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The overwhelming sentiment has more to do with the cost vs. an actual comparison to the other products being mentioned

Tabletop World is amazing stuff. I own some. I covet it and hope to own more in the future. It's made of resin. I've broken pieces. It's not modular. It's not pre-painted. That, right there throws it into the realm of personal opinion vs. fair comparison so the point isn't made or accepted.

Hirst Arts are great building blocks to make bigger builds. I own molds. I continue to buy molds and use them to create new and unique pieces. Most people use plaster-based materials to cast, some use resin. Nobody is using PVC which is what Dwarven Forge is made of. Hirst Arts is labour intensive to create and build stuff. It doesn't come prepainted. It's mostly intended to build something greater than the sum of it's parts, and permanent, like a building. It probably comes the closest to a comparison with Dwarven Forge since you can create modular pieces and cast accessories such as barrels and sacks, and the like. However, the two serve fundamentally different needs.

Castle Craft - never heard of it before. I have toy castles I've bought my son... and that's about that. I won't even bother with this comparison.

 MLaw wrote:

jchunick wrote:
The overwhelming sentiment has more to do with the cost vs. an actual comparison to the other products being mentioned

Tabletop World is amazing stuff. I own some. I covet it and hope to own more in the future. It's made of resin. I've broken pieces. It's not modular. It's not pre-painted. That, right there throws it into the realm of personal opinion vs. fair comparison so the point isn't made or accepted.

Hirst Arts are great building blocks to make bigger builds. I own molds. I continue to buy molds and use them to create new and unique pieces. Most people use plaster-based materials to cast, some use resin. Nobody is using PVC which is what Dwarven Forge is made of. Hirst Arts is labour intensive to create and build stuff. It doesn't come prepainted. It's mostly intended to build something greater than the sum of it's parts, and permanent, like a building. It probably comes the closest to a comparison with Dwarven Forge since you can create modular pieces and cast accessories such as barrels and sacks, and the like. However, the two serve fundamentally different needs.

Castle Craft - never heard of it before. I have toy castles I've bought my son... and that's about that. I won't even bother with this comparison.

Are you from Dwarven Forge or what? You're quickly dismissing Castle Craft as a "toy castle" but what you're not seeing is the company's record.. They are well known for making not-40k stuff and then bundling goofy kids stuff with it so it's just left of center. There's a massive castle done with their kits that you would never know was not a historical castle kit.
Found it.. This is what you can do with the modularity of their kits.



As to availability.. it's hit or miss. Sometimes I get lucky on Amazon or google shopping searches but usually Ebay.
EDIT:
And yes.. for clarity.. the cost is bonkers on the DF stuff. There are SO many alternatives out there that are nowhere near that price.

Actually I was pretty clear that I don't know anything about Castle Craft... and re-reading what was originally written as I was about to copy/paste it here I quite literally (as I'm typing this) realized that I misread it as the Castle Craft stuff were kids' toys (not the figures).

It looks neat, but definitely not my style... much closer to MBA, IMO. Far too small in scale for the type of roleplaying I like to do with terrain.

If the argument is price then MBA is very pricey - more than Dwarven Forge.

Consider, as well:
1) The material being used. The pieces are made of a PVC material which means you can literally toss the pieces into a bag and take it over to a friends' house. People do this with the product and list it as unique feature that has worth.
2) The modularity. Some systems are more modular than others. With a system built for modularity, you don't just get full structures that can be reconfigured - you can actually build walls as high as you can afford, or towers as high. You can swap out the battlements/crenellations and configure things in a more granular way, if only to change up gameplay, or maybe for the purpose of copying a particular setting or story. By far, this is probably the biggest selling point.
3) Prepainted. Being able to use the modular terrain right out of the box because it's prepainted comes with a bit of a premium. Dwarven Forge pieces are known for having good paint jobs.
4) It holds it's cost. Many gamers change their stuff up, so will sell old stuff to finance new stuff. Dwarven Forge pieces hold their value.
5) It has an earned reputation for being the standard in modular gaming tiles.
6) Scale. It's 25mm scale so 1"=5'.
7) Backwards Compatible. For the most part, Dwarven Forge is backwards compatible with their older sets, including the resin sets. There are incompatibilities and issues here and there, but these are not insurmountable.
8) High Quality Craftsmanship. There is no argument that the sculpting that goes into the pieces is top quality.

There's no doubt you can spend a lot on any hobby, and with limited funds (some more than others) everyone has to make their own tough decisions on how to maximize the value in what they spend their hard-earned money on. I wouldn't presume to think I know what's best for anyone. However, I can only go on what I'm reading and there's a lot of, "It's too much money." and that's simply an opinion without anything else. Seems like a waste of time and effort to simply give an opinion on a forum when the whole point of a forum is to discuss things with others. An opinion isn't discussion. And if someone is going to make comparisons, don't be lazy or superficial about it. I spent a lot of time in pointing out differences between the systems and that seems to me to be more worthwhile than a personal opinion and some vague hand-waving about some cheaper terrain.

 MLaw wrote:
Jchunik: I'm not actually sure what you're hoping to accomplish.
I "think" you're saying the same thing as us.. which.. is basically:
"That price point is high" and "there's many other kits out there".
What I can't tell is whether you're trying to establish the merits of forking out a buttload of cash for DF stuff or if you're just typing up things that are valid observations without leaning one way or the other..

DF using 28mm scale.. 1" = 5' is not DF using that scale for compatibility.. They're using that scale because DnD miniatures and other roleplaying games have adopted that as the standard where miniatures are concerned. DF simply fell in line. There are MANY 1" companies out there.

As to compatibility within their sets.. I guess I don't know enough about their ranges to care about this. To me, a castle and tower being compatible with a dungeon is seemingly a non-issue.

Standard in gaming is really a self-proclaimed title. They got a lot of press and have a lot of friends. However, Dungeonstone is reportedly just as good or better, barring it's not pre-painted. Cheaper too.

As to craftsmanship.. The pieces are generic. It would be more off topic than we might be already (I think we're on topic but sometimes these types of discussions get shut down). To me it's cookie cutter stuff that I "could" do myself if I were motivated enough. Compare that to Zealot's forthcoming (very very slowly) Twisting Catacombs. The individual pieces OOZE style. By comparison, I can get cookie cutter dungeon stuff from Scotia Grendel for a song. I have an e-bay seller that does cool stuff too that I can't remember off the top of my head and it goes back and forth between really neat style to just cookie cutter type stuff.

I'm not trying to say DF is terrible. I'm not trying to disparage any of their kits or work.. but you seem to be driving the conversation to a specifically polarized viewpoint style discussion. That's almost always the outcome of this type of thing.. eventually it just devolves into "this is awesome and that sucks" type of debate.. because ALL of this is, as you said, opinions on the internet.

To be honest, I don't know really what I'm trying to get at either.

I'm first a crafter. I've previously posted that I use Hirst Arts, for instance. I also do my own mods to existing terrain, including adding LEDs to pieces.

I'm second a gamer and use all sorts of terrain and miniature products from various companies, including Dwarven Forge.

Thirdly, I have done contract work for Dwarven Forge (I guess that's important in the interest of disclosure and all that - or for people to dismiss my viewpoint easily and possibly call me things like a shill or sockpuppet because... well, people).

The LED work I have done was noticed by Dwarven Forge and I was asked in KS3 to build the LED pieces (of which I'm very proud). I've subsequently been asked to further work on KS4 and have had more involvement with that.

I'm pretty much a normal person like anyone else here, I guess. For good or bad my handle everywhere on the internet has always been my name which means I'm easy enough to look up. So, I'm not some anonymous pimply teen or shady dude with a nefarious agenda (as cool - if not tropey - as that would be in a movie).

However, I guess like most, I tend to make poor decisions while surfing the internet late at night, hence the mistakes I've made in posting to this thread.

My "agenda" had started off more well-intentioned, if a bit misguided. I was checking out these forums to see if anything had been posted yet about KS4. It had. I thought, "Cool! Let's see what people think?"... then "Holy crap! I understand these are not the insular forums at Dwarven Forge, but what a completely different attitude than I'd expected." Then, as is obvious, I admittedly got a little butt-hurt over what I felt wasn't a fair comparison or even a consideration of the actual product, just a "it's too expensive, and instead I'd go for this comparative product." My points were those products are not comparative just because[i] they're also roleplaying solutions - in my opinion they target specific and different needs or criteria for different games and gamers.

Ultimately (and this is where I'd messed up here) I'm more interested in understanding what type of gamer people here are and what they are looking for - It's clear that Dwarven Forge is not it, but what characteristics make an appropriate product that meets your needs (and not just price)?

 Alpharius wrote:
Maybe the price estimates for this KS are just off?

I hope?

Because at $300 for a tower and $1500 for a castle, yeah, I'd go with Tabletop World stuff first, even with any 'durability' concerns on using resin stuff.

Because at the end of the day, I'm not sure how much use a castle would ever see anyway.

A tower? Sure!

A castle? Not so sure!

I think it's important to understand that some prices were thrown out, but there really are not too much specifics to go along with that. I don't even have any details on what will go into a tower that was priced at $300, but I do know that you can get the Wizards' Tower for $250 from MBA, so the price isn't outside of the market offerings from comparable companies, at all.

There's certainly quite a bit of variable needs by gamers and I think that's one of the benefits of a modular system to be able to get a tower if you want, or a wall system or the castle or all, and they can all stand on their own.

 MLaw wrote:
I don't agree that it's just "about what you can afford". If I can get 2 towers that are both of acceptable quality and one costs $60 and the other costs $300 then it would be dumb to buy the $300 one for any reason.
I'll explain.
If both are of acceptable quality then they are both of:
A) A standard of design that is desirable
B) A quality of material that is what is being sought
C) Applicable to the games and activities it's being purchased for.

Ok, so pick two acceptable products and compare them?... those are all the factors you would look at?

I can tell you that what I value in terrain is this:
1. Aesthetics - does it meet a certain look that I am looking for? I've developed my sense of aesthetics over a lot of time and have some very specific things I look for - details, form, scale, clean lines, etc.
2. Modularity - it's actually something I've developed in my own work creating LED pieces and modding existing pieces or creating my own pieces. I like a piece or a group of pieces that go together to have the ability to be configured in various ways. This adds value in re-usability and variety.
3. Durability - what is the piece made of? How fragile is it? How durable is it? Do I have to worry about breaking and how easy is it to fix? How noticeable are chips or breaks?
4. Weight - how much does the stuff weigh? How easy is it to store or move?
5. Storage - this is a huge consideration. There are whole threads about this on forums I frequent. How much space does it take to store? Can you stack the pieces? Do you have to be careful when storing?
6. Setup - how easy is it to set up scenes/scenarios with the terrain?
7. Ready out-of-the-box - does the terrain come pre-painted? Can I unbox and start using it right away? Is the factory paint acceptable quality?
8. Does it meet my gaming needs?
9. Compatibility - is it compatible with other products from other companies?
10. Cost - how much does the product cost, and is there a comparable product at a cheaper price point? If it's expensive, is it something I absolutely need or just want really bad? What is the perceived value of it (higher or lower than the actual value)? How much use will I get out of it?

I guess if you shoehorn anything then you can force a point, but I think it's a more realistic list of factors that I've presented.

 MLaw wrote:

Further.. The options we've already discussed exist now. Those are retail prices. Not Kickstarter prices. There's no wait past shipping and no concerns about what the final will look like since it's already in existence.

I would understand the painting thing.. except.. there are a ton of awesome painting services that would take... Let's say..
This http://minimonsters.eu/GuardTower.html $49 tower with a playable interior.. and assemble and paint it for you for probably $30-$50... at what I would assume would be a higher standard than DF..

I think your two points above are entirely valid and I would agree they are important considerations.

 MLaw wrote:

Saying that since one or two other companies charge ridiculous prices for something is reason for another to do the same simply inflates the prices all across the board.

This one isn't. Again, saying it is a ridiculous price is a personal opinion. I use MBA as a legitimate comparable high-end product of similar quality, brand recognition, and industry leadership. Unless you could show me that their prices are so inflated vs. their costs that their profit margins are making them inordinately rich then I would say it's a losing argument. The other comparable factor is that the two companies are both from the US. Using the comparison of a Russian-based product that can be only found on ebay - was it? - is stretching it.


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Bossk_Hogg wrote:
Jesus, $300 for a tower? That's insane. I'm not sure why the prices arent more in line with the original dungeon kickstarter prices. That and the caverns were great value. With some tweaking, they could have easily made the town/castle similar, but they went with the stupid peg/wall system, and the price skyrocketed, and the piece count went way down. You had windows, curved walls, and large floor pieces in the game tiles 1st kickstarter. I can all but guarantee you will be able to build more, for less, with those than in this one.

Without knowing anything, but seeing a tower is $300 I'd go, "OMG!" as well. Reactionary? Entirely. Critical thinking, be damned ;-)