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I think the reason feel 'annoyed' is we all understand the mechanics of miniatures and PLASTIC is where you get your most expensive mold, but is best for higher run products and results in generally the 'ultimate goal' for manufacturers... To reach the numbers to justify plastic molds and the sales to make plastics cheaper.

Lots of KS start with a concept and when they blow up make the magic switch from a low-count expensive casting process to a high-count cheaper per model casting process.

The truth is Mantic came to the table with a lot of the models 'already in the can' which means they did not necessarily need the KS to facilitate the tooling of those models. So when they hit the critical mass to justify the molds to make plastic enforcers, people ASSUMED that mantic was not going to double-tool the model in multiple materials.

They basically see the tooling for plastic enforcers as wasted money and they spent money to improve a product which they are ineligible for. Some feel mantic has been purposely ambiguous about materials for their personal advantage, but tooling restic and plastic almost exactly at the same time seems like a waste of the backer's money whether it is rational or not.

'Technically not lying' is never something you want to have to rub in a customer's face as people don't like to be discounted by a technicality.

Mantic should have had an inkling that they had planned to possibly push for enforcer plastics and simply not pre-tooled the restic molds. They could have pre-tooled the other factions behind the scenes and known they seem to know how to maximize KS to make the plastic molding a reality. They would have then not wasted money on double effort, made a better overall product and had happier people.

Being 'technically correct' in that they were not promised plastic isn't going to make people happy or help future KS. Customers are often not rational, but this issue along with the metal issue is going to dissatisfy legitimate chunks of their supporter base and is going to cause issues. I suspect if given the choice, people would totally divest themselves of restic enforcers for 'other' DZ stuff and then wait for retail plastic enforcers in a lot of situations. They might have been better off eating the tooling for the restic mold and saved themselves from producing all that product.

Received my season3 recently and to be totally honest, I prefer metal anyway. As for scale, I think someone posted pics previously on this page where the scale difference for a teraton was negligible while the metal zee was slightly taller than the other which was the only big difference it seems. But considering the size of the zee, that slight difference in height is going to be really really hard to see on the tabletop.

All I know is that I pledged for twelve battlezones, and dare them to make those in metal.

BWHAHAHA Solkan, bwahaha indeed. I think I got 14 or something, I'll be happy as long as they aren't made out of cheese (unless its durable long-wearing cheese with no risk of molding, then maybe that would be ok too).

Solkan and Grimdork I hope that one of you lives near central PA so I can get a game of Deadzone in with one of you. I missed the KS due to spending all if my funds on Zombicide and it looks like this will be the best way to get my skirmish fix.

All they said was that they don't have any production samples there in the office, and suddenly that means they've not seen anything before approval?

I thought they had people supervising in the factory, is it so hard to believe that those Mantic employees have inspected and approved the samples without them being in the UK HQ, and they just don't have any publishable photos of them to post?

I imagine Mantic wants to do a grand unboxing video and gallery, not a piecemeal release of phone camera pictures of individual sprues from a small QC room in Shanghai.

So you're saying Mantic is ensuring quality control on their photos? Well, its a start.

@nkelsch: That's actually a pretty reasonable analysis both of the situation and backer psychology.

After eyeing it up, I think it all comes down to the men-at-arms (yes really, bear with me)...

During the deadzone campaign, Mantic might have had plans to hard-plastic some of the stuff if the total got high enough. However, also during the the campaign (or slightly before, not sure) they would have been receiving the first MAA samples, and known that they were horrible.. James mentioned on Mantic radio that they had to fly a guy over there to make sure the DZ terrain was done properly.

So, I'm thinking there would have been this huge "argh, do we even have an actual tooling option for hard plastic?" panic during the DZ KS itself, so restic was stuck with for everything other than wave 2 stuff. And then only later were they happy enough to go ahead have hard plastics tooled, but by that point it was too late in the production process to get the sprues done for wave #1 shipping.

I think the best solution might be to offer all the new hard plastics at a low price (plague zombie pricing, complete with bundles!) in the second survey and allow people to swap out second-survey credit to get them instead of their current picks. They'll be popular, very popular. This situation is a bit of a shame since it could have been a fantastic PR boost, if Mantic announced the hard plastics during the kickstarter itself they could have easily broke $2 million. People would have gone nuts for an enforcer sprue with all the bells and whistles, it would have been hugely popular if they'd just had it as part of the campaign from day 1 and had some confidence in their company and their product.

Mantic are an already good company that keeps on getting better, they just keep getting hamstrung by quite frankly bizarre bean-counter decisions that assume a product will be unpopular and therefore decide to decrease its quality/ appeal before it even goes on sale, and without the knowledge of the people who paid to have it tooled.


On top of *that* you have the silent treatment whenever something goes wrong, which actually bothers me a lot more than things going wrong... that process of only bothering to say anything about something they know is terrible after it is in the mail instead of letting us know before so we can do something about it or order some different minis instead. This does actually hit me in the wallet as well, if Mantic had just posted pics of the MAA sprue in advance I'd have said "no thanks, send paladins instead, cheers!".. and would have been totally happy with it. I could return them I guess but as Ed Lowe so eloquently said earlier in the thread "I don't want to be an arse about it".

Same goes for metal dreadball teams, it could have been handled with one simple update asking for backers opinions, and people could have dealt with it then. I'd imagine most will stick with their metals, not because they're entirely happy, but again due to the "I don't want to be an arse about it" factor mentioned above. There were even people who declined mantic's offer for more free ogres during the KoW KS simply because they didn't want to cause a fuss, and I think your average consumer is like this, it's only a small selection of a much larger group that will complain about something or take up the offer of a fix, but that doesn't mean a larger quieter group were happy about it, they're more likely to respond by simply not buying anything anymore.

We didn't know about fantasy hybrid forgefathers until a week before they shipped (there was no kickstarter for that product so it wasn't really a big deal). People didn't know how bad the goblins or MAA were until they got them delivered, our first pics of those were taken from customer's cellphones, mantic provided none and still don't have any on their website, only the pics of resin masters. Dreadball metal was announced after it was in the mail and it looks a lot like deadzone was hoping to wait until mars attacks was finished to post an update that might not be well-received.

As a long term fan of Mantic it has really bothered me to see this "see if people get angry or not then deal with it later if they are" approach to customer communication persist over the past few years to the point where if Mantic is silent about something, I immediately make the assumption that something must have gone wrong and they're going into PR silence "damage control" mode.


Just some straight-up non-corporate-speak statements about potential issues well in advance, maybe soliciting opinions at the same time would go down really well.

Imagine if there was a KoW update saying "Okay guys, the goblins weren't as great as we wanted, but if we want hard plastic MAA we'll have to use the same tooling company due to budgetary concerns... is this something you want or shall we stick with restic for the moment?".

Or Dreadball update: "Hey guys, we didn't quite have enough KS funds to get these last few minis tooled in restic.. they will have to be metal. We've sculpted them smaller in size so restic shrinkage will not be an issue and picked mostly one-part minis to be done in metal so the impact on backers will be minimal. Please let us know if you're not happy with that though and we'll sort out either a refund or replacement for you."

Or Deadzone update suffix to update to update #103: "Note - None of these hard plastics are going to be released for deadzone or delivered as part of your pledges, they'll appear later as general warpath releases but we hope to offer them during the second survey, keep this in mind before you finish finalizing the contents of your first survey".

That's the sort of thing that could have been done the second they knew there was going to be something that people would be unhappy with.

 Alpharius wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
An apology doesn't mean much. They have a history and pattern now.

Black Nexus- A notice as/after they've shipped means very little! And if it's not safe to believe Mantic will produce in scale models (as the mixed metal and restic Zees are different heights!) then it's not safe to back their kickstarters, it's that simple.

Exactly.
This is not good - Deadzone was looking to be a perfect opportunity for Mantic to stop pulling this crap and grow up as a company.
It is starting to look like they're preparing to burn their final bridge.

Good thing it wasn't me who posted this.

 scarletsquig wrote:

Spoiler:

@nkelsch: That's actually a pretty reasonable analysis both of the situation and backer psychology.

After eyeing it up, I think it all comes down to the men-at-arms (yes really, bear with me)...

During the deadzone campaign, Mantic might have had plans to hard-plastic some of the stuff if the total got high enough. However, also during the the campaign (or slightly before, not sure) they would have been receiving the first MAA samples, and known that they were horrible.. James mentioned on Mantic radio that they had to fly a guy over there to make sure the DZ terrain was done properly.

So, I'm thinking there would have been this huge "argh, do we even have an actual tooling option for hard plastic?" panic during the DZ KS itself, so restic was stuck with for everything other than wave 2 stuff. And then only later were they happy enough to go ahead have hard plastics tooled, but by that point it was too late in the production process to get the sprues done for wave #1 shipping.

I think the best solution might be to offer all the new hard plastics at a low price (plague zombie pricing, complete with bundles!) in the second survey and allow people to swap out second-survey credit to get them instead of their current picks. They'll be popular, very popular. This situation is a bit of a shame since it could have been a fantastic PR boost, if Mantic announced the hard plastics during the kickstarter itself they could have easily broke $2 million. People would have gone nuts for an enforcer sprue with all the bells and whistles, it would have been hugely popular if they'd just had it as part of the campaign from day 1 and had some confidence in their company and their product.

Mantic are an already good company that keeps on getting better, they just keep getting hamstrung by quite frankly bizarre bean-counter decisions that assume a product will be unpopular and therefore decide to decrease its quality/ appeal before it even goes on sale, and without the knowledge of the people who paid to have it tooled.


On top of *that* you have the silent treatment whenever something goes wrong, which actually bothers me a lot more than things going wrong... that process of only bothering to say anything about something they know is terrible after it is in the mail instead of letting us know before so we can do something about it or order some different minis instead. This does actually hit me in the wallet as well, if Mantic had just posted pics of the MAA sprue in advance I'd have said "no thanks, send paladins instead, cheers!".. and would have been totally happy with it. I could return them I guess but as Ed Lowe so eloquently said earlier in the thread "I don't want to be an arse about it".

Same goes for metal dreadball teams, it could have been handled with one simple update asking for backers opinions, and people could have dealt with it then. I'd imagine most will stick with their metals, not because they're entirely happy, but again due to the "I don't want to be an arse about it" factor mentioned above. There were even people who declined mantic's offer for more free ogres during the KoW KS simply because they didn't want to cause a fuss, and I think your average consumer is like this, it's only a small selection of a much larger group that will complain about something or take up the offer of a fix, but that doesn't mean a larger quieter group were happy about it, they're more likely to respond by simply not buying anything anymore.

We didn't know about fantasy hybrid forgefathers until a week before they shipped (there was no kickstarter for that product so it wasn't really a big deal). People didn't know how bad the goblins or MAA were until they got them delivered, our first pics of those were taken from customer's cellphones, mantic provided none and still don't have any on their website, only the pics of resin masters. Dreadball metal was announced after it was in the mail and it looks a lot like deadzone was hoping to wait until mars attacks was finished to post an update that might not be well-received.

As a long term fan of Mantic it has really bothered me to see this "see if people get angry or not then deal with it later if they are" approach to customer communication persist over the past few years to the point where if Mantic is silent about something, I immediately make the assumption that something must have gone wrong and they're going into PR silence "damage control" mode.


Just some straight-up non-corporate-speak statements about potential issues well in advance, maybe soliciting opinions at the same time would go down really well.

Imagine if there was a KoW update saying "Okay guys, the goblins weren't as great as we wanted, but if we want hard plastic MAA we'll have to use the same tooling company due to budgetary concerns... is this something you want or shall we stick with restic for the moment?".

Or Dreadball update: "Hey guys, we didn't quite have enough KS funds to get these last few minis tooled in restic.. they will have to be metal. We've sculpted them smaller in size so restic shrinkage will not be an issue and picked mostly one-part minis to be done in metal so the impact on backers will be minimal. Please let us know if you're not happy with that though and we'll sort out either a refund or replacement for you."

Or Deadzone update suffix to update to update #103: "Note - None of these hard plastics are going to be released for deadzone or delivered as part of your pledges, they'll appear later as general warpath releases but we hope to offer them during the second survey, keep this in mind before you finish finalizing the contents of your first survey".

That's the sort of thing that could have been done the second they knew there was going to be something that people would be unhappy with.

Perhaps Mantic should release something along the lines of your post. Reading the speculation and proposals from a fan doesn't carry the same weight.

I agree, Scarletsquig / CptJake. That is a really good post squig, and I imagine you've tried to communicate the same directly before... but if they would just listen and start taking those PR / QC steps before putting minis in the mail... it would go a long way!

The fact that there are still no pics of the goblin sprues on the website indicates to me that this is not unintentional, though :-/. As I said earlier, they're passing things off on the people who will take them... and as squig points out, most people "don't want to be an arse about it" and won't ask for a replacement. But that doesn't mean that they are a satisfied or that they don't have issues with the models... just that they either don't have the time, or don't want to be a jerk, in getting Mantic to fix it.

 RiTides wrote:
I agree, Scarletsquig / CptJake. That is a really good post squig, and I imagine you've tried to communicate the same directly before... but if they would just listen and start taking those PR / QC steps before putting minis in the mail... it would go a long way!

The fact that there are still no pics of the goblin sprues on the website indicates to me that this is not unintentional, though :-/. As I said earlier, they're passing things off on the people who will take them... and as squig points out, most people "don't want to be an arse about it" and won't ask for a replacement. But that doesn't mean that they are a satisfied or that they don't have issues with the models... just that they either don't have the time, or don't want to be a jerk, in getting Mantic to fix it.

And those folks not wanting 'to be an arse about it' are probably not likely to be repeat customers. They may not be vocal about their displeasure, instead voting with their wallets.

Actually I did buy a box of goblin archers, which ive still got unassembled, I didnt think they could be that bad and I'd heard off some people online it was just some inital sprues that were poor. I was wrong, their pretty terrible and I cant really face trying to clean them up. Thats what got me worried in the first place about the plastic enforcers for DZ.

Now 'not wanting to be an arse' i didnt send them back. They were really cheap to be honest I took it as a lesson learned to wait till I SEE the spruces before I buy them, which is why Im glad of people on Dakka posting sprue shots and their experiences and why I was worried that we were getting the plastic enforcers in the boxset without anybody having seen them.

Hopefully we'll get the free zombie sprue in the first wave to be able to judge how much of an improvement mantic have made with their plastic molding.

I feel that this update http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/deadzone-the-sci-fi-miniatures-board-game/posts/543729#comments

...gave the very strong impression that certain models in the game had been upgraded to being hard plastic thanks to KS funding.

DaveC asked very clearly in the comments whether those sprues were going to replace the 'original' restic sprueless.

Now Mantic didn't say they were so I can't really fault them for saying that. However, they didn't say they weren't. I really feel they should have picked up on that comment and addressed it at the time.

I did not raise my pledge to help out Warpath I did it to help out Deadzone. I knew that the DZ plastics would almost certainly turn up in WP as well...but at the moment I appear to be helping them fund a different game.

I want Mantic to be a strong rival to a certain other company that currently dominates the scene. But the issues raised in this thread are somewhat concerning.

I want Deadzone to be a fun game with good models and some nice scenery. I really, really want Mantic to succeed. I want it to be an entry point for myself and others into WarPath. I really dig the 'updated Old Skool' vibe I get from the various races.

When Mantic hit the scene a while ago I looked at their models and dismissed them as poorly sculpted but very cheap.

With some of the KoW stuff and DB I thought they had got over that initial stuff and raised the bar. Looking at the Zees - regardless of material - I don't think they are much of an improvement over Mantic's first sculpts.

Again, I'm happy to wait three or four months to get a good quality, well sculpted product. Because that's what I want from Mantic.

Obviously, DZ might turn out to be great but if it sucks I won't be getting in on their next KS projects. I'll simply wait and see the production models in the shops.

 Souleater wrote:

I want Mantic to be a strong rival to a certain other company that currently dominates the scene.

That was my great hope for Mantic when they first set up shop. But they've amassed quite an impressive record of not measuring up over the years.

 Souleater wrote:
I feel that this update http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/deadzone-the-sci-fi-miniatures-board-game/posts/543729#comments

...gave the very strong impression that certain models in the game had been upgraded to being hard plastic thanks to KS funding.

Yes, I agree, here are some snippets of text that to me pretty much outright state that they are changing to sprues:

"we’re going to be producing hard plastic sprues for the Enforcers, Asterian Cyphers and Forge Father Forge Guard!"

"this is a hugely exciting piece of news that we wanted to tell you before the Kickstarter Survey deadline" (Why would this be important if it didn't impact on what we were ordering in that survey?)

"All other Enforcer Miniatures (including Sniper, Engineer and the Defender Shields and Shotguns) remain sprueless Plastic Resin." (So only some Enforcers remain as restic)

Right, I've had discussions with the Mantic guys and there will be an update coming as soon as possible. They're well aware of what everyone feels (rightly, given the lack of clarity with the comms) and while I can't say what it is, I believe everyone is going to be very happy with the proposed solution.

Sweet. Cheers Daedleh, that was really quick.

Make sure you apply for Mantic PR manager if the position ever comes up. :p

Pretty sure I get drawn into too many internet arguments for that!

 Daedleh wrote:
Right, I've had discussions with the Mantic guys and there will be an update coming as soon as possible. They're well aware of what everyone feels (rightly, given the lack of clarity with the comms) and while I can't say what it is, I believe everyone is going to be very happy with the proposed solution.

Well, that is promising! Thanks for passing on the concerns, Daedleh. It won't necessarily affect me, but just like the others above I would really like to see Deadzone (and by extension, Mantic) be a success, so I'd be vicariously happy for you guys who are in on it

edit - I was being too harsh so I withdraw my harshness.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 scarletsquig wrote:
Sweet. Cheers Daedleh, that was really quick.

Make sure you apply for Mantic PR manager if the position ever comes up. :p

seriously. if James is their PR guy he should be made redundant, since a non-employee is doing a better job than he is.

But see the text of the update, judgedoug, that seems pretty clear that not all Enforcers will be restic.

 Daedleh wrote:
Right, I've had discussions with the Mantic guys and there will be an update coming as soon as possible. They're well aware of what everyone feels (rightly, given the lack of clarity with the comms) and while I can't say what it is, I believe everyone is going to be very happy with the proposed solution.

Cheers Daedleh, Looking forward to the Good news

judgedoug, just to your one comment to me- swapping out materials itself isn't the issue. It's:

1. Not communicating it until after it's already shipped
2. Only swapping some sculpts and not others, resulting in:
3. Some models being different sizes due to material shrinkage on the same teams

You cite Kingdom Death, and I have seen very few complaints about his swapping materials, since it is an upgrade and will result in a better product.

Similarly, if my whole team is metal, I will have no problem with it. Or, if my team is a mix of materials, but doesn't show scale problems like the teratons didn't, I'd accept it. However, to me those Zees pics are unacceptable.

So, that's the distinction... but like I said, really glad Mantic has seen that there is an issue with Deadzone, as now is the time to address it... before shipping!!! Likely, folks like me with Dreadball will just take whatever we get- it's too late to easily fix the issue for everyone. But there's hope for Deadzone's issue to be resolved ahead of time, which is the way to go

 RiTides wrote:
judgedoug, just to your one comment to me- swapping out materials itself isn't the issue. It's:

1. Not communicating it until after it's already shipped
2. Only swapping some sculpts and not others, resulting in:
3. Some models being different sizes due to material shrinkage on the same teams

You cite Kingdom Death, and I have seen very few complaints about his swapping materials, since it is an upgrade and will result in a better product.

Similarly, if my whole team is metal, I will have no problem with it. Or, if my team is a mix of materials, but doesn't show scale problems like the teratons didn't, I'd accept it. However, to me those Zees pics are unacceptable.

So, that's the distinction... but like I said, really glad Mantic has seen that there is an issue with Deadzone, as now is the time to address it... before shipping!!! Likely, folks like me with Dreadball will just take whatever we get- it's too late to easily fix the issue for everyone. But there's hope for Deadzone's issue to be resolved ahead of time, which is the way to go

Oh no man, I agree with you almost completely. I totally agree Mantic sucks at getting their word out there (especially as they actually are paying someone who's supposed to be doing that) and the whole metal thing for Dreadball is pretty lame.

What blows my mind is they know about this thread and the derailing and the upsetness and complaining - but they don't respond! If they had one guy just post once a day addressing concerns and answering questions, this thread would be half the size and there'd be far less people nervous about their pledge or getting upset because of assumptions. WTF Mantic? Look at the Warzone Resurrection guys or NoseGoblin, they post and respond to concerns and criticisms and are stronger for it. Mantic is just flapping in the breeze right now (wait, I thought I was a mantic white knight or whatevs)

(ref Kingdom Death, sure, we've seen the prototype plastics, but there's no denying that while they are absolutely beautiful and perhaps the best plastics ever made for the hobby - they are still slightly inferior to the resin masters. but the point being was that the change in material did delay the project considerably)

Make no mistake I want my Deadzone pledge and product to be absolutely amazing because I already dropped a bunch of cash on it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Slinky wrote:
But see the text of the update, judgedoug, that seems pretty clear that not all Enforcers will be restic.

see, this is one of the slippery situations where changing the contents of what is promised (say, upgrading enforcers to hard plastic) will please some but annoy others. if the contents do get changed, what about my bizarro plege with all the individual extra enforcers? if the contents and number and type of enforcers changes then that screws me over.
now, if they add stuff on TOP of the contents, then cool; or if they allow the sprues to be purchased on subsequent surveys, then double cool.

Just to point out that all I've been told is "soon". I've told them that it needs to be within 48 hours at the most, but of course the ball is in their court now. These comms were supposed to go out before Mars Attacks started so they were well aware of potential backlash and had the solution in place before it came up here. I don't know why the comms didn't go out earlier.

Slinky wrote:But see the text of the update, judgedoug, that seems pretty clear that not all Enforcers will be restic.

They might not have known whether the models would be swapped or not when the comms were written. It's not clear and people couldn't get a straight answer.

 RiTides wrote:
So, that's the distinction... but like I said, really glad Mantic has seen that there is an issue with Deadzone, as now is the time to address it... before shipping!!! Likely, folks like me with Dreadball will just take whatever we get- it's too late to easily fix the issue for everyone. But there's hope for Deadzone's issue to be resolved ahead of time, which is the way to go

This was going to be addressed even before this thread became aware of the issue. For whatever reason the comms didn't go out about it.

 judgedoug wrote:
seriously. if James is their PR guy he should be made redundant, since a non-employee is doing a better job than he is.

I'm not keen on this statement. James's job is to promote Mantic on the wider web and there's a lot more going on behind the scenes with various websites which isn't apparent to the public. He does a very good job of that. I suspect James may read forums, but I think it would be a bad idea for him to get as involved in discussions as I do. Can you imagine him having to respond to Kroothawk or Nkelsh or whatever his name is? It would ultimately reflect badly on the company.

I'm not a Mantic employee but have a very close relationship with a lot of the guys. It gives me access to a fair bit of insider info, which I pass on as much as I can. I'm also privy to lots of other stuff and asked to keep quiet about it. If I ever appear to be dodging questions or criticism then it could be because I know something that I'm not allowed to publicly post about or because I've been respectfully asked to file any criticism directly with the guys at Mantic rather than perpetuate it on message boards.

 Daedleh wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
seriously. if James is their PR guy he should be made redundant, since a non-employee is doing a better job than he is.

I'm not keen on this statement. James's job is to promote Mantic on the wider web and there's a lot more going on behind the scenes with various websites which isn't apparent to the public. He does a very good job of that. I suspect James may read forums, but I think it would be a bad idea for him to get as involved in discussions as I do. Can you imagine him having to respond to Kroothawk or Nkelsh or whatever his name is? It would ultimately reflect badly on the company.

I'm not a Mantic employee but have a very close relationship with a lot of the guys. It gives me access to a fair bit of insider info, which I pass on as much as I can. I'm also privy to lots of other stuff and asked to keep quiet about it. If I ever appear to be dodging questions or criticism then it could be because I know something that I'm not allowed to publicly post about or because I've been respectfully asked to file any criticism directly with the guys at Mantic rather than perpetuate it on message boards.

I 100% disagree. Other companies can interact with the consumers and take criticism. We all know Mantic went above and beyond for nkelsch and we all know Kroothawk doesn't contribute anything useful to any discussion about Mantic, so they are effectively non-issues. There's a host of companies that communicate directly with the consumers - just look at the first few pages of the News & Rumors section to see it. I often specifically buy from companies that do this because I can directly ask a question, get it answered, and I feel more 'appreciated' or whatever so I spend money with them. Mantic's aloofness is just bizarre... look at GW closing down their forums, shutting down fan-sites, and removing their FB page of what "not to do" regarding the internet.

James may do a great job as a "community manager" or whatnot behind the scenes, but Mantic is as just out-of-touch with internet forums as they've ever been - perhaps moreso - including their own forums. Would you not agree that the vast majority of the complaints and speculation on this thread would have not occurred if they posted at least once every few days addressing concerns? An official voice, instead of random peeps on the internets.

 judgedoug wrote:
I 100% disagree. Other companies can interact with the consumers and take criticism. We all know Mantic went above and beyond for nkelsch and we all know Kroothawk doesn't contribute anything useful to any discussion about Mantic, so they are effectively non-issues. There's a host of companies that communicate directly with the consumers - just look at the first few pages of the News & Rumors section to see it. I often specifically buy from companies that do this because I can directly ask a question, get it answered, and I feel more 'appreciated' or whatever so I spend money with them. Mantic's aloofness is just bizarre... look at GW closing down their forums, shutting down fan-sites, and removing their FB page of what "not to do" regarding the internet.

James may do a great job as a "community manager" or whatnot behind the scenes, but Mantic is as just out-of-touch with internet forums as they've ever been - perhaps moreso - including their own forums. Would you not agree that the vast majority of the complaints and speculation on this thread would have not occurred if they posted at least once every few days addressing concerns? An official voice, instead of random peeps on the internets.

I agree that the complaints and speculation would have been better handled by a Mantic employee. However, we have to agree to disagree on whether it would overall be a better or worse thing. I think that it's extremely difficult not to get drawn into petty arguments on here, I've done it several times, and that reflects very badly on a company. Especially one that draws as much (what I think is unwarranted) criticism as Mantic.

It would be nice if the community manager for Mantic would do his job and speak to the community.

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?