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 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I certainly hope they wouldn't do another kickstarter before having delivered on this one, at any rate... right?

That's what I gave them as the most important piece of feedback when I filled in my herald form.

 WolfStark wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/questions/10151646608846168/]

Survey for a new name for Kotzen, because that means to vomit in german.

My nomination is winning

With seperate arm/weapon set ups, I see no reason the Dark Elfs and Space Nuns couldn't dual purpose SciFi/Fantasy.

Thanks Minx! I would quote you and thank you that way, but with my fear of the quote box most of the time, I just wanted to make sure you got a thanks from me for at least setting me straight THAT way!

And BrookM, thank you for that as well! I really want them to succeed, and I want their other KS's to succeed more than this one.

Also, did the math, well, as best of math as we can do with the limited time, and the giant skewing first day.

If we assume 5-6.5k a day, that would mean, by 3 Days left, we will have gained 91k (from now,) meaning we would have gained 9 of the main unlocks, and 9 of the "freebies" (being just short of the 10th freebie.) That is including the K Snipers. The reason I stop at Day 3, is because I have a sneaky suspicion that with the Fourth of July weekend/break coming up, people will either just sit on their pledges, or pull out if they don't have the unlocks they want yet. So Day 3 will start to see the spikes up and down and 48 hours will see more manuevering, and 24 and Sub 24, will either drastically spike up, or petter upwards slowly (seen a couple of slow gain last days for KSes, but they do always gain.)

I think with well done updates, and them not following the silly "bring more backers and then we will update!" shebang, we can see greater than 6.5k days (we tend to get them on big update days,) which changes how many unlocks we will hit, and the uncertainty that will come closer to the end.

I personally feel we will unlock everything, but I am of the camp that... unlock it all with days to spare, so we can all breathe easy, and then rush to make additions to our pledges, with amazing new work that they tease us with.

 shamikebab wrote:

 WolfStark wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/questions/10151646608846168/]
Survey for a new name for Kotzen, because that means to vomit in german.

My nomination is winning

Can you tell what the alternatives are? Not everyone has an account on that fraud network.

somewheresomehow wrote:
Also, did the math, well, as best of math as we can do with the limited time, and the giant skewing first day.

If we assume 5-6.5k a day, that would mean, by 3 Days left, we will have gained 91k (from now,) meaning we would have gained 9 of the main unlocks, and 9 of the "freebies" (being just short of the 10th freebie.) That is including the K Snipers. The reason I stop at Day 3, is because I have a sneaky suspicion that with the Fourth of July weekend/break coming up, people will either just sit on their pledges, or pull out if they don't have the unlocks they want yet. So Day 3 will start to see the spikes up and down and 48 hours will see more manuevering, and 24 and Sub 24, will either drastically spike up, or petter upwards slowly (seen a couple of slow gain last days for KSes, but they do always gain.)

I think with well done updates, and them not following the silly "bring more backers and then we will update!" shebang, we can see greater than 6.5k days (we tend to get them on big update days,) which changes how many unlocks we will hit, and the uncertainty that will come closer to the end.

I personally feel we will unlock everything, but I am of the camp that... unlock it all with days to spare, so we can all breathe easy, and then rush to make additions to our pledges, with amazing new work that they tease us with.

Yeah, I think updates are the key to driving this forwards. Whilst update 18 revealed the sniper unlock at $420k that's all it really gave us, something you can see reflected in the pledges today. We're currently at around $1k pledged since kicktraq rolled into today, and I know for quite a while earlier we were sitting on a negative gain as someone dropped/reduced their pledge. So, it's been a slog of a day that's still well bellow the average we need per day to get everything unlocked before the last 72 hours.

Whilst spamming us with updates doesn't seem to be RHs style, a more regular update schedule would potentially help things ticking along. Say if we got an update every afternoon / evening (French time) that would bring people back to the KS to see what's happening and give people confidence that the creators are involved as not everyone has time or the desire to sit reading through all the comments to spot the odd one or two updates that are posted in there.

Similarly, a longer list of coming stretch goals would keep people interested as well. It doesn't have to be fully detailed with art and a write up for every character but just an overview of the next 5 or so addon unlocks and corresponding freebie unlocks would be sufficient. This serves two purposes, firstly it mitigates the risk of there being no pending SGs listed, in case there's a spike over night when RH are sleeping, and secondly it would help drive interest and give people faith that X/Y/Z add-on would be unlocked soon and they don't need to worry about it being missed.

I do feel that everything will get unlocked by the end of the KS, but there's a lot of work to get from here to there. We need to hit ~$730k funding (IIRC) to unlock everything that was initially revealed. This means we need just under $317k to get there from the current funding of $413,159. If we discount the expected last day rush, that will likely change everything and make all these numbers moot, the KS needs an average of $18647 a day to actually unlock everything. This figure includes today, which is very short of target and assumes that there's no spike on the last day.

Now if funding doesn't, for whatever reason, hit the figure of $730k (based on current SG intervals) then I can see a lot of people doing last minute pledge reductions as they cut funding so as to not end up with figures that they don't want. How much of an impact this has can only be theorised at present, but if something that a lot of people are looking for doesn't get unlocked then it could have a significant impact. Though if this were to happen it could potentially have a big impact on the communities perception of RH as a company and the way that they handle things.

If they were to reduce the distance between unlock SGs (those that don't give us free stuff but just allow us to include things in our pledge totals) to $7.5k then we'd need another $232.5k or a total of $645k to get there, which would be roughly $13676 per day. Whilst that is $5k a day lower it still well above the daily average that we have been seeing. Taking this further to $5k between SGs means we'd need $155k, total $568k or $9117 per day to unlock everything. Even if they keep the freebies at the $10k interval, and I can't see them being increased in frequency, then that's still quite a few extra freebies / upgrade packs, and we can ensure that everything does get unlocked without having to depend on last minute rushes in funding.

 BrookM wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I certainly hope they wouldn't do another kickstarter before having delivered on this one, at any rate... right?

That's what I gave them as the most important piece of feedback when I filled in my herald form.

When looking at this from a business perspective, I don't have any problem with them running the next kickstarter before this one is completely fulfilled- aka every mini is in all of our grubby hands.

Here's why:

- Each big project has a significant lead time before the first - let alone the last - product appears at retail, or in the mail/post/UPS truck/etc...
- You need funding before you can put up the down payment (or full payment sometimes) to your production facility
- You've got to have all of your packaging, shipping, distribution agreements, etc... set up

That all takes time and money.

So, to me, if they wait to start the next kickstarter (through which they acquire the funds to start making contracts with suppliers/distributors), it's just going to take longer for the next project to be completed, leaving a dead space of nothing new coming in.

They've said their next project is dark elves, so as soon as the last piece of concept art is done on this one, I would expect they will kick into gear producing concept art for dark elves. And as soon as the last sculpt is done on these, I would expect them to kick into gear sculpting dark elves. This piece of the process is necessary before they can begin the next kickstarter. They HAVE to have concepts and sculpts to show for the kickstarter.

Kind of have to go on a few assumptions based on what they've said at this point, but...
- Let's assume the art and sculpts for dark elves are going to be mostly done by december (when they say they want to run the dark elves).
- It's safe to assume that fulfillment of every mini in KS1 will NOT be done until well into 2014, let's assume 1 year - so summer 2014 they ship out everything to non-drop ship people and the last wave to the drop sites. So, starting in ~september of this year, retail stores and RH's site will start getting 'waves' of new 'releases' to begin selling.
- Let's assume that the second kickstarter will have the same distribution timeline

Option 1 - Do NOT run the next KS till the previous one is COMPLETELY fulfilled
- If they wait until summer 2014 for the next kickstarter, that means they and we have to wait potentially another year after that one ends before they could do nuns with guns. That's summer 2015 for the nuns KS and summer 2016 for the last of the nuns models to ship.
- Timeline goes like this if they wait to complete fulfillment before beginning the next round of KS funding:
July13 - KS1 ends
Sept13 - KS1 waves start
July14 - KS1 waves complete
Aug14 - KS2 ends (starts in July)
Oct14 - KS2 waves begin (2 months between KS end and waves)
Aug15 - KS2 waves complete
Sept15 - KS3 ends (starts in Aug)
Nov15 - KS3 waves begin (2 months between KS end and waves)
Sep16 - KS3 waves complete

Option 2 - RUN a KS every 6 months
- This will half the time it would take to get to each army
- Timeline looks something like this:
July13 - KS1 ends
Sep13 - KS1 waves begin
Dec13 - KS2 begins
Jan14 - KS2 ends
Mar14 - KS2 waves begin
Jun14 - KS3 begins
July14 - KS1 waves end
July14 - KS3 ends
Sep14 - KS3 waves begin
Dec14 - KS4? (the game?) begins???
Jan15 - KS2 waves end
Jan15 - KS4? ends?
Mar15 - KS4? Waves? Begin?
July15 - KS3 waves end
Who knows after that... KS4 is completely speculation...


They may not have the capacity to overlap the KS's production and distribution like this, but it would certainly not hurt my feelings if they could speed up the time-line a bit more than 1 army per year. And maybe even get to the game before 2020. When you extrapolate the time-lines of these projects, you'd really be losing momentum between KS's. But with the large investments in this first KS, they may in fact need some space to let people recover.

JW You are forgetting something very important. They already have armies planned for release that aren't part of the KS, tied in with the release of the rules, which will not be funded by Kickstarter.

The Jet girls, for example, are going to be released through a retailer means, alongside the rules.

So there is no giant gap, as they already planned a dual tract for some of this.

They have also made some cues and hinted that the game will launch before Elves or Nuns are released. It just wasn't in the scope of this Kickstarter.

somewheresomehow wrote:
JW You are forgetting something very important. They already have armies planned for release that aren't part of the KS, tied in with the release of the rules, which will not be funded by Kickstarter.

The Jet girls, for example, are going to be released through a retailer means, alongside the rules.

So there is no giant gap, as they already planned a dual tract for some of this.

Good point, I had overlooked that. I thought they were doing the game as a KS too.

No problem! And if the game was going to be a KS, it would be... somewhat foolish to release it Solo. You would need to tie it in, because of the KS rule where you can't sell your store as part of the kickstarter. It has to fund "new things."

Which, I can see a couple of ways of getting around that rule, but I wouldn't recommend it if we want to keep it safe and sane!

And that is kind of why we are trying to make sure they don't overlap too much.

Think of it in this scenario: You are just suddenly releasing the final wave, and you want my money again, already? I haven't even seen all the minis yet from what I just threw my wallet at you for, and you want more? The reaction will be manifold, but there are two that stick out...

1.) There are those who would gladly throw more wallets at them.
2.) There are those who, burned out from having to wait forever to get their full pledge, that they just don't like RH that much.

I would rather they came back to KS with a super strong fan base, than with one that is on the fence still.

KS campaigns are not for instant gratification. There is a wait. By now, most people should understand that.

Didn't the Mantic thread have a similar Convo to this? Starting up a new Is before everything was done from the previous.

Keep in mind that the kickstarter is for three armies, i.e. three factions (Iron Empire fighting the rest, Jailbirds not happy with Kurganova rulership). So rules might be for these, maybe later add the sisters. But definitely not for Fantasy Dark Elves.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:

 WolfStark wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/questions/10151646608846168/]
Survey for a new name for Kotzen, because that means to vomit in german.

My nomination is winning

Can you tell what the alternatives are? Not everyone has an account on that fraud network.

Kortzfleisch 19 Votes
Kroenhardt 3 Votes
Kieta Drachan 2 Votes
Kurtzen 29 Votes
Kurtz 9 Votes
Fleischer 3 Votes
FeindHammer 2 Votes
Katze 1 Vote
Schwartz
Kortig
Kotzen

I would be interested in the background of Kurtzen though. Edit: Okay I know now, World of Warcraft

I like Kieta Drachan, which sounds in German like kindergarden hag/monster

 BrookM wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I certainly hope they wouldn't do another kickstarter before having delivered on this one, at any rate... right?

That's what I gave them as the most important piece of feedback when I filled in my herald form.

Wish people would give Mantic this advice. :(

I eventually pulled out of Mantic's Deadzone because I saw a cathorse. Some will say I was wrong, and a part of me says they are right... but I do hope Raging Heroes doesn't go the Mantic route of KS after KS after KS.

Their products are good enough to stand on their own. Seriously. I'm saying this in the nicest possible way. Those minis will be amazing, going KS gives me the feeling they didn't believe in them enough. I understand the drive for capital to have a full range, but still.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyone check the kicktraq? I don't know if today is a bad day worldwide, but the harvest seems to be seriously drying up.

Have they addressed the questions regarding hard plastics yet?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I certainly hope they wouldn't do another kickstarter before having delivered on this one, at any rate... right?

Completely without Snark, they've said that they want to do three Kickstarters this year. Now with all the delays in getting this one up and running, I'd hope/assume they no longer have such plans to do three. Regardless, I am concerned that they will be trying to take another trip to the well in Nov/Dec for the DE or Nuns - which will be well before delivering on this one. Which in turn would make me very unhappy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 shamikebab wrote:

 WolfStark wrote:
https://www.facebook.com/questions/10151646608846168/]

Survey for a new name for Kotzen, because that means to vomit in german.

My nomination is winning

You suggested "Charlie Sheen"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
With seperate arm/weapon set ups, I see no reason the Dark Elfs and Space Nuns couldn't dual purpose SciFi/Fantasy.

There's a lot that depends on. Powered armour, etc, bionics, biotech, etc. You might get a middle ground with Steampunk-style nuns, but it's still not quite happily fitting into fantasy.

Kicktraq is showing today's pledge numbers to be around 900, with 9 hours to go until the day ends.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I eventually pulled out of Mantic's Deadzone because I saw a cathorse. Some will say I was wrong, and a part of me says they are right... but I do hope Raging Heroes doesn't go the Mantic route of KS after KS after KS.

Their products are good enough to stand on their own. Seriously. I'm saying this in the nicest possible way. Those minis will be amazing, going KS gives me the feeling they didn't believe in them enough. I understand the drive for capital to have a full range, but still.

A) Cathorse? I've never f-ed around with Kickstarter before, so this is all new to me. Is that some newfangled slang you World Wide Webernet kids are using these days?

B) As to your point about them not believing in their product...hmmmm. I do agree that these minis are great, but you make a good point. Do you think that maybe the KS was just to give them a way to reach a broader audience, perhaps, rather than just a lack of confidence in their own quality?

Azazelx: I think I have a pretty good handle on your prose style. Even if you did snark, I don't think you do it out of a mean spirit. I had also assumed that 4 months of delay would mean less than the three KS this year.

Honestly, I paid extra shipping to get my Dreamforge in waves, and would do it again. I'm used to paying postage, it's not even an issue in my case.

Regarding Kicktraq: if all of the money we see is from those 14 new backers, that means an average of 61$ each. That's not a lot of weight being pulled in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I eventually pulled out of Mantic's Deadzone because I saw a cathorse. Some will say I was wrong, and a part of me says they are right... but I do hope Raging Heroes doesn't go the Mantic route of KS after KS after KS.

Their products are good enough to stand on their own. Seriously. I'm saying this in the nicest possible way. Those minis will be amazing, going KS gives me the feeling they didn't believe in them enough. I understand the drive for capital to have a full range, but still.

A) Cathorse? I've never f-ed around with Kickstarter before, so this is all new to me. Is that some newfangled slang you World Wide Webernet kids are using these days?

B) As to your point about them not believing in their product...hmmmm. I do agree that these minis are great, but you make a good point. Do you think that maybe the KS was just to give them a way to reach a broader audience, perhaps, rather than just a lack of confidence in their own quality?

The fact that they raked in that much cash in the first 2 days shows that they could have amassed most of the money needed with a 15 days campaign. They were out there. They have a well known and beloved product. I'm saying it is a possibility that if they would have thought smaller goals, sent faster to market, the product could have spoken for itself.

Here is a cathorse, and no, it is not a He-Man toy repurposed:
http://i.imgur.com/22zP4hI.jpg

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I eventually pulled out of Mantic's Deadzone because I saw a cathorse. Some will say I was wrong, and a part of me says they are right... but I do hope Raging Heroes doesn't go the Mantic route of KS after KS after KS.

There are soime big problems with running campaigns that overlap with delivery on your first, such as the current campaign becomes a platform for the airing of grievances about the yet-to-be-delivered one.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

Anyone check the kicktraq? I don't know if today is a bad day worldwide, but the harvest seems to be seriously drying up.

Oooh, ouch. It's not a global/national trend or holiday so near as I can tell* (it's not so much that Cthulhu Wars beat them, but Warriors of Darkmyre beat them: no slight to the good people at JunkRobot, but they are not going to reach the lofty heights that TGG has already reached).

If I were to speculate, the most obvious problem is the lack of interaction over the last several days. Over the last 3 days there have been two updates; in contrast Cthulhu Wars had 3 updates just today alone.



*


Automatically Appended Next Post:

somewheresomehow wrote:
Kicktraq is showing today's pledge numbers to be around 900, with 9 hours to go until the day ends.

9 hours? To the best of my knowledge Kicktraq goes off EST, so there are about... uh, 70 minutes left. Where is it midnight in 9 hours?

And as we learned in marketing class: a satisfied customer tells 4 people. A dissatisfied customer tells 7. On average.

I've revised my plans for these minis and baring a heroine of three, I'd be all set with what we have, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think 9 hours from now it'll be NZ's midnight.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
And as we learned in marketing class: a satisfied customer tells 4 people. A dissatisfied customer tells 7. On average.

Are these figures American, Canadian, global, or local?

Pulled out of the behind of an esteemed French marketing expert. Because getting a local book was apparently out of the question. That was wayyyyy back in 2005, before most of web 2.0 was firmly entrenched culturally.

Buzz, I was just quoting Kicktraq's big timer up top. So, I am assuming that is the mark of the 24 time period?

Edit: No, you are right. Seems to be based off EST.

Slowest day yet. 1164$

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Azazelx: I think I have a pretty good handle on your prose style. Even if you did snark, I don't think you do it out of a mean spirit. I had also assumed that 4 months of delay would mean less than the three KS this year.

Are you sure? I mean, I understand that you're ...that you're French(!)

But yeah, I'd assume so too, and I'd hope they don't do any more in 2013. Hearing that they wanted to do three in one year gave me pause initially as well. But seeing how so many others seem to treat KS, I am concerned that these guys will try to pull a second one out which I think would lead to very bad things if they were trying to balance the logistics of two. Considering the logistical challenges that they seem to have when releasing 2-3 products to retail, one KS with this many figures would appear to be a herculean task. We've also seen how project creators with an outstanding project tend to put the first one aside while they concentrate on the ramp-up and running of a subsequent campaign for a good two months at least.

Honestly, I paid extra shipping to get my Dreamforge in waves, and would do it again. I'm used to paying postage, it's not even an issue in my case.

It really depends on the numbers and details. None of which we have at this stage.

Regarding Kicktraq: if all of the money we see is from those 14 new backers, that means an average of 61$ each. That's not a lot of weight being pulled in.

This is the trouble with the belief that many KS creators have of thinking that there's just an endless number of suckers out there ready to pour in an unlimited amount of money. There's still not enough bonus/free stuff to make people who were on the fence jump in here, and I think it's pretty clear that there's not going to be. Hell, there's probably not enough bonus/free stuff to make a fair few of the existing pledgers stay in when we get to the last 48 hours. I'm sure there will be a spike, but at this stage there's not going to be a $300k spike as some are hoping, because there aren't enough freebies, nor is there really any reason for most pledgers to increase their pledges (and most of the launch night spike probably grabbed the biggest EB pledge that they could/can/will be able to afford).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
And as we learned in marketing class: a satisfied customer tells 4 people. A dissatisfied customer tells 7. On average.

Are these figures American, Canadian, global, or local?

Those numbers more or less gel (ie, close enough) with what I've also encountered in my own studies.

For me personally the sweet spot is too damn high in, plus it penalizes people who are in it not for an army, but just want a few of the characters.

I'm still sitting at $40 myself, but with half the minis I want still locked up with no word on when they're going to unlock, ehhhh, going to be an interesting last 48 hours for me.

I'm sure they'll all be unlocked before all is said and done, Brookm.

What is this, 'sweet spot' I keep hearing about? And where are people believing it to be?

The sweet spot is the pledge level that nets you the freebies and other free stuff.