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Heh, I haven't even threatened to do so.

Where do people get the $100 retail level from? That hasn't been stated anywhere? Or has it?

 Azazelx wrote:
Heh, I haven't even threatened to do so.

Look, it's as much a part of the 'game' as low-balled funding goals, elastic stretch goals and incomplete add-ons. You can't just not threaten to drop your pledge or you throw the whole system off and threaten Mantic's long term success. Each kickstarter is a series of unstated negotiations, textual thrusts and parries and feints that unbalance your opponent, jockeying for position so that you can strike just the right bargain. This is no Occidental retail establishment where you simply pre-order a product for its sticker price and go your separate way--oh no, kickstarter is a warren of the kind of shrewd manipulation and haggling you'd expect to see in the most offensively-stereotyped Toydarian marketplace. A crucible of offer and counter-offer and insult.

Mantic: My friend! Let me show you my finest wares! Here, here, see this box? For you, I put in 22, no 23! of the finest miniatures ever made for the low price of 100 US credits.

Backers: $100 for that? May you grow onions from your pupik, you ganif!

M: Ah, you truly have the lobes for business. I can see that now. I will throw in the finest resins from the east, for a mere 25 additional credits.

B: Only a veruul would make such an offer. I should cut off your limbs for stealing. Fill the box with all the figures from the cover art and several exclusives or I will pull my pledge.

M: You have seized me by the base of my snarglies! I can give you all this, but only for 150. And only because we are such good friends.

B: Free PDF rules and extra tiles, or I send you to the hell where people are skinned alive. It's that simple.

M: You leave me a pauper! I make this deal only so you will stop flaying me alive!

The expansion crystallised something I don't like about this.

It just isn't epic. I expect first hordes of monsters, then when the heroes are both powerful and alcoholic enough to cut a swath through them without blinking, big tough monsters (mentally I assume a horde of lesser creatures die with every casual backswing).

This seems like you go into someone's underground terrace house, kill the family and steal the DVD player.

Bobtheinquisitor, you have just nailed and demonstrated the difference between kickstarter and preorder. It isn't the purchase of a product- it is the purchase of hope, and the realization that for the next two weeks, you will get more and more for your money as Mantic continues to titillate its buyers.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
The expansion crystallised something I don't like about this.

It just isn't epic. I expect first hordes of monsters, then when the heroes are both powerful and alcoholic enough to cut a swath through them without blinking, big tough monsters (mentally I assume a horde of lesser creatures die with every casual backswing).

This seems like you go into someone's underground terrace house, kill the family and steal the DVD player.

You've summed up what I was thinking, the dungeons seem to look a bit like a dwarf kings bungalow. I was hoping there'd be swarms of minions to kill before the big boss not three of his mates and the pets.

 Azazelx wrote:
Heh, I haven't even threatened to do so.

You were thinkin' it! I'm still not sold either, the solo/co-op helps a lot though.

Hmmm. My laptop is banjacksed and I have to buy a new one, that's going to set me back a bit. I just paid 2 grand for my brother's spinal surgery too. Bank account is taking a bit of a pummelling. I'll keep my pledge there for now, but if the value isn't the sort of thing that I know will make me weep tears of shame for passing on it, I might have to pull my pledge.

Edit: Heh heh. I realised this post is hypocritical after my high minded "Oh, I only back because I want to see people succeed!" post earlier in the thread. Apologies! I guess it always comes down to the bank balance in the end.

 Da Boss wrote:
Edit: Heh heh. I realised this post is hypocritical after my high minded "Oh, I only back because I want to see people succeed!" post earlier in the thread. Apologies! I guess it always comes down to the bank balance in the end.

Of course it does. A variant form of Maslow's hierarchy of needs; toys and hobbies should always take a backburner to RL issues, especially when family is involved. Nothing shameful about that at all.

I'm still waiting for this to "wow" me. It looks good, but "good" does not translate to "$100+ a year in advance" when I can plunk that same $100 (technically $86 from MM) onto Descent and get their new expansions (specifically Crown of Destiny, Manor of Ravens, Skarn, Crusade of the Fallen) to my door by the early part of next week which would bring me 10 heroes and 27 monsters. Sure, I already have the core D2E and have access to it at reasonable prices (something I understand UK/EU backers may not have) but that's kind of the mental hurdle I'm struggling with. For $14 more a year in advance I'm essentially getting 5 additional "heroes" (counting the major DS villains as heroes) and while my sample size is only one I do find it hard to believe I'm unique in the market for this game in that regard. There's still a long way to go since we're not even halfway through this project, but I have to echo the feeling that right this second, the value isn't there.

However, this goes back to Azazelx's point about fake stretch goals. Were I not a previous backer of Mantic's familiar with their model and a fairly large supporter of their products in general, I wouldn't give this a second glance after crunching those numbers. I'd go "huh", move on and forget about the project. Maybe at the end if someone came back to tell me "hey, they really made this a good deal now", but I don't think Mantic has the market awareness even still to rely on that factor, and that assumes I didn't spend the available money on the competition in the interim. If you're going to go into a space with an established player, you really need to make sure your initial offering aligns roughly in value, especially when the time factor of a KS plays into it.

Still hopeful something comes along to shake me off the fence though.

Yes I would, if not a Mantic backer in the past, not have signed up. As it is without more content and at least plastic furniture the game offers nothing I can't get without getting hold of an electronic copy of the extra rulebook with the updated DKH scenarios.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Mantic: My friend! Let me show you my finest wares! Here, here, see this box? For you, I put in 22, no 23! of the finest miniatures ever made for the low price of 100 US credits.
*snip*

Post of the week. Exalted.

I was hoping for some exciting big dungeon monsters, but I don't think the game is really set up for that. It's more like a "tower defense" board game where you've got to push forward, not kill baddies per se. It's all about lanes of advance, and defending or breaching those lanes. So the dungeon designs make sense in that regard, as do the narrow corridors and rooms, but it won't be conducive to a big "wow" model.

Descent is tempting, alright. I've been on the verge of picking it up many times. The problem is I know I won't get anyone to play a game with me that takes longer than an hour and is that hard to learn.

More it goes on, more I think Mantic can't get it this wrong and really want to end up with a cheap box set, with a dedicated existing community to help with rues and internet content, to release into game stores and mass market.

 Da Boss wrote:
I was hoping for some exciting big dungeon monsters, but I don't think the game is really set up for that. It's more like a "tower defense" board game where you've got to push forward, not kill baddies per se. It's all about lanes of advance, and defending or breaching those lanes. So the dungeon designs make sense in that regard, as do the narrow corridors and rooms, but it won't be conducive to a big "wow" model.

Descent is tempting, alright. I've been on the verge of picking it up many times. The problem is I know I won't get anyone to play a game with me that takes longer than an hour and is that hard to learn.

Yeah, I'm starting to get that feeling too - but, I haven't messed with the alpha and we don't know much about the campaign game. As for other games, Descent, Super Dungeon Explore and Myth are more tactical combat games. I think Mice & Mystics might be the only dungeon exploring game on the market, but I haven't played it yet.

 Yonan wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Heh, I haven't even threatened to do so.

You were thinkin' it! I'm still not sold either, the solo/co-op helps a lot though.

Well, of course. Really though - it should be read as implicit in every kickstarter I back, without the need for me to be explicit. If only more people were this way we might have FOUR of the monsters in the box instead of two at retail or three in the KS...

Two. Wow, that really just makes me laugh.

Yeah, even the D'n'D boardgames ship with 3 of each and boss monsters.
Castle Ravenloft for example:
5 Heroes
4 Normal sized villains
2 Large villains (Golem and Dracolich)
3 Spiders
3 Wolves
3 Kobolds
3 Skeletons
3 Ghouls
3 Zombies
3 Wraiths
3 Burning Skeletons
3 Gargoyles
3 Rat Swarms

41 monsters (assuming I didn't leave something out) with two of them being pretty big. 3 of each type, plenty of cards, tokens and all the rest to make it worth your while. For less than 100 dollars. It's fun and fast playing too, where it falls down is not having a campaign mode to allow people to develop their heroes.

But hey. They're still adding stuff a bit at a time to the game, so it will probably exceed that value as time goes on. At least I hope so- I spent 100 euro more than I wanted to on my new laptop today!

Since Mantic is gaming Kickstarter, perhaps we could engineer another large freebie bailout like with Mars Attacks. Drop enough pledges within a few days to make it start backtrakcing and BOOM! Free giant stompy robot dragons for all!

So, there will only be two of each minion type in the game? What is this, Raiders of Noah's Ark? Herostroll? Dungeons and Dragonflies?

I guess it does open up the possibility of more content, such as PDFs detailing the entire life story, hopes and dreams of each goblin you kill. I predict two of them will be named after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Many of us have plenty of minis to use in the game already so the lack of minis doesn't phase me so much so long as the overall value is there. If there was a large focus on awesome rules, lots of scenarios, deep gameplay, multi-level gameplay to slowly bring non-tabletoppers into it by layering rules up gently that would be fine for me. I doubt that's something they'll offer though, so yeah they do need to ensure that there's enough minis to warrant the cost basically.

Yeah. I have thousands of models, but I'm really not seeing the value in the package that they're offering at this point. Both the base level pledge and the add-ons are underwhelming. Particularly for a Kickstarter. And Particularly for a year out.

I should be wetting my pants with excitement for this, and instead I'm just quietly hoping that it becomes somewhat worthwhile by the end. You know the really sad part? Krinsath's post about the Descent expansions has me genuinely more excited than this KS does.

It's a buyers market it seems. Lets make Mantic dance for our dollars ; p I too shall have a look at descent I think - if this isn't clearly above a current retail offering... you know what's happening!

 Da Boss wrote:
Descent is tempting, alright. I've been on the verge of picking it up many times. The problem is I know I won't get anyone to play a game with me that takes longer than an hour and is that hard to learn.

Descent 2nd edition's quests are under an hour. The game's pretty easy to learn. Pick cool skills, roll dice, kill things. If you're looking for coop, pick up one of the coop campaigns.

*Waits for add-on Wednesday*

The thing about models - yes we can all probably go to the cupboard and run a dungeon crawl right now if someone provides the tiles.

But... if that is the case Mantic are even worse off because as far as I can tell the non model bits are all at retail, will be cheaper than this and we can just use our own models.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, there will only be two of each minion type in the game? What is this, Raiders of Noah's Ark? Herostroll? Dungeons and Dragonflies?

I guess it does open up the possibility of more content, such as PDFs detailing the entire life story, hopes and dreams of each goblin you kill. I predict two of them will be named after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

While I do essentially agree, I would point out that:

1) There are actually 4 of the 'basic' enemy type for the setting (skeletons, zombies, goblin warriors), increased to 6 with the Kickstarter pledge/a retail add-on box.
2) These enemies respawn, and it looks like the "total number of enemies" might be on more of a room-by-room basis.
3) Fairly cheap stretch goals for when things are slowing down would be to increase/double the amount of minions for particular types - the moulds have been paid for already, so unit costs will be low.
4) I think Mantic is really keen to get this to retail for a sensible price and at a sensible box size, so while there's still definitely room for plenty more stuff in the base box, I think that beyond a certain point they're going to rely on expansions to put this into "epic dungeon crawl" territory, whether these are included in the base $100 pledge or not. Mars attacks has 40 models in a £50/$80 retail box, this currently has 28/29 in the retail box (some of which are very large), and I'll bet that Mantic wants to be able to sell it for £40.

I'm thinking the base game box set is definitely headed for a lower price point. Of course, that means it's something I'd be more likely to buy at retail too. I'm getting kind of torn, really.

On the one hand, it would be nice to have some fantasy rules to use with my old warhammer minis and incoming bones stuff, but then there are a lot of games (some fairly cheap, song of blades and heroes keeps coming up) that can also do that.

I look at the models and once I get past the ''shinies! I want all the things!" stage, I kind of realize that I'm not that interested in a lot of them. Dwarf isn't bad but he isn't bringing a lot to the table, Madriga either. Barbarian is a pretty good example of his kind, but Dranor seems a bit meh. Keldan looks enough like a certain other hero that I am interested, but not a whole kickstarter for one model. The zombie trolls look sweet, and would fit my undead horde, and I've always wanted trolls, AND they're better proportioned than normal mantic trolls. I'm not fussed at all about the tiles with Battle System's fantasy kickstarter incoming.

Though now I have to wonder if the game and BS fantasy terrain are really synergistic, DS seems to have really narrow halls and corridors that would be somewhat harder to represent with BS ramps, which favor larger rooms and wider halls (which is great for D&D).


I know I'll like all of the extra scenarios and missions they include with the extra characters, the old upgraded DKH missions, and all of that. The KS dungeon journal is one of the things keeping me hanging in there.

I just don't have the funds I did last year to spend on toys, and this one is looking like it'll be almost as fun to pick up at retail, given the only thing you're missing out on (if you don't know it exists) is some minis. I mean if you don't know you aren't getting Keldan and extra scenarios, the only thing the retail box may lack is depth of models and most of us can handle that.

I may have to do an Azazelx and pull my pledge, so as to afford other toys that won't be as gettable at retail.

Still looks awesome though, I think it'll be quite successful and I'm not going anywhere till we're a lot closer to the end.

A Crisis Of Faith amongst The Super-Faithful?!?

How far Mantic have fallen!!!

I hear you about gaming budgets though.

Mierce's next KS is looming large...

Hey, I'm no water carrier or white knight, or even that much of a fanboy, I just happen to have liked most everything they've done up till now. And I like this too, but it would be fun to actually buy a mantic product at retail for once

Is this day and age, with the maturing (ha!) Kickstarter market, buyers are a bit more informed and possibly more discerning.

Most don't have unlimited gaming budgets either, and competition for the Gaming Dollar is fierce.

And oftentimes, waiting for (online discounted) retail is better.

Especially 1+ year(s) in advance.

Yeah, if Grimmy is looking at the possibility of pulling his pledge, Mantic needs to step up a bit. He's pretty close to as gung-ho as I am about their stuff, and if he's on the fence, they need to do something. When I get on the fence too, then they have to worry. And I might be joining him soon on saying "better value, or I jump" (aka, pledge a dollar just to get the resin minis and kickstarter exclusives).

This product isn't as "revolutionary" as the other ones were though imo, nor is it as targeted to us. It's targeted more at the casual boardgame market whereas Dreadball, Deadzone and Mars Attacks (not to mention KoW and WP) whilst light on the rules are still definitely tabletop wargames with a lot of depth. Because of all the choice we have that already exists in this area I think we're more picky than we otherwise would be, with already existing products doing exactly what this does it's harder to rationalize taking on the risk. While there are other skirmish games, DZ and MA were much more unique especially with the terrain, this doesn't have much that sets it apart as unique I don't think. We're just here because we're expecting "Mantic value" which we don't see yet.