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Dude,in between your complaining, you must have missed the part where squig said

You should definitely email them asking for a replacement, they've said they're happy to replace any miniature which has unacceptable flash.

Why don't you go do that first before saying Mantic is shirking responsibility kay?

Sining wrote:
Dude,in between your complaining, you must have missed the part where squig said

You should definitely email them asking for a replacement, they've said they're happy to replace any miniature which has unacceptable flash.

Why don't you go do that first before saying Mantic is shirking responsibility kay?

Already have. I have sent emails about the failures in the past and sent a new one giving feedback about season 2 and asking for a refund of my season 3 pledges. I have never gotten anything but generic 'thanks for your feedback' emails, So asking for a refund I hope prompts a real response. I will send them everything back and call it a day if they are willing. I feel like refunding unfulfilled pledges is perfectly reasonable when they are not holding up their end of their the Kickstarter by producing reliable sculpts or quality casts.

A lot of us are happy with what we've gotten from them, and yes, some people are also upset. I'm sorry you got unacceptable models, but I (and others) am happy with the models I've received. A few have bad flash, but most have less mold line issues than my GW collection of minis. And if we bring the KoW minis in, the only ones I'm not happy about are the cat-horses.

Jeez, every single restic model I've gotten has been excellent. My DB S1 models were free of mold lines. I have 30 orc gore riders that needed a few spears straightened, but were also free of mold lines and were a breeze to assemble.

nkelsch wrote:

Sining wrote:
Dude,in between your complaining, you must have missed the part where squig said

You should definitely email them asking for a replacement, they've said they're happy to replace any miniature which has unacceptable flash.

Why don't you go do that first before saying Mantic is shirking responsibility kay?

Already have. I have sent emails about the failures in the past and sent a new one giving feedback about season 2 and asking for a refund of my season 3 pledges. I have never gotten anything but generic 'thanks for your feedback' emails, So asking for a refund I hope prompts a real response. I will send them everything back and call it a day if they are willing. I feel like refunding unfulfilled pledges is perfectly reasonable when they are not holding up their end of their the Kickstarter by producing reliable sculpts or quality casts.

I think you should stick away from KS and wait till the items get to your LGS so you can see them and buy them.

Sining wrote:


I think you should stick away from KS and wait till the items get to your LGS so you can see them and buy them.

Kickstarter's are not the problem. I have backed many successful kickstarters who released quality products which hasn't fallen into the pits Mantic seems to have. I am forced to do the following when buying Mantic products now: Never buy a model until the final confirmed sculpt is shown, Never buy a model where I do not have the ability to return it for a full refund.

If they would address the Art Direction issues and have some level of QC or find a new casting company, they wouldn't have these issues.

And I can't find FLGS who carry mantic. They dislike how the Kickstarters starve the market. No one wants to buy Dreadball because anyone who liked it already got multiple teams from the KS way before the stores can stock it, and compared to the value of the Kickstarter, the MSRP is downright expensive and loses its 'Hey they are cheap, quit complaining' appeal.

No one wants to buy Dreadball

It's had quadruple the sales outside of the kickstarter compared to inside it.

They had to make a new version of the game in response to demand from the board game market that just wanted a basic game with a simplified rulebook and no cards/ lower price point.

In fact, some kickstarter backers complained that retailers were getting more priority than they were.

If they would address the Art Direction issues and have some level of QC or find a new casting company, they wouldn't have these issues.

This is all that really needs saying, and I agree.

Your delivery of everything other than that one line is terrible, though. They're not going to pay any attention to multi-paragraph internet rants that call them liars, thieves and cheats... in fact taking this stance hurts the odds of having the argument take weight with the company for those of us who are trying to present it in a constructive manner. It makes the point of debate become associated with "that one guy on the internet that hates us" rather than "that bunch of quite nice people on the internet who take their time to politely offer feedback as constructively as possible".

I've seen similar things happen in the past, it's probably the main reason we don't have female sci-fi troopers currently, a lot of people asking for them are a complete and utter firebrand when presenting their opinion on the topic, which creates the impression of a vocal negative minority rather than popular opinion.

I will say one thing in your favour, though. You've actually bought the product before complaining about it. It's a much better position to be presenting a debate from since it sets you apart from the usual "I love 40k and want Mantic to die already" crowd.

A long email to Mantic is probably your best bet, they don't always read forums like this since they move too fast to keep track of.

To be entirely honest, if a drop in the ocean that is 2,5k global backers is worrying and angering retailers, then retailers probably need to take a deep breath and rethink what they are saying.

If they really think that 2,5k global backers is their entire or the majority of their customers then they really have serious issues.

Now as far as the models go I did a fast inspection of mine I think two have non serious moldlines from the entire season 1&2 and so far I have not identified any clipping that it was not on the pegs that are to be inserted in the model, I am not saying people do not have problems, I am saying not everything shipped had such issues.

It's not only Mantic that needs to know, though. After seeing those pics, I'd only be buying it from a store where I can return it if necessary. Luckily, my FLGS does stock Mantic and I'm hoping Dreadball takes off there.

 RiTides wrote:
It's not only Mantic that needs to know, though. After seeing those pics, I'd only be buying it from a store where I can return it if necessary. Luckily, my FLGS does stock Mantic and I'm hoping Dreadball takes off there.

Which place is your FLGS? I think we share a geographic location. I have been trying to find a place which has Dreadball play and haven't found any. I might try Dropzone, but it is quite a hike for me but it may be worth it for summer league play

I can probably even give people who want to do a little work a good deal on teams

So, if I posted the same models without issues what would that make?

Manufacturing defects are a fact of modern life, if you can ask for replacements what is the issue?

nkelsch wrote:
Which place is your FLGS? I think we share a geographic location. I have been trying to find a place which has Dreadball play and haven't found any. I might try Dropzone, but it is quite a hike for me but it may be worth it for summer league play

Oh, I didn't realize that!

Yes, I was referring to Dropzone Games, although I normally game at Dream Wizards. Dropzone is a hike for me on a weekday but very easy to get to on the weekends.

I would be interested in playing you in Dreadball whenever I get my Season 3 team (although I guess that's still a little while yet).

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Manufacturing defects are a fact of modern life, if you can ask for replacements what is the issue?

Well, people are upset about finecast all the time, and it's even easier (perhaps Far easier) to get replacements of those models. So, just being able to get a problem fixed doesn't make it a non-issue... many people, myself included, avoid finecast to not have to deal with the issue altogether.

Or, if they do buy it, they only buy it in a store, to make the replacement / return process more expedited. This is likely what I will be doing with Dreadball purchases now, as I mentioned.

Well I ended up on a whim ordering some more void sirens and zzor from total wargamer. Hopefully the zzor set won't have the extra guard problem - I've got too many already.

Void sirens were unexpected as a purchase. Stupid me decided that I wanted to paint my guys and gals teams in entirely different colours. The original plan was to treat them as 1 full team.

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

The 3d sculpting guys that Mantic hire are just plain consistently bloody good at absolutely everything they do.

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 do like the look of that walker!

Edit: for clarity, due to being ninja'ed

 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.

I can almost deal with that. However, the thing that really grinds my gears, is when it comes from a person of relative (ish) authority on the game, who is on a rules committee (and apparently represents them for all of Oz).

I'm a software developer and recently I've been "User Acceptance Testing" - the computing equivalent of playtesting. In that, my entire job is to try to break the feth out of the software before the public gets to it. The last thing I would do is go 'oh, everythings fine for now.'

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

I have asked if it is possible to decrease or 'refund' my season 3 pledges... No response from mantic at all. Pretty sure I know the answer... This is the difference between a retail consumer relationship where you have rights and a Kickstarter relationship where they can screw you with no recourse.

Mantic needs to fire every sculptor but Remy and go all 3D. This mech suit is what the concept art of the ripper suit lead me to believe they were getting. If the ripper suits were to the scale and design of the Dreadball suit (as it was in the concept art), I would be buying 10 of them. I haven't seen a single digital sculpt which had proportion issues or was a bad model. (probably because the 3D people can start from an correct anatomy and add on.)

If only the 3D renders translated to good casts, The Robots of season 2 had the most flash and looking at other people's photos, I was not alone.

 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.

The person making that post is not a Mantic staff member. The account name gives the impression of something official, but it isn't, it's just someone's username, an Australian who runs some dreadball leagues over there.

I agree that's a really obnoxious post, considering how reasonable and well-thought out the criticism has been... see this for a good example of excellent, reasonable feedback: http://pinsofwar.com/please-fix-dreadball/

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.

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

Please read the multiple posts where I am in fact heavily critical of Mantic before doing so though. Hell, there's a post a few up from this one where I'm agreeing with nkeslch.

Other than me there aren't really any zealots, as such. And even I'm not half as bad as you'd like to make out.

nkelsch wrote:

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

I have asked if it is possible to decrease or 'refund' my season 3 pledges... No response from mantic at all. Pretty sure I know the answer... This is the difference between a retail consumer relationship where you have rights and a Kickstarter relationship where they can screw you with no recourse.

Mantic needs to fire every sculptor but Remy and go all 3D. This mech suit is what the concept art of the ripper suit lead me to believe they were getting. If the ripper suits were to the scale and design of the Dreadball suit (as it was in the concept art), I would be buying 10 of them. I haven't seen a single digital sculpt which had proportion issues or was a bad model. (probably because the 3D people can start from an correct anatomy and add on.)

If only the 3D renders translated to good casts, The Robots of season 2 had the most flash and looking at other people's photos, I was not alone.

To be entirely honest I think even the pixels on my screens have understood your point twice by now, I feel you have tired the subject long ago.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

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

I have asked if it is possible to decrease or 'refund' my season 3 pledges... No response from mantic at all. Pretty sure I know the answer... This is the difference between a retail consumer relationship where you have rights and a Kickstarter relationship where they can screw you with no recourse.

Mantic needs to fire every sculptor but Remy and go all 3D. This mech suit is what the concept art of the ripper suit lead me to believe they were getting. If the ripper suits were to the scale and design of the Dreadball suit (as it was in the concept art), I would be buying 10 of them. I haven't seen a single digital sculpt which had proportion issues or was a bad model. (probably because the 3D people can start from an correct anatomy and add on.)

If only the 3D renders translated to good casts, The Robots of season 2 had the most flash and looking at other people's photos, I was not alone.

To be entirely honest I think even the pixels on my screens have understood your point twice by now, I feel you have tired the subject long ago.

So people discussing wanting to cancel Season 3 pledges has already been discussed? Please let me know how I can obtain my refund or the official statement where Mantic takes advantage of the KS system and won't give back money. If you are going to be part of the bucket brigade, then carry the water by getting the answers for us?

 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.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Please read the multiple posts where I am in fact heavily critical of Mantic before doing so though. Hell, there's a post a few up from this one where I'm agreeing with nkeslch.

Other than me there aren't really any zealots, as such. And even I'm not half as bad as you'd like to make out.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Believe it or not, I consider you - relatively - as one of the saner posters Squig, even though you're far from impartial.

Agreed with both of these except for the idea that there aren't any zealots. I appreciate your input, squig, although obviously you're on the "fan" side of the fence, I feel you are reasonable and critical at times when appropriate.

Who is sculpting the Nameless, again? While not digital, I have high hopes for them based on how Shoeless Joe turned out

 scarletsquig wrote:

The person making that post is not a Mantic staff member. The account name gives the impression of something official, but it isn't, it's just someone's username, an Australian who runs some dreadball leagues over there.

You have no idea how much of a relief that is. Although, I never did think he was a staffmember as such. However, I did have the impression he was a mod and/or senior playtester. - Someone quasi-official, a volunteer staffmember or the like. In any case, this has completely changed the tone of the email, I'm writing.

Edit: And there's goes my relief again...

TWTaylor wrote" wrote:JS was not intending to post this under the auspices of 'official'. When Mantic chose us DGB members, not everyone's account names were know to Mantic, so for a few they just created them to get us going on discussions.

That being said, his post is not invalid. It appears to me that he has no problems with house rules, only that he'd like to see more positive community things. Like most of us would.

And negativity and community can greatly effect a game, and the meta and people around it.

In my mind, calling the forum goers a load of whiners, with the grand point being of, "well, if you don't like it, go do better" (I imagine a raspberry being blown here) seems to me to be the very definition of 'negativity' and 'invalid.'

nkelsch wrote:

Spoiler:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

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

I have asked if it is possible to decrease or 'refund' my season 3 pledges... No response from mantic at all. Pretty sure I know the answer... This is the difference between a retail consumer relationship where you have rights and a Kickstarter relationship where they can screw you with no recourse.

Mantic needs to fire every sculptor but Remy and go all 3D. This mech suit is what the concept art of the ripper suit lead me to believe they were getting. If the ripper suits were to the scale and design of the Dreadball suit (as it was in the concept art), I would be buying 10 of them. I haven't seen a single digital sculpt which had proportion issues or was a bad model. (probably because the 3D people can start from an correct anatomy and add on.)

If only the 3D renders translated to good casts, The Robots of season 2 had the most flash and looking at other people's photos, I was not alone.

To be entirely honest I think even the pixels on my screens have understood your point twice by now, I feel you have tired the subject long ago.

So people discussing wanting to cancel Season 3 pledges has already been discussed? Please let me know how I can obtain my refund or the official statement where Mantic takes advantage of the KS system and won't give back money. If you are going to be part of the bucket brigade, then carry the water by getting the answers for us?

The point is, you got bad casts, they offer to replace them, you decline saying all are bad, people say to you no, but yours are you better replace them, you decline wanting a refund without accepting any chance of replacement first, now you essentially start the same, just without bothering to receive any casts first.

There are a myriad of reasons why mantic may delay on the last and most crucial 3rd of a kickstarter campaign, you just must assume that they decline to reply because they do not want to cooperate with you.

 RiTides wrote:
Who is sculpting the Nameless, again? While not digital, I have high hopes for them based on how Shoeless Joe turned out

Don't know who it is specifically, but I heard that the same guy who did John Doe has been given the job of doing the rest of the Nameless team, so expect more of the same.

Edit: And there's goes my relief again...

TWTaylor is not a Mantic staffer either.

After the Dreadball KS, the dreadball.com website was handed over to the community to manage and run (people from the dreadball fanatics facebook group mostly if I remember right), so basically just some people online who are really passionate about dreadball.

Incidentally, I really would rather be talking about how awesome the dreadball mech is tonight, rather than having to deal with this forum rubbish.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

Spoiler:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

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

I have asked if it is possible to decrease or 'refund' my season 3 pledges... No response from mantic at all. Pretty sure I know the answer... This is the difference between a retail consumer relationship where you have rights and a Kickstarter relationship where they can screw you with no recourse.

Mantic needs to fire every sculptor but Remy and go all 3D. This mech suit is what the concept art of the ripper suit lead me to believe they were getting. If the ripper suits were to the scale and design of the Dreadball suit (as it was in the concept art), I would be buying 10 of them. I haven't seen a single digital sculpt which had proportion issues or was a bad model. (probably because the 3D people can start from an correct anatomy and add on.)

If only the 3D renders translated to good casts, The Robots of season 2 had the most flash and looking at other people's photos, I was not alone.

To be entirely honest I think even the pixels on my screens have understood your point twice by now, I feel you have tired the subject long ago.

So people discussing wanting to cancel Season 3 pledges has already been discussed? Please let me know how I can obtain my refund or the official statement where Mantic takes advantage of the KS system and won't give back money. If you are going to be part of the bucket brigade, then carry the water by getting the answers for us?

The point is, you got bad casts, they offer to replace them, you decline saying all are bad, people say to you no, but yours are you better replace them, you decline wanting a refund without accepting any chance of replacement first, now you essentially start the same, just without bothering to receive any casts first.

There are a myriad of reasons why mantic may delay on the last and most crucial 3rd of a kickstarter campaign, you just must assume that they decline to reply because they do not want to cooperate with you.

Oh Really? I asked for replacements and refunds, and was told their website email form often doesn't function. I want a refund for season 3 to cut my losses if that is a possibility.

So this 'offer to replace them' I have yet to find out how to get this accomplished as they do not respond to their emails. If I cannot get refunds for season 3 or refunds at all like I could if I had bought them as a retail product, then I want the damaged models fixed, but I get NONE of that. Until my models are replaced, then all I can assume is they ignore negative customer feedback and do not treat KS backers the way they do regular customers because they do not respond to emails reporting damaged products.

So what is the excuse now? The website form broke? They have too many emails from Open day to respond to? Dealing with dissatisfied customers is part of customer service.

If this form doesn't work, then Mantic has problems:
http://www.manticgames.com/Contact.html

I have jumped through every hoop every bucket brigade person has told me to, and yet, no response. So I am not sure what more to do? Has anyone yet seen evidence of being able to return a Kickstarter product for replacement models? While they may do it (mainly because they are required to) for purchased product, has any kickstarter backer who has had damaged models gotten replacements yet?

I have still yet to see an 'offer to replace them' or a process for getting things replaced in regards to this KS in any official postings on their website, since doing so admits failure in quality. So this 'They will replace it' seems to be an unconfirmed jibber-jabber of fanatics who have no evidence of such promises.