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During the KS, the mantic said in the comments section that the Corps and Zz'or were being held in reserve for another Deadzone KS, not Warpath.

judgedoug wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
I hope this isn't a sign of things to come, and that Mantic can 'figure out' how to get Warpath right.

I disagree entirely. This is the best run Mantic KS in my opinion.

a) reasonable, easy pledge level with a good amount of stuff
b) hard plastic everywhere
c) reasonable timeframe
d) not too large - no overpromising and underdelivering, no quality control nightmares
e) stretch goals allow actual production of quality items (versus tiny stretch goals of KoW1 not allowing any wiggle room)

It is fairly obvious that they will be preparing to do a KoW2-style Warpath KS. Pledge for book+crap, and army-level pledges, consisting of armies of pre-existing plastics.

I'll have to disagree with your disagreement then!

Especially as 'entirely disagreeing' seems to be missing a lot of things that they didn't do right here.

These two posts illustrate some of that:

BobtheInquisitor wrote:If they produce some Z'zor terrain or 'vehicles', they'll pass 400k for sure.

Unless they show some really terrible sculpts, which is a real probability.

paulson games wrote:I think they added a lot of stuff a bit too late, which is why I ended up doing only $1. I'd been looking at things at the start and also when it was about 72 hours out from close to get an idea of what I wanted. Checked back in the final 4 hours and there's a whole slew of new items and the 3rd party laser cut stuff to the point it was a bit overwhelming, rather than trying to sort it out under a time constraint I said feth it and tossed in $1 so I could figure it out later. When I drop a $100+ I try and plan it out and all the last minute adds didn't help in making a planned purchase. I wonder how many other people are in the same boat?

 Vermonter wrote:
During the KS, the mantic said in the comments section that the Corps and Zz'or were being held in reserve for another Deadzone KS, not Warpath.

Yeah, I thought there was some rumour mutation, it would be a big surprise to me if Zz'or are there out of the gate and a moderate surprise if Corp were, at this stage.

I am Happy with this KS
Value for money, nicely run, lots of add ons.
Reality in time lines.
Will be a great New Years present to myself!

I wasn't too happy about that 4 armed guy. Who the heck came up with that??

That was a race from Dreadball Xtreme.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
I wasn't too happy about that 4 armed guy. Who the heck came up with that??

Dunno who came up with 'em. In addition to DBX, they're a part of the Rebs DBO team that have already been released:
http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/dreadball/teams/product/the-unincorporated-rebs-team-10-figures.html

On the plus-side, they have nigh-broken bonus for slamming opposing players in Dreadball

I think the main lesson I'd take away from this campaign, if I were Mantic, would be to lock in value early. Use some of the beginning momentum to overcome a few longer initial stretch goals and put together worthwhile pledge packages right from the start.

And don't wait for revolts against bad pricing to put up a few banner sweet deals. The jet bikes should have been $5 from the beginning, using Walmart's old tactic of super-cheap soda machines out front to get people thinking the store inside will be just as much of a bargain.

It's amazing the goodwill, enthusiasm, and willingness to invest in the rest that $5 jet bikes can generate.

I think that it's a mistake to have a low initial target and try to fund different factions sequentially through stretch goals.

This means that people are expected to pledge for the initial stuff they might not want, and risk their money without getting to the stretch goals they actually want.

I think the low initial target, and the fake stretch goals such an approach requires, is really about the only criticism I would level at the campaign. The initial offering is BS compared to where Mantic knows it will be. Veteran backers know that it's BS, because we know Mantic and how many times do you see the phrase "don't worry guys, it will be better by the end of the campaign" pop up? The only people who don't know that the initial offering is a farce are people who are new, and these are the people who are unlikely to check back later to see if magically the deal is better. That's money left on the table, which is fine if that's what you're going for but I doubt Mantic is particularly looking for that outcome.

So at the end of the day, what do these artificially low funding goals actually accomplish? That they funded in less than X hours? That they had 400% of a too-low number? That they had an inflated number of stretch goals passed? Where is the money in any of that, really? From the outside, those numbers essentially seem like achievement points in video games; they mean pretty much nothing but Mantic looks like they want to keep chasing after them. Could someone please enlighten me as to the commercial sense those sparse initial offerings and transparently-padded goals are adding? From where I sit, all it seems to do is increase backer fatigue, push away first-time backers and give ammunition to their detractors. I really am at a loss to explain why that seems so attractive rather than just figuring out a solid starting setup, a realistic goal and going from there.

Good auestions. The one advantage, I think, is that quick funding and %overfunding enter into the metrics for kicktraq "hotness" and similar kickstarter-monitoring sites.

I agree that it doesn't seem like enough.

Its kinda like camera megapixels. Everyone knows they don't matter, including everyone in the development of them, but the race races on regardless.

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
Its kinda like camera megapixels. Everyone knows they don't matter, including everyone in the development of them, but the race races on regardless.

It's somewhat worse than that really; megapixels DID matter at one point, and for some high-end applications can still matter. I'm not sure the numbers that Mantic appear to be chasing after have ever meant anything.

Sure, you end up higher on kicktraq which gets you...exposure, I guess? Which you're already getting from various news sites and advertisers because it's miniatures news and that's what those sites are tracking anyway. Except because of the pursuit of aggregator websites, they're losing sales because of what's already been outlined. My guess would be the number of people who back KickStarters and rely solely on kicktraq and other similar sites for their news is exceedingly small. I'd further venture a guess that the number of people who say "Eh...$4 a mini" (or whatever Quarantine would have cost at the start) and never come back is the bigger one, though that's obviously hard to prove.

I understand the approach was successful at one point for them, but I do have to wonder if the KS ecosystem has changed with all the various mis-steps and issues of the platform (not just Mantic's). I hesitate to say that the backer of 2015 is more sophisticated than the one of 2012 or 2013, but I think the issues have made people more informed which in turn makes these attempts at market psychology more obvious. Granted, "do it the way we always have" is a bit of business-blinders that affects many more companies than Mantic.

I grabbed an EB in the first few minutes, but dropped it the last day. A few reasons:
*I really was hoping (expecting?) an upgrade to the quality gaming mat - paper mat sucks.
*Shipping was extra.
*Although he value was GREAT, unfortunately most of the stuff I had no need for.

Lastly (and this is huge), Miniature Market periodically has such great deals on Mantic, I find it hard to justify pledging on KS. I just picked up some Mars Attacks during the March Madness sale, and most of it was 50% off with free shipping. On Black Friday I ordered a ton of BattleZones scenery for more than 50% off.

So I will still probably pickup what I want, but will wait until Black Friday 2016 or March Madness 2016....

Mez

 Vermonter wrote:
I think the main lesson I'd take away from this campaign, if I were Mantic, would be to lock in value early.

Totally agreed on that, I checked out the initial offer and was not enticed at all by it so never really went back to the KS page to see how the campaign was going (basically what Krinsath said in an earlier post). Sure I checked out how it was going on this thread but Mantic pretty much killed my initial interest with a poor initial offering, by the time it was piqued again with the HIPS Forge Fathers I just though I may as well wait for retail in early 2016. Bear in mind that I sunk some £250 odd into Deadzone 1 and really enjoy the game, someone new to Deadzone may have been put off more easily with the (IMO) poor initial pledge rewards.

But maybe a lower total and easier fulfillment was Mantic's goal, however counter intuitive that may seem.

Given that mantic appears to have used all there stretch goals up right when the campaign ended I can't imagine they are at alll unhappy with how this one went.

People upset about their pet faction being the focus does not a failed campaign make.

People upset about paying for shipping does not a failed campaign make. Shipping costs and someone has to pay it.

They ended the stretch goals as there was only an hour left. They had more in reserve but knew they wouldn't get the funding for anymore. By their own admission the HIPS Asterian battle drones are done sculpting and 3D print wise but never appeared as they couldn't get the $50k or so they needed for them.

But yeah they have 3 factions sorted for Warpath and they covered everything they needed to for DZ:I so it a successful campaign and with less to focus on should hopefully be on time and to a good quality

Hopefully they let Jake finish the game this time and not have to worry about 3 other projects at the same time.

honestly i'd rather they just fund kits rather than all these character stretch goals, and just straight up say whats on offer and all the goals might just tempt people more than a wild goose chase

 DaveC wrote:
They ended the stretch goals as there was only an hour left. They had more in reserve but knew they wouldn't get the funding for anymore. By their own admission the HIPS Asterian battle drones are done sculpting and 3D print wise but never appeared as they couldn't get the $50k or so they needed for them.

But yeah they have 3 factions sorted for Warpath and they covered everything they needed to for DZ:I so it a successful campaign and with less to focus on should hopefully be on time and to a good quality

Who knows, maybe they'll get that in the PM

Sining wrote:

 DaveC wrote:
They ended the stretch goals as there was only an hour left. They had more in reserve but knew they wouldn't get the funding for anymore. By their own admission the HIPS Asterian battle drones are done sculpting and 3D print wise but never appeared as they couldn't get the $50k or so they needed for them.

But yeah they have 3 factions sorted for Warpath and they covered everything they needed to for DZ:I so it a successful campaign and with less to focus on should hopefully be on time and to a good quality

Who knows, maybe they'll get that in the PM

They may, but since they did not announce the plastic Asterians as a SG, it won't matter unless Mantic is feeling super generous. I suspect they only announce stretch goals at thinned which can be achieved through the pledge manager are stretch goals they have pretty much decided would be produced anyway. In this case I suspect the KS did not go as far as they needed for these so they are holding them back for the next KS.

Or maybe even they will use more traditional funding and produce them for retail even without a KS.

Unfortunately it seems unlikely - no PM stretch goals anything they make there they might use to fund something else but no stretch goals to aim for (plus Mantic's PM doesn't reveal how much they take in the PM so it's really an unknown)

@ Thomas Craven - we won't be doing stretch goals for the pledge manager sorry, you never know, we might make a couple of things, but I doubt it.

Apr 6 2015 on Deadzone: Infestation Sci-fi Skirmish Game

 CptJake wrote:
Or maybe even they will use more traditional funding and produce them for retail even without a KS.

You're a funny man.

 Vermonter wrote:
I think the main lesson I'd take away from this campaign, if I were Mantic, would be to lock in value early. Use some of the beginning momentum to overcome a few longer initial stretch goals and put together worthwhile pledge packages right from the start.

And don't wait for revolts against bad pricing to put up a few banner sweet deals. The jet bikes should have been $5 from the beginning, using Walmart's old tactic of super-cheap soda machines out front to get people thinking the store inside will be just as much of a bargain.

It's amazing the goodwill, enthusiasm, and willingness to invest in the rest that $5 jet bikes can generate.

Agreed, hopefully with Warpath they lock in a really good deal on the Enforcer army first, before moving on. Something like the 4 existing kits + 2 new vehicles to finish off the Enforcers within the first $100k (lots and lots of hard plastic, under $1/mini roughly), then move on to other factions and do the same with those.

They really need to focus on one faction at a time and fully complete it before moving on, or doing random scattershot stretches.

Could see Warpath potentially funding a full 8 factions in hard plastic if they do it right and keep the ball rolling with blocks of $250k (5 new HIPS kits) to fully fund a faction before moving on to another.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Agreed, hopefully with Warpath they lock in a really good deal on the Enforcer army first, before moving on. Something like the 4 existing kits + 2 new vehicles to finish off the Enforcers within the first $100k (lots and lots of hard plastic, under $1/mini roughly), then move on to other factions and do the same with those.

They really need to focus on one faction at a time and fully complete it before moving on, or doing random scattershot stretchs.

No, no, no. That's exactly the problem. It means forcing everyone to pledge for Enforcers and just hope that something else gets unlocked later.

Their initial target needs to be high, say 250k?... and fund 3-4 armies (at least core infantry) in one go. That way people can pledge for the faction they want right off the bat, and if it doesn't get funded, they don't pay anything.

I would argue starting with Enforcers is the absolute wrong way to go. Too many folks already have purchased a gak ton of plastic Enforcers via the DeadZone KS projects and retail releases. They need to start with an army that folks don't have yet. Yes, they need to get Enforcer vehicles in early, even as part of the project opening, but the if the project seems Enforcer-centric from the start I think it would be a mistake.

Big complaint early on was too much Enforcer stuff.

If that happens in Warpath, it's not good.

I'm still flabbergasted about the complaints.

Would the consensus to have been another Deadzone 1 style, million-dollar plus, multi-wave, huge variability in sculpt quality, mispacked nightmare?

We got a tight, shortly run Kickstarter with easily attainable goals within a reasonable timeframe with much less chances of Mantic-style QC messups.

Has anyone seen a painted Urban Demolisher? I'm going to start on mine today, and would like a little inspiration, but no one has touched theirs as far as I can tell.

 judgedoug wrote:
I'm still flabbergasted about the complaints.

This must be your first day on the internet. Welcome! Over here you'll find videos of cats battling doorstops, and that dark patch over there is 4chan. We never speak of that place.