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Well, if you guys ever want to make a game with my big stompies in it... just let me know



http://dreamforge-games.blogspot.com/2013/06/painted-leviathan-crusader-nearing.html

 NoseGoblin wrote:
Well, if you guys ever want to make a game with my big stompies in it... just let me know



http://dreamforge-games.blogspot.com/2013/06/painted-leviathan-crusader-nearing.html

/drool

Game over man ! Game over !

Alright, now that this is done, let's get to the actual content.
Anybody could see this KS would be a failure after the first couple of days, yet the team decided to soldier on until the last week. Interestingly enough, despite such a visible failure, the official word hasn't changed, it's still "only a matter of communication". If anything they're downplaying the importance of the KS and (at least officially) this isn't going to affect release. Seriously ? Why even bother with such a campaign, then ?

In the interest of fairness, I have to give the team that one bit. There are issues with the communication.
Not only has too little been posted, but what little has been posted, as more often than not, increased doubt about the project and its management. For a project that's been supposedly in the works since at least late 2012, the repeated statements about changing course at any time based on fan feedback is ominous to say the least. There is a big, crucial difference between being able to change course when needed, and looking like you haven't set the course yet. Everything so far seems to be pointing to the later, which is a sure way to scare away would-be investors and backers !

P.S : GBL's summary of the project so far, while not complete, feels painfully accurate.

GBL wrote:

Holy crap gearhead, I think you may have been the last straw.

I wondered about that. They had already lost a couple hundred dollars before I pulled out (I didn't think to look at Kicktraq until afterwards) and then they lost more after that, but I was the only one to announce it and say why. Maybe the cancellation was to stop a potential flood of other backers doing the same, which would've looked even worse.

The "Continue funding on HeavyGear.com" part is the most worrying thing. That needed to be cancelled and refunded more than the Kickstarter.

Very much so!!

Agonarch, I hope you're still keeping a eye on the thread, because there's one more thing I want your team to understand: if this project fails, it will be YOUR guys' fault. Not the fans and backers, not poor communication or weak support, or an inexplicable lack of buzz being created by a legion of dedicated people like BrandonKF spreading the Gospels of Stompy Bot and MekTek, or market saturation, or competition or anything of the sort. YOURS. A good team with a good project, good leadship, good vision, a good demonstration of technical and creative knowhow, a good understanding of how do work with fans and backers, and a good record of creating on-time and in-budget will (I say again, WILL) generate all the interest, buzz, support, communication, and backing that you need.

It's all on you guys, and once again, I really hope you go make it work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NoseGoblin wrote:
Well, if you guys ever want to make a game with my big stompies in it... just let me know

Screw that, the universe would probably collapse under all the awesome!

HudsonD wrote:Game over man ! Game over !

Alright, now that this is done, let's get to the actual content.
Anybody could see this KS would be a failure after the first couple of days, yet the team decided to soldier on until the last week. Interestingly enough, despite such a visible failure, the official word hasn't changed, it's still "only a matter of communication". If anything they're downplaying the importance of the KS and (at least officially) this isn't going to affect release. Seriously ? Why even bother with such a campaign, then ?

Once again they are acting as if they don't need our money. Apparently they are as big as EA and don't even need crowdfunding. Its more pre packaged marketing BS. I actually think they will be back, but if they communicate like this again, it will fail again.

Gearhead wrote:
Agonarch, I hope you're still keeping a eye on the thread, because there's one more thing I want your team to understand: if this project fails, it will be YOUR guys' fault. Not the fans and backers, not poor communication or weak support, or an inexplicable lack of buzz being created by a legion of dedicated people like BrandonKF spreading the Gospels of Stompy Bot and MekTek, or market saturation, or competition or anything of the sort. YOURS. A good team with a good project, good leadship, good vision, a good demonstration of technical and creative knowhow, a good understanding of how do work with fans and backers, and a good record of creating on-time and in-budget will (I say again, WILL) generate all the interest, buzz, support, communication, and backing that you need.

It's all on you guys, and once again, I really hope you go make it work.

If thy deliver, once, they wont have this issue with crowdfunding again.

I still think the idea that Agonarch floated, the hiring of an external marketing company, is most likely the problem with their communication

GBL wrote:
I actually think they will be back, but if they communicate like this again, it will fail again.

I hope more than anything else they understand this - more than anything else they've had a complete breakdown of marketing. They really need to think long and hard about how to position themselves, and find a marketing team that can make sure their 'new ideas' - their passion - comes through, instead of the amateur hour that was shown in this KS campaign (and before).

 IceRaptor wrote:

GBL wrote:
I actually think they will be back, but if they communicate like this again, it will fail again.

I hope more than anything else they understand this - more than anything else they've had a complete breakdown of marketing. They really need to think long and hard about how to position themselves, and find a marketing team that can make sure their 'new ideas' - their passion - comes through, instead of the amateur hour that was shown in this KS campaign (and before).

Or perhaps realize that their vision doesn't actually match what the market wants and (most importantly) is willing to pay. The inability to sell me a prosthetic tail isn't a failure of marketing... no amount of marketing, catchy jingles, or celebrity spokespeople will make me want to buy a prosthetic tail right now let alone pay for one in advance.

 Gearhead wrote:

I wondered about that. They had already lost a couple hundred dollars before I pulled out (I didn't think to look at Kicktraq until afterwards) and then they lost more after that, but I was the only one to announce it and say why. Maybe the cancellation was to stop a potential flood of other backers doing the same, which would've looked even worse.

No, don't worry - it's been a decision that's been a little while coming (it started when updates halted), don't feel responsible in any way. As for the money in and out, we had a surprising amount of movement in and out over the course of this kickstarter - quite a lot of people pledged and cancelled every day, trending up very slowly. The decision was made that releasing further information wasn't going to be worth it - it wouldn't affect the final spike as much as we'd have needed to reach the goal, so it's probably a better idea to polish it more and show it when it's ready. For my perspective I don't completely agree with this angle, I would've liked to at least release the gearbay walkaround video so people could see that the videos we're showing aren't just cinematics - complain at me if you like to give me ammo to get it shown

 Gearhead wrote:

The "Continue funding on HeavyGear.com" part is the most worrying thing. That needed to be cancelled and refunded more than the Kickstarter.

Very much so!!

What? Why? The project hasn't been cancelled. If it's cancelled then sure, but until then, why?

 Gearhead wrote:

Agonarch, I hope you're still keeping a eye on the thread, because there's one more thing I want your team to understand: if this project fails, it will be YOUR guys' fault. Not the fans and backers, not poor communication or weak support, or an inexplicable lack of buzz being created by a legion of dedicated people like BrandonKF spreading the Gospels of Stompy Bot and MekTek, or market saturation, or competition or anything of the sort. YOURS. A good team with a good project, good leadship, good vision, a good demonstration of technical and creative knowhow, a good understanding of how do work with fans and backers, and a good record of creating on-time and in-budget will (I say again, WILL) generate all the interest, buzz, support, communication, and backing that you need.

I clearly am, I'm enjoying this thread - you guys have been nothing but honest with your opinions to me and I truly appreciate that. I need to argue with some of this statement, though. Firstly, if it fails it's mostly our fault, sure - but the fans do have a big influence on this - you can be for it or against it, but whichever you are does matter, other people will read your opinion and use it to make their own, so make certain you're happy with it before you say it. I am (obviously) one of the ones who want to have a lot of fan interaction (I think it's a plus for both me and you guys - tell me if I'm wrong). I was one of the ones pushing hard for more information releases, but I couldn't justify it (we just didn't have the numbers to make any difference at that point) which I regret. As for the last part about a good project with the right team - it's just wrong - I can think of Fallout 3 (Van Buren) and Baldurs Gate 3 that didn't get released off the top of my head, and Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines which released but didn't get the interest, support or buzz they deserved (making the company bankrupt). The poor communication I was talking about was from us, not from fans, to clear that up. Fans have been great in my experience with this (sometimes mean, but so far not unreasonably mean. If they're justifiably mean then that's more my fault than it is theirs in my opinion, anyway).

 Gearhead wrote:

It's all on you guys, and once again, I really hope you go make it work.

I debate "all", but I can say for sure that I've done everything I could think of at the time to help, at least.
If we make this then we can extend it into a much larger game and even do other HG games, if not then it's likely that the HG people like me will leave and Mektek goes back to MechWarrior (which is OK, but I'm really not that interested in MW). It's too soon to be calling it dead or doom and gloom at this point - this is far from ideal, sure, and I'd have liked it to go differently, but hey, at least we got some information out to you guys and a ton of information from you guys, we've shed a marketing team before (hopefully) they did too much damage - it's a start. Once we've shown playable demos to VCs there should be a bunch more info for you guys.

HudsonD wrote:Anybody could see this KS would be a failure after the first couple of days, yet the team decided to soldier on until the last week. Interestingly enough, despite such a visible failure, the official word hasn't changed, it's still "only a matter of communication". If anything they're downplaying the importance of the KS and (at least officially) this isn't going to affect release. Seriously ? Why even bother with such a campaign, then ?

At the moment, this isn't the final option, but it certainly will have an affect (it's not good for morale, at the very least). It was a nice option, and I personally would've preferred to focus much more heavily on this as an option (I'd like to come back with a wiki for all the detail stuff that people can check if they're interested and relaunch - let people start planning and minmaxing their builds in advance of alpha), but that's only my opinion. Our position for showings to VCs are certainly stronger for having held stuff back, and this isn't my area of expertise, so I have to defer to experience. Time will soon tell if this approach was correct or a mistake. At least you've got front row seats to whatever happens, I'll keep you informed as best I can for as long as I can.

GBL wrote:Once again they are acting as if they don't need our money. Apparently they are as big as EA and don't even need crowdfunding. Its more pre packaged marketing BS. I actually think they will be back, but if they communicate like this again, it will fail again.

You know my opinion on this - I agree. On the plus side, if we do come back to kickstarter it'll be because we didn't get the funding we needed elsewhere, and by then there'll be nothing to lose by going all in and doing kickstarter properly. From my perspective this is actually a fairly good position right now - either we get funding there or we get to finally lay our cards on the table, both of which are good things.

Thanks for all of your guys time and thoughts, I'll be checking in here as often as I can but we're pretty busy just at the moment so I'm likely to be intermittently here again. I noticed a PM when I got here which I'd missed, when I check this thread I'm often not logged in, so if you PM me it might take longer than posting. Still, PM if you think a PM is more appropriate, I'll get to it as soon as I can.

Agonarch wrote:

 Gearhead wrote:

The "Continue funding on HeavyGear.com" part is the most worrying thing. That needed to be cancelled and refunded more than the Kickstarter.

Very much so!!

What? Why? The project hasn't been cancelled. If it's cancelled then sure, but until then, why?

 Agonarch wrote:
I can think of Fallout 3 (Van Buren) and Baldurs Gate 3 that didn't get released off the top of my head, and Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines which released but didn't get the interest, support or buzz they deserved (making the company bankrupt).

True, but I was talking about crowdfunding to get them started in the first place, which is a completeld different (and new) beast.

Right GBL, I see what you're saying now. At the moment we're still not planning to cut things out from what we've already promised on the website and kickstarter, but if that changes and the product we're intending to make is different then absolutely, that'll need to change (people will at least need to be contacted and offered refunds, if it were to come to that). At the moment, we're not at the point where it's that dire.

 Gearhead wrote:
True, but I was talking about crowdfunding to get them started in the first place, which is a completeld different (and new) beast.

Righto, misunderstood, I can think of the Dizzy game, the Ecco game, the Pitfall game, the Road Rash reboot and The Guild (a promising looking adventure game, and the only original IP in that lot - came to mind when I thought that adventure games seem to do well on kickstarter), Hero (Project Awakened). The problem with kickstarter from that perspective is that games that failed because I people didn't hear about them I probably still don't know about.

I'm not trying to excuse our failure here, I'm merely giving you some examples so you can see it's not so simple as you're suggesting. Luck and media coverage still play a big role.

Wow.. a bit of a development in the 4-8m tall robot video game genre today. Apparently, Warmachine's video game that was shown off a few years ago at E3 and then largely forgotten about has had some similar problems getting funded via the traditional publisher route and have opted to go a different route both in terms of the scope of the game as well as the source of funding. I am curious to see how successful the approach (turn based strategy ala xcom) that I've been advocating since HGA was first shown.

Soon, we will launch a Kickstarter campaign with the hope of raising the capital necessary to fund development of WARMACHINE: Tactics, a turn-based, squad-level strategy game for PC and Mac. WARMACHINE: Tactics will include a single-player campaign as well as synchronous and asynchronous online multi-player play. The game, which will be expanded with downloadable content over time, will ship with two playable factions in multi-player to start—Cygnar and Khador—but our first stretch goal will allow us to also include Cryx and The Protectorate at the game’s launch.

http://privateerpress.com/content/privateer-press-announces-kickstarter-campaign-to-fund-warmachine-video-game


Obviously WM is a more popular tabletop game currently by far (it's the #2 one out there according to ICV) but HG has the benefit of fans from the actual video game side due to two previous successful video games that WM doesn't. It'll be interesting to see the differences between these two similar kickstarters in how they're run, the content types they show, and the funds raised in the end. I'd much rather have a HG turn based squad level strategy game as I'm not a fan of the steampunk look of warmachine overall.

There's an interesting thread going on at Mektek right now :
http://www.mektek.net/forums/topic/215735-a-superfan-critique/
Very enlightening on the team's point of view.

Holy crap, that was eye-opening. It seems that Agonarch is pretty much the only guy that hasn't got his head lodged firmly up his backside.

I'm done with those clowns. Anyone with an ounce of sense would know better than to cop that kind of attitude with people who are trying to give you honest feedback. Someone said earlier that they were acting like they didn't need people's money, and here's one of their staff straight-up TELLING someone that they didn't need their money!

Posted 12 July 2013 - 03:51 PM
Quote
Can't speak for other people, but I've personally supported Robotech w/$170, the Least I Could Do series pilot with $500, and a boardgame for $40.

Admin: It's your money, don't play the blame game with me when it's your decision where you spend it.

Saying you're funding other projects doesn't help us, and in the spirit of the 'HGA discussion' is a completely off-topic post. Alot of people might or might not chip in, you being one of them. Or have I missed the point of your excuse?
Or should I have said "OMG, your own money? *gasp*"

Quote
And despite your bitter comments, I might yet pay for Heavy Gear. The jury's still out on that one.

Admin: I am certain I can't scare off a whole crowd of people, since it's called crowdfunding, and not taking these ultimatums from "i might chip in $5 but i'm skeptical and your tone makes me want this game less and less" whistleblowers. You're here for the game, not discussing creative processes included behind the game.


Quote
I also loaned $5000 of my own money on the side to a KS project, just because I liked their attitude

Admin: What I see in this post here is "I can't give $5 or $$$ because you're not being friendly to me and i'm funding alot of other KSs on my student budget, but if we become friends and I get to like your posting attitude instead of your quality programming and making sure everything is up to certain standard I might drop a bucketload of cash" then... I do not know what to tell you, other than what I already said. It's your money. Stop flailing it around, noone will die over that sum, and it won't make an imminent change so why give yourself weight of someone who is deciding to drop $0.5mil into the project. Oh, my bad - loan that money to the project.

And having said that, I will heed the wisest advice I have at this moment - "Developers don't talk to communities, community managers talk to communities". The more you say my honesty is hurting the project, the less of it will appear up on here, it's that simple. I can't risk my posts to get in the way and invalidate months of work. I want this game to succeed. It's my chance at a better life, so to speak.

"Thank you, quite alot, really." to everybody that donated, "I knew it" to everybody that said they will, but didn't, "Can't blame you" for those that do not want to, or changed their minds.

Yeah, I'm done. I want a Heavy Gear PC game really bad, but all indicators say that StompyBot hasn't got the acumen to publish it, and MekTek sure as hell isn't the crew to do it. These guys just don't get it at all, and all they do is whine and blame and tell us that we don't get it.