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Hey folks,

I take people's point about having this sort of discussion elsewhere. So I'm going to try to satisfy everyone by staying on topic, and then going off topic again. That way I can piss off everyone!

So here's the genuine news I have for you, hot off the email press. I emailed Mantic last night, both as an interested customer and as a pledger who wants to maximize sales, to recommend that they prioritize getting larger, more expensive sculpts like the Marauder Hulk done before the KS campaign ends. My reasoning was that big, expensive add-on sculpts that are minimally discounted ONLY have the quality of their final sculpt to attract buyers. If only concept art for figs like the Hulk is available, not many people will plunk down $12 and say, "I'm sure it will be great." Personally, I'm not thrilled to take that gamble for a $5 figure, either, but I'm much more likely to do it for $5, or for a well-discounted package like the the EU bundle, than I am for a single full-price $12 fig.

Anyhow, here's the response I got from Stewart:

"Thanks for getting in touch. I take your point completely, and we are working as hard as we can to get as many of the sculpts completed by the end of the KS as possible. Those that aren't, we will get pictures up later, so that people can add them on in the surveys. The sculpt for the Survivor has just been finished, and it looks fantastic! We should be getting it off of the sculptor next week, and we'll get some photos up as soon as we can. The Kraaw is also finished, and I'll see if we can get that too.

The Hulk is next on the list for our in-house sculptor, so we'll have a good deal of control over this one in particular. I'll try to get some pictures up asap."

Looks like we'll be seeing the Survivor and Kraaw soon, and pics of the Marauder Hulk sculpt before anyone has to finalize their purchase. Good news.

As for the female thing, I take your points Azazelx. I know the chainmail bikini thing has been around since Tolkien introduced Eowyn (kidding, kidding). Seriously, even way back when I was a kid getting Dragon magazine with Larry Elmore bikini chainmail models on the cover, I found it idiotic. But Tolkien is actually a good example - if you plopped an Elmore bikini model character into one of Tolkien's books - not on the cover, into the story - she wouldn't fit with the rest of the narrative. She'd be a weird, incongruous thing calling attention to itself and distracting from the story.

We're really talking about aesthetics rather than gameplay or sales (and since games are a hybrid product of all of those, I'm not discounting them.) In the world of Dust, the sexy women are part of the game's guiding aesthetic. They fit. Same thing with Kingdom Death. People like me who are really bothered by that aesthetic don't buy those games, regardless of how well they might play. In other games, gratuitous sex appeal would look odd and out of place. For me, at least as its been established so far, that kind of cheesecake doesn't work in the Warpath / Deadzone universe any better than it would in Tolkien. If Mantic put out a sexy Warpath mini just for the sake of sex-appeal, I'm sure they'd attract some buyers with that. They'd also lose my money on that figure, and they'd lose me as a customer completely if they did that kind of thing a lot. As a customer, whether they would end up making more or less money is irrelevant to me. The Kingdom Death KS made a hell of a lot more money than Deadzone ever will, but it'll never enter my house. I vote with my money same as anyone, and if I lose an election, I'm not going to turn around and start voting with the other party. Maybe in the grand sense I'm "losing" some ideological battle for the sexualized soul of gaming or something, but at that level this is all getting ridiculous anyway.

@Azazelx - I don't think your characterization of KS comments boards was entirely fair, but neither was it without truth, and I found it interesting. This is the first KS I've participated in, and so the first KS comments thread I've been involved in. I wonder if maybe the KS comments format really was subtly influencing me to be more declamatory here. Or maybe that's just an appealing, reassuring thought because it allows me to duck some responsibility for writing garbage. Regardless, the idea that thread formats influence the content of what we say or the psychology of how we present it, even if only slightly, is interesting. It's not a new idea, I know, but it's the kind of thing I usually dismiss out of hand, like I dismiss the idea that I'm influenced in any way by commercials. Maybe I shouldn't.

@Pacific - Much obliged for the kind words. If my argument had been well constructed, accurate, and fair, and then got cheaply attacked, I'd have grounds for anger. But it really was full of holes, so the critical responses were doing me a favor by pointing that out. It's easy to forget when your ego and emotions are on the line, but when people have valid critical points to make about your writing, they're not your enemies. Quite the opposite, we depend on each other's criticism to see around our blind spots, hold us to account when we're way off, and sharpen our thinking.

@Everyone - I won't shut down this discussion, but in the interest of keeping things Deadzone-centric on this thread, if this race / gender dialogue continues I'll move my responses to a relevant thread on the forums from here on out.

 GrimDork wrote:
I like the Doc. Looks like she's being wracked by mutation while dragging herself towards cause of her condition (too-slow corp forces) filled with hate.

I mean yeah, she looks more like a zombie than the other 3rd gens, but I dont think she's going to look bad lined up next to them.

Yes that's why I think too.. kind of like her mind is still coherent, but she is having to drag her deformed, plague-racked body around with her.

I like the concept art for the doc but I do hope they show a sculpt in progress for her before the end of the KS with all the controversy surrounding mantic figs versus concept art of late.

Here's a thought. What if she's modelled aiming the gun, or doing something requiring more.... dexterity with it (EG, some pose reloading the gun?).

That keeps the whole plague-wracked torture thing but shows the potential for higher thinking than some plague zombie blazing away would do.

Hey everyone, now that we have the sprue pics and the battlezones have been expanded, I've made a new pic showing what you can do with 1 battlezone set:



Yep, you can actually squeeze a 2-storey 9x6" out of it, with a tile spare.

The ability to convert 2x barricade tiles into a "wall with firing slit" tile really adds a lot of extra flexibility.

PLEASE take all of the "Diversity" discussions to a different thread, maybe in Dakka Discussions - or perhaps even more importantly, directly to Mantic itself.

The latest update:

Sprue details unveiled!
Update #45 · May 19, 2013 · 50 comments

Since the Deadzone Kickstarter began, a lot of people have wanted to know more details about the terrain sprues - what's on them, how many buildings can be made, and so on. Well, we've just received final confirmation of the Core Worlds sprue contents, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised...




Yes, it turns out the sprues are even bigger than we thought they would be! In our original plan, each sprue was going to be big enough to hold six terrain tiles - that meant that if we wanted to include barricades, walkways, or other extras they would take up the space of one or more of those tiles. However, the clever folk who have been working on the design have come up with an even better idea: each sprue will now be big enough to hold eight terrain tiles! That means each sprue in the Core Worlds Battlezone gives you six tiles (or five tiles and two half-tiles) and also features plenty of extras like the barricades, supports and walkways shown above.

With the additional sprue that was unlocked at the last stretch goal, the plan is for a Core Worlds Battlezone to include two of each of these sprues plus a connector sprue. We'll be putting up more shots of terrain sprues once we have them, and over the next few days we will be releasing some images of different ways you can put your Core Worlds buildings together.

So what do you think of the contents of the Core Worlds Battlezone? What are you hoping to see on the Landing Pad and Fortifications sprues? You know the drill - drop us a comment below!

For those wanting terrain to play Deadzone on, here's a link to some awesome papercraft terrain I have been using for quite awhile, that looks like it would be perfect for the grid system Deadzone uses.

It's very simple terrain (it represents colony buildings that are brought in like shipping containers), but the cool thing is that it is meant to be simple to cut out (for people who don't know much papercraft), and is expressly designed to be folded away for easy storage.
http://www.toposolitario.com/workshop/ikube.html




The rest of his paper vehicles are very awesome, too. It's geared more towards Infinity, but I think that could also be a boon towards being compatible with Sedition wars and Warpath, which both use "cleaner" near-future artstyles than GW.

Are we talking about a skirmish game here?

Along the lines of Necromunda, or is this an additional Warpath size game?

That's a lotta' nuts!

Deadzone is a smaller 5-15 model per side game, so Necromunda sized. But Mantic says that all the models will be able to be used in Warpath as units, like the Forgefather Deadzone squad also being their not-terminator squad in Warpath.

So much wishing this had come out at the same time as SedWars so I could have pledged for it instead and could be playing it now...........

I think getting nice, round numbers for warpath squads will be the main focus/challenge for me by the end of the campaign. That and getting enough battle zones to make some kind of tower-bridge mega city.

i like the sprues, however the one thing i would love for them to add are the corner peices that they have in the pictures, that hide the connecting edge on the outside.

Grot 6 - yes this is very much a skirmish sized game. However, I think the idea is that the models will all be usable in Warpath as well if you want to expand (which I believe is currently straddling the smaller size of 'mass combat games' with the 2.0 rules available currently).

 GrimDork wrote:
I think getting nice, round numbers for warpath squads will be the main focus/challenge for me by the end of the campaign. That and getting enough battle zones to make some kind of tower-bridge mega city.

I like the sound of 'tower bridge mega city'.

 Compel wrote:
Here's a thought. What if she's modelled aiming the gun, or doing something requiring more.... dexterity with it (EG, some pose reloading the gun?).

That keeps the whole plague-wracked torture thing but shows the potential for higher thinking than some plague zombie blazing away would do.

That's what I am "campaigning" about.

It's been a crazy day today, but I'm going to have to do some math and figuring to see what would really be involved in a proper TBMC(tm). May have to skimp on minis (stick to strike or so) to make it happen... I think we'll assume it at a 4'x4' table size since the multiple levels *sort of* double the playing area.

 Compel wrote:
Although that discussion can be had, and is held elsewhere on the boards.

I would like a not-dead version of Gayle as an add-on at a later time.

A bit of a Sedition Wars/Zombicide feel if they did that - not that I'm opposed to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
What I meant is, she looks and is posed as a zombie, a mindless thing, not a genius, her overall appearance is not bad, her pose is.

Think of the warped pose as something more like a scoliosis brought on by the plague.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vermonter wrote:
In other games, gratuitous sex appeal would look odd and out of place. For me, at least as its been established so far, that kind of cheesecake doesn't work in the Warpath / Deadzone universe any better than it would in Tolkien. If Mantic put out a sexy Warpath mini just for the sake of sex-appeal, I'm sure they'd attract some buyers with that. They'd also lose my money on that figure, and they'd lose me as a customer completely if they did that kind of thing a lot. As a customer, whether they would end up making more or less money is irrelevant to me. The Kingdom Death KS made a hell of a lot more money than Deadzone ever will, but it'll never enter my house. I vote with my money same as anyone, and if I lose an election, I'm not going to turn around and start voting with the other party. Maybe in the grand sense I'm "losing" some ideological battle for the sexualized soul of gaming or something, but at that level this is all getting ridiculous anyway.

@Azazelx - I don't think your characterization of KS comments boards was entirely fair, but neither was it without truth, and I found it interesting. This is the first KS I've participated in, and so the first KS comments thread I've been involved in. I wonder if maybe the KS comments format really was subtly influencing me to be more declamatory here. Or maybe that's just an appealing, reassuring thought because it allows me to duck some responsibility for writing garbage. Regardless, the idea that thread formats influence the content of what we say or the psychology of how we present it, even if only slightly, is interesting. It's not a new idea, I know, but it's the kind of thing I usually dismiss out of hand, like I dismiss the idea that I'm influenced in any way by commercials. Maybe I shouldn't.

Keeping it DeadZone/Warpath related, my own opinion is that the universe isn't really established at all. The few products (including Pandora) that have come out utilising the universe are really just the beginnings of whatever it will become, assuming Mantic stay in business. To that end, my own assumption is that their universe will be as "expansive" in many ways as the 40k universe is - in that you can shoehorn almost anything (or mode of localised dress for the Imperial Guard) you like into it.

As for KS comments, I'm not a fan of the format or the overall "sub-communities" that they tend to attract. KS comments are essentially temporary, there's one long line of posts that need to contain every individual's feedback and discussion, all in a format that would make twitter wince. The Bulletin Board format - in many ways an extension of the old Usenet threads allows commentary and discussions to be self-contained - and it's possible to catch up or continue discrete multiple conversations with multiple people on multiple topics over weeks and months. The conversation that we're having here would pretty much be impossible to have in a KS comment thread, for example. Now, for some odd reason I feel like some delicious KFC and ice-cold Coca-Cola, so I'll catch you later.

I think it has been mentioned a few times by mantic both Dreadball and now Deadzone are attempts to flesh out parts of the lore, it has potential to be as big as any universe and I do not see it as a bad idea to use such tie ins to flesh it out.

As for Simmonds, its the twisted legs the arms positions, the hunched posture, I really hope they change her.

Ruined, it's all ruined!
Update #46 · May 20, 2013 · 4 comments

Heck yeah – that’s Doctor Simmonds IN DA HOUSE!



Concept Art – some of you have mentioned the pose looks a little too Zombie-ish – no worries, we’ll get that changed when we come to doing the sculpt.

Next up…
$525,000 – FREE Deadzone Short-Story Compilation

Enriching the Warpath universe was one of the key motivations behind Deadzone and, if we hit this goal, you’ll allow us to delve further into the background as we will write a short story compilation written by the likes of esteemed authors Guy Haley, Alessio Cavatore, Jake Thornton PLUS special guests.



This epic new compilation will feature all-new explosive stories between the warring factions and special characters both new and old. If we hit this goal, we will add a FREE digital copy of the Deadzone Short Story Compilation with every pledge on the Deadzone Kickstarter.

And that’s not all:
NEWS STRETCH! $550,000 – Ruined BattleZone

Citizen Jael burst through the security door, weaving side to side as debris and rubble crashed to the floor. Warning sirens blared in the background and Jael tripped over lose wiring, electric sparks fizzing as he scrambled to his feet.

“Halt, Citizen!” came a robotic voice from behind.

Jael has been in hiding ever since the armour clad super soldiers had arrived in the region, unleashing devastating salvos of laser cannon fire on the surrounding buildings sending them crashing to the ground in a bid to trap the mutant beasts inside. But that wasn’t the end of it - Jael was learning just what happened when the Enforcers quarantined an area.

After their transports had landed, scores of citizens had been killed at point blank range as the soldiers ensured that the Plague wouldn’t break out again...

Now Jael was being hunted and, as he rounded a corner, he felt a searing pain in his shoulder. Smashing his head on the floor as he fell backwards, a dark presence loomed over him, snarling.

The Marauder Raiders had landed in the ruins.

Sample Concept Art:



The Ruins BattleZone contains 4 Buildings Sprues of approximately 6 tiles and 1 Connector Sprue.

By hitting this goal you will:

- Unlock the Ruins as one of your choices if you have pledged for the Urban Fight ($25), Urban Skirmish ($50), Urban Battle ($95) or Urban War ($185) scenery add-ons.

- Unlock the Ruins as one of your choices if you have pledged at either the One-Click Urban Battlefield ($100 + Early Bird) or One-Click Urban Wargames Table ($285 + Early Bird) scenery-only pledge level.




AND FINALLY

We are now less than 250 backers away from our next Nexus Psi scenario and we need your help to get there!

Please tell all of your friends and club members about the Deadzone Kickstarter – we’ve got a great game in production and an awesome scenery range being developed, as well as a beautiful miniatures line… even if you can bring in just one backer we can get closer to our next goal and give you more free stuff.

Thank you for your support!

Moving much slower than I'd hoped/thought, and I don't think the PDF story goal will light any fires, but maybe the ruined scenery will?

PDF fiction book seems a waste to me. I know some folks like it, but I doubt even they will increase their pledge (or decide to back the project) based solely on the availability of a fiction PDF...

The ruins are cool.

Ouch, a 30k stretch goal based around terrain after a short story goal.....

They need to be pushing to flush out the new factions. Without flushing them out you limit the number of people throwing cash down on them.

Maybe they're doing these particular goals to give themselves some time to fix the models that people have issues with?

Odd as it may be to say this, but I think the Ruined terrain doesn't look ruined enough

If they had made it so 2 or 3 of the available sections (or more!) were heavily ruined, like down to a triangle-shaped piece, then setting up partial-building ruins would look a lot more natural. These "ruins" however are almost all the same level of damage one could make with a dremel tool or a hobby knife for the most part, and in fact making a partial building from them would simply look awkward imo ("Apparently the building walls were pockmarked and damaged, but spontaneously the roof blew off! ).

Really hope they rework these into proper "Ruins" instead of just "Battle-Damage" stuff.

The PDF goal will be (largely) intended to break up a higher stretch target

eg

we need $60,000 to add these models to the FF and/or Astarians starters

but that's a bit of a big jump,

instead we'll ask $30,000 for a PDF, then $30 for the models so there are two targets to aim for (it has to be this way round just in case they miss the second stretch)

Its a 25k after the short stories.

I believe they wanted to put the short stories now rather than later because they do this at least partially to put more background in their universe.

I think it would have been a better idea for the short stories to have been a far earlier stretch. There was a very long period at the beginning where we didn't have any stretch goals. Something like this, with no tangible product I think would've been better to have had back then, or sandwiched between a pair of miniature stretches, like the Asterian/FF one.

True, I think it was a placeholder to give them time to organize their streaches better.

Good points, all.

This one is starting to stumble a bit.

Even ignoring the 'artificial high' that the campaign gets in the beginning, this one was projected to finish at or above 1 million not that long ago, and now it is 'on pace' for below $800K.

Still good - but not what it 'could be'.

Yes, there's still time, but Mantic needs to do a few things:

1) Show actual terrain being built with the sprues from each level, including the 'in the box' stuff at Striker.
2) Get going on Forgefather and Asterian add-ons

Until they do, this one's going to limp along like the last few days...




And how's this for a totally useless upgrade to Kicktraq:

I have that feeling they try to push the "boring" stuff out of the way in order to make it run smoother at the later days, the battlezones are essentially a necessity to entice the terrain only pledges and by definition these are big.

 Alpharius wrote:
And how's this for a totally useless upgrade to Kicktraq:

I dunno, one could track qualitatively across KSers to see whether there's a pattern to driving backer engagement.

Needs a Brian Blessed filter for this one to be worthwhile though.

Been Working on a Deadzone board.
It's just texture paint, drybrush and marker lines drawn on VCT floor squares, but I like it.
The terrain is just some Pegasus Hexagon kits, but I'm going to dig out my Necromunda terrain and search my other terrain to find other appropriately sized items. The width of Hexagon square and hexagon floor pieces is just shy of 3" so they work quite well on a Deadzone grid.

 Barzam wrote:
I think it would have been a better idea for the short stories to have been a far earlier stretch. There was a very long period at the beginning where we didn't have any stretch goals. Something like this, with no tangible product I think would've been better to have had back then, or sandwiched between a pair of miniature stretches, like the Asterian/FF one.

Guys... think of this as a 30k stretch-goal to the ruined terrain, with the short-story anthology being a given that just happens to be included along-the-way.

I began talking about the short-stories, well before this stretch-goal. It was always planned, and the Mantic folks probably just felt like this was a healthy time to announce it formally. :-)

Oh, and while I know many of you aren't excited for the goal, I encourage you to give it a chance anyway. I think you might be surprised by some of the flavor versus bombastic, often silly 40k. I mean, I am currently pitching a very small, intimate story with a lot of thought, and human sentiment. Its the kind of story you'd never be allowed to do under GW.