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Hooray! Symonds and the Pathfinder are going to get figures! This makes me very happy!

 Compel wrote:
Well, I doubt any meetings with the company head were held about the judwan.

There is a few other mentions too... And worst case we see the final models before we put our money in

As soon as they (again) used the 'Pictures didn't do them justice' line I assumed they are happy with silly dancing happy orx and are not going to make the types of changes I would personally like to see. Obviously that is their call to make, but if they keep the funny orx I sure am not going to be too happy with them. I want snarling killing machines.

Jake

I just had a thought - about the "silly/comedy GW orc/ks" that keeps coming up, and I realised - GW has always has some silliness going on with their O&G and Space Orks lines. Kev Adams has always been a playful sculptor, after all. But you know what? GW's model lines have always had something that Mantic's do not (yet) - depth.

http://www.solegends.com/citrt/rt102spaceorkswd93.htm
http://www.solegends.com/citrt/rt202orkcommand.htm

Look at those - there's a few grinning idiots in the bunch, but they're mostly quite a pack of vicious-looking bastards.

http://www.solegends.com/citrt/spaceorks106.htm

Not too long later, and there's a few more humorous looking sculpts, but look how many there are - there's 36 models on that page, so if a couple are a bit goofy, it's really not a big deal. Mantic have.. what? The repurposed fantasy plastics, and that one Warlord figure? Now is probably not yet the time to be adding in a whole lot of goofy Orcs, even if that's the impression they or others have of GW stuff. But... these guys don't look especially clownshoes, do they?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1060163
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1060149

When you've got that much depth in your range is when you can be a bit silly:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440175a&prodId=prod1160034a&rootCatGameStyle=


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 CptJake wrote:

As soon as they (again) used the 'Pictures didn't do them justice' line I assumed they are happy with silly dancing happy orx and are not going to make the types of changes I would personally like to see.

Yeah, that particular line is getting a bit predictable.

I thought the terrain deals and the 2 new factions would have really set this one on fire, but now I'm hoping Mantic's got a contingency plan...

They met their goal (and then some). Not sure why they need a contingency plan. Worst day making 5k really isn't too bad.


Having said that, if said plan included turning the marauders into mean killing brutes I would be all for it

I think Alph meant that he expected the "buy Forgefathers and Asterians - one free!1!" (based on concept art) hasn't set the world on fire with increased and additional pledges as they would no doubt have hoped. Showing good concept art for the Orx followed by gakky models has hurt the campaign - and I'd also put good money down that the disappointing KoW sculpts that have been seen aren't helping.

Yeah, Mantic REALLY needs to work on quality control. If they could just do that they would solve pretty much every problem they have. At the moment, it's really holding them back.

~Tim?

 Alpharius wrote:
I thought the terrain deals and the 2 new factions would have really set this one on fire, but now I'm hoping Mantic's got a contingency plan...

Oddly slow day, sure, but I don't see why it is call for any kind of contingency plan. I figure the speculative boosts from those anticipating the next stretch have started to peter out and those that didn't go in on it yet are either waiting for Friday or are waiting for them to reach $500k because they don't want to pledge before things actually occur.

Sometimes it is best to just let stuff fall as it may and not expend effort in some hope of altering an anomalous day. I think this is just a symptom of it being the largest stretch goal to date. It is $40k all in one shot so the usual cycle of announcing a new stretch goal, riding the wave of initial excitement 75% of the way and finishing up in a couple of days just to do it again is kind of broken since they were passing $25k stretches every other day.

And before people say they should announce what is next, that may or may not help. Excitement for some at stuff on the horizon is someone else's "that is how far away?".

I think now that the initial wave of excited pledge increases from speculators has gone through we are waiting on the people pledging in when a goal is close enough to taste. Since the sweet spot for this goal was likely to be 2-4 days instead of 1-2 like the smaller goals, those who tend to jump on board in the last few thousand and shoot past the goal are still too far away to pledge but all of us who added on early on are basically done.

I figure that by the end of the night we will be sitting within about $14k of the goal and the Friday bump should be enough to push it past and in to $500k for the weekend. But this dip has more to do with the time-to-complete being longer than the previous $10-25k stretch goals. It creates this odd mid-zone in the progression where one group has done their pledging and one is still waiting to do it. But considering the numbers, completing a $40k stretch in 3-4 days is expected. I think the tipping point for this one that sees pledges ramp up over time will probably start once $500k is in the bag and the extra starter is a sure thing.

I admit I find it odd that the terrain not catching fire was weirder to me, but that may also be people waiting on more terrain stretches down the line as well.

Either way, the doldrum created by an extra-long stretch is having fairly predictable effects of making things feel like they are crawling even though we are making expected time. But the excitement cycle of a KS is like that. People wont be excited about $500k until we are at $490k, and those who like waiting until a stretch is "close" will hold off until they feel it is "safe". The only thing Mantic can really do at this point is offer a teaser tomorrow (when things are close enough that announcing the next stretch after wont feel like it is $65k away) and to ride it out until they hit $500k. They are already promising and extra starter to the majority of pledgers (if not more to some), so panicking and offering more in an attempt to push pledge numbers along will only hurt them.

Besides, why push a stretch toward two new factions when you are still busy trying to fix one of 'em. If the Orx go in for a full resculpt after they do whatever design tweaks they have in mind (and apparently they fixed a lot of the common complaints about the Ripper suits as well; so who knows?) then they will have their plate full. Breaking a new stretch in the middle of an unforeseen re-do of another sculpt will cause more undue stress.

Let's just call it a lazy Thursday (Friday morning for some) and move on. They happen, especially with marathon stretch goals. I figure after this plod, a few $7.5k "sprint" goals will be refreshing after this (and with five starters at strike I dare say we may see a few people jumping in at that point). The only major notes about today is that it still made more than Dreadball's slowest day ($4,210 on day 19) and that this is the first day where it hasn't beat Dreadball's total for the day. Every KS has its slow days and I don't think Mantic need to do much to rectify a one day anomaly.

PS - Man, when I write something over the course of an hour while alt-tabbing between things at work I really get my ramble on...

tl;dr one slow day does not a crisis make, long stretches tend to have a doldrum because of pledging habits, it is still doing better than Dreadball was around this time. The stretch is still on track for a 3-4 day completion which compares well to the 1-2 day completion for stretches half its size.

Part of it may be that a lot of people pledged more or less what they expected their max to be, and then figured they'd adjust accordingly at the end (and up their pledge with the pledge manager if needed.) I'm sure everyone is expecting to be able to increase post-KS in the pledge manager like they've been able to in the other Mantic KS's.

Plus, yeah, it's a $40k stretch goal. Even when we hit $500k, $50 for those two starters isn't that great of a deal yet. It's, what, 12 models? $50 for 12 is living in GW pricing territory, not KS discount Mantic territory. Will it get better? Almost certainly; I'm sure the Forge Fathers and Asterians will get to similar values as the four core starters by the end of the KS. But right now it's a big stretch goal for an item that isn't a huge value.

All that said, I think Strike Team + some Core World terrain add-ons will be a good deal. Everything else is gravy. Do I want more? Hell yes. I want Mantic to cover me in warm gravy like I'm some kind of weird human poutine (blame my wife for that, she's starting to plan our trip to Montreal this summer.)

It's the usual mid-campaign doldrums, nothing to be concerned about. I still predict $1.5mil, or at the very least $1.2mil, but that would be the lowball estimate.

It's still a great product, tons of hard plastic terrain, plenty of value. Strike Team will have 65 minis once $500k is hit, I still put good odds on over 100 minis in Strike Team by the end (or possibly 90 + 10 terrain sprues)

I was still predicting $100k+ for Loka in the middle of that campaign when everyone was agonising in the comments that it definitely wouldn't hit $80k (to fund all 4 factions) and started pulling pledges citing uncertainty over that.

People get emotionally invested and disregard previous available data. It could use some promotion at this point, though and the best thing to do is to get it on as many different forums as you can, or mention it to your friends. And of course for people currently chatting a lot on KS and backing multiple projects, the absolute best thing you can do is grab a backer avatar ( *NOT* a brian blessed avatar :p ) for passive cross-promotion.

Yeah, Mantic REALLY needs to work on quality control. If they could just do that they would solve pretty much every problem they have. At the moment, it's really holding them back.

- Marauders are getting reworked and shown off next week, if we still don't like them, they're getting a resculpt. Confirmed by Ronnie.
- Mantic have the same opinion as us about the minis, they only got hold of the sculpts themselves the day before the Open Day and didn't really have much of a chance to get a look at them themselves before showing them off.

Mantic don't get everything right, but they do definitely listen. I'm fairly sure I'll be happy enough with the marauders by the time this is over, all they have to do is make them look like the concept art and like the existing warpath minis, which aren't all that bad apart from the obvious "based on fantasy models" thing.

Maybe bring in Remy to sort them out once and for all, with a potential 5k+ people getting the minis and not getting any choice on the matter, it is vitally important that they are good.

Odd. The Kicktraq day rolled over recently, and whilst the prime "American" hours hadn't been very productive the last few days, it was those late hours that saved the day from being a total stinker. Funny how things pan out sometimes.


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SS wrote:

- Marauders are getting reworked and shown off next week, if we still don't like them, they're getting a resculpt. Confirmed by Ronnie.
- Mantic have the same opinion as us about the minis, they only got hold of the sculpts themselves the day before the Open Day and didn't really have much of a chance to get a look at them themselves before showing them off.

First note I saw, Makes sense. Second note......Not sure if "totally" buy that. Maybe, since the first is the case, they said "maybe they'll like them" and it blew up in their face. Probably wont make that mistake again. But in the end, if they improve on them, it will be better for all they were showed really.

For those wanting non-apes, I hope it's been well noted that Warpath orcs are Ape-like, and that is gonna stay. So this shouldn't be an expected change. If the poses are improved, and the overall look and feel blend the concept art with Dreadball sculpt, I think they'll look fine.

And unfortunately we'll have to expect a minor drop from the "I demand goofy Orx" folks if they are more seriois, but the folks swinging back in should counter.

I personally don't care if they're hunched Rogue Trader Orks, "apelike" modern 40k Orks, hunched, longfaced Mantic Orx or Apelike DreadBall Orx as long as they're well sculpted, properly-proportioned to the template they go with, and don't look like the amateur/semi-pro not-warhammer figures that used to come out in the mid-late 1990's

The economist in me thinks you may have a number of potential backers waiting until an Early Bird opens up... While $10 is a pittance, it does get you Season 2 postage or Chovar...

 Azazelx wrote:
I personally don't care if they're hunched Rogue Trader Orks, "apelike" modern 40k Orks, hunched, longfaced Mantic Orx or Apelike DreadBall Orx as long as they're well sculpted, properly-proportioned to the template they go with, and don't look like the amateur/semi-pro not-warhammer figures that used to come out in the mid-late 1990's

Hear hear!

I'm still unclear on what you can pick. There are things I wouldn't mind pledging for. But I really don't want the bundles of starter sets. The terrain and a few of the add on units are all I want.

 Lansirill wrote:

All that said, I think Strike Team + some Core World terrain add-ons will be a good deal. Everything else is gravy. Do I want more? Hell yes. I want Mantic to cover me in warm gravy like I'm some kind of weird human poutine (blame my wife for that, she's starting to plan our trip to Montreal this summer.)

I'd like to see your holiday photos when you get back.




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Then again, maybe not.



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...on the other hand...

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
I'm still unclear on what you can pick. There are things I wouldn't mind pledging for. But I really don't want the bundles of starter sets. The terrain and a few of the add on units are all I want.

Do one of the EB terrain bundles (which shaves postage in essence), and then add-on from there. That would be my suggestion. It was hinted that the terrain bundles would get a 'little' better, so they may not last for ever. If you aren't sure how much terrain you want, I'd personally grab the lower bundle, as the upper bundle looks like it should have EBs available longer and at $95, adding on the $185 add-on is the same thing as getting the $280 pledge.

I feel Alpharius thoughts are entirely valid and I do hope mantic have a contingency plan ready in case, fluff updates and live chat didn't speed it up.

I do believe it will kick up again once it reaches 500k, but how long it will take will be crucial to its final peak.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I feel Alpharius thoughts are entirely valid and I do hope mantic have a contingency plan ready in case, fluff updates and live chat didn't speed it up.

I do believe it will kick up again once it reaches 500k, but how long it will take will be crucial to its final peak.

I don't know if there was much they could do in some respects. Eventually there was going to be a falling out from a chunk of the first few days folks when you look at some of the posts. You had people clamoring about stuff that just wasn't gonna happen (no FF stretch goals, concentrate only on four faction for the duration, put vehicles in all the starters, have a single-player rules set). So in retrospect, you knew there was going to be a chunk of time where all those people who thought this KS was gonna do something it wasn't were gonna bail, and nothing encourages that more then a rough day. Hopefully the bulk bailed ship yesterday and we can push past this.

I've gotten at least two others to join up every week so far (at least in the states, the whole "knock out your Christmas shopping earlier" has worked with female relatives!!) so personally I'm just gonna keep spreading the word and ensure there are players in Honolulu, Boise, and my family members wherever they may be. I'm not a "wait for someone else to do it" sort of guy (and not saying you are storm....just quoting you as a talking point) and between Jake Thorton's ability to do rules, and the success Dreadball has had in my greater gaming circle, I'm sold this can succeed, and will help it do so.

Compared to most other Kickstarters their tier structure and add-on system is fairly obtuse. I'm not saying that it is a Organic Chemistry II final, just that in comparison it is not very straightforward on what you get and how to get it. I can see how KS window shoppers may just skip over it and go on to the next to peruse the offerings.

I emailed Stuart with a polite bit of feedback re: the KoW trolls and the DZ Orx and their need for a more firm Art Director for the long-term good of the company.

this is part of his reply:

Stuart Gibbs wrote:
The Deadzone Orcs are not final, and the photography does not show them in a good light. They are actually very nice figures in terms of detail, and I am having the poses rebuilt over this weekend. Once you see the finished models I’m sure you’ll change your mind.

So having read that, I'll openly reserve my judgement for another week in the hope that they make good on what Stuart has indicated above. I did reiterate that when people pledge based on concept art, the models as depicted in the art is really what they're paying for.

We'll see. I think that "the photography does not show them in a good light" is wearing really damned thin.

Jake

Well, he's said they'll be rebuilt/reposed, which is a lot better than "it's just bad photos". We live in hope...

Thing is, it's not their photography you've seen, it's some crap camera quality shots from a bad angle, dark cabinet, and a dark room.

he has a point.

when their photos are released and if they are still crap then the "photos' don't show them off very well" line doesn't really have any credibility.

The photos do not hide the poses, nor the silly happy orx theme. His point is irrelevant.

I'm withholding judgement on the Orx until I see decent photos.

I'm in at strike, plus an urban skirmish terrain pack and the urban detailing mega deal, I'll probably not be going much higher at this point unless I see something really spectacular.

Well since he said the detail is good, which may be and that they will rebuild the poses, their better photos may be entirely different models, time will tell.

I am more interested in Renton's determination that if people will not like them even after modifications they will re do them.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

EDIT: :shakes fist: Valerrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaa!

He he he... Just caught this.

You just can't admit zombies are popular and a zombie alien virus is a great twist in a stock baddie.

I love them, and couldn't get enough of them.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

If Mantic follow through with majority consensus that the models need a complete resculpt they'll probably get my pledge back for classy moves. However I'll be waiting until the very last minute to ensure there's no more bad photography or lousy paintjobs.

I'm starting to think someone needs to oversee Mantic's aesthetic direction. In Warpath, we've went from reskinned fantasy, added in strangely 1950s pulp style space ratmen, added in comedic background with Dreadball and yet also crushing megacorps dominating the galaxy in the same vein as cyberpunk. Now all the models are becoming heroic scale, and we're going from Orx as a sinister, brutal repressed slave race to comedic bumbling. The sci fi universe is going to be aesthetically and thematically confused.

Azazelx wrote:I think Alph meant that he expected the "buy Forgefathers and Asterians - one free!1!" (based on concept art) hasn't set the world on fire with increased and additional pledges as they would no doubt have hoped. Showing good concept art for the Orx followed by gakky models has hurt the campaign - and I'd also put good money down that the disappointing KoW sculpts that have been seen aren't helping.

That is exactly the point I was making!

I really expected this one to take off after the terrain was announced, but maybe the price wasn't low enough for some? Or many?

This isn't just a 'one day slowdown' when you look at what's happened since the terrain bundles were released - I'm shocked at how slow it has gone since then.

And that's a good point Azazelx - the KoW "Troll Issue" combined with the Deadzone "Marauder Issue" may REALLY be putting people off here?

PsychoticStorm wrote:I feel Alpharius thoughts are entirely valid and I do hope mantic have a contingency plan ready in case, fluff updates and live chat didn't speed it up.

I do believe it will kick up again once it reaches 500k, but how long it will take will be crucial to its final peak.

Right!

I still think Mantic needs to do something now, in order to help this along, even if it is 'only' revealing the next set of stretch goals and concept art groups for the upcoming Forgefather and Asterian miniatures we know are waiting in the wings.