Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I backed this one on the high end and losing the money is not the issue for me.

Losing what could have been a great game, with awesome races is what saddens me.

It will be the creators loss in the end, because managed well this could have made him very wealthy.

It ain't over until the fat lady sings!

I too see the potential of this game and put quite a bit of money on it. I am putting hope on that the silence is due to packaging and management behind the scenes...

I've added a warning to the opening post for people who may be tempted to preorder due to this post being active again. (And especially for those who don't read entire threads).

Good call

#89
News from TE
Posted by Sentinel Games
Hi!
After a long wait, we have the dice and bases now in Spain. Hope tomorrow (maybe wednesday) we have the customs clearance ready and we can start packaging and send the first rewards. We don´t have the Rule Book layout finish so we will start sending the rewards that does not include it.

Life sign!!

Would be great!

Honestly, I was surprised to actually see an update from them. These things should have been done a long time ago, but it's nice to see an update. Maybe someday I'll actually get my stuff.

Maybe even pretty soon. I'm not sure why people have been worried about this project, as the team have done nothing (that I have seen) to indicate any sort of problem whatsoever with fulfilment.

They haven't communicated very well, but humans generally dont communicate very well. Every communication they have given, has shown a constant progression towards completion.

There hasn't been a single "oh sorry, contract has changed, cant talk now", or "manufacturer has problems, took all our cash" or anything at all to cause concern.

The update today about printing the book in Spain now is the closest we've come to a problem, and rather than the usual "hello everyone, the factory where we had the book printed has gone quiet, and we're trying to find funds to get it printed elsewhere", or some such nonsense kickstarter update, we get: "hi, have switched printing to another factory, will post soon, do you want your models in the meantime? thank you bye"

Quiet kickstarters are very typically quiet because something is wrong.

Supercollider wrote:
Maybe even pretty soon. I'm not sure why people have been worried about this project, as the team have done nothing (that I have seen) to indicate any sort of problem whatsoever with fulfilment.

They haven't communicated very well, but humans generally dont communicate very well. Every communication they have given, has shown a constant progression towards completion.

I reiterate; just because its Kickstarter or even because its wargames realted, should we expect poor communication. The industry generally has a poor track record of comms, I think primarily because its generally run by creative people who dont like to think/arent capable with that sort of thing. Personally, I dont think 2 months between updates is in any way acceptable. If I did that in my line of work Id get dragged over the coals and rightly so.
A lot of the time with KS it almost seems like Stolkholm syndrome "its fine, its all good, they havent said anything for weeks but the last update was positive so its all still good right? right?!"

edit: and this:

deadairis wrote:
Quiet kickstarters are very typically quiet because something is wrong.

is almost always true

 Pete Melvin wrote:
I reiterate; just because its Kickstarter or even because its wargames realted, should we expect poor communication.

This is definitely not something I've ever said.

 Pete Melvin wrote:
A lot of the time with KS it almost seems like Stolkholm syndrome "its fine, its all good, they havent said anything for weeks but the last update was positive so its all still good right? right?!"

If all of the available updates are positive, and the kickstarter eventually delivers what was intended, what exactly is the problem?

 Pete Melvin wrote:
edit: and this:

deadairis wrote:
Quiet kickstarters are very typically quiet because something is wrong.

is almost always true

That's really subjective.

Supercollider wrote:

 Pete Melvin wrote:
I reiterate; just because its Kickstarter or even because its wargames realted, should we expect poor communication.

This is definitely not something I've ever said.

Never said that you did pal. I was reiterating a previous point that I had made about poor communication.

Edit: and now that Ive looked, you actually did say that.

Supercollider wrote:
The last kickstarter update was from the 2nd of December 2014, which really isn't that long ago, in kickstarter communication terms.

Supercollider wrote:

 Pete Melvin wrote:
A lot of the time with KS it almost seems like Stolkholm syndrome "its fine, its all good, they havent said anything for weeks but the last update was positive so its all still good right? right?!"

If all of the available updates are positive, and the kickstarter eventually delivers what was intended, what exactly is the problem?.

The problem is you don't know its going to complete. We still dont know that this one will. Every time it rears its head it goes quiet for weeks if not months on end. That leads to people worrying that they wont get their stuff and then to bad feeling. The poor communication from Games and Gears means Ill never back any of their KS projects again or buy from them at all. Im sure Im not the only one and Im sure thats not the only project people have felt that way about. Are there projects that have not completed? Many of them. The difference between those projects and this one at the moment are negligable.

Supercollider wrote:

 Pete Melvin wrote:
edit: and this:

deadairis wrote:
Quiet kickstarters are very typically quiet because something is wrong.

is almost always true

That's really subjective.

Most things are when humans are involved.

If you are a business owner and everyone is on your kickstarter page literally begging for you to say something and getting to the point of calling you a fraud, yet you still don't say anything on the page for months, something is wrong. There is no reason to not type out a sentence or two if you are seeing this, even if you are the creative type, especially when you would talk all the time during and right after the campaign.

So when this happens it tells me that something is wrong and
(a) I am not sure I am going to get my product or
(b)the person is a horrible business person which then brings me back to point (a)

The announcement yesterday to send just the minis is great, and I really hope it happens as that is what I wanted. I am hoping that the rules are what have messed up things and the guy felt like he had to have them finished first or something and I am not out $500. If that was the case for the last few months then he should have just said it.
Here is to hoping they arrive, they are beautiful and creative.

 Pete Melvin wrote:

Supercollider wrote:

 Pete Melvin wrote:
I reiterate; just because its Kickstarter or even because its wargames realted, should we expect poor communication.

This is definitely not something I've ever said.

Never said that you did pal. I was reiterating a previous point that I had made about poor communication.

Edit: and now that Ive looked, you actually did say that.

Supercollider wrote:
The last kickstarter update was from the 2nd of December 2014, which really isn't that long ago, in kickstarter communication terms.

Saying that the 2 month stretch of no comms in this kickstarter is not bad by kickstarter standards, is definitely not the same as saying that because this is a kick starter, we should expect poor communication.

Supercollider wrote:

 Pete Melvin wrote:

Supercollider wrote:

 Pete Melvin wrote:
I reiterate; just because its Kickstarter or even because its wargames realted, should we expect poor communication.

This is definitely not something I've ever said.

Never said that you did pal. I was reiterating a previous point that I had made about poor communication.

Edit: and now that Ive looked, you actually did say that.

Supercollider wrote:
The last kickstarter update was from the 2nd of December 2014, which really isn't that long ago, in kickstarter communication terms.

Saying that the 2 month stretch of no comms in this kickstarter is not bad by kickstarter standards, is definitely not the same as saying that because this is a kick starter, we should expect poor communication. And that's not like a semantic issue, they are actually not the same thing.

They totally are the same thing but I think we are going to have to agree to disagree here.

Kickstarters are not preorders.

There is risk. Deal with it.

You have to look at the context. You essentially said "they are almost certainly dead, because they haven't communicated for ages", which I answered by pointing out that it had only been two months, which isn't that bad, compared to other kickstarters. Note I didn't not say that "it's a kickstarter, you should expect (100% certainty) that you'll have bad communication. Of course you shouldn't expect that, you should expect good communication from a kickstarter. But, if that good communication doesn't happen, it does not mean the company/project is "dead". They might be busy trying to complete the project you want completing!

And about 2 days later they turned with another positive communication, showing the project wasn't dead, despite the poor communication, which you'd been pretty sure meant the project was dead.

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
Kickstarters are not preorders.

There is risk. Deal with it.

Except when companies use them as a pre-order system. And several do just this.

Deal with it.

Maybe we should all calm down on the ks preorder vs risk rhetoric its tends to run its course in every ks thread I go in.

Im glad we've seen some more progress and I'm happy to wait for the finished rulebook, so long as we have adequate communication during the delay.

 CptJake wrote:

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
Kickstarters are not preorders.

There is risk. Deal with it.

Except when companies use them as a pre-order system. And several do just this.

Deal with it.

What about when companies use it as a pre-order but still don't manage to deliver (much), cough, so much Dust in here, cough

Forgive the necro, but this one is starting to deliver after some long period of isolation from the creator. Albeit, final rules and such still have not been released, so the quality of the underlying game is still up in the air.

All things considered, the component quality is good, moreso on the infantry sized units, but that could simply be because Sentinel didn't do any rough cleanup on the larger units like you'd get from Spartan (for example).

Triple9 wrote:
Forgive the necro, but this one is starting to deliver after some long period of isolation from the creator. Albeit, final rules and such still have not been released, so the quality of the underlying game is still up in the air.

All things considered, the component quality is good, moreso on the infantry sized units, but that could simply be because Sentinel didn't do any rough cleanup on the larger units like you'd get from Spartan (for example).

Could you elaborate? What did you get? When did it arrive? Was everything you're expecting delivered? Have you been in contact with them or vice versa?
I did not back this but there are a few things I've been interested in from it, so while I don't have money in it yet, I am eager to find out what's going on.

I'm pretty excited about delivery. The Glorlons have a lot to like about them. Can't wait for some non-humanoid technology-using aliens.

As for the game not being completed--who cares? We can always use the minis to play Medge. :V

 MLaw wrote:

Triple9 wrote:
Forgive the necro, but this one is starting to deliver after some long period of isolation from the creator. Albeit, final rules and such still have not been released, so the quality of the underlying game is still up in the air.

All things considered, the component quality is good, moreso on the infantry sized units, but that could simply be because Sentinel didn't do any rough cleanup on the larger units like you'd get from Spartan (for example).

Could you elaborate? What did you get? When did it arrive? Was everything you're expecting delivered? Have you been in contact with them or vice versa?
I did not back this but there are a few things I've been interested in from it, so while I don't have money in it yet, I am eager to find out what's going on.

I'm Greg on the comments in the KS. For whatever reason, printed materials went to press back in December, but nothing has been heard from since. Sentinel offered to short ship just the models, bases and dice back in February and I jumped on the opportunity. KS lesson 1, if someone offers to ship something to you, run to your send button, don't walk. Sentinel acknowledged it and I heard nothing until they shipped my pledge in mid-April along with a confirmation e-mail. Package arrived on Monday. I finally had a chance this morning to do a detailed inventory of all the components and everything was there...nothing missed. Captain pledge; so Colonial Battle Tank, Colonial Artillery Tank, 18 Colonial Soldiers (plus LT), Glorlon Biotank, 10 Glorlon Soldiers (plus Mentor), 4 Glorlon Raiders, dice, and textured bases

The Bad
A lot of cleanup will be required on the tank hull and turret between the upper and lower pieces to get any sort of clean fit...or a lot of green stuff will be used.
Minor miscast on one part of the biotank, but looks fixable
No rules, templates, tokens, etc (not even PDF)

The Good
Not a bubble to be found in the resin
The fit and finish on the infantry is fantastic. Most look to have minimal to 0 cleanup required.
Truescale weapons (it actually refreshing to see gun-sized guns sometimes)
Detail is excellent on the infantry. Good to very good on the larger units.

Sooo... any pics?

I'll get off my butt in the next day or so and take some. There's another guy on the KS comments who has been posting up a bunch as he builds, but only Colonial so far.

I only pledged for the commander mini and some troops, so I didn't think I needed to tell them to skip the rulebook. I guess I was wrong.

Yeah, the more Kickstarters I back the more I see that putting money on something you have the slightest bit of doubt on is risky and buying in at any level sometimes means you have to ride them or be ready to write it off. I wish it weren't true. I did finally get my burn-in designs terrain but I still don't have my Rangers Project Salamander squadron, Gear and Gamers board, and a few other things I put money on. I'm hoping the MERCS Recon KS doesn't fall into the same schedule either :/

On the plus side, Recon looks like it's shipping around July or so, and the Rangers Project stuff seems to slowly trickle out into the wild (proud owner of a Salamander i had to swap for here).