i would be unhappy, however if we get bare bones ruleset to practice with i would be much happier, as i am in for this with the game as much as some more plastic crack to have on my shelf.
Some of the negative points raised on the 2 forums have been valid, and the past few days has seen a flatlining of pledges, but as i say, if after next week we get no art\greens etc etc, then i think more will leave simply from apathy. Okay its maybe not right, but its human nature, people need to be kept entertained with tidbits.
I want to see this work, and Rick has said if the KS doesnt work, they will seek other sources of funding, so i hope the game does happen as its a universe i like the fluff of so far.
I want to see this work, and Rick has said if the KS doesnt work, they will seek other sources of funding, so i hope the game does happen as its a universe i like the fluff of so far.
And herein lies the HUGE problem. When the KS fails, they will not receive funding from other sources using only the 'information' provided in the Kickstarter page. Simply isn't going to happen.
I don't think miniature game creation works like book publishing, so I don't know that anyone is going to be willing to give Rick Priestly a $450K advance based solely on his previous work.
I want to see this work, and Rick has said if the KS doesnt work, they will seek other sources of funding, so i hope the game does happen as its a universe i like the fluff of so far.
And herein lies the HUGE problem. When the KS fails, they will not receive funding from other sources using only the 'information' provided in the Kickstarter page. Simply isn't going to happen.
I don't think miniature game creation works like book publishing, so I don't know that anyone is going to be willing to give Rick Priestly a $450K advance based solely on his previous work.
To be honest, if this campaign fails, the obvious move is to do another campaign with a slightly less lofty goal and a correspondingly lower funding level. Say, 2 factions at 100k GBP?
The value of that is it will almost certainly fund, and quite possibly, since by then they should have loads of "stuff" to show, they can go on to fund the other factions.
In other words, they can do what they ought to have done the first time around. As of right now, the "Pledges per day to succeed" just keeps getting higher...
To be fair, most of the big KS's so far saw relatively flat funding at their midpoint, with huge drives at the end (Ogre, Sedition Wars, etc), so I'm not sure it's something to be spectacularly concerned with yet, especially seeing as this still has as much time to go as those ran in their entirety.
Vaktathi wrote: To be fair, most of the big KS's so far saw relatively flat funding at their midpoint, with huge drives at the end (Ogre, Sedition Wars, etc), so I'm not sure it's something to be spectacularly concerned with yet, especially seeing as this still has as much time to go as those ran in their entirety.
That's not categorically true: there are patterns that emerge in campaigns, as I have tried to ferret out, and while some campaigns do reach extraordinary heights at the end, those kinds of increases are dependant on a number of factors. The first, and most important factor in my analysis so far, is the availability of add-ons, which allow for backers to increase their existing pledges, as well as inflating the buy-in size of new backers. While there are "add-ons" for BtGoA, they consist at the moment of additional amounts of war drones (which look like?), shirts (everyone always tries to sell shirts...), game books and starter boxes. Oh, and increases to the custom army size. So you can add... stuff. Can't add campaign exclusive models (odd), no tie-ins, add-ons are simply the things you can already get or could get retail.
It's also important to note that "flat funding" for most campaigns means a generally lower (not low) baseline, that ticks up at the end. Kingdom Death had a long valley of pledges... but a valley there meant about $12k per day. BtGoA already has multiple days with single digit backer totals and sub 1k GBP pledges. Remember also, the vast majority of projects of the "big KS's" were funded in days, if not hours. BtGoA needs that last minute surge to be huge just to make their funding minimum.
Vaktathi wrote: To be fair, most of the big KS's so far saw relatively flat funding at their midpoint, with huge drives at the end (Ogre, Sedition Wars, etc), so I'm not sure it's something to be spectacularly concerned with yet, especially seeing as this still has as much time to go as those ran in their entirety.
Just to point something out though, all of those projects you mentioned were funded by their midpoint.
If this doesn't get funded and they decide to run it again with more planning or a lower funding goal I wonder if they'd also consider creating a shell company in the US to run this project using the USD and Amazon Payments.
That's not categorically true: there are patterns that emerge in campaigns, as I have tried to ferret out, and while some campaigns do reach extraordinary heights at the end, those kinds of increases are dependant on a number of factors. The first, and most important factor in my analysis so far, is the availability of add-ons, which allow for backers to increase their existing pledges, as well as inflating the buy-in size of new backers. While there are "add-ons" for BtGoA, they consist at the moment of additional amounts of war drones (which look like?), shirts (everyone always tries to sell shirts...), game books and starter boxes. Oh, and increases to the custom army size. So you can add... stuff. Can't add campaign exclusive models (odd), no tie-ins, add-ons are simply the things you can already get or could get retail.
It's also important to note that "flat funding" for most campaigns means a generally lower (not low) baseline, that ticks up at the end. Kingdom Death had a long valley of pledges... but a valley there meant about $12k per day. BtGoA already has multiple days with single digit backer totals and sub 1k GBP pledges. Remember also, the vast majority of projects of the "big KS's" were funded in days, if not hours. BtGoA needs that last minute surge to be huge just to make their funding minimum.
True, but they're also trying a much different route. The other KS's had much lower minimum's because, in large part, they were pre-order functions and weren't trying to raise money for design and production work. My copy of Sedition Wars that arrived last week had been nearly 3 years in the making at that point having first been made known in 2010 with the KS not showing up until 2012. In large part I feel that may have "spoiled" the playerbase in some respects because we already had entirely completed games that largely were building pre-orders and extras through their KS's.
(all that said, my copy of Ogre isn't likely to arrive until the KS has already been done for over a year )
The BtGoA KS is trying an alternate route from a much earlier point with a greater degree of input from players. Does that have its own issues? Yes, but a lot of people (not necessarily you) don't seem to be getting that it's coming from a fundamentally different position and taking a fundamentally different path than the other popular KS's we've had, with an apparently larger scope as well.
Catyrpelius wrote:
Just to point something out though, all of those projects you mentioned were funded by their midpoint.
True, but they also had minimum's of $20,000 instead of 300,000UKP and were largely completed projects by the time the KS went up.
If this doesn't get funded and they decide to run it again with more planning or a lower funding goal I wonder if they'd also consider creating a shell company in the US to run this project using the USD and Amazon Payments.
They're actually pretty good comparative deals, but it's obvious the difference: with rivet wars you have some semblance of an idea what you were getting. Here...nada.
I'm sure I'll get called a CMoN-fellator for this, but I think the Relic Knights campaign is a pretty good example of what BtG should be doing. Lots of the RK models didn't exist prior to the kickstarter, but they at least had concept art of what they would/should look like. The fact that BtG has plain silhouttes is a problem....
I'll be the one to ask the stupid question: It appears that the silhouttes used in the pledge levels guide were pulled from these two pieces of concet art....
So.....why weren't these included from the outset?
Actually the bigger question to ask about those two images is, are they in any way reflective of what you are going to receive or are they just stock art?
Those images WERE included from the outset. So the question is, how did you miss them?
Huh. I don't know then.....how did I miss them..... were they always at the top? If they were behind the great wall of text, there's a very good chance I stopped reading.
Admittedly, they do say "Early Concept Art" on them, so the end results may differ significantly, based on the feedback they have gotten. Particularly when it comes to drones, since there has been a lot of ideas about them on the forums. So one wouldn't really base a decision to buy the miniatures based on that early concept art.
But it does in some way indicate what could be in issue, in that several people had heard about and discussed the kickstarter campaign, but never went to the kickstarter page. So the people trying to promote the kickstarter in this and other forums might need to post and talk about more of the stuff from the kickstarter, rather than assuming that people will go check it out.
Buzzsaw wrote: It's also important to note that "flat funding" for most campaigns means a generally lower (not low) baseline, that ticks up at the end. Kingdom Death had a long valley of pledges... but a valley there meant about $12k per day. BtGoA already has multiple days with single digit backer totals and sub 1k GBP pledges. Remember also, the vast majority of projects of the "big KS's" were funded in days, if not hours. BtGoA needs that last minute surge to be huge just to make their funding minimum.
Another problem, I believe, is the perception of failure or the likelihood of failing to meet the funding goal. People are less likely to back the project if they think it's irrelevant to do so. It's a sinking ship mentality.
Momentum will continue to drive the kickstarter in whatever direction it's going without action from Dark Space Corp.
Rolt wrote: Actually the bigger question to ask about those two images is, are they in any way reflective of what you are going to receive or are they just stock art?
I'd seen those images also and remember reading or being led to believe that they were not indicative of the models and, in fact, not related to the game and were just samples (stock art) from their artists.
It is early concept work for Beyond the Gates of Antares. It is pretty clear, because it says right on the images "Early Concept work". They are concepts, which are not final. I can understand why someone would not pledge for the miniatures based on early concept art that could change significantly. But that doesn't make it confusing.
Albino Squirrel wrote: It is early concept work for Beyond the Gates of Antares. It is pretty clear, because it says right on the images "Early Concept work". They are concepts, which are not final. I can understand why someone would not pledge for the miniatures based on early concept art that could change significantly. But that doesn't make it confusing.
How's this for confusing then: what is it concept art of?
This is the problem with defensively saying "it's all there, why haven't you looked?" First, the job of advertising is to make me want it without having to look. Second, the things being presented as "concept art" look distinctly more like interior art, that is, the art that should be inside of the rulebooks, not the traditional concept art for miniatures we are used to seeing... well, everywhere.
Take the armored figure art: is that a war-drone, an armored person, an alien, something from a month ago, a year ago, something from the dark age of Beyond, a current combatant...?
Like Through the Breach, Dark Space seems dead set on selling people by giving them insight into things that we presume will be there (like quality mechanics), while refusing to satisfy the need for information about the most frequently asked question of any miniature game: what do the miniatures look like?
However, I still can be convinced and my canceled pledge reversed - they really need to pull something huge out of the hat to get this going or enthusiasm will wain and despair will set in...
You realise though that your money won't be wasted, and will be yours if this project isn't funded?
They are starting to make some real inroads in terms of the kind of game world GoA will inhabit, and the mechanics used in that game. Anyone who has spent any time on the development forums will be aware of this, but sadly this hasn't been conveyed (perhaps that is impossible?) onto the KS page. Now, we've already seen that this alone (the player-input method) isn't enough by itself to reach that 300k - but we also know that more concepts and greens are on the way. Hopefully those will be fancy enough to convince people who are still humming and harring about pledging - of whom I'm sure there are a lot!
Final guy looks to me like someone in an environment suit? As to what is inside? Could be any number of post-humans, quite possibly something with 4 anuses
I'll admit: If I saw those ILLUSTRATIONS I wouldn't have guessed they were model concept art. They don't look like traditional concept art because, like Buzz said, those look like bits of illustrative interior art.
I guess when I think of concept art I think of a early vector model or sketch of the model itself like this:
Spoiler:
or like this:
But I guess expectations differ.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also... I for one don't really want to have any design input. I like the notion of a living world where "live" battles affect the next things that come out, but man....those next things should be determined by the developers, not the people.
However, I still can be convinced and my canceled pledge reversed - they really need to pull something huge out of the hat to get this going or enthusiasm will wain and despair will set in...
You realise though that your money won't be wasted, and will be yours if this project isn't funded?
They are starting to make some real inroads in terms of the kind of game world GoA will inhabit, and the mechanics used in that game. Anyone who has spent any time on the development forums will be aware of this, but sadly this hasn't been conveyed (perhaps that is impossible?) onto the KS page. Now, we've already seen that this alone (the player-input method) isn't enough by itself to reach that 300k - but we also know that more concepts and greens are on the way. Hopefully those will be fancy enough to convince people who are still humming and harring about pledging - of whom I'm sure there are a lot!
Final guy looks to me like someone in an environment suit? As to what is inside? Could be any number of post-humans, quite possibly something with 4 anuses
One of the biggest problems is right here: the idea that you can sell a miniature game system on the strength of the rules. Even worse, thinking that giving people insight into the rules is the same as giving them value.
This is exactly the same conversation that was had during the run of Through the Breach, but there at least they were a) above their minimum funding, and b) an RPG.
Even there, just talking about what was going to be in it wasn't enough to generate excitement, which is logical because anytime a product is being put out by an established name, you presume they are good at what they are known to be good at. Rick Priestly telling us about how good the rules are going to be that are coming from the legendary Rick Priestly is just telling you things that are redundant.
I agree that is the problem. At this point, I think all the people who are mostly interested in rules and background of the game have heard about the game and have already pledged. Or they aren't going to. Now they need to draw in the probably much larger number of people who are mostly interested in the miniatures. To do that, they are going to need more visuals. Not necessarily finished sculpts, but at least detailed design drawings of what the miniatures will look like.
I was thinking how this would work if you tried it with a restaurant:
KS: So, I've got this killer steak I want to sell you.
Me: Awesome! I love steak! Tell me about it.
KS: Well it's a Bobby Flay original, so you know it's going to be good!
Me: I've been to one of his restaurants. The food sure was good! I'm interested. Tell me more!
KS: It's a Bobby Flay Steak.
Me: Right, I get that. What type of beef will it be, and how big is it?
KS: Well, it's A Bobby Flay steak. It'll probably be between 10-20 ounces. How big do YOU think it should be?
Me: I don't know... What type of beef is it? And how much is it?
KS Well, it's a Bobby Flay steak, so It'll be about $50 bucks.
Me: Okay, well I've had Bobby Flay's food before, and I've had steak for around $50 bucks. But is it Kobe, Wagyu, Angus, what? And you still haven't told me the size.
KS: Well, thats because we want you to tell us how big it should be and what type of beef it is.
Me: Ugh....well, I Like both Angus and Wagyu, and for $50 bucks, It should probably be around 16 ounces. Is it dry aged or wet aged?
KS: What do YOU think this Bobby Flay steak should be?
Me: Ugh...Shouldn't Bobby Flay have a preferred aging method?
KS: He does, but he wants your input.
Me: Well which is his preference?
KS: He wants to know what YOUR preference is before he decided. But remember, it's a Bobby Flay steak.
Me: I ..... I don't care. Just let me order this steak, Med rare.
KS: Of course sir. Here's your ticket. If you'd like to come back in 6 months, we'll have your steak ready using your input.
Me: What... no... feth it..I'm going to go home and make my own steak.
Duncan_Idaho wrote: You call it snobbery, I call it being realistic and let´s be honest, quite some folks on DakkaDakka are not very realistic. Give them a well run company and they would run it into the ground within a month.
And it is better to only have those people on board that don´t leave the boat when it is not sunshine than having to try to please every whim of some fine-weather-people.
Sorry, for being direct and honest, but worked quite well for me and my surrounding for the last 38 years, so why should I change.
When you decide to champion a cause, you are linked with that cause, even if you are truly unrelated, so, some thought on how you represent yourself, would not be bad, because how you represent yourself will be linked on how the cause you have picked up, food for thought here.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The images were there from the start, not sure why or how people missed it, or how this will change the view people have towards this kickstarter.
Much of that isn't any different from any other Kickstarter, lets not forget that here, particularly the 6 month wait for the steak. The Sedition Wars KS ended last June. I got my box last week. The Ogre KS ended last may. I'll get my box this May if I'm lucky.
Aside from that, there are some people who *would* like input on all those things, or at least some of them.
I dunno. They're giving us illustrations that may or may not look like the minis. I gave you an illustration of a steak. Seems appropriately analogous to me.
Hrm, one steak is a relatively cartoony abstract, the other is a relatively detailed picture, which may be subject to change, but gives a relatively good picture of what they're aiming for, which is what we've been given in the artwork presented.
Vaktathi wrote: Hrm, one steak is a relatively cartoony abstract, the other isa relatively detailed picture, which may be subject to change, but gives a relatively good picture of what they're aiming for, which is what we've been given in the artwork presented.
Uhhhh.... "relatively good picture" is not exactly the term I would use... "cartoony abstract", seems a little closer...
Vaktathi wrote: Hrm, one steak is a relatively cartoony abstract, the other isa relatively detailed picture, which may be subject to change, but gives a relatively good picture of what they're aiming for, which is what we've been given in the artwork presented.
Uhhhh.... "relatively good picture" is not exactly the term I would use.....
Yeah. Sorta what I was goin for. Again, perspective I guess.
We're moving into the crucial second half of our Kickstarter and as you'd expect we've been busy trying to make sure that we can hit our target buy focusing on the big items you've all said you wanted. Well, I think we've got that sorted and the our remaining days should be full to the brim with great content updates. A number of people in the forums wanted to know more about what we're working on, so here's a handy list:
Developing a WarDrone(or two) in front of your very eyes
Golem's painting process whilst they use their awesome skills on our Hansa miniature (and others!)
Boromites Green(s)
CoCom Green
Freebooters (soon to be renamed Freeborn) Concept Art
Algoryn Concept Art
Isorian Concept Art
NuHu Concept Art
CoCom Concept Art
Example armies for each faction
Faction Icons
Real-time Dynamic Gaming Universe - graphical representation of how this will work, with a video explaining it to boot!
Club real-time incentive program - oooh you'll like this we think!
Outline Rulebook - this has taken a little longer than we wanted as Rick has been pulled around doing all kinds of PR activities. We're still on track for our original target of the early Feb - Some backers are playing GoA games using the information we've already released!
Stores - we're rolling out a couple of new store reward tiers and will be reaching out to stores directly. If you want to support your local stores by buying your Kickstarter rewards through them, you can! If you are a store and are not on Warlords list, get in touch (Details on our website).
We even have a collaboration miniature to announce in the near future! (fingers crossed!)
More greens!
What I can't tell you right now is exactly when these things will come through. Like with any creative endeavour things change all the time, sometimes you need a little extra time to tweak and sometimes you even have to go back to the drawing board - we've had a couple of them already! - but come through they will, and more besides.
Thanks for sticking with us so far, the next part should be fun
Step 1: Start enormous debates about how terribly your KS is being run.
Step 2: Release tons of concept art and greens, completely winning over everyone by "listening" to them
Step 3: Profit.
I think the next week or 2 will make or break this kick starter if they can get all that done it should go a good way to convincing more people to back but it's still going to be a tough sell they would need 3164 more backers at the £65 Dark Energy game level or half that at feeder level but the game level is probably a more realistic sell point at this time. The Wardrones are probably the single most important sculpt right now they have to get them right. I'm really interested in the Boromites but really don't want them to be another space dwarf race the comment that the overseers are taller than average has at least set my mind some what at ease.
Still hanging in at feeder level though I've stopped myself from dropping to Dark energy a few times I'll let it roll until the last few days. If nothing else I'll definitely get the inflationary epoch level but I do want to see this succeed and convince me the feeder is the way to go.
Very curious about the collaboration miniature given the people involved and their other work.
DaveC wrote: The Wardrones are probably the single most important sculpt right now they have to get them right.
I think the Wardrones being important is a vast understatement, considering it seems to be implied that they are both generic units across all factions (with different upgrades/options) and form a reasonable chunk of your units on the field, the stakes are incredibly high. These wardrones better turn out to be the best thing since sliced bread, because if they mess up, it will reflect poorly on every faction in the game by default. It would basically be the equivalent of GW creating a horrible space marine design, just think how negatively that would impact various armies, artworks, codex's and the general perception of GW's ability to design "high quality miniatures" in one fell swoop.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm being all doom & gloom, but DSC cannot afford to mess these up.
cincydooley wrote: Just blows my mind a bit. Why wasn't ANY of this done to begin with......
Seriously. They have no more money now than they did before the kickstarter, so why was none of this done? What has changed in the last month that suddenly allowed them to start produce concept art and greens?
Hey guys, just wanted to discuss the player involvement portion (for those who did not see the interview on Beasts of War) It sounds like it will be done in some similar ways to a computer game. You will be able to join factions. There will be episodes that span certain time periods (some a day or weekend, some a year, etc.).
The developers (Rick and Rik - I assume) will be driving the content and options of the episodes to eliminate run amok power creep for one faction or the other. A lot of the benefits of winning an episode (that are not just campaign driven - like you won the siege so now you can take on several other goals, etc.) will be tech advances or upgrades that are either limited in scope or will become available to other factions as they all rush to achieve some goals to get the new tech. Also, some of the newer tech will only be available in the certain episodes (so you could play a game in an episode arc with it, but if you took on another episode, you might not have it). It also sounds like they will have larger over-arcing episodes that you can take part in, exploring different areas of the spill. (similar to new continents in some MMOs).
There will also be player contact through emails or texts. Sometimes certain factions might get more warning (like the attackers - so they can prepare) and then the defenders will get their emails later (Rik mentioned 3 hours or a day later I think).
Basically it sounded to me that their plan is basically a lot of narrative campaigns that they will have edit control over, with missions furthering the campaign and awarding certain groups, races factions , etc with rewards that are either temporary or the playing field will be leveled later (I see this in "advanced software upgrades" for your wardrones, newer nanotech that performs a specific function (maybe hijacks a wardrone for a turn, etc.)).
This is not the backer development forum....this is how the gameplay interaction will work. So there will be player control, but similar to the L5R card games, it will be input on a controlled level and with specified outcomes possible (even if the gamers do not know all of the possible outcomes - you may know you need to attack and eliminate that small force at a border station but you may not know the possible rewards you could earn when that leads to the warehouse beyond it.)
This level is sustainable I think, and sounds intriguing. As long as Ricks enthusiasm for that part of the work (and it sounds on the BOW interview that it is very deep) continues, and he can continue to come up with cool episodes that explore the universe under those controlled circumstances this could really work IMO.
I'm trying to paraphrase what was said and give some of my interpretation, but I believe that was the gist of it. Does that make some of you less worried about "design by committee" at least as far as the player interaction is concerned. IMO it sounds pretty cool, but does that relieve some of you or make you more concerned?
Also will be very interesting to see what comes out over the next few weeks. I still think this project will go through. They've gotten enough interest so far to get some money pulled together to get more of the design work done. Even if this KS fails, (which I hope it does not) I think you will either see it return, or they'll get it out anyway.
Forgot about the Beast of War interview until Tethyr's post reminded me.
Having watched it in its entirety now it does seem Dark Space Corp. are keen on selling the project as a collaborative effort, community feedback and involvement filtered through the lens of Rick Priestly and co. Also, the lack of demonstrable concepts appears nothing more than a lack of foresight. I'd actually consider the impending content updates as part of the collaboration DSC are trying to foster with us, the community, in that it's being generated because of demand.
The digital aspect of it all - entering battle updates online and participating in scenarios - can be rightly ignored if one so chooses. Having said that, I feel it's an odd thing to tether a tabletop game to an online system. As I watched the DSC guys on BoW and listened to the back and forth, it felt as though I would need a tablet PC when playing this game. Maybe it was just Warren's enthusiasm for that aspect of Gates of Antares bringing it to the fore and exaggerating its significance. It sounds useful perhaps for expanding the game (or maybe I should say the 'world' of GoA) beyond the tabletop into video games, social media, etc. We'll have to see how it plays out; it could be great or not so great.
The background was good, interesting, and ultimately anticipated.
Yeah, I think Warren got uber excited about factions.....you could almost see him seeing the games across the world played at the same time with a faction battle-cry.
I am actually more excited about the way this may allow us to explore the galaxy in a somewhat controlled story arc, and furthering the background bit by bit. After a few years all of our visions of the spill could be very different but just as valid.
Dentry also brings up a very good point - all of this would be secondary and by CHOICE. if you just want a good game, then you can always just play.......
DaveC wrote: The Wardrones are probably the single most important sculpt right now they have to get them right.
I think the Wardrones being important is a vast understatement, considering it seems to be implied that they are both generic units across all factions (with different upgrades/options) and form a reasonable chunk of your units on the field, the stakes are incredibly high. These wardrones better turn out to be the best thing since sliced bread, because if they mess up, it will reflect poorly on every faction in the game by default. It would basically be the equivalent of GW creating a horrible space marine design, just think how negatively that would impact various armies, artworks, codex's and the general perception of GW's ability to design "high quality miniatures" in one fell swoop.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm being all doom & gloom, but DSC cannot afford to mess these up.
Yup. Not to mention that you're pledging for 20 of these with the basic game box or (mutliples of) 40 with (multiples of) feeder.
Don't like one mini in a larger KS pledge? No big deal. Sell it, trade it or let it sink to the bottom of your bitz-pile.
Don't like 40 miniatures in a KS pledge? Different story.
And it is not so much "just" cool design. IMO those really need a massive-options-multi-part plastic kit, or all GoA armies will (literally!) look the same. Hence the only half-joking idea for them to hook up with (people like) DreamForge, who has shown with his Eisenkern troopers (and options packs) that he can design and produce sprues with dozends of heads, weapons, bitzs and parts that all fit together in various ways.
A "traditionally" sculpted miniature with 2 or 3 weapon/head swaps (on the same pose) will have a hard time cutting it IMO,
Seriously. They have no more money now than they did before the kickstarter, so why was none of this done? What has changed in the last month that suddenly allowed them to start produce concept art and greens?
Actually they do. After hitting a certain amount of pledged cash in the first few days of the Kickstarter they were able to access a loan to be paid back at some point out of the KS money. This is what's paying for the cost of freelance artists and sculptors to produce all the stuff on the new list, and presumably for the banner ads they're now putting on various gaming sites. By definition, no greens were going to be produced before the backers had had the chance to have input into the concepts of the different races, which has been ongoing on the forums for 3 weeks or so now.
Seriously. They have no more money now than they did before the kickstarter, so why was none of this done? What has changed in the last month that suddenly allowed them to start produce concept art and greens?
Actually they do. After hitting a certain amount of pledged cash in the first few days of the Kickstarter they were able to access a loan to be paid back at some point out of the KS money. This is what's paying for the cost of freelance artists and sculptors to produce all the stuff on the new list, and presumably for the banner ads they're now putting on various gaming sites. By definition, no greens were going to be produced before the backers had had the chance to have input into the concepts of the different races, which has been ongoing on the forums for 3 weeks or so now.
So what happens if the KS isn't successful and they get no money?
No idea, presumably they have to find it somewhere else. Maybe it's not actually a loan but an investment from someone who wanted to see that there was a market there before committing. I don't know the details - I'm extrapolating from something Rick or Rik said on the forums - that they now had access to some money for greens and artists that they didn't have before because the KS had reached a certain goal.
Seriously. They have no more money now than they did before the kickstarter, so why was none of this done? What has changed in the last month that suddenly allowed them to start produce concept art and greens?
Actually they do. After hitting a certain amount of pledged cash in the first few days of the Kickstarter they were able to access a loan to be paid back at some point out of the KS money. This is what's paying for the cost of freelance artists and sculptors to produce all the stuff on the new list, and presumably for the banner ads they're now putting on various gaming sites. By definition, no greens were going to be produced before the backers had had the chance to have input into the concepts of the different races, which has been ongoing on the forums for 3 weeks or so now.
Well this sounds wildy irresponsible.
As to 'lack of foresight' - thats really a piss poor excuse. Lack of foresight means lack of preparedness means lack of accountibility. That, coupled with the fact they've apparently taken a loan based on money they may or may not ever get is....well irresponsibility like that doesn't sit real well.
I suspect the loan was less based on the KS money (although I sure the lender hoped it the KS funded), but more based on the number of KS backers being used by the lender to gague interests in the project
As to 'lack of foresight' - thats really a piss poor excuse. Lack of foresight means lack of preparedness means lack of accountibility. That, coupled with the fact they've apparently taken a loan based on money they may or may not ever get is....well irresponsibility like that doesn't sit real well.
Yikes.
Sounds like standard investment practices to me. Probably a single individual or group of individuals who would match investment at certain stages.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Rick has already talked about working on the system regardless of KS funding or not. They probably had speculative investors willing to provide cash, but wanted to know there'd be a market. Reaching roughly GBP100k provided the security for the investors to write a check, regardless of the KS success or not. That means that GoA will happen regardless of the KS - but there will certainly be less community involvement. Interestingly, that almost means the KS becomes more of a glorified preorder system (which most of the vitriol on this thread seems to wish it was), tethered to a traditional investment vehicle. The success of the KS would provide hefty discounts for backers, a year's access to the alpha/beta rules, and an accelerated release schedule (multiple factions at launch, instead of probably a handful).
I agree that the war drones will set the pace of this kick starter once and for all. I would prefer the war drones to be tracked vehicles with "upgrade sprues" when included with certain sets of miniatures/factions.
Just because the KS says they have raised X amount thats not really the true amount they will actually get.
It will be a good bit less.
Doesnt KS take 10% or whatever? That is still not a bad deal imo depending on how much you actually need
Kickstarter takes 5% actually.
Than there is payment fees, which kinda fluctuate depending on how many transactions there are (fewer pledges of high amounts tend to be better than lots of pledges for small amounts).
But it is not that much. Hell, for a smallish online store, Paypal takes some 3% (4% intl.) per sale too.
GBDarkAngel wrote: You cant borrow money against pledge money as that it all it is "Pledge Money".
Its not cash in the hand money.
Just because the KS says they have raised X amount thats not really the true amount they will actually get.
It will be a good bit less.
Sure you can. All it takes for investiment (remember, investment is different than borrowing) is someone to be convinced enough to write a check.
Showing a level of interest via KS is easily enough for investors to be convinced, even if that money is never seen.
It's actually a better indication of a product's interest and potential market impact than blind faith.
Its been a long time coming but as the first real concept art from this kickstarter (in my opinion anyway), I'm hoping this sets the tone of things to come. Models made in that style would make a fantastic looking army on the field and I'm sure people would also look to using them as proxys in other systems too.
I think Rik or Rick did mention that they had acquired the financing through a deal - and they were proceeding. At one point it was implied that JS and Warlord would not fully fund this as they are in the midst of expanding and LOTS of new stuff of their own. But they will produce and distribute this for DSC. Main thing is Rick will still own the IP (to him it is his last chance to OWN his creation). Maybe after seeing x amount of backers Warlord fronted him the cash in return for a payback scheme on the distribution - without ownership changing hands or a bank owed any money.
I know nothing, just guessing really, but something along those lines would make sense.
I hope this can save the KS project, but I'm not optimistic for this time 'round. But if this doesn't pan out this time, save all this great work, and try again in a few months. I think this game and the minis have great potential, I'm just not sure they were quite ready at launch time for a KS with such a high goal.
Yes yes yes! Glorious concept art and fluff!
A few more of these and I'm pretty sure things will swing for the better. Oh, and a god-like wardrone, since these will make the bulk of your army.
What I'm waiting for now is a general idea of how forces are made. I'm pretty sure I want to do a NuHuman-centric force, but Nuhumans appear in a few different factions and are most likely able to be played by themselves... but I hope.
Pacific wrote: Looks really, really impressive, possibly Infinity or McVey level of detail. Now needs a pro-level paintjob, and details of the next minis and concept art to be shown!
Certainly I think if they had another 2 or 3 characters of that quality it would help the KS massively.
Well, at this point Kev has sculpted a number of the McVey figues, so it's not really surprising that he's put out a detailed quality figure.
Duncan_Idaho wrote: @Chris Well, showing up on the forum and showing your willie to everyone is not exactly what I would call good manners and so I am not surprised they did not love you that much.
Can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Buzzsaw wrote: To be honest, if this campaign fails, the obvious move is to do another campaign with a slightly less lofty goal and a correspondingly lower funding level. Say, 2 factions at 100k GBP?
Starship Troopers had basically 2 factions (skinnies were a non-starter) and it played beautifully.
They're actually pretty good comparative deals, but it's obvious the difference: with rivet wars you have some semblance of an idea what you were getting. Here...nada.
I'm sure I'll get called a CMoN-fellator for this, but I think the Relic Knights campaign is a pretty good example of what BtG should be doing. Lots of the RK models didn't exist prior to the kickstarter, but they at least had concept art of what they would/should look like. The fact that BtG has plain silhouttes is a problem....
This. And it's the core problem; why should we care enough to pony up $100 for this kickstarter, if the game's designer's couldn't pony up $100 for some sketches.
Pacific wrote: Anyone who has spent any time on the development forums will be aware of this, but sadly this hasn't been conveyed (perhaps that is impossible?) onto the KS page.
I will delicately point out that you shouldn't need to spend any time of the development forums, everything should be available on the kickstarter page. It's Dark Space Corp that needs to work on their elevator pitch, not us for not being willing to read through endless forum pages filled with super-nerds typing endless screeds discussing the difference between hard sci-fi and space opera sci-fi, and so on...
We're moving into the crucial second half of our Kickstarter and as you'd expect we've been busy trying to make sure that we can hit our target buy focusing on the big items you've all said you wanted. Well, I think we've got that sorted and the our remaining days should be full to the brim with great content updates. A number of people in the forums wanted to know more about what we're working on, so here's a handy list:
Developing a WarDrone(or two) in front of your very eyes Golem's painting process whilst they use their awesome skills on our Hansa miniature (and others!) Boromites Green(s) CoCom Green Freebooters (soon to be renamed Freeborn) Concept Art Algoryn Concept Art Isorian Concept Art NuHu Concept Art CoCom Concept Art Example armies for each faction Faction Icons Real-time Dynamic Gaming Universe - graphical representation of how this will work, with a video explaining it to boot! Club real-time incentive program - oooh you'll like this we think! Outline Rulebook - this has taken a little longer than we wanted as Rick has been pulled around doing all kinds of PR activities. We're still on track for our original target of the early Feb - Some backers are playing GoA games using the information we've already released! Stores - we're rolling out a couple of new store reward tiers and will be reaching out to stores directly. If you want to support your local stores by buying your Kickstarter rewards through them, you can! If you are a store and are not on Warlords list, get in touch (Details on our website). We even have a collaboration miniature to announce in the near future! (fingers crossed!) More greens!
What I can't tell you right now is exactly when these things will come through. Like with any creative endeavour things change all the time, sometimes you need a little extra time to tweak and sometimes you even have to go back to the drawing board - we've had a couple of them already! - but come through they will, and more besides.
Thanks for sticking with us so far, the next part should be fun
Rik
Now we have something new to discuss at last.
I have zero faith they'll make any real progress on this before the kickstarter ends.
Like Rolt said, the Wardrone had truly better be the best thing ever for this kickstarter to stand a chance.
kenshin620 wrote: On the topic of wardrones, any idea what they are finally gonna look like?
I havent hit their forums in forever but last I remember people wanted the bots to look more like this
than this
Both are equally terrible, but I see why the nerds on DSC wanted "real" sci-fi robots. But the robots from Infinity are a nice compromise:
Melcavuk wrote: For those after a little more background and some concept art here is the latest update:
This looks good, but not great. I've seen similar in the Star Wars RPG, but it's not enough to get me to open my wallet, since they're not unique enough to be a good-looking army. Show me something like Tyranids, Alien xenomorphs, Hudson's bugs, or the smaller Aberrants from Trinity Battleground. Or some big robots or something, something that makes the background unque.
Not too bad, a pretty solid looking concept, not really my taste personally speaking, looks a little to post-apocalypse for me, a genre I've never been able to get along with. Now hopefully if the Wardrones look as good as these this project will finally turn around for the better.
And yes it's nice to see this thread change for the positive (like I should speak, ha ha), lets hope DSC continue to impress.
If DSC were making a Fallout game these would fit in, but how are these guys from the same Rever Freebooter-now-Freeborn sub-faction as Hansa? They can't even find a matching pair of pants!
If DSC were making a Fallout game these would fit in, but how are these guys from the same Rever Freebooter-now-Freeborn sub-faction as Hansa? They can't even find a matching pair of pants!
I get a Landskecht vibe from the mismatched uniform.
Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.
Breotan wrote: I can't believe you guys are getting all butthurt over the ass plates.
Badoom-tish!
I don't mind the buttplates.
Is he supposed to be a "Reaver" or a "Rever"? It looks like a typo to me, though it could well be my misremembering how they're choosing to spell the name of that faction.
I'd probably pledge the 27 quid for the rulebook + Hansa, but I don't believe it will be funded, and I do not want to give out my CC details unnecessarily. If it went through Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk I'd have gone in already to support them.
I don't mind the freeborn, but they're also quite generic space adventuere/space pirate-ish, as I could make up with any combination of figures from GW/Necromunda/Copplestone/Hasslefree/etc. They really need a Space Marine/Halo Spartan/Imperial Stormtrooper/Guy in chunky power armour analogue if they want to get money. Even Sedition Wars' guys have something going on.
If DSC were making a Fallout game these would fit in, but how are these guys from the same Rever Freebooter-now-Freeborn sub-faction as Hansa? They can't even find a matching pair of pants!
This is just one variety of Freeborn, from a particularly primative planet. I'm sure there will be others that look more like Hansa. This is not what the whole Freeborn faction looks like.
These guys do use technology given to them by their employers (I assume those metal plates help generate their shields) but choose to maintain the dress of their planet through pride in their culture and to unnerve the enemy.
warboss wrote:Anyone else getting a dune vibe from that backstory?
Me too! But then perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise if you have read Rogue Trader (1st edition), as that had a lot of elements from Dune as well - also written by Rick. A lot of those still exist in the current 40k universe in fact!
scipio.au wrote:Ah, k. I was reading it as "reaver" until I saw it in giant letters above Hansa's head.
Me too.. how are you actually meant to pronounce it? Like 'revver' (as in 'revving an engine'?)
Dentry wrote: Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.
I'm participating on the development site and haven't found people to be overly argumentative, there have been a couple of users who felt the need to be overly critical and insulting however that is something that is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole I think there are some great ideas coming out over there and its a great chance to get involved.
And on the topic of names I think its Rev-ers (so a shorter rev-ert).
As I understand it this is one of the lowest tech types of Freeborn that would be fielded in the universe, relying on their faction to provide them with weaponry and transport they represent the most base of troops lifted from an almost feral world. We can expect a large variety of tech levels within the Freeborn ranks depending on homeworld, wealth and how successful they are.
However as a starting point I find these to be visually distinctive and having a "rough" appearance will help to provide visual variety compared to more sleek high-tech factions (Isorian and Concord)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Faction Icons are now available:
and
The community influence on the Isorian one comes by way of the Egyptian stylised eye that was recommended by many of the posters, there was some discussion on other ideas but the eye was one of the most common themes arising.
Dentry wrote: Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.
As I said before, some people fall into the trap that they think this is an opportunity for a minis company to pander to them only
But sadly we live in a democracy which means people want different things (unless you donated $10,000 or something and then they'll listen to you )
If you listen to the audio on the videos and the podcasts that have been done, Rick Preistley consistently pronounces the word as you would for Scottish Border 'Reivers' not as in 'revving" an engine. Do not be misled by the spelling of the word.
Glad to finally see some concept art. Even if it doesn't do anything for me personally, it's nice to see that they're taking the hint.
However, someone needs to proofread better next time. The phrase is "faint of heart." "Feint of heart" sounds like some sort of love-based deception, which I doubt they meant.
Guildsman wrote: Glad to finally see some concept art. Even if it doesn't do anything for me personally, it's nice to see that they're taking the hint.
However, someone needs to proofread better next time. The phrase is "faint of heart." "Feint of heart" sounds like some sort of love-based deception, which I doubt they meant.
Thank god, I thought that I was the only one messing up posts
Dentry wrote: Is anyone participating in the development forums at Dark Space Corp's site? I perused some of the threads and most of what I saw were (sometimes) veiled arguments of my tastes are better than yours. There does appear to be constructive discussion but it gets a bit muddled.
No, you've got it in one. A bunch of super-nerds arguing with other super-nerds about the subtle differences in hard sci-fi and space opera, and why one is better than the other...
Not a fan of the Freeborn icon, but am loving the Isorian one.
Melcavuk wrote: I'm participating on the development site and haven't found people to be overly argumentative, there have been a couple of users who felt the need to be overly critical and insulting however that is something that is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole I think there are some great ideas coming out over there and its a great chance to get involved.
kenshin620 wrote: As I said before, some people fall into the trap that they think this is an opportunity for a minis company to pander to them only
But sadly we live in a democracy which means people want different things (unless you donated $10,000 or something and then they'll listen to you )
chris_valera wrote: No, you've got it in one. A bunch of super-nerds arguing with other super-nerds about the subtle differences in hard sci-fi and space opera, and why one is better than the other...
The main detraction is that a lot of what I read, the arguments even when not argumentative or impolite or overtly hostile, is more justification for personal preference than an open discourse to grow the background. Particularly, in discussions with regards to sexual dimorphism, portrayal of female characters, and physical appearance of PanHumans (ie - species / races of GoA) words like furry and sexualized get thrown out there. One poster disparaged catgirls as unimaginative and unsuited to the game fluff while in the same post suggesting standard fantasy races like dwarves, elves, and such under the guise of humans exposed to different gravities and atmospheric conditions (he didn't state their nature explicitly but described short buff humans, tall thin humans, and so on).
I like this and this and this, and here is why that makes sense but those other ideas aren't logical. Please stop trying to shoehorn that stuff in there. That's not what Gates of Antares is about.
From my current understanding, Rick is trying to design a game world that's one-size-fits-all or a catch-all for scifi. And I could be wrong, of course, but it seems that DSC don't want to set the limits of what can or cannot exist in their universe, only describe what is. And like I said, much of the talk does appear constructive but it feels like people are afraid to give ground or be overly reasonable lest what they want not make it into the game.
Considering your thread and posts are the only one's I've seen subject to moderator action over there, largely consisting of "I don't like X or Y, especially these core game mechanics, you need more Z, speaking of Z, this game needs Zombies" and then lots of angry responses to people responding to you, I'm not surprised that's your perception.
Dentry wrote: Not a fan of the Freeborn icon, but am loving the Isorian one.
Melcavuk wrote: I'm participating on the development site and haven't found people to be overly argumentative, there have been a couple of users who felt the need to be overly critical and insulting however that is something that is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole I think there are some great ideas coming out over there and its a great chance to get involved.
kenshin620 wrote: As I said before, some people fall into the trap that they think this is an opportunity for a minis company to pander to them only
But sadly we live in a democracy which means people want different things (unless you donated $10,000 or something and then they'll listen to you )
chris_valera wrote: No, you've got it in one. A bunch of super-nerds arguing with other super-nerds about the subtle differences in hard sci-fi and space opera, and why one is better than the other...
The main detraction is that a lot of what I read, the arguments even when not argumentative or impolite or overtly hostile, is more justification for personal preference than an open discourse to grow the background. Particularly, in discussions with regards to sexual dimorphism, portrayal of female characters, and physical appearance of PanHumans (ie - species / races of GoA) words like furry and sexualized get thrown out there. One poster disparaged catgirls as unimaginative and unsuited to the game fluff while in the same post suggesting standard fantasy races like dwarves, elves, and such under the guise of humans exposed to different gravities and atmospheric conditions (he didn't state their nature explicitly but described short buff humans, tall thin humans, and so on).
I found a significant amount of irony in that as I'd wager a solid population of them have as much a clue about women as manti te'o.
From my current understanding, Rick is trying to design a game world that's one-size-fits-all or a catch-all for scifi. And I could be wrong, of course, but it seems that DSC don't want to set the limits of what can or cannot exist in their universe, only describe what is. And like I said, much of the talk does appear constructive but it feels like people are afraid to give ground or be overly reasonable lest what they want not make it into the game.
And unfortunately, if that is his scope, his scope is far too large and at this point it makes it seem as if the universe doesn't have a ton of direction. Pandering to the masses and asking for "their input" is going to lead to less productive outcomes than if Preistly and co presented a solid foundation and allowed the player base to contribute to new parts.
Considering your thread and posts are the only one's I've seen subject to moderator action over there, largely consisting of "I don't like X or Y, especially these core game mechanics, you need more Z, speaking of Z, this game needs Zombies" and then lots of angry responses to people responding to you, I'm not surprised that's your perception.
Yeah. I disagree. I've read a lot of those threads and it is a whole bunch of super-nerds arguing about minutiae.
Kinda like the people that get so angry about the aerodynamics of vehicles or tank treads in a certain universe crawling with 8-foot genetically engineered super humans and 8-foot tall aliens that grow from spores and get larger the more important they are.
Chris sure likes his zombies. He's telling the former Rackham sculptor in the Simon Miniatures thread (where the sculptor is sculpting brilliant, Rackham-esque things) that "he should just make like a line of zombies or pirates or ninjas; core stuff that sells to fans" instead...
@Chris - here you go mate. Check these out for starters...
Dentry wrote: The main detraction is that a lot of what I read, the arguments even when not argumentative or impolite or overtly hostile, is more justification for personal preference than an open discourse to grow the background. Particularly, in discussions with regards to sexual dimorphism, portrayal of female characters, and physical appearance of PanHumans (ie - species / races of GoA) words like furry and sexualized get thrown out there.
"Furry" is the right word here. If the Panhumans were merely aliens, or humans with genetic adaptations that actually make some sense, they would be something that might appeal to furries. But making them human-descended means they are furries, or the descendants of furries. And personally, I think it's rather ridiculous to pretend that people who would have themselves and all their descendants turned into the creations of Doctor Moreau are so common that they could support multiple subspecies.
AlexHolker wrote: "Furry" is the right word here. If the Panhumans were merely aliens, or humans with genetic adaptations that actually make some sense, they would be something that might appeal to furries. But making them human-descended means they are furries, or the descendants of furries. And personally, I think it's rather ridiculous to pretend that people who would have themselves and all their descendants turned into the creations of Doctor Moreau are so common that they could support multiple subspecies.
It might be semantic, but I always thought furries were human-like animals rather than humans with animal characteristics. Does it matter either way, though? There is at least one 'animal' race with the Pansimians and there's concept work for cat people and dog people (or werewolves, not sure). A make-believe universe can be made to accommodate anything and accommodate it well.
I liked the fish people idea that someone suggested. It wasn't necessarily for the characters but the environments (underwater civilizations) it'd entail.
I hate the term Furry. It nearly always is thrown out in some form of derogatory way.
Cats in Science Fiction though? Who ever heard of that? I mean really. I know, how about a short incomplete list of cats in Science Fiction:
My favorite are the Kzinti from Larry Niven’s “Known Space” fictional universe.
Next are the Kilrathi from the Wing Commander series.
M’Ress a Caitian from Star Trek the Animated Series. Oddly enough Larry Niven included his Kzinti in Episodes he wrote for Star Trek the Animated Series.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has a feline looking Caitian admiral as a background character.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier has a triple-breast catlike female stripper that meows and yowls exactly like a cat.
Doctor Who has The leonine Tharils in "Warriors' Gate" and the Cheetah People in "Survival".
One episode of Babylon 5 has Jha'dur, the last warmaster of the Dilgar and last surviving Dilgar in general.
Another feline folk species includes the Sisters of Plentitude in the episodes "New Earth" and "Gridlock" and Thomas Brannigan in "Gridlock".
Andre Norton wrote the Salariki, who progress with astonishing rapidity from being primitive Proud Warrior Race Guys (Plague Ship) to sophisticated members of the interstellar community (Android At Arms).
The Klees of Eelong in The Pendragon Adventure are giant, bipedal cats, and the dominant species in that world.
A. E. Van Vogt's The Voyage Of The Space Beagle had a cat-like alien called Coeurl
The Toralii in Lacuna are basically this, with a side order of Proud Warrior Race.
Star Wars as The Togorians.
Robert Westall's Urn Burial has the Fefethil; a race of anthro-cats who look like humanoid cheetahs, complete with cat-ears, tails and eyes but human-esque hands and fingers (albeit with retractable claws still).
One of the factions in Alkemy is the Khaliman Republic, a middle-eastern-style nation... populated entirely by anthropomorphic cat people.
The Starfire board game has the Khanate of Orion.
Star Fleet Battles: Lyrans (lynx) and The Kzinti (they apparently get around).
The Traveller Tabletop RPG has the Aslan (And the Vargr a race of Dog Aliens).
Star Wars The Old Republic the Cathar are a race of humanoid felines.
The Elder Scrolls has a very diverse race of cats called the Khajiit.
In EverQuest, one of the playable races later on are the Vah Shir, a species of anthropomorphic big cats.
Ever Quest II has the Kerrans, which physically resemble large humanoid felines. Their bodies are covered in fur with colors and patterns denoting their lineage.
Master of Orion series has an entire empire of cat-people, the Mrrshan, which were known for being one of the most aggressive and militaristic races throughout the series.
The Quest for Glory series has the Katta, a race of cat-like humanoids. It also has the Liontaur people, which are basically lions shaped like centaurs. Rakeesh in Quest for Glory II, III, and V is a major friend and supporting character of the Hero. Finally, Quest for Glory III has the Leopardmen, a secretive tribe in the jungle.
The Chanur novels is a series of five science fiction novels (forming three separate stories) written by science fiction and fantasy author C. J. Cherryh and published by DAW Books between 1981 and 1992. Featuring the Hani a feline-like species, maned, bearded, usually of red or tawny fur.
Thundercats.
The blue skinned Na’vi from Avatar.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Hunters of the Red Moon book has Cat like aliens.
The Marvel Universe has the Cat People, who were created from house cats by ancient sorcerers. The Avengers character Tigra got her powers from them.
I think the only kind of Alien that beats cat aliens might be bug aliens.
There you have it a not so complete list of Cat Aliens. Honestly, this is a race I was very much looking forward to. I have always been a fan of the Man-Kzin wars, and the Kilrathi from Wing Commander. So when I heard there were going to be a Cat like alien race I was ready to jump in. My understanding is that Rick and company have been talked out of it because of the silly "No Furry" talks. There is a big difference between so called Furries and Aliens decended from felines instead of apes. I hope there is a felonid alien race. Just my two cents.
draugadan wrote: I hate the term Furry. It nearly always is thrown out in some form of derogatory way.
Cats in Science Fiction though? Who ever heard of that? I mean really. I know, how about a short incomplete list of cats in Science Fiction:
I know your impressive list is admittedly incomplete but you missed the James Brown guy poignantly called Cat from Red Dwarf... and he's not even furry!
draugadan wrote: I hate the term Furry. It nearly always is thrown out in some form of derogatory way.
Cats in Science Fiction though? Who ever heard of that? I mean really. I know, how about a short incomplete list of cats in Science Fiction:... Just my two cents.
So, what you're saying is that cat aliens have been done to death, that they're like the zombies of sci-fi? Speaking of zombies...
Actually, I'm not actually a big fan of cat aliens, but the background of this universe practically demands "furries". Have you seen how many people dress up like animals at conventions or at parties? Imagine if they had access to free, painless body modification at the cellular level. There should be every kind of furry, literary homage, were-creature, spirit beast, mythological creature and skinbash imaginable. At 2% or even more of the future population, there should be billions and billions of them. Hell, there will probably be more Vulcans than ever canonically existed in Star Trek.
I read a short story that gave a very interesting explanation or pretext for the presence of "furries".
This was a post-apocalypse story in which runaway climate change had forced the human population of earth to enclose itself in hive cities while they tried to modify the climate and ecosphere back to normal.
Obviously there was no room for animals, so they were gene-banked in order to be cloned back later, however some humans used genetics to incorporate some of the genetic characteristics of animals in themselves, thus producing cat people, etc. This was done in order to preserve some genetic code of the animal actually alive, for what were essentially religious purposes.
I'd sooner have a race of hyper-intelligent housecats with opposable thumbs in human-sized battle frames. A decadent and cruel race, hunting prey-species for sport, tormenting them before eventually consuming the broken husk in great swarms.
Hercule Pyro wrote: I'd sooner have a race of hyper-intelligent housecats with opposable thumbs in human-sized battle frames. A decadent and cruel race, hunting prey-species for sport, tormenting them before eventually consuming the broken husk in great swarms.
Hercule Pyro wrote: I'd sooner have a race of hyper-intelligent housecats with opposable thumbs in human-sized battle frames. A decadent and cruel race, hunting prey-species for sport, tormenting them before eventually consuming the broken husk in great swarms.
Not cats... but
Spoiler:
We would be so frelled. But it would be fantastic in a game.
Especially due to the sheer panic of trying to kill a Predator while ignoring all other objectives.
Cats in Science Fiction though? Who ever heard of that? I mean really. I know, how about a short incomplete list of cats in Science Fiction:
Star Wars as The Togorians.
you forgot the cathar.
EDIT: darn it, didn't see you listed them under the old republic, my mistake
Hercule Pyro wrote: I'd sooner have a race of hyper-intelligent housecats with opposable thumbs in human-sized battle frames. A decadent and cruel race, hunting prey-species for sport, tormenting them before eventually consuming the broken husk in great swarms.
Not cats... but
Spoiler:
It says far too much about me that I was going for a Dark Eldar vibe. Cruel, spiteful, makes a nice noise when you rub their tummies. It's all there.
Still, a Big Game Hunter (Who is honestly not a Predator, nooo) would be a fun mercenary or special character. Maybe a third-party player picking off both sides?
Glad to see they have more info and some concept art even if it looks a bit necromunda/mad max road warrior. My only concern is how close their weapons resemble plasma weapons and the one guy basically has a power fist
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised though considering whos making the game. I think we need more art of planets,fauna, infrastructure, ships and such to get a nice sampling of one sector of the game rather then more people. Most importantly aliens, just a few!
The art of the two dirty fellows just gives my mind this lingering first impression and the other part of my brain has to keep assuring it that other freeborn won't look like that (I dearly Hope so anyway).
Really glad to see forward movement though, if they drop something like this every day or so they can easily turn this around!
Alpharius I think they would if they could they just don't have anything more than what you see here. I bet they thought Ricks name would be all they needed.
I thought they said they'd get rid of these in the video?!
Far too much negativity here it's almost depressing 
