Massive Darkness (CMON) News and Rumors Thread

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**ulgurstasta**

Spoiler:

Asking as someone who have no clue about this game or CMON, what scale and size are these fellas?

**Pacific**

Hmm not sure about that one, if I had to Hazard a guess I would have said about 32-34mm perhaps?

455_PWR wrote:

Heroquest is similar. They are slowly moving forward, but it is slow as they also spent all the ks funds. They games might not Mae it through customs. I refused to pay more for shipping for a chance I may get my game... looks like I lost on heroquest.

I've given up on the game. If it comes it comes, if not then I have already written it off. Although my concern would be it actually being finished in the first place (this the customs thing was a load of bluster, I don't know how it could be inforced)

**blckorder**

ulgurstasta wrote:

Asking as someone who have no clue about this game or CMON, what scale and size are these fellas?

Spoiler:

EDIT: PyschoticStorm below me has a better answer.

**PsychoticStorm**

ulgurstasta wrote:

Asking as someone who have no clue about this game or CMON, what scale and size are these fellas?

If you want to have an idea of the scale, the Reptisaurians are all on 30mm bases, while the Reptisaurus Rex is on a huge 75mm base!

**Azazelx**

Meh. Same old. Blaming a chunk of the customers is an interesting move though, but it did server to turn a substantial amount of the delay anger on "them" instead of CMON itself, which could well be telling porkies and certainly had/has the responsibility to prod the late backers to complete the PM with, you know, firm closure dates.

To me it seems more like Divide and Conquer, or simple redirection. If they're calling 3 months of delay right now, expect another 3 months added later with another callback to those wicked backers. After all, they've been doing it for so long now that "CNY!" no longer works as a good excuse for them to claim innocence about not planning for.

**Pacific**

Although I didn't think they had a record of doing things like that with their KS so far?

My experience with them has always been positive, certainly by the standards of other KS

**MLaw**

Pacific wrote:
Although I didn't think they had a record of doing things like that with their KS so far?

My experience with them has always been positive, certainly by the standards of other KS

It would appear that experiences vary wildly in regards to their track record. As I stated earlier, I'm in the camp that has had unpleasant experiences with them. I am also less than thrilled with the quality of The Others. I appreciate that you're not polarized to instantly demonize people who have had bad experiences and call them out for it though. Their cheerleaders in the KS comments make it difficult to vent frustration over legitimate issues.

**Sining**

IIRC, they once failed to print the character cards for Zombicide S2 properly, made a PDF of the corrected cards and told people to print it themselves.

**Alpharius**

Update #66

May 22 2017

Massive Darkness Rulebook!

Hail Lightbringers!

Production of the Massive Darkness core box is over, while the rest of the expansions an extra remain on track to be finished by the first week of June. Then, all your pledges will be packed, shipped to the distribution hubs, and finally mailed to all of you. There's still some waiting ahead, but we're confident it will be worth it.

Those who attended the CMON Expo last weekend were able to take a look at our first production copy, and try their hand at a quick demo of the game. We're happy the say that the feedback from attendees was extremely positive, with fans eager to dig into the full game. After a full day of running demos, we hear that some of our volunteers used their time off to have a go at a proper full scenario and had a blast doing it (legend says they almost managed to win it, but fell just short).

You might have heard from those who attended the show about some of changes made to the final game. Without further ado, we invite you take a peek at the final rulebook!

http://www.cmon.com/resources/MD_Rulebook_web.pdf

We advise that players read the rulebook carefully, as many of the aspects of the game have changed to a greater or lesser degree. All of these developments were made to ensure a gameplay experience that was not only rich and thematic, but also varied and intense.

For the Darkness is Massive, and full of terrors!

Looking forward to reading this - and hopefully seeing a good persistent world/campaign system?

**Theophony**

As long as it gets here by Christmas 2017 I think I'll be okay. So much plastic crack, so little time to paint

**Zethnar**

Alpharius wrote:

Looking forward to reading this - and hopefully seeing a good persistent world/campaign system?

The campaign system is roughly on par with Heroquest. Basically you get micro-XP instead of XP, so your progression through the skill tree is slowed, but the skills are persistent. Seems like you can purchase new skills as soon as you can afford them, much like the base game.

Between quests you have the opportunity to sell loot. You can either trade it in for XPs equal to the total levels of the items traded in (so if you have 2 level 3 items and one level 4 you would get 10xp), or you can swap your items for items from the 'town market' (which is constructed through card draws when you enter the town phase) as long as the total levels of the items you take does not exceed the total levels of the items you trade in. You then heal back up to max, spend XPs, equip your gak and move on to the next quest.

Workable for a simple campaign system.

If you want something deeper maybe look at Shadows of Brimstone (or wait for Darklight: Memento Mori to come out).

**MLaw**

That sounds pretty good. With a bit of thought it could serve as a lite RPG vehicle.. My kids like the idea of RPGs but are still young enough to find D&D style gaming to be tedious.

**Theophony**

On my phone so sorry for not linking the update, but all production is done, packing should take a month and then shipping. Missing my birthday

**Alpharius**

Theophony wrote:
On my phone so sorry for not linking the update, but all production is done, packing should take a month and then shipping. Missing my birthday

Short and sweet(ish):

Packing Update

Hail Lightbringers!

Just wanted to give you all a quick update. Production has wrapped as scheduled, and now the pledges are being packed. The first packed batches will start leaving the factory next week, and packing will proceed throughout the month of June until all the pledges have been packed and placed on boats for delivery. We should be able to supply you with the first ship schedules next week.

For the Darkness is Massive, and full of terrors!

**Darkjim**

Cannot wait, so many great models to paint.

**Pacific**

Great news.. was expecting this much, much later in the year!

**MLaw**

Pacific wrote:
Great news.. was expecting this much, much later in the year!

The fact that you changed that based on a very vague post from CMoN is kinda amusing.
I'm over here like

**Alpharius**

It wasn't that vague.

But OK, when do you think it will start to ship then?

**MLaw**

It says they're going to start packing it out in June and when all of that is done they'll be put on a boat. This is them leaving an out for schedule slippage.. which has already occurred and they somehow claim they're still on schedule. I would be genuinely surprised if the entire contents were on a boat in the 3 remaining weeks. I'm betting they don't start shipping until mid to late August.

**Theophony**

MLaw wrote:
It says they're going to start packing it out in June and when all of that is done they'll be put on a boat. This is them leaving an out for schedule slippage.. which has already occurred and they somehow claim they're still on schedule. I would be genuinely surprised if the entire contents were on a boat in the 3 remaining weeks. I'm betting they don't start shipping until mid to late August.

I guess we will see next week as they said in the update then. Until then I prefer optimism as they at least let us know production was done. While I'd love more updates, they haven't been off the grid and once a month is better than most kickstarters.

**MLaw**

Well, January and March had zero updates.. and they really only came "back online" when it was time to foster goodwill to move their latest KS.. but hey.. yeah.. they've been stellar thus far!

**Alpharius**

MLaw wrote:
Well, January and March had zero updates.. and they really only came "back online" when it was time to foster goodwill to move their latest KS.. but hey.. yeah.. they've been stellar thus far!

How much did you back this one for?

There weren't a ton of add-ons here, IIRC, so that should streamline things a bit.

**MLaw**

Alpharius wrote:
MLaw wrote:
Well, January and March had zero updates.. and they really only came "back online" when it was time to foster goodwill to move their latest KS.. but hey.. yeah.. they've been stellar thus far!

How much did you back this one for?

There weren't a ton of add-ons here, IIRC, so that should streamline things a bit.

There weren't that many add-ons but I picked up a few each of the rats and lizards and I think a few each of the scenery related add-ons. Most of my angst comes from CMoN being unwilling to help with change of address.. back a few months ago.. I've backed tons of companies and they're the only ones who just flat out said "sorry can't help ya".. I didn't really mean for it to bleed into this thread tbh but they've pissed me off through our interactions and I'm pretty much done with them at this point. I hope Massive Darkness is cool and I'll use the stuff/play the game for sure.. but I think I'll focus on fewer kickstarters going forward and keep it to the companies that actually need it.. not ones that are just avoiding front end resource allocation.

**455_PWR**

Cmon and other companies always work with a change of address.... unless you wait until they are starting to ship items. They are starting to ship games (label them, pack, and put them on the boat).

I don't think that's all on cmon if you waited. I've backed almost every cmon kickstarter so far and never had an issue personally. They've always been good about any issues I've had. I had a change of address during the first zombicide campaign, but I notified them before they started packing items, no issues.

**Jerram**

No, most other KS companies, don't say "Oh by the way we just printed addresses" at least 2 and a half months out. Please stop making excuses for their jackholeness. I'm so hosed, product is being delivered to Va after I will have moved to Ca and all I get is a "Im sure the delivery company can help you"

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

I think they're now doing for the US what they've been doing for the EU for a while

getting the orders packed and labelled in China hence why they need the final address so long before to cover the time spent waiting for a container, then waiting for the container to score a slot on a boat, then shipping and customs

although I would have thought that since these things are all barcoded they should be able to put a 'stop' on a specific package, but I guess it depends if they even look at them before passing them on to the courier

**MLaw**

455_PWR wrote:
Cmon and other companies always work with a change of address.... unless you wait until they are starting to ship items. They are starting to ship games (label them, pack, and put them on the boat).

I don't think that's all on cmon if you waited. I've backed almost every cmon kickstarter so far and never had an issue personally. They've always been good about any issues I've had. I had a change of address during the first zombicide campaign, but I notified them before they started packing items, no issues.

This was months ago.. and even if it wasn't they still haven't shipped so I don't see what you're getting at.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jerram wrote:
No, most other KS companies, don't say "Oh by the way we just printed addresses" at least 2 and a half months out. Please stop making excuses for their jackholeness. I'm so hosed, product is being delivered to Va after I will have moved to Ca and all I get is a "Im sure the delivery company can help you"

This is exactly my point and outside of CMON my expectations on this have been matched entirely. In all cases, I contacted the companies as soon as my new address was known to me.

**BigDaddio**

Funny CMON address story:

Recently ordered some items direct from CMON (because no other site or store seemed to have them in stock). They sent me the package in good time....but it contained two items I didn't order and nothing that I actually ordered. So I email them to inform them of the problem and ask how I can receive the items I paid for. They respond within a day, apologizing and telling me I have to print the label they've emailed me, take the package to FedEx and have them ship it back to me. Once CMON receives it back, then they will pack my order and send it to me. I gotta say I'm not real fond of having to go through all the extra hassle and wait because they made a mistake. But I figured I need to stay cool because mistakes happen. So I print the label and send the package back. On a whim, I decided to track the package a few days later to make sure they received it.....only to find that the address on the label for CMON , which they sent to me themselves, was incorrect (apparently it was their old address). At least it's being forwarded to the correct address....lol.

**Elbows**

It sounds silly but this is the reason that I actually put my folks address for all the KS stuff I do. Regardless of where I am, they tend to stay put. Gives me an excuse to go visit. A lot of companies are hosed if you move address because many have the labels affixed in friggin' China a month or two ahead of time - some of them ship direct.

**Alpharius**

Shipping is well underway, I think mostly in ROW and EU locations but...

...there's a bit of an 'Oops' and a fix to it:

Update #70

Jul 29 2017
Resolving a Printing Issue

Hail Lightbringers!

As backers started receiving their pledges, it was brought to our attention that there is a printing issue in a few of the cards from the Massive Darkness core box and some of the expansions. The problem occurred with a few cards that display a colored dice symbol inside a black special ability text box. It would seem the factory ended up printing the colored symbol on top of the solid black color, so it became very hard to make out properly. Unfortunately, as this only happens in very few cards, our quality control process didn't catch this printing issue.

The core box cards with this printing issue.

We apologize for this problem, and want to assure our customers that we will make things right. We are printing packs with corrected copies of all the affected cards (24 in total, encompassing the core box and some expansions) and we will send the appropriate number of packs to all our backers as soon as possible so they can replace the problematic cards. We don't yet have a clear timeline, but we'll keep you updated as more information is made available.

Here is the list of affected cards:

Massive Darkness - 7 cards (G023, G024, G037, G038, G043, G046, G047)
Troglodytes - 5 cards (G074, G076, G078, G081, G083)
Elementals - 2 cards (RM14, RM18)
Warrior Priests vs The Spearmaiden Cyclops - 1 card (H011)
Sorcerers vs Lord Tusk - 1 card (H016)
Lightbringer Pack - 6 cards (RM45, RM53, RM59, RM46, RM54, RM60)
Black Plague Crossover Kit - 2 cards (H026, H028)

So your gaming doesn't suffer until the replacement packs arrive, we are providing in the links below the proper print files for the 24 affected cards. This way you can either use them as references, or make home prints to use for now.

https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/assets_item/resource/68/MD_Monster_Cards_Replacements_FRONT.pdf
https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/assets_item/resource/69/MD_Monster_Cards_Replacements_BACK.pdf
https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/assets_item/resource/66/MD_Hero_Cards_Replacements_FRONT.pdf
https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/assets_item/resource/67/MD_Hero_Cards_Replacements_BACK.pdf

For the Darkness is Massive, and full of terrors!

Not sure how this got past proofs and 'first article inspections' and QC at the factory but at least a fix will be on the way, and the PDFs help immediately as well.