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So people were able to buy the Season 2 stuff at Salute 2013, but Kickstarter-backers with Season 2 stuff were once again left to wait and twiddle their thumbs?

Mantic really likes to shove it into the face of Kickstarter-backers on how little they care about you once they have your money

Riquende wrote:
[

Mantic didn't have all the S2 stuff at Salute, only 2 of the teams have arrived from China so far. The KS stuff will be sent out when it's ALL ready to go.

But hey, whatever. "Haters gonna hate" I guess.

Well, they had pretty much the same excuse for putting Season 1 into the stores before KS-pledges were shipped.

It's getting old.

If there is not enough stuff back from China to honour the Kickstarter, don't sell it.
If there is enough to sell it, ship it to those that paid first (i.e. months ago) first.

What's so hard about that?

Riquende wrote:


What's getting old is people demanding they get their stuff first as a KS backer.

I am not demanding that people avoid peeing into other people's morning coffee.

Yet if I see people doing it, I can and do note that it seems to be rather bad form to do such a thing.

Only my opinion. And, coincidently, there are places such as online forums created specifically so people can express their opinion. Lucky me!!!!

And yes, if they cannot successfully ship to KS-backers before Salute.. don't sell it at Salute (Adepticon, etc..). If Mantic had even a modest interest in building customer trust and return-business, that would be the prudent thing to do.

Just hold the excess stock for another month (Mantic Open day.. say) and make sure your reputation as a company stays intact. Going for the quick profit at the expense of all else is not sustainable business.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 Zweischneid wrote:
Mantic really likes to shove it into the face of Kickstarter-backers on how little they care about you once they have your money

Think positive:
Mantic once made a preorder for a rulebook, collected the money, then ran a kickstarter for that rulebook where you could buy it with a discount. Kickstarter ended one day before release. So kickstarter backers are not the lowest in the food chain.

Lol, what? What rulebook was that? Kings of War?

 Black Nexus wrote:

people at salute could pick up their kickstarter packages. in fact I even spoke to people who turned them down of that offer because they were happy to wait. aprils releases were at salute, KS ships ends of april beginning of may. may releases ship end of may. We get most of S2 first, a little bit of it at the same time as the shops and a tiny bit a week behind salute. big fecking deal... mountain out of a molehill mate, seriously.

Says another account who, in 4 years on Dakka, never ever ever wrote a single post not related on a Mantic Games topic.




Good to see all the unbiased, self-reflected people chiming in again to extinguish the slightest wiff of non-ultra-positive-mantic-news at a minutes notice.

And no, it's not a big fecking deal. I never said that. It's an annoying small thing... but it is that.

 Bolognesus wrote:
Wellthat's your nice and dishonest self again zwei, purpusefully neglecting to distinguish between "posted in thread" and "thread created by"

Well. I could post "posted-in" too, but it'd be a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong picture for 200+ posts.

Just go look yourself

Earth Dragon wrote:


It's fine to be frustrated, but it is selfish to expect a business to hold off on selling the items available to them while waiting to fill the other portion of your order.

There's nothing in my 2nd Season order that wasn't also available to buy on Salute.

And as I've said multiple times, it's not a BIG issue. But Mantic's Ninja-Gestapo is getting a bit too zealous ahead of the Warpath Kickstarter it seems.

Imagine a clampdown like this everytime someone dares write a 1-line complaint about GW prices, or Finecast or the quality of White Dwarf content, etc.. ?

The reaction in this thread is far more ... interesting ... than the initial shipping-issue.

Earth Dragon wrote:
I've been tempted to pledge "Mercenary" in deadzone just to ensure a bad arse Teraton that can be used with most teams. Enforcers AND a Teraton.....yes please.

I'm kinda hopin someone else does though, since I can't justify it at the moment.

Like what? DreadBall Season 4: Deadzone-Ball ?

Mantic Games is putting some of their new-found digital-sculpting skillz to use for DreadBall!



http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/dreadball-the-futuristic-sports-game/posts/489280

 Compel wrote:
I'm assuming you can't decrease season 3 pledges afterwards?

A post made by one of the (main?) 'Dreadball Games (and Rules) Committee members on the mantic forums included this little gem.

The biggest detractor for me is the amount of whining on these forums. If you are unhappy with the rule set, please change what you need in order to enjoy it. No one cares if you allow your players to collect the money from the middle of the board when they land on free parking. I dont mind suggestions for house rules... But I'm just not interested in how you think you could have designed a game better.

Someone recently had the gall to accuse Jake of militancy because he disagreed about a rule. Seriously? If you think you can do a better job developing a game - do it. In this age of KS and crowd funding, whats stopping you from putting other peoples money where your mouth is.

Quite frankly, and especially since I was the aforementioned 'accuser' (which I really wasn't).

I really don't know if I want to continue to support this game anymore. Or potentially even mantic as a whole. - And yes, I am going to write a letter/email after dinner.

I dunno. I see these guys both on Dakka in the Mantic threads and on the Mantic forums. I am not sure what exactly it is about Mantic that attracts these kind of zealots that think criticism is something bad and blind obedience (and blind lashing out at anyone with even the slightest inkling of critical thinking) is something good. But yeah, Mantic has some truly terrible fanatic-fans that seriously hurt the broader appeal of their games in this day and age of internet-vibes.

I hardly even read the Deadzone thread on Dakka anymore. While I think the game looks ace, the thread is so thoroughly orchestrated, artificially hyped and cleansed of all "natural" discussion, it can hardly be called a forum-discussion at all anymore at this point.

 scarletsquig wrote:


If you want to complain about me personally, feel free to do so. I don't like sideways jabs.

Was thinking more about Black Nexus actually. And this JS-Digby guy. Etc.. . Believe it or not, I consider you - relatively - as one of the saner posters Squig, even though you're far from impartial. 0

Hell, sometimes I even wonder what Mantic pays a certain Primarch-named MOD. If Dakka-mods would clamp down on GW-criticism like he does on Mantic-criticism, Dakkadakka itself would probably cease to exist.

 MajorTom11 wrote:


Is it hard to see the keyboard past your tin-foil hat lol?

Seriously though, this idea that Mods are paid by companies is absolutely ridiculous... I wish that weren't the case though I would love to be on the take lol! Free $ is always welcome

Yes. I know that forum Mods are not REALLY paid by game companies.

But that, if anything, only makes it even more in-explicable why there are so vastly divergent standards in moderating criticism directed at Games Workshop and criticism directed at other miniature gaming company.

Funny thing is, not even Mantic Games' James Hewitt (?) seems to "intuitively" play it this way.

In the Beasts of War promo games, there's a similar situation where Warren's Veer-Myn should've lost the turn (after a double scatter of the launch) to James, but (like almost all people who "simply play" the game) they just continue on as if the failed catch at the launch wasn't actually yet part of the player's turn.

Start at about 14:55 - 15:00 thereabouts.

decker_cky wrote:


It absolutely is. The totals don't contribute to stretch goals unless the company wants them to, and they get much better value for the money contributed. 5% for the promotion provided by Kickstarter is probably worth it though.

5% is awesome.

Even if you have your own online store, Paypal and/or Credit Card companies will take as nearly as much. And you've got the hosting, online advertisement, etc.. .

Hell, eBay takes like... what? 10% 12% these days?

I wish I could sell my old 40K junk on Kickstarter for "only" 5%

[edit]

For the UK at least, Paypal is 3.4% plus a flat 20p per transaction. It's a teeny bit better for Mantic if you pay by Paypal as opposed to by Kickstarter. But it's not much.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:


Kickstarter is a 100% daughter company of Amazon .

Umm.... just no.


It's not. And I doubt Amazon would even be interested.

Kickstarter... in its entire life-time as a Website of some 4 years now has raised a total of 633 Million Dollars across all successful projects ever on Kickstarter (which is slightly less than Games Workshop's revenue over the past 4 years, which adds up to about 756 Million USD very roughly). 5% of those 633 Million are some 32 Million Dollars Kickstarter.com has made in the past 4 years (before costs, taxes, anything else).

Amazon makes some 54 Million Dollars in sales per Day (!) And that is an old number from 2009. If anything, Amazon has only grown since then.

Jeff Bezos is not above spending more than 32 Million USD "life-time-income-of-Kickstarter.com" on some of his pointless personal side-projects.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
Well, officially they might be not, but if you have some business knowledge and a look at how they operate... and how Amazon aquires new parts of its empire it is only a matter of time until they officially take it over. Audible was aquired in a simliar but not identical way. With regard to tax and business stuff it might even be better to keep them half-seperated. Dont forget that Amazon wants to create it´s own closed content-universe and Kickstarter is the ideal way to aquire quite some new content.

You don´t really believe that Amazon invests in something without thinkin about taking it all over in the end? That would be the first time that they did not take over some company the invested in in the long run.

@restic
You need a good file, a clockmakers file is perfect, but not cheap, but will last you a lifetime.

Umm

Still... "Kickstarter is a 100% daughter of Amazon"

...and...

"Based on Amazon's past business practices, I predict they may secretly consider buying Kickstarter.com"

...are two very different statements.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
You are not very versed in business takeovers?

You are right if you claim that on paper they are two seperate entities. But the really interesting things are the yearly business-reports and if you can read them....

I am versed enough to know that if they are "two separate entities" "on paper"; than one is not a 100% daughter of the other. Or am I wrong?

Whatever shadow-conspiracies and tin-foil-hat theories you may have, they'd all amount to something other than business X being a daughter company of business Y even if they were true (for which you've yet to present evidence).


And what tax-reasons could Amazon have for not "officially" buying a company that made less revenue in its four years of existence than Amazon makes in a day?

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:

Also if I would hand you a list of who belongs to whom in the business world you would be quite surprised. It is not always wise to let anyone know instantly who is owned by whom.

Please do so. I so love to be surprised

Well, here's a recent pic of Mantic Games' staff doing a day out.

Is Remy on it or not (not sure what he looks like real life)?



And for Remy not updating his blog, half of the links on Mantic's page aren't even working. I think people underestimate how much of a on-a-shoestring-company Mantic games still is, Kickstarters and all.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


This is the most negative thread I've ever read on Dakka.

You should try this one!

What I don't get with the Nameless Strikers is how Mantic posed them for the pics.

On the official pics, they look close to the basic base.


The actual DreadBall Miniatures I got have a far wider stance, with an odd base that has two "fly-out" additions to add the legs.



And since the new material is tougher, you'd probably have to break off / cut off the legs and re-glue them to make the miniature as Mantic build it.

 Yonan wrote:
Nice pic, thanks Zwei. Nameless looks good. Nice idea reposing the tentacles using hot water SS, gonna pinch that.

Cheers.

My "unboxing" (though there really wasn't a "box") is here: http://pinsofwar.com/unboxing-mantic-dreadball-season-3/

James Hewitt is on forums (as well as the places such as facebook groups, sub-reddit, twitter, etc.. most of which by themselves have far more mantic-playing people on them than all wargaming forums taken together btw... including some of the larger forums such as boardgamegeek.com )

Example: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?378462-Dreadball-quality-issues&p=6876772&viewfull=1#post6876772

That said, he can't catch eveything. Hell, all of Mantic Games' 20-odd staff doing nothing but browsing forums full-time can't catch everything. You may just want fire up your email-account yourself and drop him a line, if you want him to know/see/respond to something, no?

And yes, Scarlet does a good job here on Dakka.

If James can check Dakka less often, because Scarlet is here, and concentrate on the other 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of the wargaming-interwebs that are not Dakka, that's a good thing, no?

 primalexile wrote:
I strongly believe Dakka is much bigger than Warseer, Facebook, and Reddit....

Warseer? Sure. But not bigger than some of the larger forums (e.g. BoardGameGeek.com) who in turn are far smaller than the respective social media communities.

Either way....

 primalexile wrote:

There are concerns and issues that have been outstanding so long it is ridiculous! If I neglected issues in my job I would no longer be employed. How hard is it to past a sentence that says something like this "We are aware of your concerns we are working on an official response and will have something for you guys and gals in the very near future.". Sometimes the smallest things can quell anger and misconceptions.

Send him an email: james.hewitt [at] manticgames.com

 Alpharius wrote:
Fairly shocked that we haven't gotten firm answers/updates yet.

It is well into the afternoon over in the UK.

Seriously?

People are working, ya know.

Give em a day or two to at least actually investigate the questions you've asked. Possible the weekend to - ya know - get round to it.

This "Dakka is the center of the known universe, companies should suck up to us"-attitude is getting rather annoying.

Not to mention that this is "News & Rumours". It should be the job of .. ya know .. the mods of this site, to keep this thread to News & Rumours, and to guide customer complaints and quality discussions to an appropriate thread in the Mantic Games section of this board, or better yet the Mantic Forums.

 Theophony wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
You have 15 GW specific sub forums. Look at the thread numbers of those forums compared to the others. This forum is very GW heavy.

Sorry to chime in, but their Major competitor is GW.

As they are increasingly moving towards board-games / hybrid-games, no, I don't think GW is such a big thing for them anymore. Other Kickstarter-companies (e.g. CMON) probably are closer to them in direct competition.

And while Dakka-mods seem to think that "miniature-quality-discussions" are "news", it still strikes me as counter-intuitive for most people. This is News & Rumours. People come here to see "new miniature released by X-.. here's the link". and "new rumour about Y .. here's the link". People looking for a discussion on Mantic miniatures quality would never find it here.

That's largely the point of having non-News-&-Rumours discussion boards in the first place.

Admittedly, non-News-&-Rumour boards on Dakka are all pretty much dead (outside the 40K / WFB main-threads), not least because all the Dakka-regulars discuss everything and the kitchen sink in "News & Rumours", because everything worthy of discussion of some kind seems to be "News & Rumours" by Dakka's ultra-vague definition (arguably because this makes it more convenient for Dakka-regulars and Mods to have all "hot" discussions in one place, where they hang out anyhow, even if it makes finding these discussions in these 50-pages-mega-treads an absolute nightmare for more infrequent visitors).

 Alpharius wrote:

Good thing Mantic don't listen to Bloggers!

Lol. Did I say they shouldn't update the Kickstarter?

And what ever happened to "Mantic should listen to their customers/the community"?

I guess the "Mantic community" are only those that don't dare disagree with Alphy?

 Azazelx wrote:


Maybe you should wander back over to your blog and rule with an iron fist over there instead of bitching about how this site is run, if you're so unhappy? I'm a bit over your endless "the way it should be done is the way I interpret things..." attitude in posts here

Wasn't this thread (recently) all about how people should listen to feedback and respond to their fans and customers? I guess Dakka doesn't hold itself to the same standard that they demand of companies like Mantic when it comes to listening to critical feedback?

 Alpharius wrote:


I think you should stop sleeping with the Tyranid Codex under your pillow.

There is no "Dakka".

Well, other than this guy here - Dakka.

But he hasn't made a single post yet...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to pictures of unpainted production models!

If that is so, why are people here constantly making vainglorious claims to "speak for" or "represent" the "community".

You are free (and safe) to ignore my blog, precisely because it is just that... my personal ramblings. Singlular. Me. Nothing else. Not representative of anything.

If people on Dakka - especially people on Dakka with moderation privileges - would stick to the same, there'd be no problem.

But I - in turn - are not granted the same courtesy.

I cannot "ignore" Dakka and simply "go to my blog" as long as people here, MODs included, abuse the relative popularity of this site to couch their personal grievances in a veneer of false legitimacy and authority by claiming to "speak for the community" (of which I am a part, like it or not), going as far as blackmailing company-representatives to respond to them here, deep within a 60+ page thread that is utterly inaccessible to anybody "from the community" who is less than daily on Dakka, and far away from official company websites, emails, forums, etc.. that people would naturally gravitate to. (Not to mention launching into full-fledged Rumpelstiltskin-mode if they don't get a response within 12 hours).

You can play this site/thread by "private club rules", like it or leave it. No problem with me. But if you do, don't claim to represent anybody.

Or you can aspire to make Dakka a platform and place of communication for and by the community, including with companies, but if that is the case, you need to seriously restructure how this particular information (communication with a company such as Mantic Games) is found, organized and updated, especially by people who - say - only come here once a month. The current format doesn't support that idea/aspiration. At all.

And if you seriously want to shoot for option No. 2, you should probably also make sure that people with moderation-privileges stay out of the nitty-gritty. Conflicts of Interest, Great Power, Great Responsibility, and all that.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Mantic already is slowing down, the DKH 4 Kickstarter was planned for late last year, but is now delayed until 2015.

As of right now, they only have to ship the second half of Deadzone and Mars Attacks. That's it, everything else is done.

Umm... the DreadBall 2.0 Kickstarter is just a month away. Hardly "slowing down".

 scarletsquig wrote:
That one will be pretty straightforward for them, I can't see it being bigger than the original DB KS, most likely on a par with Mars Attacks and around the $500k mark.

That is still pretty big.

According to Kickstarter Stats, only 270 projects in the games category (which includes computer games) in the history of Kickstarter broke the US$ 100.000 mark. With 500.000 US$, they might well be in the top 100 Gaming-Kickstarter of all times. If they do break 1 Mill, they'd be in the Top 30 in Games (and in the top 100 of all Kickstarters across all categories in the entire history of Kickstarter).


https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats