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Karazax wrote:
$45 for US shipping seems really high considering they have a US Asmodee distribution center.

If Asmodee has a US DC, $45 is highway robbery. With EU fulfillment at $35, $35 would be on the high side and $30 would be about right. Monolith needs to revisit distribution and clarify what the real expectation should be.

Sure, it's "only" $15, but $15 is still $15.
____

 Theophony wrote:
Don't forget the weight of all the paper.

There isn't that much paper in this game. Ogre DE was 28 lbs of printed stuff, literally half a ream of paper, and they shipped for FREE.
____

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
My biggest issue is that it's a total sausage fest. More girls, please.
____

BTW, with 2.04M raised and 3d:10h to go, I'm thinking we're going a final number around $3M.

Scratch that. My biggest issue is now the shipping being excessive pretty much across the board. Did Monolith double the shipping estimates that were given?

With the inflated shipping estimate, Monolith may well have killed the final bump that was building. At this rate, they will end more like $2.5M vs $3.0M. Oops. Still strong, but clearly not the way they should have ended the campaign.

$15 is at least another add on.

I'd prefer to waste that extra 15 on another batch of figures than pay overpriced shipping.

By setting their pledges at $90 and $135, instead of CMON's $100 and $150, they've dorked themselves out of $10 and $15 they could have hidden into the price and applied to discounted, if not "free", shipping.

Somewhat related, studies have shown that, psychologically, customers will pay more money for "free" shipping than separate shipping.

"Customers view it as unreasonable to tack on an “extra fee” for something that is required, even though they understand that there is no such thing as truly free shipping.."
https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2014/07/14/the-psychology-of-free-shipping-why-it-works-as-a-marketing-tool/

"For whatever reason, a free shipping offer that saves a customer $6.99 is more appealing to many than a discount that cuts the purchase price by $10"
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-the-offer-of-free-shipping-affects-on-line-shopping/

BeAfraid wrote:

 Theophony wrote:

 Moopy wrote:
Does anyone know why they went with 32mm?

A lot of company's are going 32mm now. More size to get more detail and also the models don't look as ham fisted as some of GW's work. Also GW's 28mm really isn't always 28mm.

GW has a WEIRD idea of what "28mm" means.
I haven't seen an actual "28mm" figure from GW since the 1990's.
Their work is definitely in the 30mm+ size.

Does GW even claim a scale these days? They've just been all about "The GW Hobby" for years now, and I don't know that I've seen a scale reference from them in years.

...

After seeing the shipping quote, it's close enough to doubling the price to make me change my mind from putting in $90 now to putting in $1 and worry about it later. My exposure to Conan has just been the films, as I've not read any Howard, and I've got a ton of other games of all kinds to play, so I don't have that "fan urge" on this one.

GW is 28mm heroic scale isn't it?

Well I can't believe they have gone and done it and added the camel!

#77
$2,100,000 – Kothian Archer UNLOCKED! Next up : Comic relief
Posted by Monolith Board Games LLC

We have steamed past the 2 million mark with all the velocity and recklessness of a train driven by a particularly drunk Cimmerian!


Speaking of drunken Cimmerians however, I think it’s time for a slightly more light hearted stretch goal.

Demons, monsters and heroes are all very well and good, but you need to go back to your roots once in a while… and punch a camel.


Now the camel… is a classic, I’m sure most of you will get the reference, if you don’t, then there is a VERY IMPORTANT film that you need to watch before the end of this campaign!

This simple beast of burden will be at the time scenery, ally, scenario objective, walking chest… We have quite a few ideas for this one which should make some of games a bit less intense than others



« A few days' ride on camelback to the southwest, as Shevatas knew, would bring the traveller within sight of the great river Styx at the point where it turned at right angles with its former course, and flowed westward to empty at last into the distant sea. At the point of its bend began the land of Stygia, the dark-bosomed mistress of the south, whose domains, watered by the great river, rose sheer out of the surrounding desert. »

Robert E. Howard - Black Colossus

« Behind all came a camel in rich housings, led by a knight on a great war-horse, and surrounded by a clump of picked fighters from the royal house troops. Its rider, under the silken canopy of the seat, was a slim, silk-clad figure, at the sight of which the populace, always mindful of royalty, threw up its leather cap and cheered wildly. Conan the Cimmerian, restless in his plate armor, stared at the bedecked camel with no great approval, and spoke to Amalric, who rode beside him, resplendent in chain mail threaded with gold, golden breastplate and helmet with flowing horsehair crest. »

Robert E. Howard - Black Colossus

Also, top work managing to find camel references in the books!

*PUNCH*

Image courtesy Matyas

 Azazelx wrote:


After seeing the shipping quote, it's close enough to doubling the price to make me change my mind from putting in $90 now to putting in $1 and worry about it later. My exposure to Conan has just been the films, as I've not read any Howard, and I've got a ton of other games of all kinds to play, so I don't have that "fan urge" on this one.

I not sure that this is a viable option - your $1 donation might end up as just that - a donation!

all the political correctness out there . Already in the campaign we've had people complain about racism (because of black people in Howard's world), complaints about nudity (women in Howard's world being allergic to clothing except chainmail bikinis) now we have PETA people complaining about the camel punch . I wish there was (and there probably is) a way to ignore certain posters in the kickstarter comments section. Good work DakkaDakka Admins for having that function here I don't think you guys get enough praise for that. Even though I'm probably the most ignored .

Hopefully they get the revised shipping costs today, as that seemed to kill any momentum we had yesterday.

 Theophony wrote:
Hopefully they get the revised shipping costs today, as that seemed to kill any momentum we had yesterday.

Yes, we only did about $108k yesterday.

Terribad...

 Alex C wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
Hopefully they get the revised shipping costs today, as that seemed to kill any momentum we had yesterday.

Yes, we only did about $108k yesterday.

Terribad...

Which was down from the previous day considerably, and the boards are full of people complaining and dropping there pledges because of the shipping.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kickstarter
#79
Adventures in an age undreamed of!
Posted by Monolith Board Games LLC
CONAN Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of. This is CONAN roleplaying as Robert E. Howard wrote it: savage pulp adventure battling ancient horrors in the Hyborian Age!
Monolith is pleased to announce our partnership with Modiphius Entertainment (Mutant Chronicles, DUST Adventures, ACHTUNG! Cthulhu) for their new Conan role-playing game! They share our vision of Robert E. Howard’s work: staying true to the form and spirit of his original texts and sparing no expense whilst doing so!

With an amazing line-up of writers: Timothy Brown (designer of the Dark Sun setting for Dungeons & Dragons), award-winning Robert E.Howard scholar and essayist Jeffrey Shanks (Conan Meets the Academy, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, Critical Insights: Pulp Fiction, The Dark Man: The Journal of REH Studies, Zombies from the Pulps!), Jason Durall (Basic Roleplaying, Serenity, The Laundry), Chris Lites (Paizo, Savage Worlds, Omni, Slate) and artists: Sanjulian (Conan Ace Paperbacks, Vampirella, Eerie, Creepy), Carl Critchlow (Batman/Judge Dredd, Anderson: Psi Division), Mark Schultz (The Coming of Conan, Xenozoic Tales, Prince Valiant), Tim Truman (Dark Horse Conan, Grimjack, Jonah Hex), Phroilan Gardner (Age of Conan, World of Warcraft), Alex Horley (Blizzard, Heavy Metal, Magic: The Gathering) and many more, you can be sure that this is going to be one hell of an adventure!
But what does this mean for you guys? Well, they are planning some very cool select cross compatible supplements including new scenarios for the boardgame (yes, new scenarios for us, based on their campaign and scenarios), models as well as floorplan tiles that you will be able to use in your games of Conan!
Modiphius is already working on the roleplaying corebook for Robert E. Howard’s CONAN Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of to be released this Fall. A Kickstarter is planned for the summer to fund a larger range of roleplaying supplements, campaigns, and accessories to follow the core book.
For more info on this great new project, head over to http://www.modiphius.com/conan and discover just what treasures and horrors await you!

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From the designer, Fred Henry on BGG:

Fred Henry wrote:At all US people.
We clearly made a mistake yesterday. We will fix it, as we did for europe. We clearly overestimated the shipping price. IT WILL BE LOWER THAN WHAT WE HAVE ANNOUNCED. so please don't spread false information.

So we shall see what the updated estimates are.

Also they posted some more mini's painted up:

And a sculpt of the Vanir Warrior from the Nordheim expansion:

Conan’s world is far removed from the genre of high fantasy, no orcs, elves or hobbits. Therefore, when the word “Dragon” pops up, it may raise a few eyebrows. But they do exist in Howards world, just not as we know them!



The Dragon is the biggest model we will be making for the game and no doubt the most deadly to Conan and his allies. A primordial killing machine, this beast will present a herculean challenge for our heroes!


WORK IN PROGRESS by Viktor Dragosani
WORK IN PROGRESS by Viktor Dragosani


Illustration by Per Ø. Haagensen
Illustration by Per Ø. Haagensen

« Here it comes!" muttered Conan, half lifting his sword. The thicket was violently agitated, and Valeria clutched Conan's arm hard. Ignorant of jungle-lore, she yet knew that no animal she had ever seen could have shaken the tall brush like that. "It must be as big as an elephant," muttered Conan, echoing her thought. "What the devil----" His voice trailed away in stunned silence. Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-likesnout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth. The head, bigger than that of a crocodile, was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated back-bone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed out behind. »

« That thing must be a dragon, such as the black people speak of in their legends. If so, it won't leave here until we're both dead. »

Robert E. Howard - Red Nails

ced1106 wrote:
By setting their pledges at $90 and $135, instead of CMON's $100 and $150, they've dorked themselves out of $10 and $15 they could have hidden into the price and applied to discounted, if not "free", shipping.

Somewhat related, studies have shown that, psychologically, customers will pay more money for "free" shipping than separate shipping.

"Customers view it as unreasonable to tack on an “extra fee” for something that is required, even though they understand that there is no such thing as truly free shipping.."
https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2014/07/14/the-psychology-of-free-shipping-why-it-works-as-a-marketing-tool/

"For whatever reason, a free shipping offer that saves a customer $6.99 is more appealing to many than a discount that cuts the purchase price by $10"
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-the-offer-of-free-shipping-affects-on-line-shopping/

I work in marketing for a pretty large group of retail brands. It's amazing how a lot of the big online retailers like Amazon have skewed peoples' perceptions of ordering things for delivery. When I was a kid, everything was "plus shipping and handling". When you look at a lot of the complaints on my brands' social media, it's how "unreasonable" the shipping is, and how our pricing is "deceptive" even though it says "plus shipping and handling" clearly on all the ads. It cost me an arm and a leg to ship something as light as a DVD-R home via DHL when I was deployed. People seem to think that shipping something overnight halfway across the US that weighs several pounds should be free, lol. But when we test "free shipping" options that are more expensive, they perform fairly well. Then we get the small handful people who find it and call it out, thinking they're really clever. "OH I caught you!" Yeah. That's it.

 Theophony wrote:

« Here it comes!" muttered Conan, half lifting his sword. The thicket was violently agitated, and Valeria clutched Conan's arm hard. Ignorant of jungle-lore, she yet knew that no animal she had ever seen could have shaken the tall brush like that. "It must be as big as an elephant," muttered Conan, echoing her thought. "What the devil----" His voice trailed away in stunned silence. Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-likesnout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth. The head, bigger than that of a crocodile, was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated back-bone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed out behind. »

« That thing must be a dragon, such as the black people speak of in their legends. If so, it won't leave here until we're both dead. »

Robert E. Howard - Red Nails

I always imagined that as an Ankylosaur myself, which I felt is more fitting in Howard's fantasy world than a more generic fantasy dragon.

I really appreciate two things about the painted minis.

First, they make the sculpts look better than I had thought. Of course, whether those are resin or plastic might be an assume.

Second, the painting is not master level. We all know that high quality painting can make most anything look better and can be deceiving with minis. The painting on these is fairly simple and still makes the minis look better. Good for them.

Karazax wrote:
From the designer, Fred Henry on BGG:

Also they posted some more mini's painted up:

Spoiler:

And a sculpt of the Vanir Warrior from the Nordheim expansion:

Spoiler:

ced1106 wrote:
By setting their pledges at $90 and $135, instead of CMON's $100 and $150, they've dorked themselves out of $10 and $15 they could have hidden into the price and applied to discounted, if not "free", shipping.

Somewhat related, studies have shown that, psychologically, customers will pay more money for "free" shipping than separate shipping.

"Free" shipping controls Customer risk, and a small premium is acceptable. The smarter the company does shipping, the more money they make.

Charging actual shipping afterward only works if the company does a good job at minimizing the cost of that shipping. In this case, Monolith has no skin in the game to minimize that cost, so they're trying to get backers to swallow on vastly overpriced shipping ($45 US domestic, from a US-based distribution center).

As multiple backers have noted, $45 is grossly excessive. They can bulk ship for less than half what Monolith is quoting.

For the love of God people. The $45 was an ESTIMATE made over the weekend by going onto the FEDEX website and entering in 8Kg package, size and tracking. They have not gotten a finalized price but said it would not be more than that as a worst case scenario. It will be less than that, probably closer to $30 for all in, but when they checked they couldn't ask about bulk shipping. They are probably working on that too, but can we just let this die until they get those numbers. You can't even get good info out of the comment section anymore because every other post is complaining about shipping. They get it. I'm sure a more official statement will be coming when the package weight and size are finalized as they stated in shipping update #2. They said they purposely overestimated the cost to make sure no surprises hit later and they get a bunch of complaints.

As for my plan to save on shipping. I'm not going all in. Just the exclusives and the King pledge. Most of the other stuff looks like I'll be able to get cheaper later at retail, at least the expansions where we only save $5 off the retail price on $55. They haven't said that there was any extras in the expansions and the boxes look big.

Theophony - I know, big comprehension fail with this situation.

 Alpharius wrote:
Shipping within the USA for $45?

Seems high, but then again they should know approximately how large a box it will need, and how heavy it will be, I guess?

Yeah, ouch. I was on the fence, but $45 shipping kinda puts me off. :(

edit: Even $34 with the new update. I think I'll pass for now and check it out at retail once some reviews come out.

They just updated the shipping info on the main page.

Further calculations put USA shipping at $34 and EU at $27.

This is for EVERYTHING. King pledge, all SG and all add-ons.

Order less, you'll pay less.

Edit: USA and EU estimated $22 for King pledge and SG.

$22 is certainly more reasonable.

Not sure what to think of their next stretch goal, Ageera, the Witch-Finder.



I think the weapon is about double the size it should be, to not look ridiculous.

You could always file it down.

 Alex C wrote:
Theophony - I know, big comprehension fail with this situation.

It isn't a reading comprehension failure so much as concern about a very possible situation. And for all we know, Monolith floated out the higher shipping costs to see if they would get pushback.

In any case, there's a lot about this project that has been a little squirrely, and I think folks justified in being a bit jittery. If nothing else, it should have been obvious to Monolith that putting a shipping 'estimate' of $45 domestic US was a bad idea.

Whatever.

Believe they were testing the waters for massive shipping charges if you want. I'll just believe them when they say they're trying to be honest with people.

I believe they were trying to be honest and give worst case scenario's, but when they are more than double what they are estimating today, people are going to question it. They should have done the extra day of research before making an announcement on shipping and avoided the whole problem.

 Theophony wrote:
For the love of God people. The $45 was an ESTIMATE made over the weekend by going onto the FEDEX website and entering in 8Kg package, size and tracking. They have not gotten a finalized price but said it would not be more than that as a worst case scenario. It will be less than that, probably closer to $30 for all in, but when they checked they couldn't ask about bulk shipping. They are probably working on that too, but can we just let this die until they get those numbers. You can't even get good info out of the comment section anymore because every other post is complaining about shipping. They get it.

I'm sure a more official statement will be coming when the package weight and size are finalized as they stated in shipping update #2. They said they purposely overestimated the cost to make sure no surprises hit later and they get a bunch of complaints.

Monolith fethed up, plain and simple. Bringing the shipping back down to something more reasonable is the right thing to do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karazax wrote:
I believe they were trying to be honest and give worst case scenario's, but when they are more than double what they are estimating today, people are going to question it. They should have done the extra day of research before making an announcement on shipping and avoided the whole problem.

Exactly. They spent days and days on the artwork, the sculpting, etc. But nobody gave the slightest thought to what the actual shipping charges would be until now?

Yep, it's not their first Feth up, but like the previous one the got it corrected quickly. How many other KS are out there that botch something along the way and don't get it resolved quickly? I don't see any greed in them saying it could be up to $45 for shipping, especially if the people who have been complaining read the rest of the updates where they said that only actual shipping would be charged. They are not trying to make money off of shipping plain and simple. I think too many people have been burnt too many times by other KS projects, ebay and everywhere else on overboard shipping costs.

I want my goodies at a good price, and with the stretch goals being so plentiful here we are getting just that. Tons of figs for the buck. I think some of it might be cheaper at retail when it comes out, but I want to support this game as much as possible. My budget is really tight for gaming, but I'm going to spend it here because I like the look of the game and the contents. I think (personal belief here, I have no inside info other than what's been posted on the KS page) that most everything is already done. We've seen masters of most of the models, the bits from the box sets have been shown, tons of artwork is done and they say they are still on track for October . I think this has been well planned except for a couple of goofs, but really nothing that has been a "look out sir!" For me.

Also not sure if I posted the update about the Conan RPG they sent out. I need to finish some class work that's due in a couple hours though, so if interested check one of their last few updates.

When I pledge, I like to have some good idea that they company will deliver. There are a lot of pieces, and logistics is the one that catches a lot of companies by surprise.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
When I pledge, I like to have some good idea that they company will deliver. There are a lot of pieces, and logistics is the one that catches a lot of companies by surprise.

Totally agree, but then look at companies like CB. When they decided to produce more operation: icestorm they had to wait for more D20s. For a start up company these guys seem to have it all together. Plus they are working with Ludofact which know a thing or two about games.