Please Note: while the purpose of these post mortem reviews is to answer (to the best of my ability) the question “what happened during this campaign?” it would be remiss for me to not point out my great esteem for John Regule and the staff of Spiral Arm Studios. That said, it is my belief that there are specific elements of the Maelstrom’s Edge campaign that negatively impacted the campaign’s success, elements which I will explore below.
"Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature?" Marcus Aurelius, by way of Hannibal Lecter.
Proposed: The Maelstrom’s Edge (ME hereafter) campaign underperformed relative to other campaigns of its type, owing to a variety of factors.
Discussion: the discussion will be divided into four parts;
-What’s Going On? Is there an actual problem? What does the data show about how Maelstrom’s Edge performed?
-Aesthetics Uber Alles. Or, Let’s Do The Time Warp Again! -Make Me One With Everything: the Peril and Promise of Add-Ons.
-Who are you? How can SAS find their market and should they even try to change?
The first and most obvious question to ask is: did Maelstrom’s Edge actually underperform?
The answer, of course, depends on what you are comparing it to. As was pointed out during the campaign, Kickstarter has a much better track record as a platform for board games (even when those games are really miniature games in board game drag) as opposed to miniature games. That said, there have been a number of successful table top games, most notably All Quiet on the Martian Front, Wrath of Kings, Relic Knights and Deadzone, as well as more modest games such as Patrick Keith’s COUNTERBLAST and On the Lamb Games’ Endless Fantasy. In such company, the matter quickly becomes clear, as you can see;
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While the total amount of money raised is substantially less than other, seemingly similar games in a high state of development, the distribution of funding during the campaign does not reveal any immediate red flags.
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The Maelstrom’s Edge campaign has a seemingly healthy ratio, with a near ⅓ opening, ⅓ interval and ⅓ closing distribution of funds. So how can we explain the relatively low overall numbers? Two graphs tell the tale;
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What we see above is that the ME campaign seemingly fell short in two different ways: 1) it failed to attract a large backer base, and 2) the base that was attracted had a significantly lower average pledge amount than other, similar campaigns. I will diagnose what I believe underlies these two shortcomings in the next two sections.
It is my belief that the single greatest negative for the campaign were the aesthetic choices that defined the product. Previous post mortems have convinced me that nothing is so important in Kickstarter campaigns as being able to arrest the attention of the browser with visuals. In this regard I believe that the fate of the campaign was, in very large part, determined when too many potential backers first looked at the campaign main page and came away saying “looks dated to me,” or some variation thereof.
It’s important to realize what I am saying here is not that there is a lack of quality in the product: quality and aesthetics are entirely separate. A product may have fantastic quality but be staid and uninteresting, and the most flamboyant and visually interesting product may be insultingly cheaply and poorly made.
Instead, it is my contention that there has been a gradual evolution in the field of tabletop games away from the conventions of ‘heroic scale’ 28mm that chiefly characterized miniatures made by Games Workshop (GW) in their Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 games. The conventions of ‘heroic scale’ are by no means the property of GW (though they might protest this in court…), and were nearly ubiquitous in the tabletop market in the early 2000’s and common in the industry even a few years ago. However, improved manufacturing techniques for mass market models, increased proficiency and availability of digital sculpting and a growing sophistication on the part of consumers looking for ‘something different’ have led to a general drift away from heroic scale.
As an example, consider the evolution of a character from the Privateer Press (PP) game Warmachine: the Warcaster Victoria Haley. Haley has existing in Warmachine since the launch (or very nearly) and has three different in-game incarnations and four different sculpts over the course of approximately fifteen years.
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I believe the visual and stylistic evolution is quite clear here. The first sculpt, probably produced around 2000-2001, is very reminiscent of the ‘heroic scale’ aesthetic: blocky and distorted, with a premium paid to game silhouette over sculptural quality. By contrast, the most recent sculpt was only just released this weekend and is an exercise in flowing lines, details and more elegant proportions*. I believe this not only represents increased proficiency with the tools of sculpting, but a growing comfort on the part of the game maker in the consumer’s sophistication: the maker trusts the consumer enough to indulge sculptural elements.
A similar example can be seen in the revisions to the Morat Vanguard unit for the Covus Bell game Infinity;
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Once again we see an evolution away from the exaggerated proportions towards a more ‘naturalistic’ sculpting style.
Now, obviously, there is no single aesthetic that the market is moving towards: rather there is a huge variety of individual styles being explored, from the anime-influenced style of Infinity, the voluptuous but naturalistic body horror of Kingdom Death, the heavy armored realism of Dreamforge Games, the resurgence of chibi-styles in board games like Arcadia Quest and Super Dungeon Explore, and ‘European’ (i.e. Rackham influenced) stylings such as Wrath of Kings and (idiosyncratic) Raging Heroes. The constant in all this is change: a movement away from the satisfied aesthetic ecosystem inhabited by GW (and to a certain extent, Mantic).
With all that said, the question then becomes: what about the styling of the miniatures in ME? I contend that while ME is not identical in style to previous lines, it is very much informed by the ‘heroic scale’ of styling, and reflects the sentiments that underpinned the heroic scale, such as placing a premium on silhouette as opposed to sculptural expressiveness.
Replace, rather than Displace: what I mean by this is that there are miniature lines that are clearly meant to act as a supplement, and others that are meant to act as a complete replacement. Consider, as an illustration, the difference between Dreamforge Games’s Eisenkern line of models and Victoria Miniatures’ Arcadian male and female lines.
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One can, and indeed is intended to, slot Arcadian figures into an existing army composed of GW or GW styled figures: there is no aesthetic break between Arcadian males and females and the corresponding GW lines. There is a shared heroic scale sensibility, even if one is (as I am) inclined to consider the Victoria Miniatures’ models of a superior level of craft and design.
The Dreamforge model, however, cannot be so used: one would not replace a single figure in a GW army with a DFG trooper, nor would one replace a unit of, for example, heavy weapon Space Marine Devastators with a unit of Eisenkern Heavy Support models. There is a clear aesthetic difference between these lines, and it would be visually jarring to have a force composed of a mixture of GW/Victoria models and DFG models.
How then do we judge ME figures? I would argue that they, like Victoria Miniatures, replace rather than displace: one could easily imagine using ME models in a GW army, the Epirian contractors especially.
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Again, this is by no means to be taken as an insult to the quality of the miniatures, only an evaluation of the choices that went into their styling. I must also point out, the Karist Enclave standard troopers are noticeably less heroic scale then the Epirian Contractors. However, this isn’t a great plus, since it creates a situation where the very few human sculpts in the game appear to be following two different aesthetic schemes. This is often seen in established games as the developers change in response to market forces or increased technical ability, but it is jarring to see when both units are in the same box.
All of which leads to an uncomfortable maxim allegedly derived from marketing: “it doesn’t matter how much you try to sell it if the dog just won’t eat the dog food”. Up to now, I’ve been trying to establish that there is a trend in miniature gaming, and that the decisions that ME made ended up locating their miniatures on one particular side of that trend line. But that isn’t the same thing as saying it’s bad: the fact is that GW is, even now, selling far, far more than all of the kickstarter backed games, and indeed all of them plus CB and possibly PP as well.
The problem is that selling, as Victoria Miniatures does, miniatures intended for use in a particular game system, is very different than using miniatures to generate excitement for a brand new game system.
Looking at the graph of average backer pledges (the purple bars), one thing may not be immediately obvious: the average backer of ME had a pledge of $86. This is enormously significant because this is less than the $90 minimum pledge level to get the complete box set. Of the backers of ME that selected reward levels (some did not), only 575 backers selected levels that included miniatures, while 197 (25%!) backers were at levels that had no miniatures.
Consider the comparison between two large, monstrous creatures that were born on Kickstarter: the Karist Angel from Maelstrom's Edge, and the Dragon King from Kingdom Death: Monster. N.B. N.B. I am not claiming these are comparable products: the Dragon King was the centerpiece of a $30 (MSRP $50+) expansion and is comprised of five sprues by himself, while the Angel is a single sprue component of the main ME box
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Large centerpiece models can have a huge amount of aesthetic and emotive weight: just look for a moment at the close-up of the Dragon King and then take stock of how you feel, both about it, and about the universe it would inhabit;
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Again, my point is not ‘the dragon king is better”, but that the Dragon King succeeds in conveying… something. An emotion, a sense of disquiet perhaps, it is evocative. It’s entirely reasonable to say that a figure for a skirmish level tabletop miniature war game shouldn’t be asked to do that, but it does beg the question: when you look at the Karist Angel, what do you think of?
A second problem is apparent when you compare the graphs of number of backers with the overall totals: why is it that All Quiet on the Martian Front has 25% more backers, but over 400% more total for the campaign? The answer is primarily the presence of Add-Ons. As mentioned above, the average ME backer contributed less than the basic box pledge. The dirty little secret of miniature games on kickstarter is the up-sell: get someone to make basic box or even a nominal pledge, and over the course of the campaign a backer’s $10 pledge may morph into an amazing amount of money. Consider this well laid out menu of additional purchases from Wrath of Kings;
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Whether it is board games of tabletop games, a common element of the most successful kickstarter campaigns is providing, as the campaign progresses, a mixture of pledge incentives and paid add-ons. Pledge incentives are those things that ‘sweeten the deal’, as it were: additional models to the base game pledge, digital art books, improvements to the base game. The purpose of all of these elements is to motivate the casual viewer to regard the campaign as “too good to pass up”, and make a base game pledge. Almost all very successful campaigns share this feature, but the Platonic example may have to be the Bones campaign run by Reaper Miniatures, where the ‘Vampire’ base pledge, well;
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During the ME campaign we saw the use of pledge incentives: Update 13 dramatically increased the contents of the base game box, and there was a steady stream of free additions. This doubtless had an effect on the closing days’ total (48 hours before close the “Remind Me” function brings back people who were interested before, but not motivated to pledge), but, as the incentives are by definition free, don’t help the bottom line save to attract more backers.
To understand the value of add-ons, it’s worth pointing out that if ME’s average backer amount been equal to Wrath of Kings ($191), it would have earned over $155,000 (over $80,000 more than ME), with the same number of backers. Paid add-ons also allow a manner of ‘double-dip’: development costs are covered by the campaign’s general costs, but unlike pledge incentives, add-ons don’t constantly eat into the profit margin. That is, most pledge incentives, such as additional sprues or new model types, increase the cost of the base set, even if only by a marginal amount (a problem that digital incentives do not share, one will note). By contrast, once a price point has been set for a paid add-on, that price point stands.
With all that said, why didn’t ME include paid add-ons? The simplest answer is that for all the benefits of add-ons, there is an underappreciated danger to lots and lots of add-ons: logistics. Selling a single boxed product (as ME did) allows the boxes to all be packed at a single centralized facility. A single box presents the simplest possible solution for shipping, as even a single add-on requires the creation of an entire layer of personnel to sort and pack individual orders. In larger campaigns this is then compounded by the need for Quality Assurance and then Customer Service to sort out the inevitable packing mix-ups.
The math of add-ons greatly favors companies like CMoN; established companies that can use their pre-existing merchant infrastructure to process the additional logistics add-ons generate. As a practical matter it seems that add-ons are something either avoided entirely, or embraced fully.
Who are you? How can SAS find their market and should they even try to change?
Where does all of the above leave us? In my opinion, Maelstrom’s Edge suffers from some very significant deficits for a new game: the single most important deficit being the lack of a clear aesthetic identity.
When I began writing this post mortem, I had planned on addressing what I regarded as the shortcoming and inappropriate nature of the setting. While I may yet do so, I have come to the conclusion that whatever literary shortcomings may be present, they are so insignificant as to be nearly irrelevant.
Like the card game and novels that were added to the boxed set during the campaign, the setting and universe are things that hold, rather than recruit, players: people who are inclined to do so delve deeper into the background and ancillary products.
Trite as the conclusion may be, it is my frank evaluation that ME suffered most from having uninspiring miniatures. Without interesting and attention grabbing miniatures, everything else went for naught: all the well regarded authors and deep background can’t sell a product to someone that never looks past the first page of the campaign.
So what’s the future? Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the current slate of miniatures are the ones that the boxed set will launch with, SAS would seem to have no choice but to sell hard on everything but the miniatures. The situation is analogous to when PP initially began promoting WM/Hordes: the slogan ‘Game like you got a pair’ announced to prospective players that this was a new system, one that was not beholden to the fuzziness of GW’s “beer and pretzel” style of soft rules.
Such a campaign can work again, albeit with a different focus: ME is not intended to target the same audience as WM/Hordes, but… well, there’s the rub.
Who exactly is ME intended to cater to? This is not 2005; there are several tabletop games at the skirmish level on the market. Wrath of Kings is targeted at almost precisely the same 10-50 model per side game level, Infinity and Relic Knights a bit smaller scale even then that and, of course, Warmachine and Hordes are far more entrenched and developed then they were even five years ago.
For the moment, analytics seems to be the task facing SAS: who exactly is ME intended to appeal to? Is there a population out there of people that didn’t know about the campaign, or was there something intrinsic to the campaign that discouraged people from pledging?
I’m sure that there is more that will be said (and probably plenty of typos waiting to be pointed out…), but for the meantime, I do hope that this analysis is of some use to both SAS, and others that are hoping to launch their own crowdfunding campaigns. As ever, I am interested to hear other’s thoughts on my analysis.
*For a closer look at the work of this sculptor (Javier Garcia Ureña), who also produces digital sculpts for Corvus Bell’s Infinity game, see his deviantArt page.
Gotta agree. I disliked the argument people were using that the subpar miniature designs were somehow okay just because this was their first attempt.
The problem is, it would only be okay if it was made a decade ago, and was still competing with miniatures from then. The default sculpting quality expectations have advanced and there's no going back. A fact that has delayed the launch of my own product multiple times.
And stuff like the space chaps, which people argued back and forth about, were more problematic in that they had no extra design applied to the look of them--being just regular cowboy chaps in space--rather than the idea of people wearing some kind of leg protectors in space.
Same problem that the Firefly TV show had. It might have had great story and characters, but the space western aspect was something that turned away more people than it helped gain.
Again, my point is not ‘the dragon king is better”, but that the Dragon King succeeds in conveying… something. An emotion, a sense of disquiet perhaps, it is evocative.
ha haaa no, I don't see that at all. Whilst it is an incredibly well executed mini, it looks like it's trying to eek out a fart to me.
Isn't unfair to compare the two though? Isn't KD a boutique range, like the Infinity Bootleg sets?
...when you look at the Karist Angel, what do you think of?
Sadly, a missed opportunity. It was much hyped during the run up to the SG reveal... That could have been the piece that made people say "YES, this rocks balls!"
re the Bones stuff - yes you get a ton, but they really do look dated... which is the main criticism leveled at ME.
I have to admit, I saw the title of this thread and thought "Oh FFS, give it a rest" but it was really very interesting and whilst I don't agree with every point, I agree with the overall sentiment. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.
I agree, with your conclusion, some interesting character add ones would have probably helped, like some major character figures from the books. or even an appetite from things to come.
I like your analysis very much, Buzzsaw. From my point of view you have pretty much nailed it. The one thing you left a little bit hanging there is the last question about the target audience.
While I am not exactly sure if it was the plan (or whether there was a plan at all beyond "well, wargamers, duh!") I can say why it worked for me. So far, I only own GW miniatures. In the current day and age, a lot of you guys probably also have a group or two of infinity miniatures and maybe an army for warmahordes and maybe some less known things, but I guess there are also enough people out there who still own exclusively 40k stuff. However, 40k has a big disadvantage for me: The godawfull rules. I like some of the models and I like the fluff but I hate these clunky, horrible rules. Even all of GWs dickishness aside, their pricing policies, the splitting of required rules over 3 dexes and 10 dataslates and whatnot, one of the main reasons I don't play a lot is simply because I can't be arsed to memorize the differences between Hatred, Rage, Bloodlust, Rampage and a half-dozen other similarly named USRs that I need to keep in mind while... using only 25% of the deamon codex. Not only is this a pain in the ass, it also prolongs the game duration while every other round you have to look up if it was an extra attack on a charge or +1S or whatever it was that this one unit got once per game on a full moon in the fourth turn when facing against Sisters with no heavy support choices on the table.
And while I could have ended up with infinity or bolt action or maybe even warmachine it just so happened that ME came along with what seemed like a good overall package of fluid rules and not too many models to get a game going (I have a huge box of DKoK waiting to be assembled and painted for display purposes, I don't need another horde!). So my guess for the planned TA of ME would be: canibalizing GW sales.
Regarding the add-ons: I probably would have picked up another pack of Karist core infantry. I was toying around with upping my pledge for an extra-60$-reward (the infantry units with no special shinies) but it seemed like a rather bad deal as most of that value would be used up by even more suppression tokens and not actual plastics.
Regarding the model aestetics: I think "generic" is the word here. They look serviceable enough to me, but I certainly see the "doesn't look special" argument. There are still other factions to be revealed and the current ones may yet get much nicer models in the coming years if this ME survives. I wouldn't have pledged though If I allready did own some Infinity models... then again, I probably wouldn't have even if the models were nicer.
Jehan-reznor wrote: I agree, with your conclusion, some interesting character add ones would have probably helped, like some major character figures from the books. or even an appetite from things to come.
Unique characters would potentially not pay for themselves, if people treat them as a 0-1-of kit. People are going to be more willing to buy 10 identical sprues of Kairist Troopers, 10 identical sprues of Scarecrows or 10 identical sprues of building parts than 10 identical sprues of Angels or 10 identical sprues of a character model, because 30 soldiers in identical uniforms and a bit of variety in pose, 10 robots of the same type in a variety of poses or a settlement of 10 buildings made using the same prefab parts will look better with less work than 10 Angels or 10 Commander John Bloggs standing side by side.
While there are some good points raised in here, I think there are also a couple of very large assumptions being made.
The first is that success of a project is related directly to the final dollar figure.
How many times now have we seen projects that raked in the cash, and then struggled to deliver? Particularly when they go into it offering all manner of add ons and extras, massive cash results aren't always a positive thing, both because startup companies often simply don't have the infrastructure to cope with the demand, or because they messed up their calculations at the start and wind up losing money overall when they find that all of those extras actually cost them more than they expected.
Ultimately, the point of a Kickstarter project is to launch a product onto the market. So the marker of success isn't whether or not it makes more money than other projects. It's whether or not the cash raised is actually sufficient to launch the product to market as promised.
The other assumption is that potential backers held off through dislike of the miniatures. And certainly that's going to have been the case for some.
But it's impossible to look at the backer figures and tell anything meaningful there. Yes, as you point out, 25% of backers went for a non-miniatures pledge. A third of those were $1 pledges, which will be from a combination of people who just wanted to show some support despite not being interested in the current offerings, people who wanted to show some support but couldn't afford the starter right now, and people who just want the terrain sprue and had no interest in the game to begin with.
The remaining third are 'rules only' pledges. Again, we can guess that some of these will be people who don't like the miniatures and will use others instead. But some will also be people who want to see the rules before investing more into the game, or people who only want certain miniatures and so rather than shell out for a whole starter set chose to wait for the exact same miniatures to be available individually at retail.
How many people slot in where there is anybody's guess.
There are certainly areas where things could have been done better. SAS admitted that themselves during the campaign. But ultimately, as I said, the sign of success for a Kickstarter is whether or not it results in an actual product. And at the end of the day, the MEdge campaign had a final result that exceeded the amount needed to launch, without blowing their business plan out of the water by fracturing the product off into multiple releases.
Whether or not that will result in a successful retail product, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
It is always entertaining to read your kickstarter postmortems and I always appreciate the thought and angles from which you approach your kickstarter analytics, but it is much more enlightening seeing them from the other side of the fence where we have access to all the analytics, business plans and metrics which drove the campaign I hope you wont take it personally if I say that your dislike of the models and project shows through in your write up in the form of 'I think this way, so it is logical that many do', which certainly could have been made more neutral if you are presenting it as an exploration and robs your work of some of its value in my opinion. Still, it is a reasonable assumption if that is how you frame your perception of the product as a whole which I would likely do if our positions were reversed, though we do have actual data on it which makes the conjecture largely irrelevant.
Certainly I dont dispute we could have done a better job with the kickstarter, and there are three notable mistakes which we made:
1. As you've touched upon, the perceived value at the start was too low (hence the big refresh a week in), though for the mid and end of the project, any reasonable person would not disagree that 39 multipart plastic models for $90 is a very fair deal indeed, let alone all the extra goods like the VIP discount for 2 years, free content, card game, digital copy of the rulebook, etc. That does not stack well in a kickstarter environment filled with PVC models that cost a cent or two each to produce though.
2. We had no up front release or teaser. The product was only deemed 'viable' in February due to risks associated with plastic production delays finally being overcome, and we've always been clear that we are more interested in being reliable and consistent (in this time of KS ripoffs and substandard deliveries) to ensure good long term relations with fans, and so we did not want to build hype without being able to back it up with solid dates, but that was a mistake and we should have been building interest earlier.
3. The lack of an upfront gameplay video was a problem and down to logistical failings on our part due to our highly distributed team.
Despite the above, a large number of million dollar+ kickstarter operators checked out our page in preview mode and were convinced it would do 500K-1M. Our projections were never anything even close to that, but it did stroke our ego and boost confidence in place of pragmatism in the first few days.
There were a few other minor issues which would have helped, but would not have made a huge difference:
1. Poor photography, check out our scale photos to see how very bad the space marine and cadian look to see how much we need to learn on that front. Limited timescales and logistical resources for photography pinched us on that front. Presenting heroic scale miniatures effectively through online images is challenging and requires expertise that we are still developing. Truescale is much more forgiving but has far more flaws as a gaming piece (a debate for elsewhere, but one which we will not be participating in).
2. A marketing plan that was too heavily focused on Dakka - this has paid off, but led to weaknesses.
We were extremely tolerant of critique and negative discussion on Dakka which, being the core of our marketing focus, really did end up having a negative impact. We had split populations to allow neutral testing of this, and those who were exposed to critical comments on the models from the dakka community, compared to those who came in and saw the kickstarter page and models fresh from our marketing literature without seeing the opinion of others first led to a difference of 1 vs 1.7 backers. A pretty major price to pay to ensure Dakka is kept independent even when it would have made significant financial sense for us to be merciless with moderating.
Your comparison leaves out a few very significant factors. First, you are comparing long established companies (mantic, cmon, etc) with a company that only revealed itself 2 weeks before the game went live on kickstarter. I would strongly expect such companies to do dramatically better, especially since their marketing plans are designed around kickstarter and not retail like ours. Notable accomplishments include achieving a higher number of backers than dreamforge and the most recent wild west exodus campaigns, both of which are also (mostly) HIPS plastic.
You fail to note that we did not include shipping, so our raw dollar value is 15% lower than it would be, and we can keep 10% of shipping costs out of Kickstarter's pockets and remove shipping price risk to ourselves which kills other companies, but there is definitely a lot of uncertainty added by having an indefinite price on a kickstarter pledge which would have had a further negative impact on backer numbers.
You correctly identify the benefits to avoiding add-ons, and that it has the largest effect on our raw dollar value. The logistical savings are significant, and we now have notable pent up demand for single model purchases which will buoy the retail market. I'd much sooner see gaming stores getting a cut of the profit and spreading our game and models around than kickstarter taking a slice without putting in any effort.
There is another interesting factor on kickstarter which we noticed. If you are not in the top few projects in your category, the natural KS backer rate is dramatically worse. Sustaining a position at the top (as CMON, etc do), gives massive intertia from casual kickstarter backers, counting at least 35% of the total backer count I would estimate. By dropping down quickly, we lost that benefit. This happened while out attention was diverted and we were exhibiting at Salute, so we lost the opportunity to put into plan some of the earlier marketing thoughts we had and once off that track, it would have taken add-ons to get back on it.
In terms of marketing plans, a very good basis for comparison is the pure wargame 'home raiders' operating at the same time, who spent a lot more on advertising and followed a fairly classic kickstarter plan:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/611224377/home-raiders/ A decent, original idea, non-heroic models, plentiful add-ons and promotions, and hit by the ficklness of backers at the low end. We spent very little on marketing, yet sustained interest throughout in a healthy manner which you identify.
Our business plan accounts for the fact that starting a new game with a new company is a VERY big leap, something that you discount by comparing to heavily established outfits. From our detailed analytics and planning, we only expected 25% of viewers to have even a passing interest (with the other 75% being put off by one of more factors) and are pleased to report that we've notably surpassed that in levels of interest. Our Salute table was three people deep at times as loads of people wanted to check out what they'd seen online, or it just caught their eye in passing. As it stands, we have over 800 gamers who will hopefully be very impressed with the quality of product they get, and who will serve as a distributed, international base for the growth of Maelstrom's Edge.
One other fun bit of data for you - the 48 hour remind me button ended up bringing in a mere 26 people, echoing the relatively poor perception we created at the start. The rest of the ks-end boost was the fact that our marketing was heavily timed to be around the end of the project so that time pressure played a factor in people's decisions and they didnt just look and then leave thinking they'd check it out later as mid-point marketing would have done.
Starting a wargame is a much bigger investment than a board game. Doubly so with fiction, etc attached. We are asking for money and time, doubling the resources which people need to put up to get started. As you correctly note, anything that can even be remotely perceived as a board game is a much broader market as a result. Wargamers are a very specific bunch and I dont know about you, but I only look for one or two reasons why I dont like something to not bother investing in it as a game (even if there are the odd models I like), and that is only broken by the inertia of other players picking the game up around them and seeing things in the flesh. I had no interest in Flames of War whatsoever from online content until I saw the models in person and now I have 4 FoW armies for instance.
By our calculations, the market size for Maelstrom's Edge on kickstarter was/is dramatically less than the retail market, with a total upper limit of around 1300 people (compared to way over 5 figures at retail - 40k for reference is about 200K active players as of 2 years ago by our calculations). We managed to get 63% of that market which is not a bad result in our eyes, but perfect marketing (including much higher expense) would have let us get closer to 80% or so.
A forum or small group of people is a terrible place to gauge the reception a model gets due to the echo chamber effect that such discussion. Reception of our models based on our analytics has generally reflected the tastes of our early review teams and so other than the viciousness of some comments (thankfully not on Dakka, but elsewhere for sure, with facebook being the worst offender for aggressively negative feedback), we've not had much in the way of surprises.
Tastes tend to fit into one of the following categories:
passionate dislike / casual dislike / neutral / like / passionate like
with most people moving up the scale towards liking them when they get the models in hand and continued local exposure. This is obviously not something we can do on a forum or kickstarter page, but is why we are very content.
KS fatigue is very, very real too now. Our behind the scenes metrics predicted that the KS traffic/backer rate we were expecting was 5%, but in reality it ended up being 2%. That 5:2 ratio (40% of 2013 peak) turned out to be something repeated in many places. All our data suggested that for every 5 backers someone would have got in 2013, we were seeing 2 backers for the same logic. There's not much public data on the matter, but google has the main bit:
Kickstarter direct access traffic (non referer) is down below 40% of peak: google trends we were amused to see alignment with this small poll on dakka too in which 60% of ex-kickstarter wargamer users are backing less or have stopped backing (tiny sample size, but still the same ratio).
The one I keep coming back to in my mind though, is the defiance games kickstarter. You cant say that the market is not dramatically different now! When known dodgy people with a terrible track record can raise $47K from nearly 700 people for one model, that time, the time in which deadzone and others were operating and pulling in massive numbers, and people backed mainly on excitement and faith, is long gone.
Ultimately, some solid investors are heavily tied to Maelstrom's Edge so we'll be able to keep producing content and models regardless of the size of income streams over the coming years. Plastic is an up front investment, and then generates income for as long as the models are available so our revenue streams will only strengthen, and Maelstrom's Edge will keep growing and getting better. 12+ distinct plastic kits in one boxed set is a big challenge, and one which barely anyone in the industry is capable of doing. We'll keep on growing, keep improving on every front, and thanks to the kickstarter, the hard parts (getting an audience established and initial production volumes in place) are done!
My apologies for the format of this reply, it is a bit of a brain dump rather than a long, measured response, but I wanted to clarify a number of your points with data and our perspective despite having very limited time today. I've tried to be neutral but get excited when talking about Medge and it's numbers so go into programmer mode and dont consider emotional response, so my apologies if anything is rude/dumb/mistyped above. I appreciate your KS posts and continue to enjoy reading them!
Aaaand exalted for honesty and responsivenes. One of the things I really miss with most companies is honest communication and actual replies to critique. I find it makes even dumb descisions much easier to stomach when you get an explanation what has been done and why.
I for one welcome your course of stability - focussing on quality and ensuring the product will be delivered. You have done well so far. Not exceptional - not everyone can pull of a 10M campaign like exploding kittens did - but good enough to get things going. Keep it up.
Very nice post Buzzsaw (and also legoburner!). I appreciate your taking the time to write this up and do what I think is a pretty fair analysis (as usual for you with these post mortems).
I really agree that the lack of add ons kept the total much lower than it would have been with add ons. I know that choice was intentionally made, and I appreciate SAS' discipline in that - it is hard to pass up extra funding to keep logistics manageable!
I also agree with some of your thoughts about aesthetics, although I think we'll both see some nice aesthetic models from MEdge in the form of the characters that are in-process, and future work - each sculpt has gotten better and better from what I've seen. I'm in love with the robots and quite happy with the models I'm planning to run, but I agree this will be the major point upon which MEdge continues to gain more adoption or fails to do so. As with most wargaming companies, it's all about the miniatures!
Excellent review from buzzsaw and rebutal from legoburner. I think both posted many fair points to mull over.
I just have one addition. I think the models are fine and will enjoy painting them.
The main reason I only bought the "sweet spot" pledge was that I already have a ton of painted 40k stuff that I rarely get to play since I moved from my old gaming group. Priorities have since changed: wife, new job, exploring Chicago and the Midwest. If I can get a force painted up before AdeptiCon, then maybe I can play there (Is there enough in the starter box to make a tournament legal list?). But that would be it. I don't see me going to my FLGS to play pick up games of ME. If there isn't some organized play somewhere, then I'm out of luck, and out of time, to be frank. Game time is becoming harder to find. More and more I find my hobby time just reading rule books and codecies, making up lists I'll never model, or reading fiction associated with it (HH novels, etc).
Anyway, that's probably a lot of rambling, but it's my state of gaming and why my pledge was what it was.
I can tell you why I didn't back; human on human box set. In a galaxy so large, somehow only one alien race shows up and then only as an afterthought attached to a human faction. *yawn* I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed the scale comparison issue and "wrist-gate" was a serious downer
It's like how GW have gone, "In the grimdarkness of the far future, there is only the IoM fighting against the ravening hordes of the IoM." I want to be inspired to buy the miniatures because they look so incredibly fresh and new; I'm really looking forward to Dreamforge's Shadokesh and Mark is guaranteed to get buckets of loot from me.
Seriously, if I want generic human with no/little armor and laser gun fighting generic human in armor with different color laser gun, I'll buy GW miniatures without the wait time and unknown factor you get with an untested company. If you want me to gamble my money on your fledgling company, show me some miniatures that wow me or are at least noticeably different than anything else out there. The angels could have done it but wound up being so static and looked like a boardgame piece rather than wargame miniature.
Maybe next time, if something interesting comes along and the company decides not to make models for people looking to replace GW minis.
agnosto wrote: I can tell you why I didn't back; human on human box set. In a galaxy so large, somehow only one alien race shows up and then only as an afterthought attached to a human faction. *yawn* I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed the scale comparison issue and "wrist-gate" was a serious downer
It's like how GW have gone, "In the grimdarkness of the far future, there is only the IoM fighting against the ravening hordes of the IoM." I want to be inspired to buy the miniatures because they look so incredibly fresh and new; I'm really looking forward to Dreamforge's Shadokesh and Mark is guaranteed to get buckets of loot from me.
Seriously, if I want generic human with no/little armor and laser gun fighting generic human in armor with different color laser gun, I'll buy GW miniatures without the wait time and unknown factor you get with an untested company. If you want me to gamble my money on your fledgling company, show me some miniatures that wow me or are at least noticeably different than anything else out there. The angels could have done it but wound up being so static and looked like a boardgame piece rather than wargame miniature.
Maybe next time, if something interesting comes along and the company decides not to make models for people looking to replace GW minis.
Eh, I saw it as human on human as humanoid with drones vs. humanoids with aliens.
As a regular participant on Kickstarter, I find the behind the scenes analysis and commentary fascinating.
Thank you to all who've spoken thus far, and particularly to legoburner for (imo) respectfully responding to critique with reasoned and proportional responses. Kudos to the Medge team/SAS.
Also, I am one of the $1 backers. I cannot currently justify $90 US (plus shipping) for a miniature game that I likely won't end up playing (I already have two of those), nobody in my group was backing, nor really an interest in the pdf rules. Between some other recent expenses and with Gencon less than 2 months away, even $10-20 Canadian starts adding up.
But I wanted to participate, to see the project unfold in updates automatically, and frankly to bump that backer number up, for whatever little that is/was worth.
As a painter, I back KS based on miniature appearance. The ME kickstarter had obvious advantages over many others IN EXECUTION, as it opened with actual models vs digital sculpts, set material in glorious HIPS. This is great news to modelers and painters as WYSIWYG. This is also awesome for backers as it means many of the logistical problems that might hold back the fulfillment of the KS is out of the way. Great!
OK... so this brings us to the appearance of the models. This is now the main deciding factor because everything planning-wise is awesome-sauce. The one thing that killed it for me is the appearance of the Contractors and to an extent the drones. I feel their quality of execution isn't at the same level as the rest. IMHO, if they had less beefy arms and offering guys without the caps would have made a huge difference. I find their overall beefiness extra jarring when compared to their concept art.
Anyhow... I'm sure I'm rehashing stuff that's already been stated. All said, I do wish this project the best.
Thank you for the post-morten buzzsaw(as always they are a good read), and the rebuttal lego. This was definitely some interesting reading. Hopefully this keeps up for a few pages!
Spoiler:
Liquorice monster! I fear that may stick... I personally laughed way too hard at it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I do wonder how well this campaign would have done with mostly concept art ~two years ago. Relic Knights in particular springs to my mind.
1. As you've touched upon, the perceived value at the start was too low (hence the big refresh a week in), though for the mid and end of the project, any reasonable person would not disagree that 39 multipart plastic models for $90 is a very fair deal indeed, let alone all the extra goods like the VIP discount for 2 years, free content, card game, digital copy of the rulebook, etc. That does not stack well in a kickstarter environment filled with PVC models that cost a cent or two each to produce though.
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And unfortunately, while 39 multipart plastic miniatures for $90 may seem to be a "very fair deal indeed," it doesn't matter how "fair" the deal is when in response to the primary issue Buzzsaw is citing: models that look dated when compared to other similar products being produced in 2015. In fact, it's my opinion that your promotion by Adam Poots of Kingdom Death even solidified that when he described them as "retro." Now, had you been selling a "retro" game like Patrick Keith's Counterblast, it could have certainly benefited from that aesthetic. As is my understanding, ME was marketed as a "next generation" game that, sadly, didn't appear to have "next generation" miniatures.
I think there was a major oversight (or overestimation) on the appeal of HIPS, especially after Wrath of Kings has proved to us that PVC can be done VERY well and Shadows of Brimstone showed us that modern HIPS can be done very poorly. That's not to say I think the technical aspects of the ME HIPS production will be bad--quite the contrary. But because of those two products, and the evolution of what can be done with PVC that, as you said, "cost a cent or two each to produce," there may have been some miscalculation in regards to the importance of getting something in HIPS.
2. We had no up front release or teaser. The product was only deemed 'viable' in February due to risks associated with plastic production delays finally being overcome, and we've always been clear that we are more interested in being reliable and consistent (in this time of KS ripoffs and substandard deliveries) to ensure good long term relations with fans, and so we did not want to build hype without being able to back it up with solid dates, but that was a mistake and we should have been building interest earlier.
Many products don't, and few products have the captive audience in which ME was afforded with Dakka. I'm unconvinced "hype building" prior to a campaign does anything to fix some of the middle campaign or end campaign problems that ME had.
3. The lack of an upfront gameplay video was a problem and down to logistical failings on our part due to our highly distributed team.
This was a huge oversight, IMO. In all honesty, it is for any KS in 2015. I won't even consider backing a gaming KS if it doesn't include, at the very least, full rules or a play through video. And there's really no reason you couldn't have had one. Hell, you could have shot a short one at Salute.
Despite the above, a large number of million dollar+ kickstarter operators checked out our page in preview mode and were convinced it would do 500K-1M. Our projections were never anything even close to that, but it did stroke our ego and boost confidence in place of pragmatism in the first few days.
I'm curious what this was based on?
We were extremely tolerant of critique and negative discussion on Dakka which, being the core of our marketing focus, really did end up having a negative impact. We had split populations to allow neutral testing of this, and those who were exposed to critical comments on the models from the dakka community, compared to those who came in and saw the kickstarter page and models fresh from our marketing literature without seeing the opinion of others first led to a difference of 1 vs 1.7 backers. A pretty major price to pay to ensure Dakka is kept independent even when it would have made significant financial sense for us to be merciless with moderating.
I'm saddened that you even included this commentary. As someone who was wholly put off by the "Dakka's Game" shtick, I can't even imagine the negative impact over moderation would have had on this community, and it's pretty disappointing that you think it's appropriate to make a claim that you were "extremely tolerant." The ME discussion thread received very, very little of the criticism that other KSes, or GW threads for that matter, do. Many who would have criticized normally did so very sparingly, and those that did felt like they had to goose step in order to do so.
Was it ever considered that calling it "Dakka's Game" vs. "A Game from the Team at Dakka" would be a negative? It's entirely possible that it was, and that it was deemed to be a non-issue and that my feather are just easily ruffled, but it rubbed me the wrong way.
Your comparison leaves out a few very significant factors. First, you are comparing long established companies (mantic, cmon, etc) with a company that only revealed itself 2 weeks before the game went live on kickstarter. I would strongly expect such companies to do dramatically better, especially since their marketing plans are designed around kickstarter and not retail like ours. Notable accomplishments include achieving a higher number of backers than dreamforge and the most recent wild west exodus campaigns, both of which are also (mostly) HIPS plastic.
And yet, there are multiple "first time" companies that have, in fact, done significantly better. Marrow Games with Journey comes to immediate mind, but Succubus publishing has over $144K right now with Middara. And honestly, the presumption that "their marketing plans are designed around kickstarter and not retail" is a bit absurd. Zombicide S1 had less than 5000 backers. It's sold well over four times that number of copies. I understand the desire to justify and explain, but to do so that disingenuously is in poor form.
You fail to note that we did not include shipping, so our raw dollar value is 15% lower than it would be, and we can keep 10% of shipping costs out of Kickstarter's pockets and remove shipping price risk to ourselves which kills other companies, but there is definitely a lot of uncertainty added by having an indefinite price on a kickstarter pledge which would have had a further negative impact on backer numbers.
And? Most KSes have learned from the "free shipping bonanza" of early kickstarters. If you're not charging for shipping in 2015, you're foolish. Subsidize it a bit if you want, but failing to charge any shipping costs is a dangerous endeavor.
There is another interesting factor on kickstarter which we noticed. If you are not in the top few projects in your category, the natural KS backer rate is dramatically worse. Sustaining a position at the top (as CMON, etc do), gives massive intertia from casual kickstarter backers, counting at least 35% of the total backer count I would estimate.
Well isn't that your job, then to create said inertia to remain in the "top few projects?" Did you ever consider that running a (too long) 40 day campaign would adversely affect the campaigns ability to remain "in the hotness?" If no, why? And what exactly is your 35% estimate based on?
By dropping down quickly, we lost that benefit. This happened while out attention was diverted and we were exhibiting at Salute
And this is big mistake. Someone should have been assigned to the KS as their only job while it ran. It's things like this that have been discussed on KS threads, right here on Dakka, at great length.
One other fun bit of data for you - the 48 hour remind me button ended up bringing in a mere 26 people, echoing the relatively poor perception we created at the start. The rest of the ks-end boost was the fact that our marketing was heavily timed to be around the end of the project so that time pressure played a factor in people's decisions and they didnt just look and then leave thinking they'd check it out later as mid-point marketing would have done.
I don't understand this rationale. It makes as little sense as the overly long backing period.
Starting a wargame is a much bigger investment than a board game.
Based on what?
Doubly so with fiction, etc attached.
So why do so much of it immediately? Wouldn't these things have been better served to save until later, when there was more establishment of the game and the setting? Hell, it took Privateer nearly 8 years to start releasing "actual" fiction so they could focus on their game...
By our calculations, the market size for Maelstrom's Edge on kickstarter was/is dramatically less than the retail market, with a total upper limit of around 1300 people (compared to way over 5 figures at retail - 40k for reference is about 200K active players as of 2 years ago by our calculations). We managed to get 63% of that market which is not a bad result in our eyes, but perfect marketing (including much higher expense) would have let us get closer to 80% or so.
Where is the estimate that you're able to get "63% of the market" at retail coming from? Your market as it stands is 800 backers. Your hope, now, is that someone in Cincinnati or Cheybogan was one of the 800 people to pick up a pledge on KS and can convince their LGS to carry the game. I'm curious what makes you so confident that will happen?
A forum or small group of people is a terrible place to gauge the reception a model gets due to the echo chamber effect that such discussion.
I disagree wholeheartedly on this assumption.
Reception of our models based on our analytics has generally reflected the tastes of our early review teams and so other than the viciousness of some comments (thankfully not on Dakka, but elsewhere for sure, with facebook being the worst offender for aggressively negative feedback), we've not had much in the way of surprises.
One could contend that some of that "aggressively negative feedback" was curtailed here by virtue of the "echo chamber" effect of positivity in the ME threads coupled with the fear of moderation.
Tastes tend to fit into one of the following categories:
passionate dislike / casual dislike / neutral / like / passionate like
with most people moving up the scale towards liking them when they get the models in hand and continued local exposure. This is obviously not something we can do on a forum or kickstarter page, but is why we are very content.
Dakka has polls. People wouldn't have had them "in hand" but you certainly could have polled the audience.
KS fatigue is very, very real too now.
$1.1M in 20 hours begs to differ. FWIW, there are three other projects on the first page of the Games KS category all well over $100k in funding, as well.
Our behind the scenes metrics predicted that the KS traffic/backer rate we were expecting was 5%, but in reality it ended up being 2%. That 5:2 ratio (40% of 2013 peak) turned out to be something repeated in many places. All our data suggested that for every 5 backers someone would have got in 2013, we were seeing 2 backers for the same logic. There's not much public data on the matter, but google has the main bit:
Kickstarter direct access traffic (non referer) is down below 40% of peak: google trends we were amused to see alignment with this small poll on dakka too in which 60% of ex-kickstarter wargamer users are backing less or have stopped backing (tiny sample size, but still the same ratio).
And this is the most maddening thing to me: you cite all these "behind the scenes metrics" and "analytics" that were performed, and yet it seems like you've completely ignored your best source of research: this forum. There are mistakes and missteps that were made in this KS that have been discussed in relation to other KS projects RIGHT ON THIS FORUM. You have an in-house library of content and feedback about the construction and running of a KS project, and the campaign would make it appear that you didn't use that resource at all. It blows my mind. Many of the missteps you've admitted to could have been alleviated by reading through one or two threads on this forum.
Overall, I wish ME and SAS the best, but I'll never quite understand the route that was taken with this KS.
Eh, I saw it as human on human as humanoid with drones vs. humanoids with aliens.
Fair enough which still places it firmly in an unbelievable galaxy nearly wholly populated by humans which flies in the face of even nowadays projections by scientists. We live in a large playground, in a small, out of the way arm of a spiral galaxy; how can the background go from this reality to "humans everywhere and that's pretty much all there is"? I think even the Angels were set-up to be an enigmatic, unknown race that kind of skirts the edge of the maelstrom. When I read that description, I thought of the "angels" of Titan A.E. the baby angels even kind of look like them.
Buzzsaw, I think you are pretty spot on for most of it, but I think you had some big misses in your assessment too on a few points. As has been mentioned, I think your personal viewpoint is really coloring the review in specific parts, i.e, very subjective when you are trying to ascribe reasons to data. You don't like the models, therefore the main issue must be hatred of the models. It may well be mind you, but your charts do nothing to support this, you are just filling a gap with a reason for an event when you can only see a result that could have had a million reasons combined and not one main one.
Personally I certainly think that the models were not as strong a draw as they may have been when the game and direction were conceived 3-4 years ago. A lot of things have changed since the process started, and due to the massive inertia of HIPS development, there wasn’t an ability to adjust to realities that only really gained strength within that period. For better or worse, Medge is a heroic game… if, down the line, proportions can be brought towards art-scale, then I would be all for it though!
That being said, heroic scale was a bit of a surprising issue to me, given most people were or are heavily invested in GW, and still buy 15-20 year old sculpts like space marines and cadians in droves… I would think if a Cadian or Spacemarine can be tolerated, when their proportions are (to me) even more distorted than the contractor… but hey what do I know lol… still, the fact you can use a lot of Medge bits for 40k, in theory, one would have thought it would have been a good draw. I agree on the chaps and arms, though of the two only the arms really bug me. But the torsos look pretty darn good to me, as do the heads if you want a ball cap security look.
You make some big assumptions/gap fills as well in terms of saying why they didn’t use more add-on characters. I think the real reason was stated, they wanted to be HIPS only, and did not want to waste time on restic casts, which are more expensive per print but cheaper to mold… but the sculpting process and cost of that was weighed against focusing on the core plastics, and they chose the latter. I too think they would have greatly benefitted from having the characters just to generate buzz for the core content and attract the add-on junkies. I also think showing concepts of longer term things to unlock, even if it was stated, this would be in late 2016 to late 2017 or something, would have been good to.
I personally think the biggest failing of this kickstarter was the too quiet, frank intro of both the company and the product that generated little to no build-up or buzz beforehand. A little razzle-dazzle ahead of time, a build up to a reveal, a bit of ‘ooo what is this they are teasing’ would have, in my opinion, greatly changed the tone. Basically there was no momentum going in, the kickstarter was from what was essentially a cold start. They had to sell the second they introduced, and that can be tough, as by not managing expectations beforehand, they allowed unfettered expectations to create problems in the minds of consumers that could have been alleviated or blunted had they not been ‘disappointed’ by the aspects of the campaign that did not conform to what they currently think a ‘kickstarter’ is. For better or worse, the CMONs and Sedition Wars have defined what people expect out of a miniatures kickstarter, and even though most of us know how problem ridden this kind of horde of options approach yields in delays and/or quality at times, it doesn’t mean that still isn’t ‘the best part’ of participating in a kickstarter for most people. Or the paradigm by which their expectations are set. Basically, SAS appealed to the brain and not the heart with their kickstarter model at the beginning, and only when they upped the ante with great additions and a lot of extra, and perhaps more importantly some more participatory things like the vote for an extra sprue, did the heart come in. The brain recognizes the value of being on time and being reliable. The heart generates the excitement that drives the desire to buy that the brain values can justify. Just being brain side, you know you are justified to buy, but it doesn’t impart an urgent WANT either.
Finally, as I have mentioned elsewhere, allowing 2 threads to be essentially unmoderated and to let a vocal minority of less than 10 (even less than 5 users) usurp the PR and tone of discussion on their home turf, to me, was a mistake. No matter what SAS do, if they ever act on their own behalf, even in the most minor ways, there is a sub-section of the audience here who will leap on them as greedy, fascist over-moderators who are crushing their personal freedoms. They can’t even say they disagree in polite debate without some people calling it moderation. That will not change in my opinion. But to me, you just have to accept that and act with integrity, but the keyword there is ACT. Just because you know some will cause a stink, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do as you would with anyone else, and doesn’t mean it’s a crime to say ‘hey, there is a line still, and if you cross it yes, we will still act, whether you think it is fair or not’. This isn’t to say moderate the hell out of everything, that would be suicide… it just means, have a little faith that enough people will see why you acted, and that so long as you make the boundaries clear and act with integrity, most will agree that your actions are justified. The mods are inherently restrained here, trust me, I know. If you get moderated, chances are you are being a huge douche lol, it is ridiculously rare that moderation happens in a form more than a warning, and it is almost impossible to get banned forever. Whatever people say about the amount of moderation on this site, on my kids, that is the truth of it. Dakka doesn’t ask for much recognition, but I think they should start asking people to recognize what actually happens in some situations, because SAS cannot easily afford to be burdened by the inability to act that Dakka imposes on itself when it comes time to act on its own behalf. The solution will be, ultimately, to encourage users not to white knight, but to simply vouch for the facts they see in front of them when some poison pill is trying to spin a fiction that hurts the company.
I think SAS did a lot right though, and I think once users become more invested through (hopefully) great gameplay, and paint the models themselves and we start seeing all the cool stuff a talented community can do with the materials provided, that a great depth will be discovered. If you get into Maelstrom’s Edge, the rabbit hole will go very deep. You will have a lot to engage with, and a lot to imagine and continue with. By the time another faction or two are introduced, and the game becomes more varied, it should eclipse pretty much any other setting in terms of depth except for 40k itself. I think HIPS will prove worth it, especially when we start seeing Angel conversions with GS, and various other chop ups and kit bashes using the parts. I think that terrain sprue was killer. I think that although it didn’t blow the top off the place, that in the long run, the reliability and honesty of Legoburner will be proven again and again. I think it may take a while, but everyone will see their concerns were heard and great efforts will be made to rectify things if it is within the scope of the project.
Not a huge start for Medge, but not a flop either if fairly assessed. The next huge hurtle is going to be the rules beta, that will be a key moment. Interesting read all the same, as your post-mortems always are Buzz!
kronk wrote: Excellent review from buzzsaw and rebutal from legoburner. I think both posted many fair points to mull over.
I just have one addition. I think the models are fine and will enjoy painting them.
I don't get anybody have any strong opinions on the models, to be honest. I think they're fine, but nothing I've seen has grabbed me, either in terms of concept, execution, character, or overall look. They're just sort of generic sci-fi troopers that were nicely executed. I think that Buzzsaw's point, while perhaps amplified by his own tastes, is a good one. The models are perfectly fine, but unlike a lot of other kickstarters, there doesn't seem to be visceral reaction to wanting them.
Finally, as I have mentioned elsewhere, allowing 2 threads to be essentially unmoderated and to let a vocal minority of less than 10 (even less than 5 users) usurp the PR and tone of discussion on their home turf, to me, was a mistake. No matter what SAS do, if they ever act on their own behalf, even in the most minor ways, there is a sub-section of the audience here who will leap on them as greedy, fascist over-moderators who are crushing their personal freedoms. They can’t even say they disagree in polite debate without some people calling it moderation. That will not change in my opinion. But to me, you just have to accept that and act with integrity, but the keyword there is ACT. Just because you know some will cause a stink, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do as you would with anyone else, and doesn’t mean it’s a crime to say ‘hey, there is a line still, and if you cross it yes, we will still act, whether you think it is fair or not’. This isn’t to say moderate the hell out of everything, that would be suicide… it just means, have a little faith that enough people will see why you acted, and that so long as you make the boundaries clear and act with integrity, most will agree that your actions are justified. The mods are inherently restrained here, trust me, I know. If you get moderated, chances are you are being a huge douche lol, it is ridiculously rare that moderation happens in a form more than a warning, and it is almost impossible to get banned forever.
I think you may be a bit off here. I am one of the last people that would ever accuse the Mods on Dakka to be draconian in their approach, in general, but I made one comment about the models on the initial N&R thread with a couple of comparison pics and my post was moderated and I was told to take it someplace else. This showed a lack of consistency that I immediately threw at the feet of the Admin since this was their baby and the fact that such discussion occurs in literally every other N&R thread with zero such moderation taking place. I have to say that it left a bad taste in my mouth.
I did not see that Agnosto, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention at the beginning of the Ks and announce either though... by the time I started reading more their was some shockingly toxic stuff going on from a few posters that was beyond critique IMHO. I at no point personally witnessed action of any kind other than mods just participating in the discussion as regular posters (something some people really dislike, being unable to imagine them not using 'Dad-voice' 100% of the time). The only red text I saw pertaining to creating a discussion thread for focusing on critique of granular detail on individual models (due to 2-3 people re-posting their opinion every 15 minutes or so and preventing others from discussing), after that, it was 100% hands off from what I saw.
My issue was not with critique, I have plenty myself to give, but with the tone and delivery a very few used to deliver it was rude and spammy. When I was a mod, I would have moderated them for spam if anything, in any thread, and I did several times. Yes, even in GW threads. I stopped people from going nuts on ward, but I let them go nuts on his rules. I let people discuss Romeo's business decisions, but not assault his character only, or call names. It's not a free-for-all for anyone, or it wasn't while I was around. I always held the policy for myself that if one or two people are doing every second or third post of a hot thread, simply repeating their viewpoint as fact and badgering people who disagree as if they are idiots, it's spam. It's not that you couldn't have your say, it's just your say should not be echoed throughout time with a 1:1 ratio to any other post made lol...
Anyways, probably a bit off-topic to the purposes of this thread, but I am sure if you talk to the person who spoke to you they may be able to either inform you better as to how they took your posts at the time in a way you may not have realized, or perhaps just admit they pulled the trigger a little eagerly. Talk to them, it should be something you can walk away from being put at ease, and Mods will generally want to have a handshake rather than have you be upset.
My issue was not with critique, I have plenty myself to give, but with the tone and delivery a very few used to deliver it was rude and spammy. When I was a mod, I would have moderated them for spam if anything.
MajorTom11 wrote: You are entitled to your own opinion, even though you are incapable of expressing it as anything but fact Cincy. Sorry for committing the thought crime of not agreeing with everything you say lol. Here you are again, dictating reality for the rest of us, shocking.
Your opinion of those threads is obviously colored. Multiple people mentioned, in said threads, their fear for posting in those threads due to...what did you call it....oh yes, "spam posts" from overzealous backers that would immediately shut down any negative opinion creating...oh yes...an "echo chamber" that Lego feared would happen with the inverse.
I guess we're all fortunate you're no longer a mod.
Honestly, despite the troubles, ME is in a very good position to rebound. All they have to do is just deliver on this kicksarter in a reasonable amount of time. That should be easy enough since the molds seem ready.
After that, they take everything they've learned, do some new higher quality designs, and launch a new kickstarter with a proper amount of cool stuff there from the start. Coincide it with a story advancement and expansion book.
The other problem I saw with the kickstarter was that they didn't hit people with the best first impression. They should have launched showing all the stuff they had by the end of the kickstarter, instead of mid-kickstarter previews showing more core units.
Yup I thought better of it, not that I didn't mean what I said, but what's the point really, you will interpret what you want out of anything I say and nothing more. And it would drag the thread off topic. As it did lol.
We can go back and look at the threads, they are all there. We can look at the posting frequency and content of posts from 3-4 people and we can total up the numbers, objectively, about what the ratio was and what percentage a tiny amount contributed to the totals, as well as note the consistency of posting. We don't have to be subjective about it.
Believe it or not, I agree with you that any one person, including Mods, repeatedly rebutting in favor of something is just as bad as any one person repeatedly rebutting not in favor. Everyone should just say their piece and move on, and leave room for other opinions. Let other people have their say, BOTH ways, including negative.
I will not deny that there was a minority that was overzealous in what would be perceived to be white knighting, even if I think they thought they were simply being 'fair' and not overly supportive.
In fairness to that too, I have no focused on that aspect of the interaction and it is not fair to ignore that as a contributing factor. If negative posting repeated by a single user too much should be considered spam, then so too a single user repeating positive points should be considered spam as well. In my opinion.
We are all fortunate neither of us are Mods maybe ?
Seriously though. Putting aside the fact I don't like the way you put things, and you don't like the way that I do... Can you not agree that if a thread is to be healthy, it can't be dominated by 3-4 posters who prevent the conversation from evolving in any way shape or form, and prevent 1:1 responses between other users from happening? Forget whether it is love or hate, people should be able to express their likes and taste politely without being hounded for being 'wrong' right?
PS perhaps we should take it to PM, or start another thread - a protracted debate on this, even though it started in relation to the kickstarter and the internal politics of handling both Dakka and a product based business at the same time, and is theoretically relevant, in practice would be focusing too much on this probably. If you want to keep discussing, by all means, PM, or send me a link to a new thread.
Personally I didn't back because of the miniatures (Specially the contractors, the angel reveal didn't help much either). I 'll probably get the rules at some points if anyone in my area is interested as I have confidence in SAS producing fun rules. I do really like the way SAS ran the kickstarter. HIPS, few add-ons, don't include shipping. It felt like a really trustworthy and solid plan. There is no doubt in my mind I would've backed for a decent amount had I liked the aesthetics.
I fell into the category of casual dislike for the ME minis. It stinks to think that the minis pushed me away from the project when they aren't even bad, but yea, the minis pushed me away from the project. I never thought of them as poor quality (except maybe the legs on the licorice angel) however, the designs were very bland and uninspired in my eye. Gaming (tabletop and video alike) is flooded with generic sci-fi soldier guys and all we were presented with here is two factions of sci-fi soldier guys. I understand that it is increasingly difficult to find a distinct look and faction identity in a grounded science fiction setting but everything from medge came off as dull.
Also, a wargame with only two factions sets off a ton of warning sirens in my head. I know the kickstarter was for a starter box to get things off the ground but a game needs at least three factions to survive -even more to thrive. If I am going to take part in a kickstarter campaign I want a finished product coming to me, not just the appetizer.
I have a great respect for the background and supporting material involved in ME and all the expense the crew have taken to give the game life. Still, this is generally not something I like seeing money go into on the front-end. I know it costs money but psychologically it is much more appealing to have such content subsidized my other goals. I think maybe the presentation of this sort of ancillary product could have been a bit better. I'm glad they made room for it though, it will help the passionate fans have more to sink their teeth into.
Seriously though. Putting aside the fact I don't like the way you put things, and you don't like the way that I do... Can you not agree that if a thread is to be healthy, it can't be dominated by 3-4 posters who prevent the conversation from evolving in any way shape or form, and prevent 1:1 responses between other users from happening? Forget whether it is love or hate, people should be able to express their likes and taste politely without being hounded for being 'wrong' right?
Absolutely, you're 100% correct.
The problem, in my eyes, is that wasn't the direction those KS threads for ME evolved, and I believe it adversely affected the viewpoint of many when it came to the KS itself. I don't think the KS threads here were a good environment for honest and open critique, and I fear that a great deal of sycophancy was actually at play when it came to the faults of some of the designs that were committed to (very expensive) plastic. I mean, some of those problems should have never occurred (I'm looking at your broken Karist wrists).
When you get an 'echo chamber' of sycophantic white knighting, you don't get honest feedback, and that hurts the project as a whole. It's my opinion, based purely on speculative observation, that ME suffered from this, seemingly, at multiple phases along the timeline.
But then again, I'm a guy that was put off by it being called "Dakka's Game," so what do I know. I did at least back "Dakka's Gaming Accessory," though.
Finally, I'd be an atrocious mod. Terrible. Just awful.
It would seem then, that a very few people on the 'other side' spoiled the experience for both of us?
If we agree then, that repeated sycophancy, and repeated... I don't know a way to put it that doesn't make it sound like a crime instead of just annoying lol... 'gleeful critique with no qualifiers attached'? will put off the majority of middle of the road people, and make both sides feel unwelcome or unlistened to in a discussion...
Well that's why I brought it up as something so damned tricky for SAS. How do they intervene there? How do they not? Is it censorship to limit repetition? Is it moderation to participate?
It's in my mind really tricky, and I think that many had a negative experience in the discussions, both for and against, so quickly and pervasively, is something that needs to be rectified. Which is why I brought up the spamming aspect in regards to repeated critique from an individual poster. What I should have done, as you rightly pointed out, was to say it should also very much apply to rebuttal of critique by an individual poster too.
Again, just my opinion, but I don't think people should be allowed to squat on threads for weeks on end, it's never healthy or 'good' for anybody, including that individual, in my experience.
I hope that was brought back enough to the specifics of the MedgeKS to be considered on topic again!
"I believe the visual and stylistic evolution is quite clear here. The first sculpt, probably produced around 2000-2001, is very reminiscent of the ‘heroic scale’ aesthetic: blocky and distorted, with a premium paid to game silhouette over sculptural quality. By contrast, the most recent sculpt was only just released this weekend and is an exercise in flowing lines, details and more elegant proportions*. I believe this not only represents increased proficiency with the tools of sculpting, but a growing comfort on the part of the game maker in the consumer’s sophistication: the maker trusts the consumer enough to indulge sculptural elements."
Buzzsaw, you're letting personal preference cloud your objectivity. I wasn't a great fan of the ME models, but the models you use as an example are pretty meh as well, IMO.
People are talking about background, comparing ME's to 40k, but what's so special about the 40k background?
IMO, not a lot. You've got pointy teeth and ginger beards, have your own space wolves codex. You're a woman with power armour, have a codex. We have a game system completely dominated by humanity, and alien races get paid lip service.
I'm a German in WW2, I've got night vision, but my Space Marine friend, 40,000 years into the future, armed with humanity's best tech, hasn't got night vision. Right...
The 40k universe falls flat when subjected to critical analysis, and the idea that it's inherently 'superior' to the background of another game, is laughable, IMO.
The 40k universe falls flat when subjected to critical analysis, and the idea that it's inherently 'superior' to the background of another game, is laughable, IMO.
If you're investing a lot of "critical analysis" time in a universe where 9 foot tall genetically enhanced super humans are waging war with demon forces that look like a giant, hulking Satan, you're doing it wrong...
Buzzsaw, you're letting personal preference cloud your objectivity. I wasn't a great fan of the ME models, but the models you use as an example are pretty meh as well, IMO.
The 40k universe falls flat when subjected to critical analysis, and the idea that it's inherently 'superior' to the background of another game, is laughable, IMO.
If you're investing a lot of "critical analysis" time in a universe where 9 foot tall genetically enhanced super humans are waging war with demon forces that look like a giant, hulking Satan, you're doing it wrong...
Buzzsaw, you're letting personal preference cloud your objectivity. I wasn't a great fan of the ME models, but the models you use as an example are pretty meh as well, IMO.
People are talking about background, comparing ME's to 40k, but what's so special about the 40k background?
20 years of development time?
I haven't missed his point. His point was that he didn't like the ME models, and that they should have been more like models from a rival company. I think he was pretty clear on that.
As for your 20 years of development time, if you'd been following the chapterhouse case, then you'd know that GW's idea of 'development' is adopting popular fantasy and sci-fi tropes from popular culture. I, you, could do that in 20 days, never mind 20 years! On this, GW's 'extended' background is no better than ME's IMO.
"If you're investing a lot of "critical analysis" time in a universe where 9 foot tall genetically enhanced super humans are waging war with demon forces that look like a giant, hulking Satan, you're doing it wrong..."
How should it be done? It's no different to what happens in the art world, or film, or tv, or literature.
I haven't missed his point. His point was that he didn't like the ME models, and that they should have been more like models from a rival company. I think he was pretty clear on that.
Thank you for clarifying that you did, in fact, miss his point.
His point when in reference to the Privateer Models was that they've undergone an evolution away from the 28mm "heroic" scale. He was pretty clear about that, and used the pictures to substantiate it with a company that was notorious for absurd proportions.
As for your 20 years of development time, if you'd been following the chapterhouse case, then you'd know that GW's idea of 'development' is adopting popular fantasy and sci-fi tropes from popular culture. I, you, could do that in 20 days, never mind 20 years! On this, GW's 'extended' background is no better than ME's IMO.
Oi vey. Not even sure how to respond to this. Are you at the pub?
How should it be done? It's no different to what happens in the art world, or film, or tv, or literature.
The same way we should consider a Michael Bay movie when compared to an Ang Lee movie.... FFS.
So what if the privateer models have undergone an evolution since the 1600s or whenever
Do you like these models? Yes or no. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
As interesting as his evolution idea was, I thought the PP models were bland, myself. That's my opinion. You, on the other hand, may think they're the best thing since sliced bread.
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The same way we should consider a Michael Bay movie when compared to an Ang Lee movie.... FFS
Popular isn't always bad, and critically acclaimed isn't always good.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: So what if the privateer models have undergone an evolution since the 1600s or whenever
Do you like these models? Yes or no. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
As interesting as his evolution idea was, I thought the PP models were bland, myself. That's my opinion. You, on the other hand, may think they're the best thing since sliced bread.
I haven't offered a single judgment on the models.
In that example neither did Buzzsaw. He produced an example of a company that made heavy use of heroic scale evolving their sculpts over time to be more closely aligned with a realistic 28mm scale.
Thanks Buzzsaw and Legoburner. Sometimes it is fun to get into the business side of the hobby and look at how it really works. I appreciate the glimpse behind the curtain. You both had interesting points.
For what it is worth, I didn't get into MEdge because it just didn't grab me. I perceived that it was just a company sitting down and trying to make a "better 40K". This applied to game play, model design, and setting. I have just moved past that now and am looking for something different than that.
However, I look forward to see where they evolve as a company.
Easy E wrote: Thanks Buzzsaw and Legoburner. Sometimes it is fun to get into the business side of the hobby and look at how it really works. I appreciate the glimpse behind the curtain. You both had interesting points.
I agree, it was fantastic reading and cool to see both an analysis of the campaign and some of the factors involved in the various elements (with things like no add-ons being such a big factor in the average pledge per backer). This is what I love about Dakka. Cheers guys!
Easy E wrote: Thanks Buzzsaw and Legoburner. Sometimes it is fun to get into the business side of the hobby and look at how it really works. I appreciate the glimpse behind the curtain. You both had interesting points.
I agree, it was fantastic reading and cool to see both an analysis of the campaign and some of the factors involved in the various elements (with things like no add-ons being such a big factor in the average pledge per backer). This is what I love about Dakka. Cheers guys!
Buzzsaw, your postmortem has provided a lot of food for thought. Still trying to digest some of it.
In my opinion, though, the Angel does convey something interesting: a sense of focus and confidence. If I may indulged for a moment, the angel appears to be stalking across the battlefield completely unconcerned about anything his enemies might throw at him, sort of like how Bruce Lee would just stroll up to some brute and wreck his torso, only in this case Bruce Lee is a space mantis made of liquorice. But I admit I am in the minority here.
legoburner wrote: We were extremely tolerant of critique and negative discussion on Dakka which, being the core of our marketing focus, really did end up having a negative impact. We had split populations to allow neutral testing of this, and those who were exposed to critical comments on the models from the dakka community, compared to those who came in and saw the kickstarter page and models fresh from our marketing literature without seeing the opinion of others first led to a difference of 1 vs 1.7 backers. A pretty major price to pay to ensure Dakka is kept independent even when it would have made significant financial sense for us to be merciless with moderating.
First off, I'm sorry to have been part of anything that hurt the campaign. If you had posted these results during the campaign, I would have backed off. I'd be interested in seeing how the study was done. I also suspect (but can't prove since I don't have a team of people or any financial incentive) that the people who backed despite the criticism are more likely to stick with the problem long term and remain satisfied customers should they encounter any prevailing negative opinion down the road.
Also it seems to me like most backers and nonbackers made up their minds on the first day or two, long before the criticism became regular and entrenched.
Merciless moderation might have made financial sense for a very short term compared to the harm it would do to Dakka (and ME by extension) in the long term. Save one product; kill the brand.
One other fun bit of data for you - the 48 hour remind me button ended up bringing in a mere 26 people, echoing the relatively poor perception we created at the start. The rest of the ks-end boost was the fact that our marketing was heavily timed to be around the end of the project so that time pressure played a factor in people's decisions and they didnt just look and then leave thinking they'd check it out later as mid-point marketing would have done.
I question the accuracy of the information presented to you by Kickstarter. 26 people may have come to your campaign by clicking the link directly, but how many people saw the 48 hour notice, then went to Kickstarter and searched for your project? Or clicked to Dakka to catch up and then clicked to your project?
You use a lot of numbers in your projections and percentages, but how are you getting those numbers? Where does your data come from?
So why do so much of it immediately? Wouldn't these things have been better served to save until later, when there was more establishment of the game and the setting? Hell, it took Privateer nearly 8 years to start releasing "actual" fiction so they could focus on their game...
I personally found that the fiction, the whole approach to creating a full setting in fact, really made Medge stand apart from other games. It spoke to their intentions to create a much more well-rounded experience for certain kinds of gamers. Look at how much the Black Library fiction has done for GW, and now BL is dying off. D&D fiction has been tremendously important in shaping the game, as well as an entire set of similar games. In the other direction, Mantic has been very neglectful of their fluff, and still have to release lists so players can use KoW rules to play games in other companies' settings with other companies' minis. There is nothing at all to make someone want to build a purely Mantic army outside of model aesthetics, which are often considered insufficient.
Where is the estimate that you're able to get "63% of the market" at retail coming from? Your market as it stands is 800 backers. Your hope, now, is that someone in Cincinnati or Cheybogan was one of the 800 people to pick up a pledge on KS and can convince their LGS to carry the game. I'm curious what makes you so confident that will happen?
I would also like to see how the sausage is made here. What happens if their financial Psychohistory encounters some kind of retail Mule?
MajorTom11 wrote: I too think they would have greatly benefitted from having the characters just to generate buzz for the core content and attract the add-on junkies. I also think showing concepts of longer term things to unlock, even if it was stated, this would be in late 2016 to late 2017 or something, would have been good to.
This I agree with completely. Even if they just had some sketches or told us a bit more about the other factions in the game, they could have created a lot more interest. More character, more factions, more diversity, more hooks to catch passers-by.
Vertrucio wrote: Honestly, despite the troubles, ME is in a very good position to rebound. All they have to do is just deliver on this kicksarter in a reasonable amount of time. That should be easy enough since the molds seem ready.
No. The hard part still isn't over. They need to hit the retail release with a lot more preparation than they hit the KS campaign. They expect the retail release to reach magnitudes more people, so they have to make first impressions all over again. They can really nail it if they bring their A game, but they will crash and burn if they rest on their KS laurels.
People are talking about background, comparing ME's to 40k, but what's so special about the 40k background?
It's pretty obvious that you are not a fan of 40k's background, and your impression of it seems to come directly from the codices, which are the shallowest end of the fluff, so I won't try to discuss the content. I will just say that 40k's background has been able to support multiple New York Times bestselling novels and an expanding line of "fluff done right" RPG supplements through FFG, so there is clearly something there that is special. If Medge is able to leverage their NYT bestselling and award winning authors for even a hundredth part of that advantage, they'll be way ahead of the pack.
As for your 20 years of development time, if you'd been following the chapterhouse case, then you'd know that GW's idea of 'development' is adopting popular fantasy and sci-fi tropes from popular culture. I, you, could do that in 20 days, never mind 20 years! On this, GW's 'extended' background is no better than ME's IMO.
First of all, there is nothing new under the sun. You will be very hard pressed to find any new Science Fiction or Fantasy book that doesn't include a collection of old tropes and ideas. It's what an author does with existing ideas that makes a novel great.
Second, if you think you could create a universe as full and iconic as GW's in 20 months, let alone 20 days, you should do it right now! Might I suggest the pen-name "Dunning Kruger"?
It may have been mentioned and if I missed it among the walls of text, I'm sorry.
I think another point against the project was the strong association with DakkaDakka. I saw a few posts on other forums where people immediately dismissed the game due to their dislike of this forum. I suspect we would see the same posts here if, say, BOLS or Warseer started a new game.
I think the lack of finished rules was and is a problem. It's one thing to bring models to market, but rules are marketing material and you're really putting the cart before the horse if you're hoping to sell rules using models.
MajorTom11 wrote: I would tend to agree with that, Dakka itself is a polarizing topic in the general hobby a lot of the time...
You take that back.
BrookM wrote:It's hard being the biggest, active and bestest wargaming forum on the interwebs. Of course people are going to be jealous.
When I was a moderator and still active within the community as a painter, I met a lot of people, some of them 'hobby celebs' and they knew me as a painter first. Then when I told them I was a moderator here, I would often get an 'ugh, Dakka' response. The funny part was, it was completely split, when asked the reason why for that reaction, between 'too moderated' and 'not moderated enough/full of d-bags saying whatever they want'! lol... Ironically, of the people who had stronger reactions, most of them had never actually been a member. Reputation, true or false, tends to precede us it seems.
Whereas with BOLS or B&C, not so much. Warseer had a rep for being over-moderated from what I heard too though.
In any case, the 'ugh, Dakka' part was the relevant part, there is definitely a slice of the potential audience that would not feel positive towards Medge due to the association. Or simply use it as a convenient excuse to take a few shots.
That being said, the size of Dakka and the ability to get eyes when needed should trump 'forum factionalism' on sheer scale though. Theoretically.
I am in it mainly for the rules, so I think you are right up to a point.
However the upside of issuing only beta quick play rules at this stage is that extensive player testing can be done before the rulebook is finalised for the final production run.
Lots of people wanted to have input into how the campaign develops. The beta rules offer that opportunity.
Interesting analysis and something I find myself agreeing with. Always fascinating to read these threads Buzzsaw - shame you've not done much KS postmortens lately. On the background and miniatures themselves, I think enough has been said, but for me, they were a non-starter even after I'd seem them at Salute. On the Medge kickstarter itself, here's part of a post I made in the miniature discussion thread which echos some of the points made by Buzzsaw:
So what I did was go looking outside of dakkadakka to have a discussion or at least read up on what other people are saying, look at their opinions. And there really wasn't anything. There was a handful of so-so responses on [TMP] and Beasts of War and a generally short but negative thread on Warseer, but nothing else anywhere. Nothing on CMON, PlanetFigure, WAMP, BoLS or other places I went to. No talk, no knowledge, no visibility.
And this leads to the big problem with the Kicsktarter in my view- there was no build up, no big attempt at hyping or getting people excited, just BANG, Kickstarter. A GW Style out of nowhere release. In fact, it was worse than GW. At least with GW we may get a couple of weeks notice through some rumours or shaky White Dwarf photos bouncing around that we can use as indicators to put aside cash. I also feel a massive opportunity was missed in asking the general Dakka unwashed on their opinions - concept art, ideas, background. I don't mean design by committee, but market research in the traditional sense. SAS are in an enviable position of having a vast audience of their core market on tap as well as being able to command the respect to be listened to and get responses from the said unwashed. But, I didn't see anything in the way of that done. A missed opportunity. As involvement could have potentially created a sense of shared inclusion. Something that would have benefited the campaign enormously and even built a large core of evangelists to take the word out there.
There really was hardly anything done at all, outside of Dakka. To be honest, in hindsight, the dakka < - > Medge link should have been kept hidden and gradually hinted at and revealed over time. It seemed to cause more problems both on the forums (the general userbase caution, perception, over-moderation accusations and echo-chamber effect) and outside (dislike of Dakka, ex-users talking it down and the echo-chamber effect, again).
On the moderation topic itself, again, this is based on my own perception rather than any truth:
In other threads, sometimes a joke crops up or some Off Topic debate happens, nothing nasty and if it goes on a little too long, the Mods usually chime in with a "Very funny lads, now back to topic". With MEdge, the Mod responses felt subtly different. Sort of along the lines of "Stop it now" and "No No, not to be discussed here". And that was that...
To be honest, the mod team had a thankless task on their hands - how do you tread the line between too little and too much? Too little and it becomes a literal flamewar and scares people off from a brutal thread. Too much and you loose a lot credibility and risk turning Dakka into Palladium/GW Forums/pick other ghost town forum. And that kind of leads back to was announcing the association up front a good idea?
Finally, on criticism itself, the game and models will need to survive on the open market. What happens when the above mentioned forums and blogs get a hold of it? Penny Arcade? Frothers? Random blog? People are going to be posting their own thoughts, and some will be brutal. So, by letting more critical and harsher elements on Dakka do a review, it can be a good test to see how it fairs for when conversations happen outside of your control...
I think the association was unavoidable given that the two owners of DakkaDakka are also two of the important members in the Spiral Arm Studios.
It would have been unethical not to make this clear at the beginning, and would surely have caused even worse trouble if/when it eventually came to light.
kronk wrote: Excellent review from buzzsaw and rebutal from legoburner. I think both posted many fair points to mull over.
I just have one addition. I think the models are fine and will enjoy painting them.
I don't get anybody have any strong opinions on the models, to be honest. I think they're fine, but nothing I've seen has grabbed me, either in terms of concept, execution, character, or overall look. They're just sort of generic sci-fi troopers that were nicely executed. I think that Buzzsaw's point, while perhaps amplified by his own tastes, is a good one. The models are perfectly fine, but unlike a lot of other kickstarters, there doesn't seem to be visceral reaction to wanting them.
I agree, and I think that a lot of the criticism of Buzzsaw's post mortem on this point is frankly misplaced.
Not only has there been plenty of anecdotal data here on Dakka to support the idea that the models themselves aren't terribly attractive to plenty of potential customers, but I think Buzzsaw's analysis of the aesthetic direction of the table top miniatures market is both spot on and objective.
The MEdge models don't line up with where a quickly growing segment of the market is headed. They line up with a decade old aesthetic that, as Buzzsaw mentioned, makes the models seem dated rather than new and innovative. At a casual glance the models don't seem to shatter any boundaries or preconceptions the way that the plastics of Wyrd and Dreamforge do. They are cheap, dependable, serviceable models that don't really line up with the progressive, groundbreaking, never been done tone of SAS's advertising. There's an inherent disconnect.
MEdge promises a dependable game with dependable models with a dependable fictional universe. Dependable doesn't make me excited now.
And the fact that people still buy Cadian Shick Troops in droves is honestly not, in my view, a good justification for the aesthetic choices of MEdge, unless SAS wants to litterally siphon off GW's extant customer base. How many GW customers are steeped in the GW 'ecosystem' for lack of a better word? How many new customers is GW acquiring?
Is GW on the forefront of growth in the table top miniatures market? I think it is more than fair to answer that question with an emphatic "no." Even GW's extant and former customers are following market growth if the success of folks like Victoria Lamb, Scibor, Max Mini, Puppets War, Anvil Industries, Avatars of War, and even Forge World, is any indication.
So where does that leave MEdge? Is SAS looking to smoothly transition disaffected GW customers into its own ecosystem by offering a familiar product with a familiar level of support? That seems to be the case. Handfuls of D6s, HIPS, kitbashing, fictional support, spinoff products, and aggressive Heroic scale are all hallmarks of GW. If you look at GW's relative market share, I suppose it makes sense to try to capture that segement of the market, but the big question, I think, is who exactly are those customers?
I, for one, will never again assemble a model that is anything close to a Cadian, my thousands upon thousands of points of boxed up IG notwithstanding. I look at those models now and I wonder what the Hell I was thinking years ago. How did I think that looked cool? I look at MEdge and it looks like exactly what I do not want in a table top miniatures product. Am I the sum total of the table top miniatures market? No, certainly not. But I look around the internet and the FLGS and I see a lot of familiar faces.
First, let me thank folks for their kind words and considered feedback, and especially legoburner, for taking the time to bring out so much in the way of interesting information, even if I tend to quibble with some of his rebuttal.
While I am digesting some of the feedback, there are a few points that I want to try and clear up, either because I phrased things arcanely, because my points are being misconstrued, or I was simply not clear on a technical matter;
legoburner wrote: It is always entertaining to read your kickstarter postmortems and I always appreciate the thought and angles from which you approach your kickstarter analytics, but it is much more enlightening seeing them from the other side of the fence where we have access to all the analytics, business plans and metrics which drove the campaign I hope you wont take it personally if I say that your dislike of the models and project shows through in your write up in the form of 'I think this way, so it is logical that many do', which certainly could have been made more neutral if you are presenting it as an exploration and robs your work of some of its value in my opinion. Still, it is a reasonable assumption if that is how you frame your perception of the product as a whole which I would likely do if our positions were reversed, though we do have actual data on it which makes the conjecture largely irrelevant.
MajorTom11 wrote: Buzzsaw, I think you are pretty spot on for most of it, but I think you had some big misses in your assessment too on a few points. As has been mentioned, I think your personal viewpoint is really coloring the review in specific parts, i.e, very subjective when you are trying to ascribe reasons to data. You don't like the models, therefore the main issue must be hatred of the models. It may well be mind you, but your charts do nothing to support this, you are just filling a gap with a reason for an event when you can only see a result that could have had a million reasons combined and not one main one.
First, let me clarify that I attempted to have each step of my post mortem stand on its own. My graphs are not intended to support my contention that aesthetics specifically were the problem, the point of the graphs is only an attempt to determine if there was a problem, an effect. Having determined from the analysis of the available data (quite true that I do not have access to the analytics that Lego refers to) that there was an effect, I then attempted to answer the question "if there is an effect, what is causing it?"
Further, while I would not attempt to claim I am a big fan of the project, I have done my best to remain neutral and impartial in my analysis. This is why I did not simply assert that the models of ME are 'bad/lacking/ugly', but rather, I attempted to demonstrate that there has been a marketplace shift away from a particular style/aesthetic. I would argue that this marketplace shift is an empiric observation, one of the reasons I showed multiple product lines in demonstration of this shift. I recognize that my evidence may not be completely convincing to some*, but in the interest of read-ability I didn't want to over-egg the pudding, so to speak.
If we grant that there has been a marketplace shift away from the heroic scale (which I contend there has been), I then attempted to demonstrate that the ME miniatures (the Epirian contractors especially) are of the style that the market has shifted away from.
It is entirely fair to say that all of the above may be true, but unconvincing. To that end, I can only say that in a matter of aesthetics complete dispassion may be impossible. There is only so much data available, and it is only so usefeull, in aesthetic matters. One bit of anecdotal evidence I would muster in favor of my evaluation of the miniatures is the pattern of argument about them on the forums, and appears in a form in MajorTom's post:
MajorTom11 wrote: That being said, heroic scale was a bit of a surprising issue to me, given most people were or are heavily invested in GW, and still buy 15-20 year old sculpts like space marines and cadians in droves… I would think if a Cadian or Spacemarine can be tolerated, when their proportions are (to me) even more distorted than the contractor… but hey what do I know lol… still, the fact you can use a lot of Medge bits for 40k, in theory, one would have thought it would have been a good draw. I agree on the chaps and arms, though of the two only the arms really bug me. But the torsos look pretty darn good to me, as do the heads if you want a ball cap security look.
What comments I have seen on other forums about ME's figures are along these lines: a general feeling that they are of a piece with GW's aesthetic. When people criticize the ME models, the general rejoinder tends not to be "you're seeing things that aren't there/you're just crazy/you have no taste" type that I tend to see when otherwise loved Infinity sculpts (for example) are criticized. Instead the rejoinder has been as MajorTom puts it above: 'they are about the same as what GW has been selling, so why complain?'
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legoburner wrote: Certainly I dont dispute we could have done a better job with the kickstarter, and there are three notable mistakes which we made:
1. As you've touched upon, the perceived value at the start was too low (hence the big refresh a week in), though for the mid and end of the project, any reasonable person would not disagree that 39 multipart plastic models for $90 is a very fair deal indeed, let alone all the extra goods like the VIP discount for 2 years, free content, card game, digital copy of the rulebook, etc. That does not stack well in a kickstarter environment filled with PVC models that cost a cent or two each to produce though.
I think that this is a good place to point out the interplay between aesthetic preferences and abstraction: that is, when you say "any reasonable person would not disagree that 39 multipart plastic models for $90 is a very fair deal indeed", I think that you may be making an evaluation that may be accurate, without being reasonable.
What may constitute a "multipart plastic model" may be one thing as a technical matter, but quite another in the mind of the buyer. To be clear, the model count is, according to the main kickstarter page;
Spoiler:
The count of "39 multipart plastic models" includes 21 humanoid models, 4 Angel Minnows, 8 small drones, 4 larger robots and 2 large Angel models. Is it really fair to count Angel Minnows and Drones in the same way as humanoid troops? On the other hand, is it fair to count the Mature Angels and Hunter robots the same as human troops? My point here is that there is no hard and fast answer, as each backer makes his own decision and evaluation.
It's also worth pointing out that the market today is not what it was even 5 years ago: if we are to justify purchases based on what X dollar amount will get you in plastic, we must ask: how much plastic does X actually get you on the market these days? The answer is, thanks in no small part to kickstarter, a very great deal.
For example, if I wanted to spend $90 with the sole purpose of getting multipart sci-fi models (in the tabletop arena, excluding things like Japanese model kits) consider how much $90 buys you of DFG kits from the Warstore (again, for example);
$33.99 Eisenkern Stormtroopers (20 Stormtroopers)
$20.99 Eisenkern Panzerjager (10 female Stormtroopers)
$16.99 Eisenkern Stormtrooper Accessory Set (accessories compatible with male and female Stormtroopers, also includes 3 'Mule' robots)
$17.99 Eisenkern Valkir Support Troopers (5 heavy support troopers in power armor)
Total: $89.96 For that you get 30 Stormtroopers, with a huge amount of customization (seriously, the accessory kit is mind boggling), 5 heavy weapon troopers and 3 robots, a total of 38 models. That's available right now.
Again, please do not misunderstand: I am not saying "your game is bad and you should feel bad", I'm saying that the marketplace is evolving. The argument of "I could just by DFG figures which roxxor" is not defeated by "this is a better deal", but by "this is a totally different product that has it's own aesthetic and utility, it stands on its own" (though DFG does roxxor).
Similarly, it's entirely appropriate to say one simply doesn't like DFG, or Wrath of Kings or Relic Knights or Zombicide or whatever. But that's a different argument: what is indisputable is that GW is no longer the only supplier of ~28mm sci-fi figures, and any campaign that comes to market must be cognizant of the fact that the consumer can purchase, right now, 28mm sci-fi figures of high quality for around $2 or so.
*By the by, in the argument about evolving aesthetics between Do_I_Not_Like-That and Cincydooley, Cinc has the right of it: I am most emphatically not saying ME should look like Warmachine. I am merely using Warmachine figures to illustrate a trend.
Well, the communication and honesty on all fronts is good to see.
Like what was pointed out by Legoburner: we are colored by our own views even when we try to be fair.
My first and only kickstarter is Robotech RPG Tactics.
It generated 1.4 million (hardly seems fair does it?).
It has been a 2 year pain in the backside but I did get my stuff! (part of it...)
So YES KS fatigue many people have interesting stories around this line and even with what looks like a solid KS... I just could not bring myself to do it.
Next: Games Workshop.
Your models like what was mentioned with the Victoria miniatures very much had that style and looked like it could be a substitute for those models and were compared with them.
But they are not meant to be a substitute and you would not want to.
Warhammer 40k games rules are horrible for meeting new players... if I was to play something different from 40k, I really, really, want it to look different.
The rules can be airtight and maybe it would be a really cool basis as a substitute core mechanic for 40k for those of us heavily invested in it.
The terrain bit sprue is awesome.
I want a few dozen.
To be able to take bits of stuff lying around and have just enough details to make it all nice... terrain lego... has been needed for a long time.
I had grabbed a bunch of Mordhiem bits for the card terrain for the same purpose a long time ago.
I think each person may have a different "excuse" but this is mine.
Dakka is my #1 hangout for hobby much like my local FLGS but you both have something in common: you do not carry anything different enough from what I already have.
5 years ago, being GW compatible was golden. It is arguable that at the time a huge portion of the 3rd party industry exists purely to leverage/supplement GW models.
Now? I don't know anymore. I find that KS's have impacted expectations quite deeply... 5 years ago, my impression was people really wanted options to create their own amazing conversions, bits were really in demand... the top hobby people wanted to put their own spin on things all the time, and the crowd that idolized them tried to do the same. But now though, with the influx of restic and pre-production CG, it seems to me that elaborate monopose with very, very limited conversion possibilities is more what people want... They expect the detail to be there and not much to be done once they get the model. It's a different mentality.
I rarely see all these crazy KS models painted up though after the fact... never saw a full sedition wars set, or a full robotech set done to really high standards... though i admit I don't look too much these days... I would expect most people don't have the skill level to 'do justice' to some of the crazier restic sculpts I have seen. It seems like the purchases are very rarely followed up with the 'full hobby commit' that GW and GW oriented tournaments kind of force you into?
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand? Do models like infinity stuff (which I love the look of), get converted much? I'm not talking about glueing a new gun on, talking like fairly involved converting.
I personally found that the fiction, the whole approach to creating a full setting in fact, really made Medge stand apart from other games. It spoke to their intentions to create a much more well-rounded experience for certain kinds of gamers. Look at how much the Black Library fiction has done for GW, and now BL is dying off. D&D fiction has been tremendously important in shaping the game, as well as an entire set of similar games. In the other direction, Mantic has been very neglectful of their fluff, and still have to release lists so players can use KoW rules to play games in other companies' settings with other companies' minis. There is nothing at all to make someone want to build a purely Mantic army outside of model aesthetics, which are often considered insufficient.
Don't get me wrong; I don't think having the fluff is bad. But I think this is an instance of where when you try to do everything, you do nothing great. The same happened with the first Wild West Exodus KS with their novel; it was incredibly underwhelming.
I'm not intending to say that they shouldn't do it. Far from it, in fact. But I think there could have been some benefit from a more focused campaign that didn't include a bunch of audio books, and didn't include a card game, but instead focused on the core product. All of those auxiliary items are things one can release later once things are more established for that core product line. I actually think it's incredibly admirable that they have ideas for novels and audiobooks and card games, even if I have no interest in them. I simply question if those products caused some scope creep, as it were.
MajorTom11 wrote: But now though, with the influx of restic and pre-production CG, it seems to me that elaborate monopose with very, very limited conversion possibilities is more what people want... They expect the detail to be there and not much to be done once they get the model. It's a different mentality.
I rarely see all these crazy models painted up, though i admit I don't look too much these days... I would expect most people don't have the skill level to 'do justice' to some of the crazier restic sculpts I have seen.
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand? Do models like infinity stuff (which I love the look of), get converted much? I'm not talking about glueing a new gun on, talking like fairly involved converting.
Just curious what the take on that is -
Just look up any thread of "painted vs unpainted" (no! do not lock this thread! do not "bane" me!)
Many people want what is a fancy looking chess piece.
Many will leave them unpainted and feel they are pretty enough to not need any.
Other people who like to paint will say: "challenge accepted" and have a go.
Those who like to convert too will say: "challenge accepted" and break out the knives and green stuff.
Note: the need to convert or make models different is in direct proportion of how big the game is: skirmish? Good as is.
Dragging out the Robotech comparison: 20 parts for a mini less than 1.5" is a tall order for people who want to get down to playing.
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand? Do models like infinity stuff (which I love the look of), get converted much? I'm not talking about glueing a new gun on, talking like fairly involved converting.
Just curious what the take on that is -
You know, I think so. Consider that GW has moved to monopose plastic models instead of the character boxes like the Chaos Lord or the Empire Generals set, and I think there are some real tangible benefits to those types of figures. For one, you can get a much more dynamic looking model out of a single post HIPS piece. We see it with all the new GW ones and we see it with all the Wyrd models. To get the same sense of movement out of, say, a tactical marines kit is much harder to do. It can, of course, be done, but often requires both more time and skill to do so.
As far as infinity conversions go, I think the most common thing you see is weapon swaps.
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand?
Yes. I think this was the biggest shock to me about the campaign. I saw the Epirian sprue and I saw some decent mini torsos with great guns that just begged for some bit swaps or conversions. The feedback focused on the Epirians as they were presented, fully assembled and painted. Same thing with some of the drones and the robots. For example, the firefly drone's fans--completely separate pieces already--were not in the best place, or the scarecrow's shoulder gun--a separate piece!--was too far forward. Those problems don't even require gs to fix, but seemed to be dealbreakers. Looking at it from the point of view of someone who wants artistically-designed monopose minis, ME suddenly looked a lot less attractive. People want more Infinity than GW in their minis these days, I guess?
For all the talk of style, aesthetics, evolution of PP models etc etc
It boils down to this: do you like these models? Yes or no? When I looked at the ME kickstarter, that's what directed my judgement. All this talk of flowing lines is neither here nor there. I see sci-fi and fantasy tropes that have been around for decades and in some cases, centuries. Talk of originality is a red herring, as far as I'm concerned.
People have expressed dismay at GW's Cadian models for being out-dated. Your out-dated is my preferred model. I still think they look good, despite their age YMMV.
Again, I reiterate, you either like the models or you don't. That's my criteria when passing judgement on appearance.
Naturally, you never judge a book by its cover. I've played plenty of games that had ugly models, but also had a superb system that kept me entertained for hours.
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand?
Yes. I think this was the biggest shock to me about the campaign. I saw the Epirian sprue and I saw some decent mini torsos with great guns that just begged for some bit swaps or conversions. The feedback focused on the Epirians as they were presented, fully assembled and painted. Same thing with some of the drones and the robots. For example, the firefly drone's fans--completely separate pieces already--were not in the best place, or the scarecrow's shoulder gun--a separate piece!--was too far forward. Those problems don't even require gs to fix, but seemed to be dealbreakers. Looking at it from the point of view of someone who wants artistically-designed monopose minis, ME suddenly looked a lot less attractive. People want more Infinity than GW in their minis these days, I guess?
You replied to my points about 40k's background. This thread is not the place for such a discussion, but I'm happy to continue it in another thread if you want. But not tonight. It's late here in the UK and it's been a long day
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand? Do models like infinity stuff (which I love the look of), get converted much? I'm not talking about glueing a new gun on, talking like fairly involved converting.
Just curious what the take on that is -
Ultimately, the biggest problem GW created on themselves when they introduced plastics, was to make dynamic, characterful models into blunt multipart plastic models, they successfully turned this into the conversion mania that was prevalent all the decades GW was strong, now with their decline, the emergence of new modern game and model companies and the plethora of options (and sadly the steady decline in free time), people show a migration to the preference that existed before GW dominance detailed characterful mono pose models.
Personally I am not interested in making a model look good, I do not want to "convert" a model in order to make it look as if it is doing something, or kitbash 3 different kits in order to make one look good, I wand models that are great from the start and designed to look dynamic and characterful, something only monopose models can offer, not "multipart" models (people really should stop saying multipart, its multiposed).
I do convert and I do convert a lot, but I do it as an option and not as a necessity, monoposed models that look great from the start are better than multiposed models that need to be made into a pose to look good.
5 years ago, being GW compatible was golden. It is arguable that at the time a huge portion of the 3rd party industry exists purely to leverage/supplement GW models.
Now? I don't know anymore. I find that KS's have impacted expectations quite deeply... 5 years ago, my impression was people really wanted options to create their own amazing conversions, bits were really in demand... the top hobby people wanted to put their own spin on things all the time, and the crowd that idolized them tried to do the same. But now though, with the influx of restic and pre-production CG, it seems to me that elaborate monopose with very, very limited conversion possibilities is more what people want... They expect the detail to be there and not much to be done once they get the model. It's a different mentality.
I rarely see all these crazy KS models painted up though after the fact... never saw a full sedition wars set, or a full robotech set done to really high standards... though i admit I don't look too much these days... I would expect most people don't have the skill level to 'do justice' to some of the crazier restic sculpts I have seen. It seems like the purchases are very rarely followed up with the 'full hobby commit' that GW and GW oriented tournaments kind of force you into?
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand? Do models like infinity stuff (which I love the look of), get converted much? I'm not talking about glueing a new gun on, talking like fairly involved converting.
Just curious what the take on that is -
I think it is a very fair assessment. It is sort of sad, in a way, but from a different angle it is very exciting. I will re-post here something that I recently posted in a Random Platypus thread:
As some others have mentioned, the evolution of 'styles' in table top games miniatures has had a lot to do with the evolution in materials, manufacturing, and accumulated knowledge. Simply put, we know more and can do more these days than back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
That said, retro styles are often a deliberate choice these days. Take a look at the Bruegelburg range from Lead Adventure, for example.
Setting aside more 'artistic' elements of styles, such as the way Tre Manor sculpts faces, the delicate precision of Tom Meier, The smooth curves and fluid poses of Kev White, or the funky, choppy style of Werner Klocke, the broader outlines of the 'style' of a miniature is driven by proportions. I think this is mostly what the OP was getting at.
In terms of proportions (and I am by no means an expert or anything), the big factors are:
Number of heads tall
Size of Head/Hands/Feet relative to the body
Length of legs
Variations in these proportions are what tend to make models look "heroic" or "true to scale." Though no 25mm-35mm table top games models are really true to scale.
Infinity models look different from Hasslefree models because the relative proportions of the models are different. Tre Manor's models tend to look 'small' because he uses proportions that are closer to reality than some other sculptors. The Heads/Hands/Feet of his models tend to be smaller than those of similarly-sized models produced by other sculptors.
Table top games models need to both look 'right' when viewed at essentially arm's length, and they need to be both physically stable and robust enough for transport/rough handling. They also need to be manufacturable, which significantly influences the 'style' of a model. There are different design demands for HIPS, PVC, Resin, and Pewter. We are now seeing a particular 'style' being developed for miniatures-heavy board games due to the demands of producing good-looking models in PVC.
Blood Rage is an excellent example of a style well-suited to the production process, and it took several product ranges to zero in on what looks good.
With all of that said, I think the market is moving in two parallel directions; one towards more realistic proportions and dynamic poses and the other a nostalgic retro-style, e.g. Wasteman and the Judge Dredd models by Warlord.
Some gamers are looking to recapture the the loose, funky, somewhat slapdash nostalgia of early miniatures games. Some are looking to see a more realistic style that both pushes the boundaries of technology and creates a sense of immersion through realism. Lots of gamers are looking for smaller, faster games with a lower model count, and they want more dynamism and detail in the few models they do put on the table. Similarly, 15mm, 6mm, and microarmor games are growing in popularity as gamers look to play mass battle games faster, more efficiently, and on a tighter budget.
At the same time, the board game market is growing more and more towards the table top miniatures games market. We are seeing, I think, market expansion in both areas and increasing crossover between the two. Take a look at the discussion of miniatures on sites like Boardgame Geek, for example. Cheaper Chinese PVC manufacturing is allowing board games to go from meeples and tokens into detailed scale models. Boxed games offer table top miniatures gamers a simple, swift-playing, and discretely packaged experience that does not demand building terrain, assembly, or even painting! These are all options that gamers can choose to indulge in, rather than being forced into. At the same time, it makes what are very, very close to table top miniatures games far more accessible to board gamers and the uninitiated in general.
On the whole, it is a very exciting time for table top games.
Finally, as I have mentioned elsewhere, allowing 2 threads to be essentially unmoderated and to let a vocal minority of less than 10 (even less than 5 users) usurp the PR and tone of discussion on their home turf, to me, was a mistake. No matter what SAS do, if they ever act on their own behalf, even in the most minor ways, there is a sub-section of the audience here who will leap on them as greedy, fascist over-moderators who are crushing their personal freedoms. They can’t even say they disagree in polite debate without some people calling it moderation. That will not change in my opinion. But to me, you just have to accept that and act with integrity, but the keyword there is ACT. Just because you know some will cause a stink, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do as you would with anyone else, and doesn’t mean it’s a crime to say ‘hey, there is a line still, and if you cross it yes, we will still act, whether you think it is fair or not’. This isn’t to say moderate the hell out of everything, that would be suicide… it just means, have a little faith that enough people will see why you acted, and that so long as you make the boundaries clear and act with integrity, most will agree that your actions are justified. The mods are inherently restrained here, trust me, I know. If you get moderated, chances are you are being a huge douche lol, it is ridiculously rare that moderation happens in a form more than a warning, and it is almost impossible to get banned forever. Whatever people say about the amount of moderation on this site, on my kids, that is the truth of it. Dakka doesn’t ask for much recognition, but I think they should start asking people to recognize what actually happens in some situations, because SAS cannot easily afford to be burdened by the inability to act that Dakka imposes on itself when it comes time to act on its own behalf. The solution will be, ultimately, to encourage users not to white knight, but to simply vouch for the facts they see in front of them when some poison pill is trying to spin a fiction that hurts the company.
I don't think the Millennium's Edge threads were largely unmoderated as most of the argument/discussion was directly relevant to the thread (mostly I like or I don't like the minis), there was a lot of it and it was probably disruptive, BUT pretty much every GW thread has just as much of it, and MOD interventions in those are largely when things get personal between the posters, not just for hate/love of the models or rules or release schedule etc.
(although I agree the degree of nonsense they allow tends to be higher in the GW threads than others)
I asked yakface early on about criticism of ME, and as long as it was constructive and didn't get personal, he was happy for it to be on dakka. Constructive criticism of ME was never an issue.
As for the evolution of models, what do I care? I like chunky models. Hell, I'm still using stuff from the 1980s and 1990s
Obviously, everybody is different, but let's not pretend that ME wasn't as successful as it could have been because of aesthetics.
I didn't pledge because I didn't have the money at the time, not because I thought the models looked bad.
Obviously, everybody is different, but let's not pretend that ME wasn't as successful as it could have been because of aesthetics.
I don't think anyone needs to pretend about that. I think it was pretty obviously a contributing factor, and a not insignificant one at that.
I agree it was one of many factors, but I don't think it was THE factor. Like I said, my personal view wasn't influenced by the look of models, rather it was influenced by what money I had at the time.
There is no one size fits all list of reasons why ME worked or didn't work.
Personally, I think they did well, and seeing as they started from scratch, they should be proud of their efforts. I thought they were very slick and professional, and above all, honest in what they were trying to. If dakka belonged to me, and I was creating a game, I would have cracked down on dissent big time. My way or the highway. But that's just me
All things considered, In the future, I'll probably end up buying it.
MajorTom11 wrote: But now though, with the influx of restic and pre-production CG, it seems to me that elaborate monopose with very, very limited conversion possibilities is more what people want... They expect the detail to be there and not much to be done once they get the model. It's a different mentality. -
I wonder how much of that is due to the scope of the games that these models are designed for. The games we've seen crop up in recent years are almost exclusively small-scale skirmish games, where you have a much lower model count. And for me, that's what makes a difference on how I want the models presented.
I love a good characterful, elaborate model... so long as I only have to paint it once.
For one-off painting projects, or for games with a low model count where I don't have to double up, that's just fine. For bigger games, I've never liked having identically-posed, identically-detailed clones on the table, particularly when they're in the same unit. That's one of the things that I've always disliked about Warmachine (and I think Infinity has done a certain amount of it as well) - they make two or three troop models, and then double them up to make a full unit. For that application, I would much rather have slightly more generic models that I can pose and customise myself... and for that, multi-part, HIPS models are still a far better option than any of the current alternatives.
In fairness, although there may be many reasons people did or did not buy, yours being a lack of funds at the time as an example, the aesthetics of 3 models out of the set drew the most vocal and consistent criticism, and only one was particularly focused on.
So although measuring main cause is not possible in a scientific way (without a big effort and a lot of participation from a significant portion of people who viewed the KS), it can certainly be said that for those with a dislike strong enough to be vocal, that was a major contributor. Even if the true reason for the majority of passes is something else, the only one that readily presents itself as addressable is that facet.
Though, certainly, the models have their fans as well.
In the end, if/when this product proceeds to the next step and the lines expand, the models that drew the fire will continue to be enveloped in a larger product, and will be revealed to be what they truly are in the end, a pretty minor part of the bigger whole.
With every new model they put out that is generally positively received, or at the least not identified as a 'mistake' (there will always be people not liking heroic, it is what it is), the problem of the one model becomes that much less a burden on the product line. This is a recoverable situation for Medge I believe, and one that, as hot a topic as it may be now to some, may prove to be a mere hiccup in the long term. Who knows?
PS yes I know some have problems with more than just the contractor, just sticking to what the bulk of critique has lain in my personal observation.
MajorTom11 wrote: In fairness, although there may be many reasons people did or did not buy, yours being a lack of funds at the time as an example, the aesthetics of 3 models out of the set drew the most vocal and consistent criticism, and only one was particularly focused on.
So although measuring main cause is not possible in a scientific way (without a big effort and a lot of participation from a significant portion of people who viewed the KS), it can certainly be said that for those with a dislike strong enough to be vocal, that was a major contributor. Even if the true reason for the majority of passes is something else, the only one that readily presents itself as addressable is that facet.
Though, certainly, the models have their fans as well.
In the end, if/when this product proceeds to the next step and the lines expand, the models that drew the fire will continue to be enveloped in a larger product, and will be revealed to be what they truly are in the end, a pretty minor part of the bigger whole.
With every new model they put out that is generally positively received, or at the least not identified as a 'mistake' (there will always be people not liking heroic, it is what it is), the problem of the one model becomes that much less a burden on the product line. This is a recoverable situation for Medge I believe, and one that, as hot a topic as it may be now to some, may prove to be a mere hiccup in the long term. Who knows?
PS yes I know some have problems with more than just the contractor, just sticking to what the bulk of critique has lain in my personal observation.
You said it yourself earlier - there was a vocal minority that were anti-ME from the beginning, and nothing was going to change their minds.
Yakface and Legoburner could have offered a million pounds/dollars and the cure for cancer with every boxset, and these people would still have shot it down in flames.
I think it was a shame that the debate wasn't more rules focused. I would love to have had more talk on gameplay mechanics, rather than aesthetics, but I recognise aesthetics was important for some people.
For what it's worth, I didn't back because I couldn't make myself love the minis. I heard about the KS as soon as it started and thought "oh a dakkadakka ks, I'll pledge, this will be good." I was sold until I saw the minis. I don't know what it is that doesn't do it for me.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: You said it yourself earlier - there was a vocal minority that were anti-ME from the beginning, and nothing was going to change their minds.
Yakface and Legoburner could have offered a million pounds/dollars and the cure for cancer with every boxset, and these people would still have shot it down in flames.
This is what kept me out of participating in the MEdge threads for the most part and maybe wary of posting in this one.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I think it was a shame that the debate wasn't more rules focused. I would love to have had more talk on gameplay mechanics, rather than aesthetics, but I recognise aesthetics was important for some people.
My qualitative impression has been that in many cases 2D artwork leads into models, which leads into the rules, which leads back to the models.
People get excited about cool 2D artwork, whether that is a piece of concept art, an illustration, a teaser, etc. That and a little hype encourages them to take a look at the models. If someone finds the models exciting, they want to know about the rules. If the rules are passable, they provide an excuse/incentive to buy the model(s). If the rules are fun and engaging, it may lead to further model sales as the customer gets more invested in the game and/or draws others into the game.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: I think it was a shame that the debate wasn't more rules focused. I would love to have had more talk on gameplay mechanics, rather than aesthetics, but I recognise aesthetics was important for some people.
My qualitative impression has been that in many cases 2D artwork leads into models, which leads into the rules, which leads back to the models.
People get excited about cool 2D artwork, whether that is a piece of concept art, an illustration, a teaser, etc. That and a little hype encourages them to take a look at the models. If someone finds the models exciting, they want to know about the rules. If the rules are passable, they provide an excuse/incentive to buy the model(s). If the rules are fun and engaging, it may lead to further model sales as the customer gets more invested in the game and/or draws others into the game.
Artwork, models, rules, models.
I think I'm more a practical person. For example, when I buy a car, how it looks is not my first priority. Does it start first time on a cold morning? Is it reliable? Will it break down and leave me in the middle of nowhere. That's the questions I ask. And I took a similar approach to this game. That doesn't mean to say I would have bought cardboard tokens to push around the trouble, but I was more interested in how it played and what the background was like. I'm pretty tall, my eyesight is not good, tiny models on a table three feet away...you can guess the rest. I won't notice the detail that much
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Tydil wrote: For what it's worth, I didn't back because I couldn't make myself love the minis. I heard about the KS as soon as it started and thought "oh a dakkadakka ks, I'll pledge, this will be good." I was sold until I saw the minis. I don't know what it is that doesn't do it for me.
Different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Yakface and Legoburner could have offered a million pounds/dollars and the cure for cancer with every boxset, and these people would still have shot it down in flames.
We both know you do not believe this is true, so don't insult everyone's intelligence by spouting this nonsense.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Yakface and Legoburner could have offered a million pounds/dollars and the cure for cancer with every boxset, and these people would still have shot it down in flames.
We both know you do not believe this is true, so don't insult everyone's intelligence by spouting this nonsense.
How do you know what I'm thinking? IMO, for some people, Dakka + Game = bad. But that's my view. Take it or leave it.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Yakface and Legoburner could have offered a million pounds/dollars and the cure for cancer with every boxset, and these people would still have shot it down in flames.
We both know you do not believe this is true, so don't insult everyone's intelligence by spouting this nonsense.
As a personal background, I prefer skirmish games with few models and in my opinion Infinity stands at the top of wargames, because it encapsulates what I find ideal as far as rules, fluff integration, models to table space ratio and models quality, I say the above, because there are only objective opinions and a critic should always state what his or her preferences are when criticizing a work, I also fancy myself as an amateur game designer (maybe also an amateur game developer) and a collector of wargame systems.
I actively avoided commenting on any ME threads because I felt (maybe incorrectly) SAS are not interested in hearing an opinion that is not flowing along and because of that I did not care to try and influence the opinion of readers and backers.
I will comment on ME here though to leave an active feedback for the benefit of SAS.
ME for me can be summarized in two words, Antiquated and Forgettable.
The first thing that caught my eye was the tokens and from that the suppression tokens that look exactly like the blast markers the epic 40k had, more than a decade ago, the other counters feel old too, been square doesn't help them too, then I noticed the models, I will have to echo some posters here, the models look outdated and not in line with current expectations for many of us.
It actually bring in the question of rally who is supposed this to be aimed for? hardcore GW players wan't nothing of non GW sanctioned models and rules, GW veterans usually stick tot he rules (so having a better rule system is not appealing) but migrate to better quality models such as FW or victorias and many other who cater that market (and ME are not catering this) people who left GW have already moved to better rules system (the rules can be potentially interesting here) and more natural looking models (models are heroic), can I assume the game may be catering to people leaving GW? to be more in their comfort zone yet not so similar tot he thing it drew them away? I am not sure this market share is that big, people leave GW, but most who leave are leaving the platoon to company size and heroic scale too.
Models are a huge influence and whoever says otherwise stands against game designers even for boardgames that state how important miniatures are ME look outdated, both as design choices and as design execution, karist legs are 3 parts when Alesio's terminator strives to limit the parts to as few as two for the whole model, if I need 30-50 of them fr a "proper game" I am not going to spend time gluing two legs and a pelvis for each... I must also point out that the quality or better design scope varies tremendously the small drones look like models, the big robot looks like a toy.
Ultimately I did not pledge, I usually pledge for at least a rulebook, but found 50$ for a physical rulebook (plus a bunch of unneeded stuff) too much.
I feel, the timing was bad (should have started after salute driving hype) the decision to have models ready without customers feedback and in contrast to current trends a bad decision (really browsing on Dakka gives big clues on what the trend is, what is praised, what is not) and that much energy was wasted on things not needed, I do not care for a novel or more, or the details of the setting, models and rules will make it walk, fluff will retain the players its not high priority nor something backers deeply care for, sure you might thing its clever and evocative and for all accounts it might be, but you are crowdfunding a wargame, not a few novels.
I gave my honest feedback, feel free to debate or ignore it, despite what I said and how negative it may sound I wish SAS success, I want more game companies especially in the sci fi genre, not less.
PsychoticStorm wrote: The first thing that caught my eye was the tokens and from that the suppression tokens that look exactly like the blast markers the epic 40k had, more than a decade ago, the other counters feel old too,...
Honest question - What form of counters would feel more 'modern' to you?
...models and rules will make it walk, fluff will retain the players its not high priority nor something backers deeply care for,...
I suspect that this is something that will get a wide variety of opinions. IMO, models, rules and fluff all form the core 'backbone' of a game. How important each of those aspects are will vary immensely from player to player... but for me, the fluff has always been an integral part of any game that I have played. Having a setting that is immersive and that I enjoy, that allows me to then go and play games in that world... that's a massive part of the 'magic' of wargaming for me.
So having so much background alsready fleshed out for MEdge is one of the things that will get players who feel the same way I do about the importance of background material to check it out...
Do you guys agree with that? Do you find demand for 'conversion friendly' minis has drastically fallen compared to single pose demand? Do models like infinity stuff (which I love the look of), get converted much? I'm not talking about glueing a new gun on, talking like fairly involved converting.
Just curious what the take on that is -
I think the "hobby" aspect of wargaming is fading. For many people, given the choice of spending extra time converting and painting or spending that same time actually playing the game, playing the game will usually win out every time. Yes, the hobbyists do exist, but I think the majority of people spend their money on these games to actually play them. Twenty years ago I would have thought nothing of spending hours each night assembling and painting my stuff. Now, I find it a chore to assemble stuff, and given the choice of painting or playing more Witcher 3, well, guess which of those two I will be doing about 15 minutes from now (hint: it involves monster slaying).
In some ways, I blame the Internet for this. Time spent today checking email, surfing the web, online shopping, talking about my hobbies here on Dakka and other social media, is time I used to spend on my hobbies.
So, yes, I think the convenience of models that have fewer parts is a big factor these days.
Probably 3D (stand up) acrylic tokens for blast/suppression.
You know, they probably could included a stretch goal and add-on extra for well designed acrylic tokens, especially so since the rules make significant use of them.
Rounded or round probably or going in clear acrylic would work best, the idea pioneered by GW (yes they do have good ideas) to make counters look like holographic displays a commander would see on an "RTS environment" are the most modern looking, the X shaped blast markers used for pinning are the biggest offenders though, the feel as old as epic 40k that used them, for roughly the same effect.
Fluff is not the driving motivator for the majority, it is the retainer for the majority, from my experience, people who want rules deeply care for the rules, but do not care much or at all for the models or the fluff, they want the rules to adapt them for their own use usually, these are the people who usually buy rules only wargames from companies that publish their own rues and nothing else, such as two fat lardies, ME is not targeted to this group, from the other two groups models first and fluff first, the models first is the biggest of the two by orders of magnitude so models will attract customers more than fluff, don't get it wrong, I do not say fluff should be non existent, I say more energy was spend on fluff than it was needed for a starting wargame.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Rounded or round probably or going in clear acrylic would work best,...
Fair enough. I don't see anything inherently more 'modern' about round tokens (I had games in the '80s with round tokens) or acrylic, myself. And I would personally prefer full colour card tokens to acrylic most of the time, as it looks prettier unless the acrylic is really detailed... which adds considerable expense due to the cost of cutting that much detail in. So pretty acrylic tokens are fine as an add-on, but a little impractical for a starter set.
Fluff is not the driving motivator for the majority, it is the retainer for the majority, from my experience, people who want rules deeply care for the rules, but do not care much or at all for the models or the fluff, they want the rules to adapt them for their own use usually, these are the people who usually buy rules only wargames from companies that publish their own rues and nothing else, such as two fat lardies, ME is not targeted to this group, from the other two groups models first and fluff first, the models first is the biggest of the two by orders of magnitude so models will attract customers more than fluff, don't get it wrong, I do not say fluff should be non existent, I say more energy was spend on fluff than it was needed for a starting wargame.
I would actually be curious to see research on exactly where the breakdown is there... as I said, opinions definitely vary, and I certainly wouldn't claim my opinion to be the main one without any sort of figures to back it up (it's quite possible that you're correct, and I'm a distinct minority)... but there are plenty of games out there that have solid rules and/or models that I haven't bothered to play simply because I wasn't interested in the setting. Without an interesting setting to give me a reason to care, they're just pretty models... in which case I might buy some to paint, but won't bother wading through a rulebook. Obviously, your mileage varies
On the aesthetics discussion, when I first saw the troops my thought were "those contractors are bleh but the Karist look pretty sweet, maybe I'll add on some more of those." However once I saw the drones I appreciated the way the Epirans had a coherent aesthetic and fell in love with the drones, so much so that I would have added more on if they had been available. Lack of add ons probably had a significant impact on the end funding level.
Also its interesting you use relic knights and KOW, can anyone honestly say that if they had shown pictures of production models during the KS there would not have been a significant hit in the final funding for those projects ?
Square counters with corner edges remind me the old counters before the era of cheaper cutting tools, their inherent problem was they flaked easier as the corner got destroyed easily and stabbed fingers trying to pick them up, when the printers managed to get cheaper cutting tools, rounded corners helped overcome the above issues, and companies started embracing custom shapes to make their counters stand that bit more out.
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Jerram wrote: Thanks buzz and lego for the commentary.
Also its interesting you use relic knights and KOW, can anyone honestly say that if they had shown pictures of production models during the KS there would not have been a significant hit in the final funding for those projects ?
It would as it would for sedition wars, but, if they had, the backlash would have steered them to find a better solution, that would also help them on the long run.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Square counters with corner edges remind me the old counters before the era of cheaper cutting tools, their inherent problem was they flaked easier as the corner got destroyed easily and stabbed fingers trying to pick them up, when the printers managed to get cheaper cutting tools, rounded corners helped overcome the above issues, and companies started embracing custom shapes to make their counters stand that bit more out.
Honestly, I can't say I've encountered either of those problems, and I'm still using tokens from 2nd edition 40K.
Maybe it's just more of a problem with cheaper-grade cardboard?
I was interested up until the model release. I cannot say they excite me. The last part was the lacking upfront game play footage to see how a game is played. I'll forgive models if they dice rollin' is legit. I own some less than savory PP minis (or fixed many) to play good units, I would do the same for any game I enjoyed.
The pricing wasn't bad, it's just the aesthetic was bland. I largely lost interest in the first few days, so I never followed it after that. The big beastie is very reminiscent of old school GW beasties, IMO, and not a look I'm going for. It should be noted I've only ever backed Creature Caster and well, we know where that's at.
Thanks buzz and lego for the commentary.
A good read and an honest view on it all.
And now I am above all interested in the future of ME, because that is the time that i might join in.
I did not pledge, but i never pledged anything on Kickstarter and this was one of the few times i hesitated.
I was and still am above all interested in a new and good game system which i WILL get into if at least 1 other player in my vicinity gets into it.
In regard to the miniatures: they are quite allright IMO.
And I do love the drones and would (or will?) buy them seperately if they become available seperately.
Miniatures are important, but there are several games that i don't have because the game system is IMO just nothing that i want to play. A low price or a high quality miniature does not change that for me.
The reason why i never pledge on Kickstarter:
I want to wait to see if something will actually come to live and stay alive before i get into something.
I already have thousands of miniatures, many games and not the time to paint and play them all.
I think SAS were quite conservative with this Kickstarter, but honestly, as a new company just starting out, I think this is actually sensible.
There were probably ways they could have made a bigger pledge total- increasing add ons, increasing value to backers, putting concepts up for minis they would do in the future. In the short term, this would have given them KS success in terms of a high end goal. Certainly this is good for KS as they get a bigger whack of percentage from SAS.
However, my experience with KS (which is pretty much 1 Mantic KS, a bunch of RBG KS and a few software ones) suggests to me that these "big winner" KS can be a noose for a company that does not have the infastructure to cope with the production demands. Promising too much has nearly sunk some promising companies, and blackened their reputation in the community. Mantic, Sedition Wars, Raging Heroes- all companies with a lot more hype, "value", concept art and all of that, but who have alienated potential fans with poor delivery or long delays. RBG KS1 nearly sank the company (thank god it didn't, as I am a superfan).
I was happy to see SAS hold the course with their achievable aims of a fairly contained box game made better by stretch goals. It looks to me like the pledge total is enough to deliver what they have promised in a timely manner (they did not over promise) which hopefully will mean their customers will still be satisfied and enthusiastic enough to get out and play the game.
We'll see if the strategy pays off. If SAS want to be a long term thing, I am hopeful they made the right calls during the KS. If they wanted to be 1 million dollar flash in the pan, they could have promised a lot more, shown a lot more concept art, and generally acted more like some bigger "KS companies", to their detriment.
That said, I am also more of a fan of realistic proportions on my miniatures, but completely accept that this is harder to do in multi part plastic. Only GW's recent LOTR stuff combines multipart with realistic proportions properly, and they are undoubtably the field leaders with hard plastic.
I will also say that I am personally happy to avoid assembly with miniatures and like to pick up single piece minis these days for easy of painting and storage. Assembly is a chore for me, painting and gaming are what I enjoy.
But I don't think it was the minis that "doomed" the project (had an impact sure) but more the perception that it wasn't a crazy bargain you HAD to get in on, and that's simply because SAS decided not to make it one, for understandable reasons.
Hope I'm not putting words in your mouths there, guys.
Interesting to read the inside and outside perspectives in one thread. Any chance we can have a thread on the rules, so I can read those? I've read the rules on the ME site, but it would be interesting to hear/read about their design process and philosophy.
Nomeny wrote: Interesting to read the inside and outside perspectives in one thread. Any chance we can have a thread on the rules, so I can read those? I've read the rules on the ME site, but it would be interesting to hear/read about their design process and philosophy.
There'll be an area on dakka to talk about the rules when the beta rulebook goes out to the Kickstarter backers.
Nomeny wrote: Hmm. I think I've been told that before. Any idea when that'll be? Are those rules going to be different from what's up on the ME site?
I don't have the exact date, but it won't be too long. The beta rulebook will be the entire rulebook, as it will appear in the in the box set (minus some artwork and fluff, and any changes made in response to the beta).
It's sad that this campaign did so poorly, as I have great respect for the team, and I didn't want to gak on their efforts while the campaign was running, but I guess now I can say my piece.
I was pretty hyped for the campaign, but when it launched, I took one look at it and dropped it immediately.
The miniatures just don't look good, guys. It really is that simple. You might have HIPS tech with good detail, but... this stuff looks pretty much like the games that tried to go up against 40k in the 90s - Warzone, VOID, Urban War, etc. And they're all dead for all intents and purposes, and for good reason.
The aesthetics are lazy and uninspired. Here, have some generic soldiers and some generic power armour. Then some random bat monsters for no good reason. In awkward, static poses. No matter what your tech quality is, this sort of thing just looks cheap. The tiny sprues with just 2-3 guys on them reinforce that feeling.
I would say the only thing that impressed me at all was the terrain sprue, but $12 for some doors and windows isn't great compared to Mantic's battlezones. I suppose the 15mm crowd might latch on to the mechs, as there's a bit of a dearth in that department.
And finally, anything less than 4 factions at launch is a huge no-no, as Neil from Spartan Games likes to emphasize. A big license like Star Wars or Halo might get away with that kind of thing, but not someone trying to set up a new setting.
That's about all I have to say. Good luck in the future.
I think 4 factions is a good minimum to create enough variations in opposing forces- gives you six unique match-ups (ignoring same forces on opposing sides). It helps recruit new players in that (a) more factions opens opportunity for people to find a theme they latch onto, and (b) it keeps the games from feeling the same between multitudes of different players.
GW got themselves in a good spot by having a faction in Space Marines that they could color-code to different themes (vampires, Vikings, monks, Paladins, etc.)and people would feel satisfied with the difference, but I think this was a unique occasion.
As others had said, interesting alien races would be a huge boon for additional factions, it just requires the difficult job of developing said faction.
I was actually sold on this Kickstarter based on three primary points.
1. The Epirian models will require almost no conversion work to be used as Tau Empire Human Aux. forces. They are close enough to a GW aesthetic that they'll blend right in.
2. SAS seems to have approached this entire process from a very stable and conservative viewpoint. I'd rather have fewer models on time than more models late. As they say, a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
3. I pay where I play. DakkaDakka has provided me with an invaluable hobby resource over the years. I can't put a dollar amount to it, but I know 90USD + shipping is a pittance. Even if the game had looked terrible, I probably would have bought in as a thank you to support DakkaDakka.
This has been a most interesting discussion. I feel the criticisms are by-and-large accurate and well-intentioned; nobody here seems like they're complaining just to complain nor are they doing it without some sort of facts behind them.
While SAS certainly could have made more money by doing X, Y and Z, was that ever really their realistic goal to make infinity dollars? They posted all the stretch goals at the beginning, never hinted at "and many more to come" and they did things that were obviously intended to throttle the pledge amount per backer. Chief among these was not really offering any sort of add-ons; you could be A, B or C and as many of D as you want and that was about it. The guys running this were not stupid and would have to know that limiting the ways of giving money was going to limit the amount of money given. You don't need a KickStarter expert to tell you that, or if you do you have no business running a footrace let alone a KS campaign.
So for me the question when discussing under-performance is "what was the creator's goal?" If their goal was to make a shed-load of money with a KS, then yes, they under-performed *incredibly*. If their goal was to raise about 70k, get a decent-sized community for a starting point and begin to build their corporate reputation in the market (a reputation which six months ago did not exist), then they're off to a pretty good start. Could they have done better? Sure, but you can point at anything and say that could have been better. If they ticked the boxes they wanted to tick, then it performed fine, IMO, even if I see where something done differently might have gotten better money. It would boil down to how one defines performance I suppose, to make a short story long.
Kilkrazy wrote: How many Kickstarters have been done containing four factions?
Deadzone/Dreadball, at least.
I think four factions is a lot for a new company, but its also a valid critique of a new skirmish wargame.
Kickstarter was pretty clearly not a major part of the playbook for SAS. I think they saw this campaign as a way to inject a bit more capital and get some preorders out there. From the perspective of having a game ready to launch anyway, this was mostly gravy.
I'm not surprised at the conduct of the kickstarter, or in the rebuttal to Buzzsaw's points. Responding to critique by giving a familiar chuckle and telling somebody "if you knew everything we knew, you'd see how awesome we really are" is basically a Dakka Dakka limit break.
Ronnie at Mantic also believes you need 4 factions at launch. It gives you good variety in visuals, gameplay and background to draw people in and make it interesting for gaming groups.
I'm admittedly not as up on my Kickstarter-Fu as I would like to be, but why are so many people calling this Kickstarter a failure? Did it not get 40k more than the minimum needed to fund the project? Even $1 more than the minimum would be a success, right? If they put the minimum at 20k but really needed 100k to get the project off the ground than why put such a low minimum? I ARE CONFUSE
weeble1000 wrote: [And the fact that people still buy Cadian Shick Troops in droves is honestly not, in my view, a good justification for the aesthetic choices of MEdge, unless SAS wants to litterally siphon off GW's extant customer base.
There is still a lot of money to be made doing just that. Just ask Warlord! <Rimshot!>
Kriswall wrote:
2. SAS seems to have approached this entire process from a very stable and conservative viewpoint. I'd rather have fewer models on time than more models late. As they say, a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
This is a very good point. In the sense that I think SAS listened to perhaps the biggest gripe that affects a lot of KS projects, and is also one of the biggest factors stopping people from returning to that company for future KS, is projects that over-promise and then under-deliver.
I don't know what the exact finances are behind the Kickstarter, whether it's performed in-line with expectations or below, but to me this represents a solid start. If the rules/minis arrive on schedule, and they are as good as they seem to be, any future releases and projects will probably do even better.
lord_blackfang wrote:
And finally, anything less than 4 factions at launch is a huge no-no, as Neil from Spartan Games likes to emphasize. A big license like Star Wars or Halo might get away with that kind of thing, but not someone trying to set up a new setting.
'From the tiniest of acorns'.. I'm sure in an ideal world the game would launch with more. But, production costs and times, I'm sure that two were the most factions that they thought could be done in time for release.
'Needs must' is another phrase I will throw in there
I had planned on backing this, but held out to see the Angel. As the signature model, I was hoping it was going to be amazing, as I like the Karist humanoids, but the tiny angels were, well, disappointing.
On the whole, I think ME did two things great, humanoids and robots. But I think the monsters failed.
Anyway, hope to see more factions soon so hopefully I can find one that suits my tastes as the game rules and model quality really have me interested.
Kimchi Gamer wrote: I'm admittedly not as up on my Kickstarter-Fu as I would like to be, but why are so many people calling this Kickstarter a failure? Did it not get 40k more than the minimum needed to fund the project? Even $1 more than the minimum would be a success, right? If they put the minimum at 20k but really needed 100k to get the project off the ground than why put such a low minimum? I ARE CONFUSE
I think it comes down to a mistaken perception created by kickstarters in the past. People look at the game, and think to themselves 'Huh. That game must require at least £150,000 to break even by using HIPS. And many other projects using HIPS have gotten considerably more money. This must mean that the Kickstarter was a failure'.
Logically, such a viewpoint does hold together, but only if you work with the assumption that 1) the Kickstarter was deliberately crafted in such a way as to make maximum money at any cost, 2) that the Kickstarter funds are the only funds that the project has to rely upon, and 3) that the larger sums are the norm against which all other projects must be measured instead of outliers.
In the case of MEdge however, the creators have stated very clearly that they were not prepared to maximise KS revenue at the sake of added complication (namely, add-ons). The project was also funded by the creators prior to the launch (implying that the creators have the funds to treat this more as a pre-order/marketing/partial recouping of initial investment costs), as opposed to needing the money in order to create the product. When you throw in the realisation that the studio is aiming at a slow, steady, and reliable set of releases aimed towards a standard retail product as opposed to a one-shot/one-product Kickstarter, it becomes apparent that you can't quite judge the success of MEdge by the above criteria.
On a personal note, I believe that what it ultimately comes down to is the liquidity of the studio. The product is high quality (technically speaking), and SAS has a solid retail plan and bases in the US/UK for distribution. Assuming that the funds are available to pump cash in for another two years or so of operations and steady releases in HIPS, I would not be surprised (and think it likely) to see MEdge become one of the staples of the wargaming world alongside GW/Warmachine.
theFNGuy wrote: I had planned on backing this, but held out to see the Angel. As the signature model, I was hoping it was going to be amazing, as I like the Karist humanoids, but the tiny angels were, well, disappointing.
On the whole, I think ME did two things great, humanoids and robots. But I think the monsters failed.
Anyway, hope to see more factions soon so hopefully I can find one that suits my tastes as the game rules and model quality really have me interested.
This makes me think of another reason for limited backing to this Kickstarter: what's the urgency?
We were basically told the game is getting made anyway, and the value, while good, wasn't amazing, particualry with the lack of free shipping.
How many gamers looked at the sweet spot pledge, thought about it, and decided to wait and buy the box for 10-20% off from Miniature Market. Admittedly with less goodies, but for cheaper with less lag time between payment and delivery?
Kilkrazy wrote: How many Kickstarters have been done containing four factions?
Fallen Frontiers had 4 (got $110k)
Wrath of Kings had 5 (got $720k)
Relic Knights had 6 (got $910k)
Deadzone started at 4 and finished with 6 (got $1.210k)
These are all the proper wargame KS that I backed. And apart from the first one, I bought all the models for all the factions.
I think the Heavy Gear KS did okay with 2 factions and 2 semi-factions?
Kilkrazy wrote: How many Kickstarters have been done containing four factions?
Relic Knights had six(Cerci, Doctrine, Black Diamond, Noh, Shattered Sword, and the Space Pirates) plus two supplemental factions(avoid and Prismatic).
Kilkrazy wrote: How many models and novels per faction did they have?
I can't give you a concrete number on models, other than 'Enough'.
As for novels... Games Workshop, Privateer Press, and SAS are the only wargames I know of that have released Novels.
Maybe Mantic has too? Or was that just short stories?
Relic knights had a comic(not much to brag about), and it's rulebook was close to half filled with a story, and fluff details.
As for models, are we counting unique poses?
Overall per faction you have 9-17 in the base pledge, with addons 17-24ish models.
Unique sculpts are around 5ish at the minimum in the base pledge, and 9ish at the minimum with addons.
Also, this is all based on the assumption that novels per faction actually means anything. I'm sure it varies from person to person though.
I should add mercs last saga and warzone resurection on the 4+ category.
Novels per side, not much, but its largely a non issue for most, a game must first grab you to want to read more about it, otherwise we talk about a really successful and established novels line becoming a wargame.
Edit warzone not FF it has already been mentioned.
lord_blackfang wrote: The Wrath of Kings rulebook is essentially a compilation of short stories with some army lists in between, and it's a fantastic read.
The Relic Knights rulebook fluff... reads like a 12-year old's fanfic in both prose and grammar.
Come to think about it, I'm quite sure the lack of factions DID hurt this kickstarter. More factions appeal to more people - bigger chance to find something you like. That's the trivial part. However, assuming I get 4+ factions with my pledge, I can recoup some of my costs by selling one or two factions to a friend, maintaining some degree of flexibility for me while reducing my investment. Matter of fact, as I am not really sold on the two existing factions so far, I have the strong feeling I might select another faction as my primary army later on, if ME stays afloat.
Kosake wrote: Come to think about it, I'm quite sure the lack of factions DID hurt this kickstarter. More factions appeal to more people - bigger chance to find something you like. That's the trivial part. However, assuming I get 4+ factions with my pledge, I can recoup some of my costs by selling one or two factions to a friend, maintaining some degree of flexibility for me while reducing my investment.
You've got that backwards. Having twice as many factions means getting half as much for each of them - certainly half as many sprues tooled and generally half as many models. If you want to sell off half your models to a friend, you can already do that without making it a necessity by only letting any one player only use 1/4 of the models in the box.
If you want to run a 4+ faction Kickstarter, bundle each one and the rules as a separate module, and then make the starter pack the rules module and any two faction modules. Otherwise you're doubling the chance that people will find something they don't like that you're still expecting them to pay for.
AlexHolker wrote: If you want to run a 4+ faction Kickstarter, bundle each one and the rules as a separate module, and then make the starter pack the rules module and any two faction modules. Otherwise you're doubling the chance that people will find something they don't like that you're still expecting them to pay for.
Yup, this is the way to do it, and I think all the KS I listed did it that way.
On top of having just two factions, maybe it was a mistake for ME to so clearly point out that other factions will be coming (18+ months) later.
This sort of thing makes me think that I'm better off waiting until I see the complete lineup. I might like one of the later factions better. Sure, it's a long wait, but there will be other games in between to keep me occupied. Everyone with 5 minutes to spare and some CAD skills is making 28mm skirmish games these days.
I have to join the choir and add that the models are the reason I did not join this kickstarter. While some of them are nice, like the Karist and some of the drones. There is nothing that grabs me and tells me to buy them instead of another Warzone force. There was no unique sellling point. And while the setting and fluff is important to me, it has to work together with exciting models. The models have to tell the story as well, and so far the ME minis do not really do that for me.
I like the minnows (am I the only one?) though. They are kind of cute, might grab a few.
jorny wrote: I have to join the choir and add that the models are the reason I did not join this kickstarter. While some of them are nice, like the Karist and some of the drones. There is nothing that grabs me and tells me to buy them instead of another Warzone force. There was no unique sellling point. And while the setting and fluff is important to me, it has to work together with exciting models. The models have to tell the story as well, and so far the ME minis do not really do that for me.
I like the minnows (am I the only one?) though. They are kind of cute, might grab a few.
I know more factions might be a while off, but I hope we get some interesting ones coming along. For me a diversity of factions is a major aspect to any wargame.
Da Boss wrote: I know more factions might be a while off, but I hope we get some interesting ones coming along. For me a diversity of factions is a major aspect to any wargame.
Same here, hopefully at least one of them won't be Humans + Something Else. I'm always a big fan of interesting non-humanoid aliens.
Really fascinating posts on the first page of this thread.
As a backer all I can say is that from my perspective it was a great Kickstarter, it was just a bit frustrating reading through the News and Rumours thread here when looking for new information because time and again it was the same small number of people repeating the same criticisms ad nauseum. Having to trawl through the same old, "But I don't like it, so I'm going to repost my dislikes over and over and over again" to get to the latest news became a bit of a downer and frankly stopped me posting in the thread at all.
Kimchi Gamer wrote: I'm admittedly not as up on my Kickstarter-Fu as I would like to be, but why are so many people calling this Kickstarter a failure? Did it not get 40k more than the minimum needed to fund the project? Even $1 more than the minimum would be a success, right? If they put the minimum at 20k but really needed 100k to get the project off the ground than why put such a low minimum? I ARE CONFUSE
As has been previously noted, I think this is in large part to the "ballpark" numbers people have thrown together to determine estimated costs to produce the items that were released in the MEdgeKS. Simply put, the amount they brought in probably isn't enough to recoup the costs to create the product in the first place.
To SAS's credit, they seem to be all in for the long game, but I have to admit that I'm not convinced they're going to have as much luck at retail as they think they will. Why do I say that?
Wild West Exodus.
Wild West Exodus KS #1 had just over 1000 backers (~200 more than ME), made ~$330,000 (~5 times more than ME), and almost certainly had a better retail and distribution plan in place due to the affiliation with BattleFoam. Additionally, and this is purely subjective, they had better miniatures in both very high quality resin and very high quality HIPS. They also had fiction.
Their second KS had 400 fewer backers and "only" made $180k. Anecdotally, it had a nice reception at our local stores, but eventually died in lieu of all of the usual suspects (PP, GW, and Infinity). Getting a new game to catch on en mass is not nearly as guaranteed as some people here seem to think, especially when your initial support base is only 800ish people worldwide.
I've stated it before, but I'm really surprised how little the campaign seemed to make use of the breadth of information and analysis here on dakka regarding 'what makes a KS successful."
That doesn't mean the KS wasn't "successful," but its not a stretch to say that it could have been more successful if the campaign had been run differently.
Kimchi Gamer wrote: I'm admittedly not as up on my Kickstarter-Fu as I would like to be, but why are so many people calling this Kickstarter a failure? Did it not get 40k more than the minimum needed to fund the project? Even $1 more than the minimum would be a success, right? If they put the minimum at 20k but really needed 100k to get the project off the ground than why put such a low minimum? I ARE CONFUSE
As has been previously noted, I think this is in large part to the "ballpark" numbers people have thrown together to determine estimated costs to produce the items that were released in the MEdgeKS. Simply put, the amount they brought in probably isn't enough to recoup the costs to create the product in the first place.
To SAS's credit, they seem to be all in for the long game, but I have to admit that I'm not convinced they're going to have as much luck at retail as they think they will. Why do I say that?
Wild West Exodus.
Wild West Exodus KS #1 had just over 1000 backers (~200 more than ME), made ~$330,000 (~5 times more than ME), and almost certainly had a better retail and distribution plan in place due to the affiliation with BattleFoam. Additionally, and this is purely subjective, they had better miniatures in both very high quality resin and very high quality HIPS. They also had fiction.
Their second KS had 400 fewer backers and "only" made $180k. Anecdotally, it had a nice reception at our local stores, but eventually died in lieu of all of the usual suspects (PP, GW, and Infinity). Getting a new game to catch on en mass is not nearly as guaranteed as some people here seem to think, especially when your initial support base is only 800ish people worldwide.
I've stated it before, but I'm really surprised how little the campaign seemed to make use of the breadth of information and analysis here on dakka regarding 'what makes a KS successful."
That doesn't mean the KS wasn't "successful," but its not a stretch to say that it could have been more successful if the campaign had been run differently.
Valid points, but maybe WWE failed because the whole steampunk wild west genre, doesn't inspire anymore. God knows we've had a few games like that over the years, Deadlands being a prime example. Ok, my view is just speculation, but I think ME will survive because it fills a niche, and because the loyalty of the backers will sustain it.
I also think the rules will keep it going, because some of the influences included epic 40k, and that was a damn good game.
Valid points, but maybe WWE failed because the whole steampunk wild west genre, doesn't inspire anymore. God knows we've had a few games like that over the years, Deadlands being a prime example. Ok, my view is just speculation, but I think ME will survive because it fills a niche, and because the loyalty of the backers will sustain it.
I guess I'm curious what you think that niche is? Disaffected 40k players?
I also think the rules will keep it going, because some of the influences included epic 40k, and that was a damn good game.
I agree. I think this is one of the strongest aspects. I don't, personally, find the suppression counters to be fiddly at all.
Don't forget WWE is also much more expensive than ME, so not necessarily the best comparison (cost was always the issue that put me off that game, no matter how nice the models were).
Valid points, but maybe WWE failed because the whole steampunk wild west genre, doesn't inspire anymore. God knows we've had a few games like that over the years, Deadlands being a prime example. Ok, my view is just speculation, but I think ME will survive because it fills a niche, and because the loyalty of the backers will sustain it.
I guess I'm curious what you think that niche is? Disaffected 40k players?
I also think the rules will keep it going, because some of the influences included epic 40k, and that was a damn good game.
I agree. I think this is one of the strongest aspects. I don't, personally, find the suppression counters to be fiddly at all.
I wouldn't say disaffected 40k players, but players looking for a more 'modern' game system. I was impressed with what Yakface was saying about the style they wanted - small unit tactics, vicious close range firefights etc etc which IMO accurately reflects the nature of real-life combat.
Also, their engagement with the community, and their willingness to accept feedback, will stand them in good stead.
I wouldn't say disaffected 40k players, but players looking for a more 'modern' game system. I was impressed with what Yakface was saying about the style they wanted - small unit tactics, vicious close range firefights etc etc which IMO accurately reflects the nature of real-life combat.
The talk of "modern" here is very curious to me.
It's a rules system based on a 15-20 year old rules system (Epic 40k) with an aesthetic that (as Buzzsaw showed) is being moved away from by much of the industry...
In regards to the pricing as compared to WWX, I think that's a fair thing when looking at the game at retail costs.
But in the KS, $115 (with free shipping) got you:
22 HIPS infantry
8 Resin "hero" models
1 Hardback Rulebook
4 Exclusive Resin Models
6 Resin terrain pieces
1 acrylic template set
7 HIPS base inserts
$40 of extra "stuff"
The more I look at it, the more I see WWX as a very good comparison to ME.
I thought the niche was supposed to be a mid-size skirmish scifi game. In that way, it attracts ex-40k players who quit 40k due to game glut, but at the same time it draws in all sorts of customers who may enjoy the "20-30 miniatures per side" subset that MEdge would cater to. It doesn't seem to be just about catching the disillusioned with 40k, but perhaps hitting that niche that 40kused to hit.
I feel that I'm in a good category for this game size, which probably helped attract me to the game in the first place. For me personally, 40k has become to large and convoluted. On the opposite end of the scale, infinity has amazing models but the game itself seems (from the outside) very complicated and perhaps not as visually impressive. 40k feels impressive for the most part, but I think the same effect of visual enjoyment can be achieved with many less models.
Anyway, just my take on it.
EDIT: it would seem MEdge might be going up against the likes of Warzone and Gates of Antares. In that regard, I think the quality and range of miniatures will be very important to the success of the game.
Accolade wrote: I thought the niche was supposed to be a mid-size skirmish scifi game. In that way, it attracts ex-40k players who quit 40k due to game glut, but at the same time it draws in all sorts of customers who may enjoy the "20-30 miniatures per side" subset that MEdge would cater to. It doesn't seem to be just about catching the disillusioned with 40k, but perhaps hitting that niche that 40kused to hit.
I feel that I'm in a good category for this game size, which probably helped attract me to the game in the first place. For me personally, 40k has become to large and convoluted. On the opposite end of the scale, infinity has amazing models but the game itself seems (from the outside) very complicated and perhaps not as visually impressive. 40k feels impressive for the most part, but I think the same effect of visual enjoyment can be achieved with many less models.
Anyway, just my take on it.
EDIT: it would seem MEdge might be going up against the likes of Warzone and Gates of Antares. In that regard, I think the quality and range of miniatures will be very important to the success of the game.
The quality of the minis is no big deal to me. I'm over 6 feet tall, my eyesight's not good, so looking down at small models on the table means I'm not going to be noticing a lot of detail!
I know what you're saying. For me, it's all about the rules.
Kimchi Gamer wrote: I'm admittedly not as up on my Kickstarter-Fu as I would like to be, but why are so many people calling this Kickstarter a failure? Did it not get 40k more than the minimum needed to fund the project? Even $1 more than the minimum would be a success, right? If they put the minimum at 20k but really needed 100k to get the project off the ground than why put such a low minimum? I ARE CONFUSE
As has been previously noted, I think this is in large part to the "ballpark" numbers people have thrown together to determine estimated costs to produce the items that were released in the MEdgeKS. Simply put, the amount they brought in probably isn't enough to recoup the costs to create the product in the first place.
To SAS's credit, they seem to be all in for the long game, but I have to admit that I'm not convinced they're going to have as much luck at retail as they think they will. Why do I say that?
Wild West Exodus.
Wild West Exodus KS #1 had just over 1000 backers (~200 more than ME), made ~$330,000 (~5 times more than ME), and almost certainly had a better retail and distribution plan in place due to the affiliation with BattleFoam. Additionally, and this is purely subjective, they had better miniatures in both very high quality resin and very high quality HIPS. They also had fiction.
Their second KS had 400 fewer backers and "only" made $180k. Anecdotally, it had a nice reception at our local stores, but eventually died in lieu of all of the usual suspects (PP, GW, and Infinity). Getting a new game to catch on en mass is not nearly as guaranteed as some people here seem to think, especially when your initial support base is only 800ish people worldwide.
I've stated it before, but I'm really surprised how little the campaign seemed to make use of the breadth of information and analysis here on dakka regarding 'what makes a KS successful."
That doesn't mean the KS wasn't "successful," but its not a stretch to say that it could have been more successful if the campaign had been run differently.
Valid points, but maybe WWE failed because the whole steampunk wild west genre, doesn't inspire anymore. God knows we've had a few games like that over the years, Deadlands being a prime example. Ok, my view is just speculation, but I think ME will survive because it fills a niche, and because the loyalty of the backers will sustain it.
I also think the rules will keep it going, because some of the influences included epic 40k, and that was a damn good game.
Part of the lower numbers on the 2nd kickstarter was that if you already played one of the 6 factions, there wasn't a reward level that was a good deal for you. There were a few add ons, but at $15 shipping, you'd be about as well off waiting for release.
I'd also point out that due to WWX's distribution policy, they are only in a few stores. They're mostly direct only - I understand that get's them a bigger % of each sale, but why tool for HIPS if you want to be a boutique direct only game? They could likely grow the game more if they actually sold it through the usual online discounters. I'd get more of their stuff if I could throw in the occasional new release with my monthly orders from the warstore or something.
Kilkrazy wrote: Is the second Kickstarter of MMX relevant to MEdge?
Well, you asked for KS which had 4 factions, which opened the door to discussing other games.
Cincy indicated that the 2nd KS made less, and offered the theory that the game was failing as a reason why. I countered with the limited scope of the 2nd KS as one reason for its lower take. But also that the distribution (or lack thereof) has limited the game's growth. So ideally for you guys, MEDGE will get into the usual online shops to actually take advantage of its HIPS production advantages.
If that doesn't satisfy you, delete my comment I guess.
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: Valid points, but maybe WWE failed because the whole steampunk wild west genre, doesn't inspire anymore. God knows we've had a few games like that over the years, Deadlands being a prime example. .
I would suspect a combination of very niche setting, price and weird choice of scale that's not really compatible with anything else.
cincydooley wrote: It's a rules system based on a 15-20 year old rules system (Epic 40k) ...
So far as I'm aware (and admittedly I'm not overly familiar with Epic) the only similarity between the two is the suppression tokens. MEdge isn't 'based' on Epic at all.
Kilkrazy wrote: Is the second Kickstarter of MMX relevant to MEdge?
Well, you asked for KS which had 4 factions, which opened the door to discussing other games.
Cincy indicated that the 2nd KS made less, and offered the theory that the game was failing as a reason why. I countered with the limited scope of the 2nd KS as one reason for its lower take. But also that the distribution (or lack thereof) has limited the game's growth. So ideally for you guys, MEDGE will get into the usual online shops to actually take advantage of its HIPS production advantages.
If that doesn't satisfy you, delete my comment I guess.
So long as the examples given are used in a way that is relevant to the topic of the thread. I think the MMX second Kickstarter probably is getting outside that boundary, but I'm not going to make a big point of it.
So far as I'm aware (and admittedly I'm not overly familiar with Epic) the only similarity between the two is the suppression tokens. MEdge isn't 'based' on Epic at all.
As far as I am aware myself the rules, which I have read only once, are not the same as epic 40k rules, the suppression fire/ blast markers look the same.
I compared the minis to my staple cheap grunt, the old Defiance Games UAMC marines. I figured they'd have better details than those. After that, I can change the guns, I know I will be using my stash of Paulson guns on the hunters and scarecrows. The minis are a good starting point, and that's all I look for. But then again, I'm in a DINK couple, and my wife often does accounting or artwork until late in the night.
YouKnowsIt wrote: Really fascinating posts on the first page of this thread.
As a backer all I can say is that from my perspective it was a great Kickstarter, it was just a bit frustrating reading through the News and Rumours thread here when looking for new information because time and again it was the same small number of people repeating the same criticisms ad nauseum. Having to trawl through the same old, "But I don't like it, so I'm going to repost my dislikes over and over and over again" to get to the latest news became a bit of a downer and frankly stopped me posting in the thread at all.
People with different opinions than your own, annoying right
I thought i was helping by critiquing the flaws (perceived by me) in the designs, but after reading the responses, i stopped giving my opinions on it.
I hope that if they plan to do another kickstarter with other factions they learn from the huge amount of information on this kickstarter (and others).
To me, the main reason I didn't participate was being burned (or having near misses) by too many recent Kickstarters.
3 out of 3 of the last projects I've backed were/are significantly late, and 4 more that I was seriously considering backing are ranging from late to game-destroying failures (looking at DUST). Combine that with the number of games I play once a year, and the half-dozen kickstarters I've barely even unboxed... I just decided that if MEdge turns out any good, I'll get it at retail.
It didn't help that I found their take on near-future-scifi light infantry uninspiring.
Byte wrote: I'm completely lost... wasn't the project funded? Are we talking money grab or getting started? I don't get it...
The project was funded, but only made a small amount and had few backers compared to other skirmish kickstarters. It was just a very modest kickstarter, and a few contend that it could have made much, much more had SAS done a few things differently.
I should add, there are some fans who didn't want this to be a modest kickstarter, they wanted "their" website's new game to blow everything else out of the water and gain a higher profile. How it turned out was a bit disappointing to them.
I know I have three or four new people on my ignore list from seeing Maelstrom's Edge arguments, because I got sick of both sides of the arguments. Someone posts pictures of the plastic ("real" plastic, not restic) models they're going to start producing next month, you're about a year too late to provide constructive criticism of those models, and I didn't see anything that looked like productive requests or suggestions about what to do in the future.
Personally, I backed at the $90 level. Not higher, because I liked enough of the stuff in the box that I figured it was worth a shot, but I didn't like everything enough to want twice the boxes yet. And not higher than that because the models I already know I want more of (like the robots and the Angel) because of the no add ons policy. Robots, aliens, a card game, some audio novels, and a rulebook for $90. Worst case scenario, that's a wargaming convention swag bag.
The following is a mix of my own thoughts and what I have pieced together from discussions with others and observing comments both on dakka and other forums.
I was turned off instantly by the models. I know a good few others that were too. They were to me bland, uninteresting and dated also the contractors just looked too blocky i know this criticism was made by a few people and brushed off as being intentional but intentional or not I am not a fan of the end result, the Karists are better and while I kinda like them mostly I feel apathy about the,. Also the choice to do humans vs different humans was disappointing.
Threads on other websites were considerably more negative than dakka so I would question if the relatively small number of negative comments on dakka were the reason for the lower back rate from the dakka thread. Especially considering that other kickstarter threads on dakka have been considerably more critical. I personally felt thaT anything that wasn't positive towards SAS was unwelcome in that thread and I know I am not alone In that. At first it felt like open criticism would be welcome but that felt less and less true as time went on.
I spoke to people who were very turned off by the general dismissive attitude towards criticism in that thread and with people who said they didn't like the aesthetic of x or y that they were just plain wrong or that they would surely like them if they just understood that the choice was deliberate. One guy literally said and received support by saying that "anyone who had doubt about the models should just stop" because he had seen them in person and liked them.
The adds irritated people both here an on other forums and some felt that SAS were blowing their own trumpet a little too much.
The terrain sprue was generally well recived in all but cost peope feeling that the cost of the sprue and then a random box to put it on didnt give enough savings over the cheaper end of the mdf terrain market.
For me the rules and a terrain sprue or two are something I might buy in the future. If they come out with a faction with an aesthetic I like I may even be tempted to pick up some models but so far they have left me cold. The rules I would have loved to have known more about and seen a game video of before the kick starter was up but sadly that never materialized.
All those negative comments aside I do hope maelstroms edge does well and I hope they use the criticism here and elsewhere use it to inform future decisions with the product.
Trite as the conclusion may be, it is my frank evaluation that ME suffered most from having uninspiring miniatures. Without interesting and attention grabbing miniatures, everything else went for naught: all the well regarded authors and deep background can’t sell a product to someone that never looks past the first page of the campaign.
unfortunately this is exactly why i didn't back it. The rules sounded adequate and the background interesting. But the miniatures failed to evoke any feelings beyond 'hey they are a bit more detailed than a lego man, and really weirdly scaled compared to modern minis.'
I hope them the best of luck, and maybe i'll grab a rule book later, but i'm not buying any of those minis. the sprue layouts are underwhelming, and mini aesthetically unappealing.
Here is my honest review of the ME ks.
The miniatures where really REALLY uninspired. Generic all the way through.
The military faction looked like something from modern military and the other faction just looked like they where bored. Sculpting and detail wasnt a major problem. But look at this
Spoiler:
Compare to their Big gun guys
Spoiler:
The first spoiler shows how powerful those big gugs are. The Azra'il is leaning back to heft it and brace himself, like he has to fire it.
The Sternguard is hefting up this big gun and lining up a shot
The Temptests look like you stuck big guns on normal guys. They dont look threatening and imposing. They look bored and wimpy
The Karist angel on the other hand looks uninspired and kinda goofy.
Accolade wrote: I thought the niche was supposed to be a mid-size skirmish scifi game. In that way, it attracts ex-40k players who quit 40k due to game glut, but at the same time it draws in all sorts of customers who may enjoy the "20-30 miniatures per side" subset that MEdge would cater to. It doesn't seem to be just about catching the disillusioned with 40k, but perhaps hitting that niche that 40kused to hit.
I feel that I'm in a good category for this game size, which probably helped attract me to the game in the first place. For me personally, 40k has become to large and convoluted. On the opposite end of the scale, infinity has amazing models but the game itself seems (from the outside) very complicated and perhaps not as visually impressive. 40k feels impressive for the most part, but I think the same effect of visual enjoyment can be achieved with many less models.
Anyway, just my take on it.
EDIT: it would seem MEdge might be going up against the likes of Warzone and Gates of Antares. In that regard, I think the quality and range of miniatures will be very important to the success of the game.
Warzone has some of the best miniatures in the business, so that would be a tough nut to crack!
YouKnowsIt wrote: Really fascinating posts on the first page of this thread.
As a backer all I can say is that from my perspective it was a great Kickstarter, it was just a bit frustrating reading through the News and Rumours thread here when looking for new information because time and again it was the same small number of people repeating the same criticisms ad nauseum. Having to trawl through the same old, "But I don't like it, so I'm going to repost my dislikes over and over and over again" to get to the latest news became a bit of a downer and frankly stopped me posting in the thread at all.
People with different opinions than your own, annoying right
That's not my point at all - my issue wasn't with people posting critique of it, I've put some bits in my original post in bold to highlight it better. The issue was the same small handful of people repeatedly posting the exact same critiques over and over, without adding anything new to the conversation simply because they had to have the last word on the matter.
Imagine you are at a dinner party and you're talking about something like a movie, say Dredd for example:
Person A: "I found the one liners hokey, the setting repetitive, the lack of budget obvious and I didn't like the over-use of slow motion during firefights. I found the plot basic and unambitious."
Person B: "Really? I quite liked it myself, sure almost the entire movie was set in the same building but I thought aesthetically it looked great and was far more true to the source material than the Stallone version."
Person A: "I found the one liners hokey, the setting repetitive, the lack of budget obvious and I didn't like the over-use of slow motion during firefights. I found the plot basic and unambitious."
Person B: "O-k...."
If someone is constantly posting the same criticism repeatedly, without adding anything new to their comments, they are simply shouting others down, regardless of whether they have their caps lock key on or not. That's not a discussion.
lord_blackfang wrote: Oh my god. Those big gun guys. I don't think anyone in SAS even tried to put their arms in that position (let alone carry something heavy like that).
Damn. Now that you've pointed it out... I can't unsee it. The bent wrists. D:
Yeah, that point has been coming up since their reveal. Not saying it's incorrect, just saying it's one of the most-cited beefs people have with the models rifht with "I don't like the contractors."
That's not my point at all - my issue wasn't with people posting critique of it, I've put some bits in my original post in bold to highlight it better. The issue was the same small handful of people repeatedly posting the exact same critiques over and over, without adding anything new to the conversation simply because they had to have the last word on the matter.
Imagine you are at a dinner party and you're talking about something like a movie, say Dredd for example:
Person A: "I found the one liners hokey, the setting repetitive, the lack of budget obvious and I didn't like the over-use of slow motion during firefights. I found the plot basic and unambitious."
Person B: "Really? I quite liked it myself, sure almost the entire movie was set in the same building but I thought aesthetically it looked great and was far more true to the source material than the Stallone version."
Person A: "I found the one liners hokey, the setting repetitive, the lack of budget obvious and I didn't like the over-use of slow motion during firefights. I found the plot basic and unambitious."
Person B: "O-k...."
If someone is constantly posting the same criticism repeatedly, without adding anything new to their comments, they are simply shouting others down, regardless of whether they have their caps lock key on or not. That's not a discussion.
Have an exalt, sir. You summed up my feelings perfectly.
Yup, hence, that is the point, after 2-3 pages of that kind of thing being every 2nd post from the same poster, I would call rule#3, cause in my books, that's spam.
MajorTom11 wrote: Yup, hence, that is the point, after 2-3 pages of that kind of thing being every 2nd post from the same poster, I would call rule#3, cause in my books, that's spam.
To be fair, said poster was continually having to respond to people telling him he was wrong.
That's honestly why I didn't post in that thread much after my initial reactions. No need to yuck someone else's yum just for the sake of being argumentative (yes, shocking coming from me, I know )
MajorTom11 wrote: Yup, hence, that is the point, after 2-3 pages of that kind of thing being every 2nd post from the same poster, I would call rule#3, cause in my books, that's spam.
To be fair, said poster was continually having to respond to people telling him he was wrong.
That's honestly why I didn't post in that thread much after my initial reactions. No need to yuck someone else's yum just for the sake of being argumentative (yes, shocking coming from me, I know )
I think I am in the extreme minority, but I quite like the aesthetic of the MEdge models and pledged because I liked the contractors.
I also didn't post in the multiple MEdge threads due to the constant harping.
Out of the whole KS I think the thing that was weirdest to me was the amount of non-game material included and discussed. I wanted to contribute to a new miniature game line...why did I get a card game, novels, and audio books? It felt to me like my money towards the miniature game was going to be pushed towards other mediums and I didn't like that. I was going to increase my pledge amount beyond 90, but the amount of "other" stuff held me back. I have no problem buying those things on their own if I wanted them and liked the universe...but I didn't care for their inclusion in the miniature games kickstarter.
I'm not going to pretend like I read all the pages in this thread and well-composed analyses and critiques, but I'm just going to give my perspective for the leaders reading this, just to add to the overall feedback. When it was first announced I was so ready to back it, knowing that as Dakka's owners you just had to be in touch with what the hobbyists actually want!
I didn't feel like the models were very good. When shown next to GW's models I thought "I'm never going to be able to give these a decent paintjob," due to their scale. I also felt the models had little potential for dynamic posing - particularly the angel. I just imagined several of them on the battlefield all looking the exact same unless significant alteration work was done to them.
Humanoids are also played out. A bunch of bipedal armored models on the tabletop doesn't offer anything interesting, I already have boxes of armored humanoids from half a dozen manufacturers. Don't need to buy even more! There just wasn't much incentive for me to purchase generic looking designs that only just pulled generic off.
I did like the art a lot though. Obviously that's not what matters to you guys, but just wanted to say that.
I'd also point out that due to WWX's distribution policy, they are only in a few stores. They're mostly direct only - I understand that get's them a bigger % of each sale, but why tool for HIPS if you want to be a boutique direct only game? They could likely grow the game more if they actually sold it through the usual online discounters. I'd get more of their stuff if I could throw in the occasional new release with my monthly orders from the warstore or something.
This brings up an interesting question - in terms of the 2-year VIP SAS membership = discount on orders and access to pre-release new stock vs. the stated aim to be retail-focused. Since a dollar value was attached to the VIP membership in the KS, the reasonable assumption is that VIPs are planned to be "sold" via the website as well. So is the focus direct sales or retail? (I know the stock answer is "both" but we all know how Mantic's stuff sells at retail....
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Trasvi wrote: To me, the main reason I didn't participate was being burned (or having near misses) by too many recent Kickstarters.
3 out of 3 of the last projects I've backed were/are significantly late, and 4 more that I was seriously considering backing are ranging from late to game-destroying failures (looking at DUST).
The former is the thing about this project that concerned me the least (admittedly though, a good talk can still turn out badly - like Creature Caster). The latter is a double-edged sword. I don't personally care much if a game "dies" since I can still use all my stuff with my group (but we're happy to play older games on occasion) but the fact that this game is nascent and only has (the start of) two factions currently does increase the risk there, especially when one feels as you do about the figures..
Like others, the aesthetic/lack of diversity almost instantly turned me off, despite a great deal of initial excitement and a desire to support the "Dakka Game." What kept me around for a while, however, was the sense that this game was targeting "disaffected 40k players" as someone so eloquently put it, and since I'm in that category my interest coasted along for a fair bit. I got the distinct impression that the game was deliberately generic-looking, so that players could use their other models and/or collections with the MEdge ruleset - in other words, a better, tighter, smaller-scale version of 40k with deeper mechanics and unique factional gameplay.
That's why I was so shocked to find out that no rules were being released (initially anyway) and no new factions would appear during the KS period. So, without a strong model aesthetic or an enticing/diverse set of rules right out of the gate, there wasn't much left for me to be interested in.
Ultimately, this was a project that I wanted to support, but ended up having such a limited scope that I found myself "out-of-the-loop" so to speak, with neither the models nor the mechanics initially available to keep me around.
My experience mirrored yours in many ways. Though I felt a bit more strongly about a number of the models. At the same time however, I've got no problem with "heroic scale", I like it and will happily buy well-sculpted, aesthetically pleasing models with those proportions - I'm quite happy with Cadians, thankyouverymuch! - but also take issue with Lego's posit that "true scale" is somehow flawed for gaming.
Xca|iber wrote: Like others, the aesthetic/lack of diversity almost instantly turned me off, despite a great deal of initial excitement and a desire to support the "Dakka Game." What kept me around for a while, however, was the sense that this game was targeting "disaffected 40k players" as someone so eloquently put it, and since I'm in that category my interest coasted along for a fair bit. I got the distinct impression that the game was deliberately generic-looking, so that players could use their other models and/or collections with the MEdge ruleset - in other words, a better, tighter, smaller-scale version of 40k with deeper mechanics and unique factional gameplay.
I got that vibe too. It would be interesting to hear if that was intentional.
Like many others, the aesthetic was the major issue for me. I was all set to jump in on a kickstarter for "Dakka's game," until the pictures started coming out. I compared the pictures to the Infinity figures on my desk, and there was simply no competition. Was that an unfair comparison? Maybe, but the fact is that if you're planning to launch a world-beating sci-fi game, you have to be ready.
Also, the banner ads. Those damn ads were infuriating.
The minis are not for me - neither faction is appealing. That being said, I don't feel disappointed - it's just another wargame I'm not interested in, which works out great, since I don't have time for another.
The terrain sprues seem really fantastic - kind of a mix between the industrial sensibilities of 40k and modular sensibilities of Infinity.
i didn't back it because I have no intention of starting another wargame -modelling and painting my single 40k army takes up all the time I have for the hobby.
To analyze:
+I like the poses of the Maelstrom's Edge minis
+the disparities between the 2 human factions tech vs bio
+the overall feel of the game and it's rules.
-I felt the sculpts were let down by lack of variants of parts. I'm used to building space marines with about 10 distinctly different heads and torso's.
-On a very related note, I felt the sculpts suffered from lack of detail. I would have welcomed a level of detail less cluttered than GW minis, but not quite as unadorned and clean cut as the ones we got.
Guildsman wrote: Like many others, the aesthetic was the major issue for me. I was all set to jump in on a kickstarter for "Dakka's game," until the pictures started coming out. I compared the pictures to the Infinity figures on my desk, and there was simply no competition. Was that an unfair comparison? Maybe, but the fact is that if you're planning to launch a world-beating sci-fi game, you have to be ready.
Also, the banner ads. Those damn ads were infuriating.
While I don't think you should expect the same quality of models from a small model skirmish game with models that are £7.50 each to a larger model number game with hard plastic multi pose stuff they are still competing for your money and if you like what is already on the market new than the kick starter offering it makes little sense to back. That's why the Medge thread with people saying but look at how the early edition 40k models were, the future models will improve made no sense. It was obviously a bad comparison because firstly models have gone a long way since first and second edition 40k and too they are asking money for money for the models featured not hypothetical future models. If you bring out new sci fi models you are competing against others in the same space and for me at least there is so much great sci fi human troopers out there already that even the few Medge models I did like didn't compare to stuff I like from other companies.
I think it's more that Medge lacks a hook (or, at least, one that I get). Warhammer 40k has a specific hook, and that's "In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, There Is Only War!" And whatever you can say it certainly delivers on the grimness, the darkness, and the grim darkness. It's a heavy metal video, and that's what made Road Warrior: Fury Road awesome, and still makes 40k awesome.
Infinity has a hook, and that's futuristic anime. Battletech has a hook and it's the "Kings of the Battlefield" giant robots. Heavy Gear, aka 'Canadian Battletech' doesn't try to be a better Battletech as its hook, it goes for VOTOMs rather than Robotech, with 'real robots' in the sense of finding a niche for big robots rather than bending the universe around them.
carlos13th wrote: While I don't think you should expect the same quality of models from a small model skirmish game with models that are £7.50 each to a larger model number game with hard plastic multi pose stuff...
I think you should be able to get similar levels of sculpting in mass produced units as you get for special characters. The cost of the sculpts may be more in the immediate term, but the payback in value you can charge and volume you are likely to sell should help offset that.
Personally I looked at the models of this game and was not interested; they did not appeal to me at all. Static, chunky poses and detailing. To be honest after that I didn't look at the rules or background.
Maybe it would be easier to get GW to reduce the price of their character models from £15 to £1, which is about what a MEdge model costs. Then you could use the GW models instead of the MEdge ones.
I don't think the problem is the cost so much as the value. Right now I don't think the value I would get out of the £1 model would be worth the cost. I already know that I'm getting good value out of the £15 model. Without any rules available there's no way of knowing if I've under-valued the Medge model though.
Yeah, if Mantic's kickstarter's have taught us anything, it's that cheap minis are not, in and of themselves, all that great.
I think as more and more voices share their thoughts, Buzzsaw's comment about the dog not liking the dog food are accurate: a lot of people just didn't care for the product.
But that's also just for a kickstarter. I'll change my tune if I walk into an FLGS and there's now a MEdge night with 12 guys playing.
Yeah, I heard about that, but that would have required me to support the Medge kickstarter, and without rules available there was no way of knowing, beyond the models and promises made, whether it would be worth the dollar. Although now that I've read that post, the mention of China makes me glad I still have my dollar.
Kilkrazy wrote: Maybe it would be easier to get GW to reduce the price of their character models from £15 to £1, which is about what a MEdge model costs. Then you could use the GW models instead of the MEdge ones.
I am not sure what you are getting at here. Considering how many people have already stated they would rather buy GW minis at GW prices than MEdge minis at MEdge prices, how does yearning for cheaper GW minis help MEdge out?
That doesn't seem like it would help Medge's retail release at all.
I'm pledged, but I have no time to beta test. Would I be allowed to transfer my pledge privilege to someone who didn't pledge, but would be interested in participating in the test?
Kilkrazy wrote: What I am getting at is that it frankly is ridiculous to expect a £1 model to have the same amount of details and parts as a £15 model.
Sure, but that's not overly relevant to the critiques.
It's not that people feel the models are under detailed, or at least most aren't. They don't like them.
There is no fairer comment to make about a product than "I don't like it."
And compared to, say, Warlord's multipart plastic historicals, particularly the later kits, which are well under a pound a mini, MEdge stuff is not notably better.
Kilkrazy wrote: What I am getting at is that it frankly is ridiculous to expect a £1 model to have the same amount of details and parts as a £15 model.
The most important thing in HIPS manufacturing is volume. Rank-and-file should be cheaper even if the quality is the same because the higher quantities wanted means they will pay off their development and tooling costs faster than one-offs.
And that's the problem with a lack of add-ons. Even if you don't want to throw the gates open for people to buy whatever they want and create a headache for your packers, there should have at least been a few bundles available that were more relevant than just "another one of everything" so you could get some sales volume going for people who don't want more of literally everything in your entire product like. Stick a Hunter, a Scarecrow, a sprue of drones and a Drone Handler in a box and call it an "Epirian Drone Expansion Pack" and you give people who like the drones an excuse to give you more money, even if they don't want more Angels, Karists or rulebooks.
Guildsman wrote: Like many others, the aesthetic was the major issue for me. I was all set to jump in on a kickstarter for "Dakka's game," until the pictures started coming out.
Also, the banner ads. Those damn ads were infuriating.
My curiosity about the setting and the game were there but the models just seemed bland.
And OMG the banner ads being everywhere were a huge turn off. I dont think Ive ever been so happy to see a KS end as this one just to make the ads go away.
Kilkrazy wrote: What I am getting at is that it frankly is ridiculous to expect a £1 model to have the same amount of details and parts as a £15 model.
Which is additionally compounded in that more expensive model simply not being worth that particular price but instead comparable to something else at a fraction much closer to the one quid.
Which, yet again, is only a 'problem' if a bigger final dollar value is the primary goal.
The MEdge kickstarter was specifically for the starter set. Selling a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't the starter set might have increased the final dollar value, but wouldn't necessarily have made it a more successful project overall, since it would potentially have diluted sales of the actual product that they were trying to launch.
A model is worth what a person will pay for it. Each person decides the utility of the model for themself, based on how much they will enjoy using it, whether that's as a box in the closet, being built and painted, used as a game piece, whatever.
The only use I have for MEdge models is to, well, play MEdge. I don't see that happening for me right now, and I"m sure not going to predict months into the future. Once the rules are final and I can decide if there is value in the game as a game, I'll reappraise.
Kilkrazy wrote: What I am getting at is that it frankly is ridiculous to expect a £1 model to have the same amount of details and parts as a £15 model.
I don't think many people have said that, but rather the $1.6 minis are not worth $1.6 to them. And very few of the complaints center on the details compared to the design or aesthetic.
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AlexHolker wrote: Stick a Hunter, a Scarecrow, a sprue of drones and a Drone Handler in a box and call it an "Epirian Drone Expansion Pack" and you give people who like the drones an excuse to give you more money,
Please do that. Couldn't hurt to have one for the angels and minnows, either.
Which, yet again, is only a 'problem' if a bigger final dollar value is the primary goal.
The MEdge kickstarter was specifically for the starter set. Selling a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't the starter set might have increased the final dollar value, but wouldn't necessarily have made it a more successful project overall, since it would potentially have diluted sales of the actual product that they were trying to launch.
It seems like the low dollar value has created the appearance of ...underperformance... for the product. Isn't there a risk that the perception of failure (wrong though it undoubtedly is) will "potentially have diluted sales of the actual product they were trying to launch"? Look at how backers' perceptions have affected retail sales for games like RRT, Sedition Wars, Through the Breach.
If you are using kickstarter as a way to promote your product and generate buzz, shouldn't you aim for something more positive than "It's okay that it whiffed. I didn't need your money"?
Well I think any perception would be quickly eroded if the product shipped on time. When you combine an underwhelming kickstarter with delays, thats a bigger problem.
The game has a built in word of mouth marketing venue. If the rules are tight and the models ship on time, the bandwagon might fill up.
AlexHolker wrote: Stick a Hunter, a Scarecrow, a sprue of drones and a Drone Handler in a box and call it an "Epirian Drone Expansion Pack" and you give people who like the drones an excuse to give you more money,
Please do that. Couldn't hurt to have one for the angels and minnows, either.
I'm certainly looking forward to the ability to buy individual units in the future - I would love to run a drone swarm
Ah, who am I kidding - I already have 2 box sets coming, with 1 set of Karists being traded for more Epirians, so I'll be running a swarm already . But maybe not quite swarmy enough! Looking forward to checking out the rules - for those who have already checked them out, are there point values listed for units? I also couldn't tell from that update text if the beta rules were sent to everyone or just those who signed up to beta test (it sounded like the latter, so just checking).
If you are using kickstarter as a way to promote your product and generate buzz, shouldn't you aim for something more positive than "It's okay that it whiffed. I didn't need your money"?
That's your take on it, not theirs.
The perception that the kickstarter 'failed' because other kickstarters made more money, or because it didn't offer the specific product that certain people wanted, is not grounded in actual reality. The reality is that the kickstarter exceeded 300% of its funding goal.
Watching the mess that Robotech Wave 2 is, I feel pretty confident about MEdge's approach to KS (of course not all KS have these issues even when offering a lot of add-ons, but I feel MEdge is aiming for the long game).
Honestly I liked the models associated with the Ephian (I think that's how it's spelled?) faction, the infantry were okay, but the drones and mechs were fantastic.
But I didn't back it for two reasons:
1. I figured it'd be too difficult to find someone to play it with.
Kilkrazy wrote: What I am getting at is that it frankly is ridiculous to expect a £1 model to have the same amount of details and parts as a £15 model.
I don't mean to run down SAS and the ME models unduly, but this is simply not a credible statement: as I pointed out in a prior post, even at the discounted Kickstarter rate ME models are only about equal in price to currently available Dreamforge Games plastic troopers.
You may wish to believe that ME models are technically superior to other models at that price point, but I simply see no way that assesement can be credible. I'm not talking about aesthetics here: if all I want is wads of high-quality plastic sci-fi troopers in 28mm scale, I don't need to go to GW, I go to DFG. Same price, better product.
This is emblematic of one of the problems that ME had: everything seems to be in the context of GW, as if the field of models, modeling and table top gaming begins and ends with GW.
Again, I'm not talking about aesthetics. This is the sprue shown that makes the only heavy infantry in the ME box (the Karist Tempests);
Spoiler:
This is a sprue for Dreamforge Games' Valkir Heavy Support infantry (available right now at $18 per 5 man box)
Spoiler:
It's entirely reasonable to say that DFG doesn't tickle your fancy: it is not reasonable to imagine that ME's figures are substantially better then other, competing, table top miniatures.
nobody wrote:Honestly I liked the models associated with the Ephian (I think that's how it's spelled?) faction, the infantry were okay, but the drones and mechs were fantastic.
But I didn't back it for two reasons:
1. I figured it'd be too difficult to find someone to play it with.
2. I generally don't do kickstarters.
I don't normally do them either, but I backed this one. Partly because I liked the look of it and also because they actually had most of their ducks in a row. I've been tempted by many a KS but decided to wait for retail as I was wary about them. And it turned out to be a good decision. Plenty of them either didn't make it or are a year or more behind schedule. Fingers crossed this one is on time.
I'm hoping at least one of my friends is interested after some test games, but if not, I'll try and get something happening at the FLGS when it hits retail. Otherwise it's waiting a decade to see if the kids might be interested
If you are using kickstarter as a way to promote your product and generate buzz, shouldn't you aim for something more positive than "It's okay that it whiffed. I didn't need your money"?
That's your take on it, not theirs.
The perception that the kickstarter 'failed' because other kickstarters made more money, or because it didn't offer the specific product that certain people wanted, is not grounded in actual reality. The reality is that the kickstarter exceeded 300% of its funding goal.
I got the impression originally and I think this has been backed up by SAS comments since the KS ended, that they wanted to raise money for getting the starter to retail. The more they got, the more they could order and thus get better pricing.
If you are using kickstarter as a way to promote your product and generate buzz, shouldn't you aim for something more positive than "It's okay that it whiffed. I didn't need your money"?
That's your take on it, not theirs.
The perception that the kickstarter 'failed' because other kickstarters made more money, or because it didn't offer the specific product that certain people wanted, is not grounded in actual reality. The reality is that the kickstarter exceeded 300% of its funding goal.
That's not really a point- if they set their funding goal at $1 they're funding percentage would be even higher. Never look at the funding percent, since it's mostly an arbitrary thing.
It's possible they set it too low to guarentee funding and get the percentage up, or set it high to make it seem like a more high-end product
Funding goals are just about meaningless anymore and are routinely lowballed, in hopes of generating more hype once they're broken and stretch goals pour in.
Just an uninformed opinion from someone watching from the sidelines-
The market is flooded and then some. Not just an ordinary flood, but a surging tidal wave. Created by a combo that is unbeatable. Rich customers willing to spend money on kick starter, and poor employees willing to make stuff for low prices. (China)
This is just my opinion, and I am not really sure why I even bother to type this because on a forum it is sure to be called stupid immediately. Call me stupid if you want, but this is what I think.
To me, there is so much stuff it simply can not keep going like this. As more stuff floods in the amount available to each project is going to go down. Kick starter has also changed from a way for new companies to get funding into a method for existing companies to screw their retailers. As more and more backers get burned (see Defiance), they are less willing to take that risk again. This funnels more money into the existing companies that can offer more stuff for a lower risk.
Dakka seemed to have a well put together campaign. I did not back because I have enough stuff. I am approaching retirement and as I look at my lead pile it will not run out. At least until my life expectancy surpasses human norms and then some. Also, I dropped 28mm sci-fi to focus on building every army for WFB and building 15mm sci fi stuff. The tank ranges just looked too silly for me at 28mm. And I have to have tanks.
I can tell you why I didn't pledge: Not enough freebies!
The cost per model was too high to justify buying more minis. They were cool but not cool enough.
I put in 200 for TGG2 1) because they are wicked cool and 2) because the cost for the models makes it economic to pick up a standardized force.
kenofyork wrote: This is just my opinion, and I am not really sure why I even bother to type this because on a forum it is sure to be called stupid immediately. Call me stupid if you want, but this is what I think.
To me, there is so much stuff it simply can not keep going like this. As more stuff floods in the amount available to each project is going to go down. Kick starter has also changed from a way for new companies to get funding into a method for existing companies to screw their retailers. As more and more backers get burned (see Defiance), they are less willing to take that risk again. This funnels more money into the existing companies that can offer more stuff for a lower risk.
I don't think that's stupid at all. I think we're already seeing the beginning of the backlash. A lot of posters here have mentioned cutting back on their kickstarter expenditures. The days of running a million-dollar kickstarter with nothing but some ideas and a few drawings are over. The culture of miniatures kickstarters is changing, for sure.
I don't think it is even debatable that the campaign underperformed. Badly. The only real question is why? There may be a number factors to this, but that SAS was better prepared and ran a technically competent Kickstarter compared to many others rules that out as a factor. Some other things then....
1. Kickstarter fatigue - Possibly a factor, and I believe it is real. However, it is undeniable that even today, projects that are far stupider and less competently presented and prepared than Maelstrom's Edge have made buckets of dough more than this did, with its planned, solid campaign...
2. Market misjudgement - Is the world really crying out for a 40K alternative ? Despite what smug Dakka CEO know it all posters routinely blather about on the imminent demise of GW and if only there was something else to play, it's quite obvious they didn't put their money where their running mouths were on a project created by their forum's very owners. So apparently the need for alternatives isn't as bad as it would seem...
3. The hardware - From what we saw the background and rules seem solid enough. The models themselves were somewhat controversial, with some endlessly critiquing them. Perhaps there was a much greater 'silent majority' that agreed and didn't back, or bother to post about it when they didn't. Personally I found the models kind of 'meh'....nothing that really grabbed and said 'gotta have'...
After having backed 10 or so projects, I am done with Kickstarter. I don't care who is making what, I'm done. The games frequently turn out too niche to gain much traction in my area, and frankly, Kickstarter began to disgust me with their lack of morals and responsibility. Anything goes, as long as they get their cut, taken first, of course....
I think the problem is that there are a lot of people that want Warhammer and 40k. Not an alternative. Many of them might choose to simply leave the hobby as a whole rather than put up with GW no matter how much they love the two Warhammers. (This is just my feeling on it) So I think that all these alternatives say "yeah, there is the potential for an alternative here!" but they fail to think about it fully. This coming from someone who enjoys alternatives like Mantic etc, but I still feel the allure of the settings and flavor.
Evil DakkaDakka overlords? I guess he means the dakkites that are involved in the medge and one is the site owner (i think)
No, he's talking about 'armchair CEO's', who post on forums as if they know better than those running GW how GW should be run. (whether or not they actually do know better is a whole discussion by itself)
Evil DakkaDakka overlords? I guess he means the dakkites that are involved in the medge and one is the site owner (i think)
No, he's talking about 'armchair CEO's', who post on forums as if they know better than those running GW how GW should be run. (whether or not they actually do know better is a whole discussion by itself)
Nothing to do with Dakka's administration .
Ah, Ok, the people who see the revenue and profit in the GW reports decline and say that it troubling, instead of "this is good news!"
totalfailure wrote: I don't think it is even debatable that the campaign underperformed. Badly. The only real question is why? There may be a number factors to this, but that SAS was better prepared and ran a technically competent Kickstarter compared to many others rules that out as a factor.
Good analysis. It was a competently run campaign. I think that might be part of the problem too.
No one spends money on competency anymore. They want sizzle with their steak!
You can't have a tight, well planned project that also involves a long drawn out responsive development process and loads of extra stretch goals and goodies that add risk and cost to the final objective.
Sinful Hero wrote: Would be interesting to know what SAS honestly expected from the campaign.
Didn't they have about 13 planned stretch goals? They also said that industry insiders had projected they would take about $500,000, so their expectations might have been a bit higher than the actual result.
Sinful Hero wrote: Would be interesting to know what SAS honestly expected from the campaign.
Didn't they have about 13 planned stretch goals? They also said that industry insiders had projected they would take about $500,000, so their expectations might have been a bit higher than the actual result.
Not sure about the stretch goals- I do remember the industry experts estimating $500 k though. I'm more interested in what SAS itself thought.
totalfailure wrote: I don't think it is even debatable that the campaign underperformed. Badly. The only real question is why? There may be a number factors to this, but that SAS was better prepared and ran a technically competent Kickstarter compared to many others rules that out as a factor. Some other things then....
1. Kickstarter fatigue - Possibly a factor, and I believe it is real. However, it is undeniable that even today, projects that are far stupider and less competently presented and prepared than Maelstrom's Edge have made buckets of dough more than this did, with its planned, solid campaign...
KS Fatigue really is a thing. I don't think projects like Zombicide Black Plague making a million in a day or whatever are really good counter-examples, as ZC is an incredibly popular game, published by CMON who for all of their failings are probably the most tuned-in and sharpest at running a campaign in our niche at this point. Also, plenty of Boardgame crossover. Hell, two of my mates who have played ZC with me here have gone in on this as their first KS. Entirely "new" things like ME are in a different ballpark.
I think there is a big difference between Zombicide and a "real" Kickstarter campaign.
Zombicide is a very well known property that has a lot of heritage and proven success. At this stage, new Zombicide add-on Kickstarters are basically pre-orders for a forthcoming product that allow the publisher to optimise their production run. with minimum financial risk. The only risk involved in a new Zombicide pack is that people might be bored of the game and not pre-order it, in which case the KS fails to fund, and CMON don't spend any money printing units.
What I mean is that it isn't a "project" in the usual definition of the term, it is business as usual, whereas a brand new game by a new and unproven company has a variety of inherent risks such as characterise any "real" project.
One of the problems with Kickstarter is that a lot of people have come to regard it as a pre-order system, and have been caught out when an actual risky project like say Sedition Wars or Robotech, goes wrong. Then they lose faith in the system.
Kilkrazy wrote: I think there is a big difference between Zombicide and a "real" Kickstarter campaign.
Zombicide is a very well known property that has a lot of heritage and proven success. At this stage, new Zombicide add-on Kickstarters are basically pre-orders for a forthcoming product that allow the publisher to optimise their production run. with minimum financial risk. The only risk involved in a new Zombicide pack is that people might be bored of the game and not pre-order it, in which case the KS fails to fund, and CMON don't spend any money printing units.
Exactly my point.
In that, I think KS Fatigue is a real thing, and specific super-campaigns like ZC (and even CMON's stock-in-trade boardgames) are very much a bushel of apples compared to the bag of oranges that projects like ME are.
There are a number of reasons why I didn't back this project.
1. What's in it for me?
The basic and most mercenary reason is that the game didn't have any appeal to me at all; I felt that as a small startup venture it was doomed to fail next to the GW, so why should I come away from 40K and play Maelstrom's Edge, which would probably have a few hundred players worldwide? What was the lure - the draw - what was the compelling, screaming reason that I should join what would be an incredibly small niche?
2. The miniatures.
Everyone loves bashing GW models. The fact is, I feel GW consistently offers the best miniatures, the best packaging, and sometimes even the best prices - everyone always moans about GW prices but almost no-one is offering the same or better miniatures for less money. In many cases the dramatic and beautiful GW-alternatives are so expensive it drains all the blood from my body and turns my hair white - feth that! Maelstrom's miniatures... were not that inspiring. Every army had the exact same number of models, so I'm guessing they play similarly, and they just didn't stand up next to Guard or Space Marines. In fairness though, they were nowhere near as dreadful as that crap-looking Epic rival whose name I don't remember.
3. That Witch Hunter picture
The one with the bloke dressed like a cowboy witch hunter facing the giant robots: faith in the sci-fi old west has been done to death, and I am personally jaded by pictures of a lone human standing in front of massive death-robots. If I want faith with my sci-fi, I've got the immense 40K mythos.
EDIT:
4. Yet another Kickstarter? Really?
This one isn't anyone's fault as such, but I am personally getting sick of Kickstarter this, Kickstarter that. It used to be a valuable tool, now everyone and his mate is on the bandwagon trying to get money. I'm not saying the Maelstrom team's goals weren't noble, I'm saying that there are literally tons of projects and there is zero guarantee that any of them will be successful no matter how much money they raise - it's fine to get support on Kickstarter, but once the Kickstart campaign is finished, how much support will remain?
The basic and most mercenary reason is that the game didn't have any appeal to me at all; I felt that as a small startup venture it was doomed to fail next to the GW, so why should I come away from 40K and play Maelstrom's Edge, which would probably have a few hundred players worldwide? What was the lure - the draw - what was the compelling, screaming reason that I should join what would be an incredibly small niche?
The obvious response being that it only stays an incredibly small niche if people approach it from the point of view that it is doomed to failure, so why bother playing it...
Every army had the exact same number of models,...
I think you miscounted, there .
And I'm not really sure why you would assume that a similar number of models means that they would play the same. To take an obvious example , A Blood Angel army and a Space Wolf army have a similar number of models. .. But potentially play very, very differently.
Yeah you've got good points, those were just my reasons, I didn't fancy a game where every army had (for example) six men and six small robot things. The actual composition of starter Blood Angel and Space Wolf armies might be more different. However I respect this is just my personal opinion and not a statement of ultimate truth.
NoPoet wrote: Yeah you've got good points, those were just my reasons,
And that's totally fine. You're more than welcome to your opinion
I didn't fancy a game where every army had (for example) six men and six small robot things. The actual composition of starter Blood Angel and Space Wolf armies might be more different. .
For what it's worth, the starter set forces are just that - starters. They're not representative of a 'complete' force, and they were put together based more on model count than on in-game balance (because the rules haven't been finalised yet). So while I'm sure that they'll put some effort into making the two starter forces playable against each other, you won't see every force having similar numbers of models because, as with 40K, a lot depends on the specific units you choose to take.
Similarly, all of the Warmachine and Hordes starter boxes include a similar number of models. They just give you a foundation to build your force on, but even before that you have mini-forces that play very differently because of their individual rules.
I hope you wont take it personally if I say that 
?
Someone posts pictures of the plastic ("real" plastic, not restic) models they're going to start producing next month, you're about a year too late to provide constructive criticism of those models, and I didn't see anything that looked like productive requests or suggestions about what to do in the future.
