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Chopxsticks wrote:
Its baffling that it could be weeks to see what was unlocked today. I just want to know whats in the 1.5 upgrade pack....

This. So much this.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

Chopxsticks wrote:
Its baffling that it could be weeks to see what was unlocked today. I just want to know whats in the 1.5 upgrade pack....

This. So much this.

Yeah, I don't get it...give us the contents of the 1.5 upgrade and slow walk the gambler's box. It would be real nice to know how the base game is going to change sooner than later.

I'll stick on my ivory helmet and say that you have over 40 days to make a decision. I'll take it off and also say that most creators do *not* change how they do business when a project funds, so read about how Poots handled the fulfillment of his first KS. If you're expecting retail or CMON levels of service, you're gonna end up buying a new whetstone and tar pitch for your pickforks and torches.

Hey guys, while I think some things people are pointing out are totally valid (I actually backed out on the first campaign realizing it would be extremely late) please do so politely.

I'm sure he was NOT expecting nearly 4 million in the first day, and does have some catching up to do.

So again, feel free to criticize... but please remember rule #1 on Dakka (be polite!). It's only the day after Thanksgiving, after all!

Cheers all

More Satan level pledges available.

My wife told me to pledge for one, so I guess I'm all-in...

What an odd juxtaposition of messages from the campaign so far.

From the updates, Poots wanted a slow burn with content updates dribbled out over the entire campaign.

On the other hand, the high number of expensive early birds almost guaranteed that the campaign would blow up quickly. On top of that, he seems to have added more early birds over night compounding the explosiveness.

Best bet at this point is to just assume that "goals" are now entirely divorced from the actual funding total and that they'll come out when Poots and Co want them too.

If that bugs folks, I'd strongly consider turning off the updates and forget this even exists until the first week in January.

rwwin wrote:
What an odd juxtaposition of messages from the campaign so far.

From the updates, Poots wanted a slow burn with content updates dribbled out over the entire campaign.

On the other hand, the high number of expensive early birds almost guaranteed that the campaign would blow up quickly. On top of that, he seems to have added more early birds over night compounding the explosiveness.

Best bet at this point is to just assume that "goals" are now entirely divorced from the actual funding total and that they'll come out when Poots and Co want them too.

If that bugs folks, I'd strongly consider turning off the updates and forget this even exists until the first week in January.

Exactly.

The whole "I had no idea the KS would be so popular, I just hadn't planned for it!" thing is a little tiresome, especially when the amount of early birds and pledge levels associated with them shows that he knew how popular it would be, or at least hoped.

This thing is going on for 6 weeks. I'm fine with one update a day.

We already know the update has the new rulebook, replacements for all the modified cards, the new fighting art, and the Gold Smoke Knight expansion. Seems to be worth the $60 already IMO.

Kingdom Death 4-time creator just now

@Edward, we started with a bit of a road map. But we are now so far off it! For now we will be moving to simply reveals as often as I can get to them.

 Baragash wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
really a microcosm of everything that is great and bad with KD. Long delay, bad communication, but incredible theme and mini. Probably will pledge but will wait to see a bit more of the content before doing so.

I'd say that's pretty accurate.

Unfortunately due to my experience of the bad section and some d-bag called "Zak" in customer services over the last two weeks, instead of wading into this KS with a large amount of $$, I'm going to be selling off my substantial collection of game content and plastic models.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. I emigrated from the UK to Oz at the start of this week. I bought a couple of things in the Halloween sale, and in the special instructions I asked if they could hold it for a few weeks until I had a permanent address they could send to.

Personally I think it was a reasonable request, and both Mierce (and for whatever Rob's historic faults, he bends over backwards to help his Darklands customers) and Mantic have had no problem at all with a similar request for much, much bigger orders.

Zak said "no", no biggie, the address I used is my parents address. Where it went awry was after saying they couldn't hold it he asked if the original address was ok. Then in less than 24 hours without giving me a chance to reply (which I didn't have because I was busy moving house and emptying our rental flat of all our possessions) he just cancelled the order and basically said "screw you" by saying you can purchase these things in a future sale.

Well I might be able to get the Pin-up Wet Nurse in the future, but I'm not sure the Trick or Treat bag will be back ever, so it may not even be true.

Rather than respond to Zak, I e-mailed Adam directly about it nearly 2 weeks ago, no response. Now, before any one points out how busy he must have been leading up to the Kickstarter, for 4 years (funnily enough during the first KS fulfilment) my wife ran a business with my support, whilst getting pregnant and giving birth, with accounting and legal support from me whilst I was still working a full time (and regularly more than 9-5) job (and also working on two Mantic Rules Committees), so I have a very, very good idea of what it's like - if customers are important to you, these things get dealt with.

Anyway, up to now I've managed to buy all the game content and all the plastic models even if there was no game content. As a collector, not being able to collect things through terrible customer service has soured the whole experience for me and I'm not going to keep throwing money at someone in this situation.

On top of that, I've now missed out on the Black Friday Ninja because I was reluctant to buy with this unresolved.

Now I have the fun of opening a credit card dispute over the exchange rate loss I took on the unreasonable refund if he doesn't respond to my last attempt to deal with the situation (all have been polite I might add).

wow, that is terrible customer support. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, it's a bit of a weird campaign, but to be honest, I don't really care since I'll decide to back or not in the last days of the campaign, so not getting the info sonned doesn't affect me too much. Must say that I'm really surprised that so many people have backed for so much without really knowing what they get.

ecurtz wrote:
This thing is going on for 6 weeks. I'm fine with one update a day.

If I though he had that kind of discipline so would I! One hard, fast and iron clad rule from KS 1.0 is that whatever timetable Adam Poots sets himself in writing for the next update will assuredly be broken. (said with sincere admiration for Poots and his creations).

@Kingdom Death: Just to confirm, we have unlocked a bunch of upgrades/expansions/promos/etc with $3.6M and it's just that you are coming to be teasing those out over time?

Kingdom Death 4-time creator 27 minutes ago

yep! Gonna be more of a "stretch goal reveal" system I think. Lol, certainly did not expect any of this!

Does he plan on opening a similar pledge to that 777$ one?

rwwin wrote:
From the updates, Poots wanted a slow burn with content updates dribbled out over the entire campaign.

On the other hand, the high number of expensive early birds almost guaranteed that the campaign would blow up quickly. On top of that, he seems to have added more early birds over night compounding the explosiveness.

Huh. That's a really good point. Yeah, it does seem rather contradictory, poor foresight at best.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Does he plan on opening a similar pledge to that 777$ one?

Not so far, but he did buckle and add more of the $1,600 levels so there's always hope. Best bet is to just follow the creator only comments:

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/poots/comments

Soooooo much easier than wading through the chaotic morass that is the general comment thread.

Here is to hoping

Hbbyaddict wrote:
So this kickstarter is essentially the only way i can get kingdom death right? judging by the almost 4 million in 24 hours im guessing the game is worth the very hefty price tag?

It's the only way you're going to get a copy at a reasonable price. With Poots being sold out the only other option is being scalped on eBay.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I really wish he would show all that has been unlocked instead of drawing it out...

That brings with it a serious risk of people losing interest over the holiday season.

Loopstah wrote:
Nice to see he's retroactively releasing the stretch goals we've already unlocked.... Oh wait, no he isn't.

Looks like we'll end up with half the goals locked as I imagine 80% of this campaign's funding has already been hit and he'll stick them up at stupid money levels.

Exactly what are you basing your cynical claims on? The man has delivered on his first Kickstarter in spades (although there were delays) and he didn't gouge anyone who pledged. I am thoroughly happy with everything I received from the first Kickstarter and my track record with Adam is around 100%. The only "dings" were the delays in delivering and on the Spidecules sprue mixup. But, instead of getting bent out of shape, I decided to be patient about delivery and handled the sprue swap on my own and everything worked out fine. Hiccups are bound to happen with any project and there have been relatively few with the previous one.

Chopxsticks wrote:
Wow, so we get an update a day... I wish I could call him a F*ing liar on the KS thread but all his White Knights would drown out any constructive criticism. Its baffling that it could be weeks to see what was unlocked today. I just want to know whats in the 1.5 upgrade pack....

Okay, I'll admit to being a white knight. I'll also admit that you're way out of line, making mountains out of mole hills. I also wouldn't say calling him a F*ing liar is exactly constructive criticism, either. You don't like the unlocking progress? Okay, that's fair. Many others would like to see it all right now, too. But it ain't gonna happen so why continue to stew about it?

As for what's in the 1.5 upgrade pack, you could scroll to the bottom and look at the FAQ that's been developing. Or is your scroll bar broken? In case it is, the update pack has updated rules (including updated game cards and story events) and includes the Gold Smoke Knight new final boss miniature and all of its AI, Hit Location, associated gear. The FAQ also states that the upgrade pack is NOT a standalone product, you need to add this to an EXISTING copy of the original KDM.

Can Poots arrange his information better? Sure. But this FAQ was hardly difficult to find.

 Breotan wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I really wish he would show all that has been unlocked instead of drawing it out...

That brings with it a serious risk of people losing interest over the holiday season.

With the end result being what?

That the campaign only sits at $5M - $6M by Chirtmas?!?

rwwin wrote:

ecurtz wrote:
This thing is going on for 6 weeks. I'm fine with one update a day.

If I though he had that kind of discipline so would I! One hard, fast and iron clad rule from KS 1.0 is that whatever timetable Adam Poots sets himself in writing for the next update will assuredly be broken. (said with sincere admiration for Poots and his creations).

Good point. "Sacred backer time" only lasted 3 updates before he flamed out so maybe I'm being more than a little optimistic thinking he can manage a few paragraphs and an image every day for a month.

Has anyone seen the documentary "Dwarvenaut" on Netflix? I raise it because in my limited interactions with Adam Poots, he has always come across the way Stefan was depicted in that film; someone who can be equal parts genius, and irresponsible, artist, and fool. IE... a human being.

I always try to not assume malice, and see the best in folks... but Adam, like many visionaries clearly needs people to reign him in, and he does not have that.

As to my cynicism... I stand by this "Gambler" table of dice, concept, being the most absurd, dubious, thing I have ever seen on Kickstarter, or from a reputable one at least.

Either way, apparently my wife regretted my selling our stuff and has asked me to go in on an Ancient Golden Pledge, IF IF IF, Poots confirms existing content INCLUSIVE of existing expansions, will all ship in Wave 1.

Loopstah wrote:
Nice to see he's retroactively releasing the stretch goals we've already unlocked.... Oh wait, no he isn't.

Looks like we'll end up with half the goals locked as I imagine 80% of this campaign's funding has already been hit and he'll stick them up at stupid money levels.

This is something that's really bothering me right now, and something I touched upon last night when the funds went thermonuclear.


There was ZERO chance that this Kickstarter wasn't going to be a massive success almost immediately; and I can't/won't believe that Adam didn't know that. He knows just how fast new miniatures fly out of the shop, and how much they resell for online. Any mention of Kickstarters online has been met with people saying that they aren't backing too heavily because they have been planning for spending money on KD. Swaths of people want KD products, and he knows that. So for there to be as little information posted at the start, from the full extent of pledge contents to the list of stretch goals, is borderline unacceptable to me.

Cynical me is guessing that the lack of information was intentional, and was done as a way to take any planned stretch goals that would have been displayed as a means to push the funding in the highly unlikely event the project didn't go nuts early, and allow them to be moved to extremely higher funding goals. That would definitely fit in with a "reveal a new 'surprise' almost everyday" plan, and allow for planned things to be swapped around on a whim. That the first actual announced stretch goal was listed at $3.7 million supports this as well: the campaign has jumped from $100K intervals, to a $2.05 million "stretch goal" for the Gold Smoke Knight, then all the way to the $3.7 million pinup.

Beyond the big jumps, it's looking like all the lower, "planned" stretch goals are going to be printed materials; things that will in no way come close to costing $1 million to produce. That leaves roughly $3 million in funds that are currently only marked to produce 2 plastic miniatures (no armor sets for the Smoke Knight). $3 million, and further near-radio silence over what things had been planned do not leave me with confidence, particularly following the Lantern Festival cancellation. There is no reason for Adam to fill those large gaps with "already unlocked" goals; putting all planned goals beyond the current funding has practically no negative consequences and will only help to drive the funds up higher. I'm fully expecting that all of the completed miniatures that were made for the Lantern Festival to be listed as further stretch goals.

Adam has been talking up, for several months now as a means of building hype for the second Kickstarter, how there have been many things planned for the game. For there to be so little information at the start, and the seeming lack of preparedness is mind blowing. Couple that with the continued lack of information 18 hours latter and the recent Lantern Festival decision, the whole situation is setting off my bs alarm. And because it's Kingdom Death, people are ignoring these things that would be massive red flags for any other Kickstarter.

Now, if Adam wants to use those funds primarily as a means to help with the reprinting, to make it so they are able to carry more stock, to establish more financial security with the company, hire more employees, etc., then fine. It would bring into question why use Kickstarter rather than using direct pre-orders, but fine. Just come out and say that. Don't act all surprised at the success, put up further stretch goals, and still keep quiet about things. Don't hand me a turd and call it a brownie.

Chopxsticks wrote:
Wow, so we get an update a day... I wish I could call him a F*ing liar on the KS thread but all his White Knights would drown out any constructive criticism. Its baffling that it could be weeks to see what was unlocked today. I just want to know whats in the 1.5 upgrade pack....

That's a little much, Chief.
Do you think calling him a liar really counts as constructive? It will be by the end of the weekend that you see some of the stretch goals, you have to remember the !@#$show that the first one started out as. He started on day 1 with a pretty good plan of attack, and by the end of the first two weeks had developed a rabid response to a bunch of the goals, thereby going back to the "Artist" angle. He couldn't keep up, and that was a one man show.

At this point, anything for him is going to have to wait while he goes on a 3 day drinking binge, four day hangover, and the fifth day of trying to figure out where to start. Remember, this is a Kickstarter Project, there is going to be a long road, and none of it is going to be pretty. Save your ire for later, trust me, your going to need it.

Personally- Wait. Hold on any communication with him until the initial shock wears off and he comes down, when he starts to show some actual content of the project.

THAT is when the fun is really going to begin....

rwwin wrote:
Best bet is to just follow the creator only comments:

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/poots/comments

Soooooo much easier than wading through the chaotic morass that is the general comment thread.

Ah, that is a fantastic idea and link! Thank you

$2.05M was what the first campaign raised so it makes sense as a stretch goal.

I can see a few valid criticisms of KD:M - the communication is terrible, there were serious delays, and the Lantern Festival was cancelled after the tooling was complete. None of those seem to involve a lot of evil scheming on Adam's part. I wouldn't be shocked if a couple stretch goals were moved out just to try and keep some balance through the campaign, but I will be shocked if he tries to get more money for things that were originally planned to be free. Hopefully he's learned his lesson and isn't going to start throwing in the kitchen sink just because things are going better than planned, that's what got him into so much trouble last time.

 RivenSkull wrote:


This is something that's really bothering me right now, and something I touched upon last night when the funds went thermonuclear.


There was ZERO chance that this Kickstarter wasn't going to be a massive success almost immediately; and I can't/won't believe that Adam didn't know that. He knows just how fast new miniatures fly out of the shop, and how much they resell for online. Any mention of Kickstarters online has been met with people saying that they aren't backing too heavily because they have been planning for spending money on KD. Swaths of people want KD products, and he knows that. So for there to be as little information posted at the start, from the full extent of pledge contents to the list of stretch goals, is borderline unacceptable to me.

Cynical me is guessing that the lack of information was intentional, and was done as a way to take any planned stretch goals that would have been displayed as a means to push the funding in the highly unlikely event the project didn't go nuts early, and allow them to be moved to extremely higher funding goals. That would definitely fit in with a "reveal a new 'surprise' almost everyday" plan, and allow for planned things to be swapped around on a whim. That the first actual announced stretch goal was listed at $3.7 million supports this as well: the campaign has jumped from $100K intervals, to a $2.05 million "stretch goal" for the Gold Smoke Knight, then all the way to the $3.7 million pinup.

Beyond the big jumps, it's looking like all the lower, "planned" stretch goals are going to be printed materials; things that will in no way come close to costing $1 million to produce. That leaves roughly $3 million in funds that are currently only marked to produce 2 plastic miniatures (no armor sets for the Smoke Knight). $3 million, and further near-radio silence over what things had been planned do not leave me with confidence, particularly following the Lantern Festival cancellation. There is no reason for Adam to fill those large gaps with "already unlocked" goals; putting all planned goals beyond the current funding has practically no negative consequences and will only help to drive the funds up higher. I'm fully expecting that all of the completed miniatures that were made for the Lantern Festival to be listed as further stretch goals.

Adam has been talking up, for several months now as a means of building hype for the second Kickstarter, how there have been many things planned for the game. For there to be so little information at the start, and the seeming lack of preparedness is mind blowing. Couple that with the continued lack of information 18 hours latter and the recent Lantern Festival decision, the whole situation is setting off my bs alarm. And because it's Kingdom Death, people are ignoring these things that would be massive red flags for any other Kickstarter.

Now, if Adam wants to use those funds primarily as a means to help with the reprinting, to make it so they are able to carry more stock, to establish more financial security with the company, hire more employees, etc., then fine. It would bring into question why use Kickstarter rather than using direct pre-orders, but fine. Just come out and say that. Don't act all surprised at the success, put up further stretch goals, and still keep quiet about things. Don't hand me a turd and call it a brownie.

You've summed things up nicely there - and not that I expect that we'll get any of those questions answered, but it certainly makes for an interesting discussion.

Here, at least!

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Has anyone seen the documentary "Dwarvenaut" on Netflix? I raise it because in my limited interactions with Adam Poots, he has always come across the way Stefan was depicted in that film; someone who can be equal parts genius, and irresponsible, artist, and fool. IE... a human being.

Saw it last month and my mind wanted to make the same leap (NY based, small shop, small crew, imaginitive as all get out, unrealistic unbridled enthusiasm, and a fiscal plan one might lable "thin").

Off topic, but the film's a decent watch in it's own right.

That's a pretty reasonable assessment, Riven. I'm really, really trying to hold off judgement here, but, yeah, it's not been very encouraging.

I'm starting to worry about KD like a lot of 2nd editions of successful games, where the sprawl and ego and expectations/time frame result in reduced quality as they need to come up with things, instead of the initial release being those ideas that they needed to express things they'd saved up.

Right now, I'm being pretty conservative on this one.

The other thing that gets me is how much people threw in before they even knew what things cost. At this point Adam could be going back through all the updates and adjusting prices. (This is a joke...) but its a valid point. People pledged for things they dont even know the cost of.

@Breotan and Grot 6, seriously relax guys. 1st, sarcasm, but seriously if you didnt back the first KS you might not know, Adam Poots promising an update a day is like the Pope saying women can become Catholic Priests... its never going to happen. 2nd, ya the FAQ is at the bottom, I shouldn't have to scroll to the bottom of a KS campaign to find the basic information in a FAQ, I still feel a more detailed explanation of its contents is not an unreasonable request.

I'm in for $750 at the moment, as its a mostly known quantity, that, theoretically shouldn't miss its date at all, or by much.

But man... this all makes Mystic Battles look like a KS Masterclass in Operations.

FWIW I did ask Adam in the KS comments for confirmation if all the planned stretch goals up through $3.6M have been unlocked and he said yes, he's just pacing out the reveals.

The whole "first stretch goal at $3.7M" is really more "the first one we got a chance to try and post ahead of everything."

I'm in for the Gambler's Pledge and I'm pretty confident it's going to end up being an absurd.