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Alex, didn't they say they booked the best in the industry? None of those sub-standard results for these veritable works of art!

They're also blaming Salute for the delays in casting.

Yes. In no way shape or form was the delay because they re-worked everything thrice.

 BrookM wrote:
They're also blaming Salute for the delays in casting.

?

I think it's a bit weak to say Salute is part of the reason though. It's not like it was a big secret announced a week in advance or anything.

 BrookM wrote:
I could be wrong, but isn't Privateer Press' stuff spincast?

Privateer's stuff is PVC, like Mantic & Reaper.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I could be wrong, but isn't Privateer Press' stuff spincast?

Privateer's stuff is PVC, like Mantic & Reaper.

Then I was wrong. Thanks for the correction.

 BrookM wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I could be wrong, but isn't Privateer Press' stuff spincast?

Privateer's stuff is PVC, like Mantic & Reaper.

Then I was wrong. Thanks for the correction.

Isn't spincast Trollcast, the material from Tre Manor's first kickstarter?

If so, I have a number from Tre that are very nice... although he then stopped making figures in that material.

Resin is a VERY wide range of stuff. The resin I use is pretty flexible and not brittle at all, but I also have stuff that is like glass (including being clear) and stuff that is flexible enough to double back on itself almost like Bones stuff. The physical properties are sort of all over the place.

Just thought I would just drop this reply to my email enquiring about what was happening with nepharaya


Loud'n Raging says:
Michael,

I am so sorry that we keep disappointing you :(
However, you deserve extra points for the conspiracy theories

The truth is that there's a workflow where there are several sculptors, but only one Art Director. We have first kept the sculptors busy with all the sculpts that had not yet been done, and spent a fair bit of time improving their quality and our workflow as well, so that we could work more efficiently. So the Art Director has had to keep pace with the several sculptors, leaving him little time to go back and bring the first sculpts to the level of the new ones. As it turns out, he addressed Nepharya this week, and it almost made the last Update, but it wasn't quite complete and I did not want to delay the Update any longer. So really, it's just a matter of limited time and resources. If I could clone Benoit, I would, but there's only one of him... And Nepharya, a beautiful model, does deserve his full attention.

I replied to a FB message last week, and I'd like to share with you part of what I told him, in the hope that it will help you understand what is going on, and what it is like to be on the producing end of a Kickstarter:

We have been sculpting the equivalent of 250 new sculpts in less than a year. I could be wrong, but I don't believe there are many miniatures company that have managed something like that. And while we may have broken some time commitments, we are delivering on everything else. As the saying goes, "you can have it cheap, you can have it fast, you can have it good, but you only get 2 out of 3". With this KS, you're getting it cheap and you're getting it good. I do not see what else I can do. We are here all week, and most weekends as well. We are doing the best we can. Truly, I am sorry that we are unable to stay awake 24 hours a day to do it faster. Should we care care less about doing it right and put out crap and do it on time? Most of our backers want us to do it right, and take the time needed to do it right. Perhaps you prefer it differently? But that is not what this company is, and has ever been, about.
Please know that NO ONE is more concerned about the time that this project is taking than I, who is handling the purse strings: every delay means higher expenses and less revenue. So I am aching at least as much as you are (and possibly a lot more...).
Again, please know that it is your support, along with the one of or 3000 backers, that is enabling Raging Heroes to unleash a large amount of striking female minis in a world that does not have many. We couldn't have done it without you. So please know that you, along with all of our backers, are the reason we are working so hard.

I hope this helps you understand what is going on.
I understand your disappointment, and please know that I have many times brought Nepharya to the attention of the team, but somehow, other items always too precedence.

Please stay in touch,
Best regards,
Mireille

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:
Just thought I would just drop this reply to my email enquiring about what was happening with nepharaya


Loud'n Raging says:
Michael,

I am so sorry that we keep disappointing you :(
However, you deserve extra points for the conspiracy theories

The truth is that there's a workflow where there are several sculptors, but only one Art Director. We have first kept the sculptors busy with all the sculpts that had not yet been done, and spent a fair bit of time improving their quality and our workflow as well, so that we could work more efficiently. So the Art Director has had to keep pace with the several sculptors, leaving him little time to go back and bring the first sculpts to the level of the new ones. As it turns out, he addressed Nepharya this week, and it almost made the last Update, but it wasn't quite complete and I did not want to delay the Update any longer. So really, it's just a matter of limited time and resources. If I could clone Benoit, I would, but there's only one of him... And Nepharya, a beautiful model, does deserve his full attention.

I replied to a FB message last week, and I'd like to share with you part of what I told him, in the hope that it will help you understand what is going on, and what it is like to be on the producing end of a Kickstarter:

We have been sculpting the equivalent of 250 new sculpts in less than a year. I could be wrong, but I don't believe there are many miniatures company that have managed something like that. And while we may have broken some time commitments, we are delivering on everything else. As the saying goes, "you can have it cheap, you can have it fast, you can have it good, but you only get 2 out of 3". With this KS, you're getting it cheap and you're getting it good. I do not see what else I can do. We are here all week, and most weekends as well. We are doing the best we can. Truly, I am sorry that we are unable to stay awake 24 hours a day to do it faster. Should we care care less about doing it right and put out crap and do it on time? Most of our backers want us to do it right, and take the time needed to do it right. Perhaps you prefer it differently? But that is not what this company is, and has ever been, about.
Please know that NO ONE is more concerned about the time that this project is taking than I, who is handling the purse strings: every delay means higher expenses and less revenue. So I am aching at least as much as you are (and possibly a lot more...).
Again, please know that it is your support, along with the one of or 3000 backers, that is enabling Raging Heroes to unleash a large amount of striking female minis in a world that does not have many. We couldn't have done it without you. So please know that you, along with all of our backers, are the reason we are working so hard.

I hope this helps you understand what is going on.
I understand your disappointment, and please know that I have many times brought Nepharya to the attention of the team, but somehow, other items always too precedence.

Please stay in touch,
Best regards,
Mireille

Holy gak. I'd be livid if a company responded to me in such a condescending tone. Amusing that Mireille tries to end with a kiss when the majority of that e-mail was an open handed slap.

Yeah, that one was a bit odd.

They really need to hire an experienced customer service rep at this point.

Loud'n Raging wrote:With this KS, you're getting it cheap

What are they smoking?

I think they really, really need to hire someone with English as the first language to handle these things. I think they don't want to come across as condescending arrogants, but I think the real tone and meaning has been lost in translation. But I could be wrong as always.

I'm reminded of something....



I mean, okay - on one hand I get it: I'm sure they're all working REAL hard to get these things out the door and they set the bar real high. While their miniatures were always pricey, they were also really high-quality sculpts, which is one of the reasons I threw money at them for a bunch of female guard done right.

The problem is that, when you're the communications person for a company that's under those kinds of strains, the LAST thing you want to do is alienate the people who are going to be buying your product. Dude should have just taken a walk outside, taken a deep breath, loaded up his copy-pasted apology and sent it off with maybe a quick blip on the company underestimating the volume of the work involved in such a large project vs the level of work they had been involved in previously, etc, etc.

Mollify your customers, don't piss them off.

All of this said? I'd expect we'll be getting Wave 1 soonish (couple of months) and the rest of waves eventually. That beats "never" every time.

Wave one will probably happen before the timer in my sig runs out.

It is worth pointing out that Mirielle is Canadian and should allegedly speak English.

Oh, if only they had someone on the team who was dedicated to communications to handle things like this. I'm sure they'd be able to handle situations like this without alienating the backers / future customers. Oh, wait, they do. He's just busy collating the KS updates into a word document (possibly to see what else they promised in updates and forgot about at the end of the KS). Communications are next on the list though, right after triple checking the number of bases received.

 BrookM wrote:
Wave one will probably not happen before the timer in my sig runs out.

Fixed that for you

Damn it man, I am trying to be positive here! But we shall see.

Well, on the positive side. We will eventually get the figures, and they will be delicious.

Warning: Attempting to actually eat the figures may prove detrimental to your health. 100% of all figures will be at least 80% delicious.

Don't eat them, just..

Well looks like I'd like a wolf too now I have to figure out which jailbird figure to ditch

To be fair to Miriam I do usually push their buttons a bit as it seems to be the only way to actually get them to respond with any info at all.

Other than the conspiracy theory remark, what exactly was condescending about that?

The rest of that message seemed pretty reasonable to me. (At least in tone.)

 Jimsolo wrote:
Other than the conspiracy theory remark, what exactly was condescending about that?

The rest of that message seemed pretty reasonable to me. (At least in tone.)

To me this was the worst bit:

Truly, I am sorry that we are unable to stay awake 24 hours a day to do it faster. Should we care care less about doing it right and put out crap and do it on time? Most of our backers want us to do it right, and take the time needed to do it right. Perhaps you prefer it differently? But that is not what this company is, and has ever been, about.

Alright, I guess I can see how someone could see it that way.

But didn't Unclebadtouch say that he had been 'pushing their buttons' in order to provoke a response? In the face of someone being, by his own admission, confrontational, I think at least a small degree of reproach might be warranted. All in all, this response seemed like an exceptionally polite way (overall) of saying "hold your horses Mac, I can't s--t you your minis."

Now, it's entirely possible I've missed a beat in my interpretation of the course of events. (And Unclebadtouch, I'm not throwing any harsh judgments at you, by the way! I only mention your name because it was your response.) But as it stands, it doesn't seem to be too harsh, and it doesn't seem to be too saccharine, either.

Clearly, how condescending is too condescending is a judgment call, but this doesn't seem to bad, at least to me.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
It is worth pointing out that Mirielle is Canadian and should allegedly speak English.

With a name like that, she is most likely from Quebec, which means that English is not be assumed at all. Her posts feel like they were written and mostly though in our version of English. But yeah... Canada is not to be assumed as a guarantor of good English. They ought to throw a bit of money across the Channel and hire a native speaker.

 Jimsolo wrote:
All in all, this response seemed like an exceptionally polite way (overall) of saying "hold your horses Mac, I can't s--t you your minis."

Actually, I think that would have gone over better At least with me. The bit quoted before starts to sound a lot like a grade school teacher addressing a kid having a grumpy time. If you want to tell another adult "We are going as fast as we can, calm the feth down." it is probably better to just say what you mean.

Unless maybe you are in a delicious sexy school teacher outfit... but I digress.

The problem is that "as fast as we can" is pretty damned slow by just about anyone's standards, and also really quiet and secretive when it comes to communication. Neither aspect is going to win the hearts of those who gave you money expecting something in return faster than you are making it happen.

Unless School Marm Mirielle is in aforementioned outfit. Then hearts might be won. Who knows.

Especially if you're going to cite your 250 sculpts as being to blame... when you were only supposed to make 150.

I don't see how the sculpts are to blame. Didn't they know before hand how many sculpts they were going to produce for this KS? I seem to recall sculpts being unlocked by time-frame at the very end because they couldn't hit funding to unlock their stretches anyway.