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 cincydooley wrote:
fething whiners needing to be first. Jesus.

What the hell is so wrong with that. One of the bloody appeals of Kickstarter is 'getting in on the ground floor', including an opportunity to give the product a whirl before the public.

Just because YOU don't give a frell doesn't mean it isn't fraking important to someone else.

The problem here is, once again, bad communication.

This is yet another Kickstarter that is going to ship quite late.

Due to ship in August 2014.

If the core boxes ship out from September to October, and that still seems completely out of whack, but maybe they're finally trying to be 'realistic' with a ship date, how long until everything else ships out and this one is 'complete'? Probably sometime WELL into 2015.

And it wouldn't shock me at all if this one ends up near a year late as well.

It looks like this one was delayed, clearly, and that rather than tell the backers the 'bad news' as soon as they had it, they decided to go with the sad trend of "Don't say anything until we have to, even though it will be painfully obvious that this thing's schedule is completely borked because we haven't even sent out a Pledge Manager yet!!!"

 Forar wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
fething whiners needing to be first. Jesus.

What the hell is so wrong with that. One of the bloody appeals of Kickstarter is 'getting in on the ground floor', including an opportunity to give the product a whirl before the public.

Just because YOU don't give a frell doesn't mean it isn't fraking important to someone else.

Nothing is wrong with it I suppose. To me it's just very childish and entitled and very much indicative of today's society.

I couldn't care less if I'm first to get something. I back KS projects because of the value, not the timing.

But then again I seldom buy new games at full retail at GenCon because somehow I was instilled with patience.

"Nothing is wrong with it I suppose"

*goes on to list several negative/derogatory statements indicating that something is wrong with it*

 Forar wrote:
"Nothing is wrong with it I suppose"

*goes on to list several negative/derogatory statements indicating that something is wrong with it*

Hey, it's like, my opinion man.

@Thread: Rule #1, please... you can refute the other person's point without being rude.


Small tangent below, about kickstarters in general...


All that said, I am a bit jaded now, so for Kickstarters a month or two really is in the noise for me at this point

Yeah, I am with Cinc on this one.

Here's the kicker for me

Estimated delivery: Aug 2014

Estimated. Not guaranteed. If even a single box is shipped before August ends, they have lived up to their end better than about 90% of the kickstarters I have backed. Sure, communication could be better, but cool your jets. Not everyone can be Poots.

Yeah, I didn't realize that was the original estimate- that's pretty darn close! Much better than most. But communication really can help smooth over things like this. I have no idea if they're communicating well or not, personally... but reactions seem to indicate "not"

Regardless, I'm very interested in how this game turns out!

I think it's clear the communication here could have been better, but again, they're not far from their estimate, and they'll most likely be on time.

I think some of complaints concerning this one are..... A bit much.

What wave are most of the add-ons in (like the Lava Men)... or are there only two waves for this?

Are they going to sell the tile sets from this game because holy crap they're amazing!?!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Are they going to sell the tile sets from this game because holy crap they're amazing!?!

Based on how the company has done things up to this point, I'd say either they will be available, or they will work with you to get them to you - I own practically everything Flying Frog has put out up to now, and I have no personal complaints about them at all. When they did their initial run of Last Night on Earth, the game boards were a bit dark, and when they did the first expansion and the game boards for that were lighter, they replaced the first run game boards with lighter versions that matched the expansion for free. The few issues I've had - a couple of figures messed up - were resolved quickly and at their expense.

They've always seemed pretty open to helping people out, but bear in mind it's a pretty small organization so keep multiple lines of communication open.

cincydooley wrote:

 Forar wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
fething whiners needing to be first. Jesus.

What the hell is so wrong with that. One of the bloody appeals of Kickstarter is 'getting in on the ground floor', including an opportunity to give the product a whirl before the public.
Just because YOU don't give a frell doesn't mean it isn't fraking important to someone else.

Nothing is wrong with it I suppose. To me it's just very childish and entitled and very much indicative of today's society.
I couldn't care less if I'm first to get something. I back KS projects because of the value, not the timing.
But then again I seldom buy new games at full retail at GenCon because somehow I was instilled with patience.

Cincy,

I never claimed entitlement to being first to get the game. I pointed out the hipocrisy of FFP of selling games to people at Gencon before sending out ANY to backers. They could certainly have multiple demo copies on hand to drum up interest and drive up demand without selling any there. It's apparent that, a lot like Palladium, the backers didn't really "make this game happen", we just pre-ordered it from them, and other people who didn't will get copies sooner.

I, like you, would be fine with being the very last backer to receive mine. It is the perception of how we're being treated by the company that I take exception with.

Bromsy wrote:Yeah, I am with Cinc on this one.
Here's the kicker for me

Estimated delivery: Aug 2014

Estimated. Not guaranteed. If even a single box is shipped before August ends, they have lived up to their end better than about 90% of the kickstarters I have backed. Sure, communication could be better, but cool your jets. Not everyone can be Poots.

Bromsy,

This is a very good point. I agree that they estimated shipment in August. However, at no point in the entire KS or since, did they ever even hint that it would take 10 weeks to ship this to everyone. And, this:

Estimated delivery: Aug 2014

Isn't met by shipping 10% in August. Delivery, in terms of corporate shipping, usually means actual receipt of the product. This is why most professional corporations use the term "shipping", "ship dates" and such. Then the vagaries of arrival are on the actual postal services. So, by shipping to 10-20% of backers doesn't earn this company a pass. That isn't meeting their deadline, however, I infer from their updates and posts that they feel it is "meeting their intent".


I'm not espousing internet rage, kicking my feet and demanding a refund. But I don't feel that because this is KS, which allows "creative people to generate artsy things that they can't fund themselves", that a professional company gets a pass. Is the company going to overshoot it's estimate? Yes. Is it horrible in and of itself? No, not at all. Is their communication, tone and implied lack of respect towards the people who funded their "dream game" a problem? Yes. This company can't even generate a pledge manager.

I'm not tearing down any of their games, not even this one. Merely pointing out that I no longer respect the company for their actual choices that they are making, and their lack of communication and respect. Everyone has different viewpoints. Cincy has said that he backed this solely for the game, and takes exception that I don't like his choices, and has inferred that I should be happy to just receive the game. Sorry. I'll receive the game regardless. I think they should act like a professional company in the meantime.

I think *every* Kickstarter uses the "Estimated Delivery" terminology - it is probably hard coded into the platform.

I'm with RiTides on this subject too - I'm definitely becoming a LOT more interested in Kickstarters that deliver on time.

A lot of this particular mess could have been avoided with...more communication, not less!

And there still has NOT been an 'official' update about this whole thing!

Funny story, the estimated time frame wasn't originally part of KS. The rampant delays on Kickstarters in years past actually let to the KS platform requiring that creators at least take a stab at estimating when their stuff would be out. Just like the FAQ and the Risks & Challenges sections were added (and I believe both are required now).

Anyone reasonable accepts that the date isn't an absolute, but for most projects the delays are "it's not ready". I've never seen one before go with "It'll be kinda ready, but we're gonna stagger this out over 3 months to make things easier". There's a difference in delays that happen because of production hold ups, and delays that happen because they don't want to over work their packaging service.

And seriously, ~1000 every couple of weeks? Are they just using one dude with an over sized garage?

"Sorry, the ship got held up in port an extra three weeks" or "the factory we're using had a machine break down, going to need another month" are reasonable delay exceptions. "omg 4,500 backers is a lot of packages" isn't.

Perhaps I'm being uncharitable (and like SG here, this isn't something I'm losing sleep over or writing harsh emails to them about; I'm annoyed, but more in a 'I expected better from you guys' sense), but I totally agree with Alpharius, it'd be really nice for them to step up their game in terms of communication, as unlikely as it may be for that to happen.

 Alpharius wrote:
I think *every* Kickstarter uses the "Estimated Delivery" terminology - it is probably hard coded into the platform.

I'm with RiTides on this subject too - I'm definitely becoming a LOT more interested in Kickstarters that deliver on time.

A lot of this particular mess could have been avoided with...more communication, not less!

And there still has NOT been an 'official' update about this whole thing!

Be careful what you wish for; you could wind up with a Mantic who always deliver on time but with questionable results. I'd rather wait a while (not years) for a quality product than have a giant pile of restic with mold-lines all over the place.

Also, I imagine at least some people are feeling antsy because we aren't being given clarifications, and "delivering in a month" becoming "it'll deliver in three months" plus international shipping time, possible delays and whatnot is how projects end up "ooops, took 6/8/12 months after all".

Do I seriously think people will still be waiting on Wave One boxes in a year? Probably not, but minimizing it as "oh it's just an extra month or two, grow up" ignores the entire swathes of cited examples people love to bring up regarding delays and customs and shipping issues etc. Why think that it'll *just* be those three months?

And as noted before, if nothing else I'm a bit surprised that they're going to take so long and presumably wait even longer on retail? Going to stores in Oct/Nov might be just in time for the christmas rush, but it seems like they're cutting an awfully fine line sorting it all out. What then? Being understanding of sales at Gencon is one thing, but being upset if this thing does go to retail before backer delivery (like Gencon, 'omg they'd be crazy to miss the christmas sales period!)

It becomes a bunch of rough things to deal with in this time frame, but they're the experts, and presumably at some point they looked at a calendar and noticed that August was looming and Christmas happens a mere 4 months after that.

here have been a few KS where the companies packaging dept have outpaced the ability of the local postal service to handle things

to the extent that the company has been told we'll only take X per day from you and don't try and bypass it by delivering it to a post office yourself eg Reaper

If there's money in the budget a company might be able to add an alternative carrier (and they should), but if there isn't they';re stuck

Guess I should have the Dwarven Forge guys reach out to FFP, get them hooked up with whomever they used. >.>

Hopefully FFP follows through with getting us the game manual in the next update, and it's soon'ish, to give us more things to talk about.

Bonus points if they do clarify this new stance on delivery in said update. Squeaking one out before Gencon eats their souls/free time would be appreciated.

FFP was terrible on the communication front throughout the kickstarter. Updates were always later, the front page was often updated before an official update was sent out, we now have to live with 1 info-lacking update a month, and there's never been an acknowledgement on their part that they could and should do better. The updates post-kickstarter have been pretty, but they hardly give much information on the global state of progress for the project. It wasn't hard to see this during the KS, and so I'm not even the slightest bit surprised by this news.

Just as an aside, how many kickstarter projects have you guys backed where you feel like FFP was all that bad about this one?

So far I have

Wasteland 2 : Estimated Delivery Oct 2013 - still in beta

Shadowrun Returns : Estimated Delivery - January 013 - released July 013

Sedition Wars - Estimated Delivery Nov 012 - released Januaryish 2013 for the first wave and many months later for the other waves

Shadowrun Online - Estimated Delivery - May, 2013 - still in barely alpha

Planetary Annihilation - Estimated Delivery Jul 2013 - currently in fairly advanced beta

Project Eternity - Estimated Delivery - Apr 2014 - still in pre alpha

Deluxe WtA 20th Anniversary - Estimated Delivery - Jan 2013 - delivered somewhere around May 2013

Assimilation Alien Host -Estimated Delivery -Apr 2013 - god only knows

Kingdom Death Monster - Estimated Delivery - Nov 2013 - seriously delayed but good communication so people don't care

Dice Rings - Estimated Delivery - Feb 2013 - shipped May 2013

and so on.


Chill out. Moderately 'bad' communication is not a reason to get all offended and angry. Kickstarters, including ones by 'successful companies' are usually badly estimated messes. Even these 'successful companies' are usually less than a dozen individuals. They have things going on. stop getting butthurt before we even reach estimated delivery time.

I was on the relic knights and raging heroes ks. And those had 2 year wait Times. TWO YEARS!! Delays(huge long)are pretty much part and parcel of funding a miniature ks. I find I seem to do much better if i don't even look at the actual delivery date.

Being mad and stressed wont make it go any faster and just ruins your day. It ships when it ships and at this point in the campaign...there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Other Kickstarters being delayed or having poor communication is a reason to not be surprised when others do it, but it's not an excuse.

Each of those is delayed and/or has crappy communications all on their own.

And as an aside, video game creation is a rather different thing from a boardgame that was stated to have 3 years of work on it when the campaign went live (pushing 4 now, I suppose).

 rayphoton wrote:
I was on the relic knights and raging heroes ks. And those had 2 year wait Times. TWO YEARS!![

Um, Raging Heroes successfully funded almost exactly 1 year ago, and is only 3 months late currently.

While it may be months yet before they deliver (after apparently redoing half their work a good four times, it's not quite at "TWO YEARS!" yet.

Relic Knights funded nearly 2 years ago, but was only around a year late.

Let's not ride the Hyperbole Train too hard here, guys.

Late edit: Man, it wasn't that long ago that Ogre being a year late was a massive thing and a point of ongoing mockery. Kind of sad that a year delay is now the expectation for some people.

 Forar wrote:
Other Kickstarters being delayed or having poor communication is a reason to not be surprised when others do it, but it's not an excuse.

Agreed!

Hopefully people will learn more from Kingdom Death on how to handle delays vs. well, just about everyone else.

 Forar wrote:

Late edit: Man, it wasn't that long ago that Ogre being a year late was a massive thing and a point of ongoing mockery. Kind of sad that a year delay is now the expectation for some people.

Agreed here too!

 cincydooley wrote:
I think it's clear the communication here could have been better, but again, they're not far from their estimate, and they'll most likely be on time.

I think some of complaints concerning this one are..... A bit much.

While I'm not bent out of shape, I do have to point out that "we're splitting shipping into waves - first the core set(s) and then (with no real date applied) will be all the stretch goals! In 2015 sometime." is really not "on time" or even near "on time. It's just the (now) usual bs to allow companies to say "we have begun shipping".

it's the new black. Apparently.

 Azazelx wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
I think it's clear the communication here could have been better, but again, they're not far from their estimate, and they'll most likely be on time.

I think some of complaints concerning this one are..... A bit much.

While I'm not bent out of shape, I do have to point out that "we're splitting shipping into waves - first the core set(s) and then (with no real date applied) will be all the stretch goals! In 2015 sometime." is really not "on time" or even near "on time. It's just the (now) usual bs to allow companies to say "we have begun shipping".

it's the new black. Apparently.

So... what are we mad about here? The kickstarter was for the initial two box sets.... if they ship those at or around when they said they would - that makes this among the better kickstarter projects as far as timing. Are we supposed to be mad that they didn't add the extra 450% of stuff and then still get all that out at the estimated shipping date for the original project?

 Forar wrote:
Other Kickstarters being delayed or having poor communication is a reason to not be surprised when others do it, but it's not an excuse.


Um, Raging Heroes successfully funded almost exactly 1 year ago, and is only 3 months late currently.

While it may be months yet before they deliver (after apparently redoing half their work a good four times, it's not quite at "TWO YEARS!" yet.

Relic Knights funded nearly 2 years ago, but was only around a year late.

Let's not ride the Hyperbole Train too hard here, guys.

apologies...I waited 2 years from the time it was funded to get it...but your right...total 2 years is not 2 years too late.

Also ...why did it feel so long that TGG finished funding. Anyway. Miniature and BG KS all have about the same long wait time. IMO being angry about it just makes you angry....it doesn't help in any other way. "but..thats just like my opinion...man"

 rayphoton wrote:
Also ...why did it feel so long that TGG finished funding. Anyway. Miniature and BG KS all have about the same long wait time. IMO being angry about it just makes you angry....it doesn't help in any other way. "but..thats just like my opinion...man"

But on the reverse side, not being angry (or more accurately not voicing concern loudly) means acceptance of the status quo, and there'll be no reason for these companies to change.

Palladium's dealings with RRT (absolute crap) has soured me on anything they do. They get no further money from me, for anything.
Mantic's dealings with Deadzone (not great, but decent, given their limitations) got me spending significantly on Dreadball.

Now, yes, I could have done those things without being vocal, but I want the company to have fair warning, and realize that not everyone is happy with the current situation.

As it stands, I'm still a supporter of FFP, but if they continue to faff about, they'll lose that. My couple hundred bucks on a project might not mean much, but only if I'm the only one. And it's not the delays (though it doesn't help). I don't mind delays if we're kept informed. It's lack of information, or worse, false or misleading information. And this "When we said August, we meant August through October", may not be false, but it definitely comes across as iffy. The first mention that it'll not just go into September, but the month following as well, only comes up in an already four page deep into the comments section post, less than a month before it's planned to ship, with no further clarifications? Sorry, that's NOT the way you communicate. And if FFP don't like the rampant speculation and voiced frustration, there's an easy way to fix it. Keeping us informed. IMO, it's on them, not us, if they want us to trust them in the future.

What I don't get is that, if Backers are so smart and can work this out, why aren't Creators?

Why don't creators say "this should take us 9 months for the core sets, so let's warn them from the start that if we hit a good number of stretch goals it'll probably go up to more like 21-24 months for full delivery"?

Oh, because if they did, fewer people might be inclined to back, or to back for as much money, which might mean falling short on a few stretch goals, which means the project remains a somewhat more reasonable size and can finish in a reasonable time.

Less work and a greater likelihood of an on time (or less late) delivery, but lower funding.

So it comes down to the money.

It's not about being 'OMG NERD RAGE' angry, it's about companies somehow being oblivious to the same gak we apparently know intuitively. Next time a campaign says it'll deliver miniatures in less than a year and hits 300% funding without a doubling of their time frame, they deserve nothing but mockery and scorn. It's only the status quo because backers, in general, tolerate it. It's unprofessional, and yet some people will defend it as though it's good that these groups receive occasional dump trucks of money with essentially zero oversight.

Also, refund policies need to be pushed for. If a campaign says 6 months, maybe 12, it'd be nice to have an option to back out at 18 or 24. And this isn't without precedent, KS themselves require creators refund campaigns they will not or cannot complete, but watching projects limp along lamely for entire quarters is bullgak.

Edit: and while I feel it should be obvious, I'm talking in general here. While we all suspect there'll be delays, SoB isn't actually late yet, and I am comfortable with the realistic 2 wave shipping. But KS is evolving, and I'm growing concerned that backers are going from 'patient and understanding' to 'doormats' and are looking very heavily at 'here, give me the whip, you look tired, I'll just flog myself'.

CMON now offer no quibble refunds for the entire amount up to 60 days and for the amount less Kickstarter / Amazon fees until it's actually posted out.