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Well, Robotech finally finished. That craptastic looking yet nostalgic game wasn't doing this one any favors. Hopefully retention won't be as much an issue moving forward.

 Lansirill wrote:
I wonder if it's particularly simple to access the raw data from kickstarter. It might be fun to play around with it and see if there are any decent models to fit it.

Take the average from Days 3-10, project using that + the overflow from Days 1-2 as an addition rather than using it in the average would be a non-scientific start. Though there's no real way to estimate the last-day bumps.

Earth Dragon wrote:
Well, Robotech finally finished. That craptastic looking yet nostalgic game wasn't doing this one any favors. Hopefully retention won't be as much an issue moving forward.

Not saying much about Deadzone if even a "craptastic" game steals its audience...

Nostalgia is powerful, and the robotech crowd holds a lot of older, spendier players who wouldn't blink at spending >$700 or so; even comparatively few of those can make a big dent.

One of my gaming group's members backed out of funding Deadzone to drop $240 on Robotech, even though he has no serious intention of ever playing Robotech.

Nostalgia and wish fulfilment.

Robotech also had a clear focus, miniatures. Deadzone is all over the place like a mad woman's gak, here's some miniatures, now terrain, now a book, it's the KS equivalent of an Old Spice advertising campaign.

Wow, somehow we've managed to drop nearly $2,000 tonight. We were almost at $525k, too.

Joyboozer wrote:
Robotech also had a clear focus, miniatures. Deadzone is all over the place like a mad woman's gak, here's some miniatures, now terrain, now a book, it's the KS equivalent of an Old Spice advertising campaign.

Yet a board full of terrain is a huge part of the game. So if it just focused on miniatures, you wouldn't even have all the tools you needed to play the game. Robotech also can only be used with Robotech. Pretty much everything here can be used with one or more other games.

Mantic should know better though at this point that gamers are short-sighted as a whole and don't understand the concept of filler goals. It's a marketing tool with a sound sensible basis that's just back firing at this point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Barzam wrote:
Wow, somehow we've managed to drop nearly $2,000 tonight. We were almost at $525k, too.

Correction. It has been broken twice now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Squig. You are better off putting the next "actual" goal as the thread goal. I honestly think the goal is having an adverse effect itself, kinda like the Chovar Merc people freaked out about not getting for free.

I agree, without terrain this game won't work, people would be scared off by having to make their own.
I think the greater concern is the book and extra races at a later date goals so early in the campaign. It just doesn't look good.

Actually, Robotech can be used with Battletech, many of the minis are compatible. I know of a ton of people who went big on that project because there was a secondary use.

I would have gone in for the BT reasons, but only the Destroids are the proper size. The VF's are too big to be lights and the Zentradi-based stuff is too big for the weight class their in. I figure I will probably pick up some Archers from 'em down the road, but I didn't want to be saddled with any of the out of scale stuff. That and even if it is only being licensed through Palladium, KS is a bit of a control freak so I'm keeping well back until it is released to avoid any of his famed "rewrites" of finished material.

Still, no reason to disparage another KS, they did well for themselves and the concepts looked pretty good. Just not what I was hoping for as someone who wanted to raid them for BTech proxies.

Edit - And ouch, looks like a $1-1.5k backer pulled out recently. Oh well, I survived the gut-wrenching roller-coaster of the WZ KS campaign, bring on the high-pledge dropping!

At least in this campaign the high-level guys aren't backing new game content.

new Stretch Goal

$537,500 – Recon Unit N32-19



If we hit this goal, we will be able to tool the Recon Unit N32-19 unique figure, star of the Six_Alpha Twitter feed in the run up to the Kickstarter campaign beginning.

N32 is in danger, trapped by the Plague, his life in the balance. Can you save him?

Armed with a rapid-fire, neodurium-tipped Needle Gun and serrated blade, Recon Unit N32-19 was a fan favourite over on the Mantic Forums and not only will we give them this awesome new unique character some special rules, but Jake will also base a scenario around him.

If we hit this goal, we will give him away for free in pledges of Recon ($100+Early Bird)* and up!

* Not including the scenery only pledges.

The Mantic forums need more discerning fans.

I quite like Bane being in deadzone; could be a cool alternative for Sly Marbo.

At least it's not Brian Blessed, if that happens I'll probably pull my pledge entirely.

The Pathfinder
Update #48 · May 21, 2013 · 22 comments

We came ever so close to locking the Short Story Compilation in and moving towards the Ruined Walls BattleZone and it looks like we have a little more work to do to get there.

Well, we’re in the mood for dropping our shoulder and racing towards the end, and when we had this render into our inbox this morning, we just couldn’t resist getting him up…

So, let’s begin with a new Stretch Goal!
$537,500 – Recon Unit N32-19

Gripping his weapon, his finger itching on the trigger, N32 breathed heavily, his back pressed against some low-lying rubble.

The Enforcer Pathfinder shifted slightly, reaching for his belt and unstrapping a metallic sphere from his belt. He tossed it in the air, a red glow bursting from the Drone's eye, and he opened the vidscreen. It lived.

He had eyes everywhere and still he couldn’t see where the beast had gone.

He’d been on the trail of the Prime Vector for days, even managing to unleash a salvo from his needle-gun into the colossal beast. And still it had kept going, luring N32 into the ruins of Nicorasi and it’s waiting brood.

Now he was cornered.

He knew the 3A’s were out there, he had heard their weapons fire, but it was the sight of the female that had concerned him – about as frightened as an Enforcer could get.

There.

He’d seen it, an oncoming pack – and the Female was with them!

The Pathfinder flicked open his Comms link, inputted the code and pulled himself off the ground...

<<N32-19 – requesting fire support>>

If we hit this goal, we will be able to tool the Recon Unit N32-19 unique figure, star of the Six_Alpha Twitter feed in the run up to the Kickstarter campaign beginning.

N32 is in danger, trapped by the Plague, his life in the balance. Can you save him?

Armed with a rapid-fire, neodurium-tipped Needle Gun and serrated blade, Recon Unit N32-19 was a fan favourite over on the Mantic Forums and not only will we give them this awesome new unique character some special rules, but Jake will also base a scenario around him.

If we hit this goal, we will give him away for free in pledges of Recon ($100+Early Bird)* and up!

* Not including the scenery only pledges.
Up Next:

We’re going to be posting up our road-map for the next part of our campaign in an update later today. With the Ruined BattleZone our last foray into scenery for a while, all those things you’ve been asking for will be addressed… look out for the update later today!

Oo, we’re also going to be refreshing our home page. Look out for the up-to-date pledge level diagrams, new simplified Add-on diagram and our guide to pledging coming later today.

Nice!

I'm really looking forward to this:

We’re going to be posting up our road-map for the next part of our campaign in an update later today.

as it will hopefully show us what's coming up for Forge Fathers and Asterians...

I hope they are looking at restructuring and adding a pledge level that is Strike but that you can pick your stuff for a slightly higher price....

Glad to see the new model, looks cool and they needed it as people have already pointed out this stretch looked to be a tough one.

IMO, the lack of *current* value in this compared to Dreadball is the main factor for the pledge droppers at this point.

I can wail and bawl until the cows come home about how awesome the value in this will be on the final day, but that doesn't mean anyone has to pay attention to me.

I was kinda hoping we'd get all 6 teams, something like 6x13 minis + a bunch of mercs to end at 90 minis or thereabouts. We might get a swarm of plague zombies and a unit of warpath enforcers towards the end, but that seems to be it. I'm still confident it'll hit dreadball levels of value, but they haven't front-loaded the freebies properly, instead holding back on them after the massive day 1 made them think they needed to slow down when they really didn't. So, we've seen a lot of "endgame, would be nice but not essential, doesn't give any freebies" goals like the alternate battlezones really early on instead of the juicy ones like hard plastic enforcers that everyone would go nuts for.

Instead we got only 5 teams + one hell of a confusing and overelaborate "pay for shipping even though the pledge level says free shipping".. not good. $15 shipping on a $50 box in the Loka campaign was incredibly poorly received, I don't know why they chose to repeat it in the middle of this one after initially rolling with a good "free ship" model.

Now, shipping does have to be paid for, so if that means reducing the freebies then so be it. But in this case, both the freebies were reduced from what people were anticipating (no free new forgefathers) and there was the shipping to deal with, so it got confusing/ disappointing fast for a lot of people.

Nobody likes paying for "shipping", if they'd just put "new factions, only a $10 add-on!" people would have lapped it up and raised their pledges. But when you say "$10 for shipping for your freebie!" it all gets a bit, well, boring.. quite frankly. Especially if you're in the UK and starting to question why exactly a few small bits of lightweight restic in the second shipment costs £6-7 to post to you.

This is the kind of secondary stuff that will be in the back of people's minds, forming their decisions without them really realising it, the primary reason is "something else looks shinier", and the secondaries give them a reason to bail.

Mantic have some serious damage control to sort out at this point, they've done it before when other kickstarters have floundered (KoW and Loka), so I'm confident they'll pull it out of the bag, but at this late point in the campaign it's a matter of urgency.

Squig. You are better off putting the next "actual" goal as the thread goal. I honestly think the goal is having an adverse effect itself, kinda like the Chovar Merc people freaked out about not getting for free.

There wasn't a new stretch goal when you made that post, Mantic has made rumbling about ruins but didn't give an actual number, and now they've changed that to a merc so I'd have looked pretty stupid if I'd posted it. Also I was asleep.

Anyway, changed it to the new merc despite the fact that we're not there yet.

Add in the new factions are not complete yet. Why would I pledge $50 plus shipping in the hopes that more get added as stretch goals? Especially when those goals are as of yet not announced/specified and may not get achieved?

As it stands, those are just not good value.

Also considering that we will likely be asked to pledge based on concept art which Mantic have shown the propensity to deviate far away from (and not in a good way) and pledging for incomplete starters seems less attractive.

 CptJake wrote:
Add in the new factions are not complete yet. Why would I pledge $50 plus shipping in the hopes that more get added as stretch goals? Especially when those goals are as of yet not announced/specified and may not get achieved?

I completely forgot about that, thanks for the alt. perspective.

From my POV it's obvious that Mantic will fill out those factions instead of 5 minis for $35, but to new backers all they see is poor value without realising that it's going to get better.

The new marauder sculpts should be ready by the end of this week if I remember correctly.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Nobody likes paying for "shipping", if they'd just put "new factions, only a $10 add-on!" people would have lapped it up and raised their pledges. But when you say "$10 for shipping for your freebie!" it all gets a bit, well, boring.. quite frankly. Especially if you're in the UK and starting to question why exactly a few small bits of lightweight restic in the second shipment costs £6-7 to post to you.

This is very true. I feel like the number one issue for people and KS is shipping. People feel like Shipping is a 'loss' and expect in the world of Amazon prime and most companies shipping 'large' orders for free, if I drop 200$ on a product... it better damn well be free shipping.

Then you get to Kickstarters where they have weird issues like 'Our product is heavy, 50$ to Europe' and suddenly almost all the EU backers are simply gone from your pledgebase.

One of the problems when you attempt to ship in waves, yes people get stuff faster, but now you have multiplied your shipping. So you have the following options:

1. Only make one shipment, which means plan your delivery date and potential stretch goals to all fit within your original manufacturing capacity so it all ships at once, on time.
2. Make multiple shipments, but set price points to average out to cover shipping so people may pay 12$ instead of 10$ but everyone gets free shipping for everything.
3. Have complicated shipping fine-print, with conflicting easy to misunderstand options, confuse and discourage backers, take the focus off the KS itself and then when it funds, enrage a bunch of people by asking for 'BTW, I need 10$ more than what you pledged because you failed to read the fine print.'

And If I was doing a KS, I would do my damnedest to figure out a partner in each of the major markets to handle redistribution to cut costs. I have seen many KS take almost deathblows from shipping issues and cutting out whole markets, Especially Indegogo ones which are EU based and want US/AUS to pay for shipping, they just fail hard losing those markets.

Personally, Added shipping is not one of my hot buttons. If I want a model or a game or 'something', I don't mind paying for it, and shipping to get it. I accept a wide range of prices for things because many low-run products can cost a lot more... But I have seen the shipping thing come up a lot in regards to KS. Someone will pay 50$ for something but not 40$ with 10$ shipping because they feel like that is 10$ thrown down a crapper.

Earth Dragon wrote:
Well, Robotech finally finished. That craptastic looking yet nostalgic game wasn't doing this one any favors. Hopefully retention won't be as much an issue moving forward.

Especially when you compare the Hydrocephalic Orx Marauders and Enforcer Captain Grumpypants to the beautiful mecha designs of Shoji Kawamori... sorry, Deadzone looks like a turd. Didn't stop me from supporting both, and still no reason to attack another KS (why? because it was super successful?)

Doesn't help either that Spartan Games released their new line of scenerey. Spendy, sure for MDF laser-etched, but imo far more attractive than the fairly boxy Deadzone terrain.

^ looks like cheap card to me.

IMO, the lack of *current* value in this compared to Dreadball is the main factor for the pledge droppers at this point.

i think this is nonsense to be honest.

you're getting $175 worth of models, $50 worth of scenery, a $20 gaming mat, $10 hero before you even get into the game components.

those plastic tiles aren't small, easily worth 3,4 or even 5 minis each.

and actually, if you "Front load" the freebies, you have nothing to give away free later on. they alone know their margins, what they absolutely have to make what they can give away and the scenery doesn't look cheap and neithers shipping.

Eh. That looks like every other MDF/HDF laser cut terrain set that's out on the market already. The only thing those Spartan sets really have going for them is the resin accessories and that space ship. Beyond those, this isn't anything special. I very highly doubt this is going to make any kind of dent in Deadzone's sales.

I still think that period in the first couple of days when they had no stretch goals listed is when they should have gotten some of these, shall we say less interesting goals put out, like the fiction and maybe have the funding for the other two factions set around that period as well. I think they took too long to get the stretches out and wasted some the kickstarter's most productive days.

I personally love that spartan scenery. I considered going in for some Mantic scenery, but the more I looked at it the more plain it looks. It looks like something out of a toy aisle at Walmart.

The sooner we get that 'road map' the better, I think...

Yeah, they need to figure out something because they are floundering.

Showing that chart isn't gonna help anything Alph. It just makes more flakes flake like peasants fleeing from battle. Some gamers grabbed their pitchforks since this was the "cool thing to do" then once it hit a few bumps, several ran off, it became apparent they were running off, an others followed suit.

Focus on the fight, not the flight.

Another 3D render from me, for those of you wondering how much terrain you get for $50:



If we get another 1 free sprue added to Strike Team, then the above picture will be accurate for the terrain you get in that as well.