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I feel like after Tom's replies I should just say I hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes during the course of this thread, I do wish to clarify that I support this, I don't want to appear like a negative nancy constantly.

Really nice end to this one, awesome.

One thing about the rules: in a recent update, SAS described the rules as cinematic. I love that. It made the suppression mechanic click to me. From the perspective of seeking out the elegance of minimal upkeep, the tokens seem like a time burden. Now, I see the mechanic more from the perspective of ...forging a narrative. I'm really eager to houserule the suppression tokens thusly:

-Every time a token is placed on the board, the attacking player must make a sound like "pshoom", "boozh", "pkow", "blam" or "thup-thup-thup".
-Every time a token is removed, the defending player must make a sound like "ping", "pyeeoorn", "whifff", or "I ain't got time to bleed."



That should turn the perceived bug into a feature.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
You are completely missing the point. You can keep saying people are telling you not to criticize. But you are playing the victim, because you can criticize all you want.

Just have the sense to realize your opinions are not facts, and if you state them as such, you are combative, entrenched and toxic. Don't come to a forum if you aren't willing to entertain that other people may feel differently. Start a blog dude.

Or, be a civil, polite person and put 'I think' in front of stuff and you will probably find your critique is heard, respected and engaged with. You can criticize til you are blue in the face. Forcing your conclusions on everyone without recourse is not critique, it is bullying and self centered garbage.

Playing the victim? Or playing the consumer? When money is on the line, I bet you can find at least one marketing agency that will tell you customer opinions and perceptions matter.

Also, is it really necessary to state the disclaimer "in my opinion" in every sentence? Isn't that implied unless otherwise stated?

 MajorTom11 wrote:
I am 200% certain they will man... they may not necessarily agree with the most severity of some people's objections, but certainly, they want to do better every single time. No one is happy a potential customer is unhappy. Just a matter of realizing you can't please everyone, but you should still try

And a lot of the criticism would only have been stated once instead of repeated or expanded on if they had ever stated that. Instead, they gave explanations excuses explanations. As my wife always tells me, she doesn't want an explanation for why I did the bad thing, she wants me to understand why it was bad and try never to do it again. Potential customers are far less forgiving than spouses (excepting certain siblings-in-law). They usually don't try to make it work; they just walk away.

 RiTides wrote:
Edit: Ninja'ed by Tibbsy, who said exactly what I was thinking but in much fewer words

I've been thinking about this thread a bit the last few days, and had this question for folks like Alex / Bob. Isn't revealing new releases (even if they are not finished), rather than showing something at an early concept phase and seeking community feedback, how most miniature companies functionally operate?

Depends on the size of the companies. Largish companies have enough people with art training or experience to handle design feedback and revision in house (unless that company is Mantic). Smaller companies do not necessarily follow that paradigm. Certainly Paulson Minis and Dreamforge ask their backers for feedback on upcoming releases.

Besides, I'm not necessarily asking SAS to put their early designs in front of the public. I would prefer they had someone internally with the authority to say, "That needs to improve" when necessary, and before sculpts are tooled.

The company I always think of when I consider this project is Dropzone Commander, who made their game before Kickstarter was really a thing, and just straight up revealed and launched it. People didn't love everything, but they probably did have a higher success rate of how much people liked most sculpts (it helped that they started out in resin, and only went to injection molded starter sets later, so the insane detail was easier to achieve).

Every other major miniatures company I can think of does it this way, too - GW, PP, Wyrd... sure, sometimes you'll get to see a WIP from the latter two, but not for feedback. PP recently released a WIP of a fist from the new troll character warbeast, and everyone assumed it was a Gargantuan since the fist was so huge. They've been criticized for their proportions before of course, but despite that reaction here they released the model without any changes - the WIP was just to tease people that it was coming.

Companies that use Kickstarter seem to request feedback more often. Both Paulson and Dreamforge have given backers the chance to choose between options during the development phase, as in "Do you prefer number 1 or number 2?" (Remember when Mantic asked the backers to choose from two Troll concepts, and then used neither? That was almost brilliant.)

I don't know much about PP or Wyrd as I don't like those companies nor their products, but GW has an entire art department with a marketing department to keep them focused. PP and Wyrd probably have enough artistically-experienced employees or enough perspective on what sells to avoid making too many costly missteps. I guess what I'm getting at is that most companies can release minis without any external feedback because they have some sort of internal mechanism to limit the duds. Except for Mantic. And Mantic has certainly lost sales due to their reputation for putting out crap.

Personally, your sketches Alex haven't necessarily appealed to me more than the models, and looking at the Epirian artwork they were working from, I think it looks just as good. To me, as Tom notes, the models are just the result of doing something extremely hard - injection molded plastic, and being brand new to it. Dreamforge spoiled us a bit with their first efforts, as Mark Mondragon is a demigod - but even with their kits, there are learning curve items, like how many pieces some of the parts had to be broken into.

So, I think maybe some of the difference here is you, Bob, and some others here whose opinions I quite value (cincy, Buzzsaw) see a company that isn't soliciting or listening to feedback... and I see a company that is just dealing with a production method that takes months, and so there is a lot of momentum to the learning curve - things get incorporated, but not immediately like a resin company could (even though most of them don't!) since their molds have a life of something like 20-50 casts and can then be replaced, not 20,000 - 50,000!

Again, it's not so much that they didn't act on feedback to change the existing minis (because they couldn't). It's that they never acknowledged that they needed to do anything different for the next set of minis. When we ...briefly... discussed the proposed female Epirian set, there was an effort to ensure that SAS wouldn't make the same mistakes with them, but it was too off topic.

Legoburner seemed very upset when we speculated on how the Epirians ended up going to production. He insisted they were not the result of eight guys in a room. But they look like the result of eight guys in a room, especially if one of them is a drunk Gary Morley. Instead of assuring us it was just part of the learning curve, his defensive reaction just raised more doubts about what kinds of future products would pass through SAS pre-production review.

So, while SAS has been responding to criticism, it doesn't seem to be responsive to criticism.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:


I see Maelstroms edge as a wargame with minis attached rather than minis with a game attached

(now in both cases the companies will care about everything, but will differ over where sacrifices have to be made to achieve the best overall experience they feel they can deliver)

I see it more as a Shared Setting and a Wargame Ruleset wedded together, with miniatures coming along 9 months later.

 legoburner wrote:

I'll repost (some of) the considerations for making a model viable in plastic:

• price of the sculpt
  
• sculptor talent
  
• sculptor attitude, motivation and relationship
  

Some of these considerations will hopefully be weighed differently in the future. Maybe it's not what you're implying, but it comes across like saving a few hundred dollars on a sculpt that tools up for hundreds of thousands of dollars of not-so-competitive product.

Once again, we are sitting on a good number of models and sculpts which did not get tooled because they were not good enough (including those done by some very well known sculptors).

Now I'm really curious.

Sure you can make an absolute perfect model, but not on the first try and not without sacrificing elsewhere in the above list, and pretty much every item that has been complained about in this thread is down to one or more of the above factors, not incompetence or errors in judgement.

It seems like a very expensive learning curve that will be attached to the Maelstrom's Edge image for a long time.

You know perhaps it had been said before but, I was looking at the Contractors I think the Epirians could have benefitted from looking more like the scarecrows.

I finally know what the back armor reminds me of. It looks sorta like the back of the white pilot suits at the start of Pacific rim.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Again, it's not so much that they didn't act on feedback to change the existing minis (because they couldn't). It's that they never acknowledged that they needed to do anything different for the next set of minis. When we ...briefly... discussed the proposed female Epirian set, there was an effort to ensure that SAS wouldn't make the same mistakes with them, but it was too off topic.

Legoburner seemed very upset when we speculated on how the Epirians ended up going to production. He insisted they were not the result of eight guys in a room. But they look like the result of eight guys in a room, especially if one of them is a drunk Gary Morley. Instead of assuring us it was just part of the learning curve, his defensive reaction just raised more doubts about what kinds of future products would pass through SAS pre-production review.

So, while SAS has been responding to criticism, it doesn't seem to be responsive to criticism.

Let me pose a scenario for you here. Assuming you were correct (and that's a big assumption), and the Epirians are the worst thing to ever hit the market since the pumbagor (and I by no means think that is the case), you have a company that has dropped a sum in the six figures on bringing a new range of models to the market. They're running a kick-starter to drum up financial support for the new company, trying to get people excited about their game, and so forth.

What do you think the odds are that they'll do what you want, which appears to be holding up their hands and going, 'lol, sorry guys, our stuff is gak. Buy it anyway?' I mean, seriously, is that what you're after? Because SA has admitted that the models are a bit chunky when viewed closeup, but that's for a specific reason (heroic scale). They've explained the reason a number of things are the way they are, for various tooling reasons. But apparently, because they won't say, 'Yeah, our models suck' or 'This batch isn't great, but our next will be better!' in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, it simply isn't good enough for you. At least, that seems to be my impression.

Now, I in no way find that the models are half as bad as some people (or rather, about the same three people for 95% of it) have been harping on about. But that's because I'm lucky enough to live down the road from Lego, and to have seen the sprues/models in person (and that is literally the extent of my involvement in the whole thing). I've seen better miniatures, it's true. Yet I've also seen considerably worse. When all is said and done though, most of the things people have been complaining about the most actually don't strike you when you're looking at them in person. God only knows, the Cadians seem twice as chunky to me after seeing the Epirians. And some of the stuff done with the Minnows and the Hunters is really very technically clever.

Yes, the Epirians look a little wide when blown up to a big screen. Yes, one of the Karist heavies has a slightly awkward wrist. Nobody is denying these things. SA isn't denying them. People who like MEdge aren't denying them. They've acknowledged it, and in most cases, proffered an explanation as to why that is the case. Chalk it up as a miniature you do/don't like, and stop looking for an apology/retraction from the company for them.


I do suspect though, that what you're actually after (and not just you, but several people in this thread) isn't so much even about the current models anymore, or even some form of acknowledgement/apology from SA so much as it is a desire to influence (be it personally, or indirectly) the next batch of models. And whilst SA responds to your queries, the fact that it won't validate or acknowledge you as being right frustrates you, because it makes you think that if they've done something you didn't personally like this time around, sculpt-wise, they might do it again next time.

And If that is the case squire, I think you might just need to relax, trust that your thoughts have been heard by anyone paying attention to MEdge here on Dakka (exceptionally loudly, personally speaking ), and come to terms with the fact that the company (and everyone else) will probably agree with you on some things, and not on others. But ultimately, SA will make what they want to make, and what they think their customers will buy. And if they're wrong, then the customers will vote with their feet.

Bob, I work in marketing. I own a marketing agency as a matter of fact. And sorry to break it to you, but you are a bit of a toxic consumer. You say you support, but the vast majority of what you said was incredibly negative and some of it was massively rude, especially at the beginning/middle. In fact, I reported you for moderation more than once, but they chose to not moderate anyone in here, despite a few peoples protests to the contrary.

You probably did more damage than any other single person to SAS. In my opinion you were absolute poison. You are lucky they weren't willing to compromise their integrity and morals for the sake of good business practice and use the ability they had to get rid of you, because I would have in a heartbeat. They showed the patience of saints with you. And you were in my opinion the worst offender of claiming to be a supporter while acting like anything but... the opposite of a brand evangelist. Mostly because of the same 'my opinion is the only one that is correct' attitude a small numbers of others displayed coupled with your relentless posting and 'humour'.

Regarding the 'in my opinion' thing is absolutely vital if you can't tell the difference between subjective opinion and objective fact. REALLY important. You should use it all the time.

'The customer is always right' is a great paradigm to use when pleasing said customer is both worth it and feasible. If said customer is using that reasoning to be unreasonable and malicious to the point of harming your business, then said customer is absolutely not worth it. No one needs customers like that. Sorry. I would have dropped you like a hot potato.

Even now, you and Alex are relentlessly trying to drag the conversation back to negative things, some of which are completely fictitious, some of which are legitimate, some of which will never be resolved to your satisfaction. But you want to keep the tone where SAS is constantly on the defensive. You ignore anything you don't want to hear, including facts, and hammer away with your 'my way or the highway' opinions.

It seems you will be allowed to continue to do this, and that is their prerogative and I respect it. But if you can run around saying what you say, then others should be able to point out the nonsense of some of your allegations and undermine you as systematically as you try to undermine this project.

I realize Alex is not likely reading my responses, but I don't really care, it's as much for anyone looking to recognize the tactics being used and to make sure you never get to say 'The over-moderated us!' or 'They don't listen to us' without a hard rebuttal. In my opinion, that is how you should be handled, no more free shots and unchallenged fictions.

Read through the thread. What a poopoostorm. Mods were very gracious to let garbage like this go on this long. The title seems kind of misleading... not sure if I would use the word 'Discussion'. Don't want to say check your privilege... but check your privilege...

EDIT: Personally, I think what Spiral Arm has dished out so far in regards to Maelstrom's Edge is pretty dang good. Then again I like Karen Traviss so according to some my opinion could be suspect.

I'm really glad that I've stayed out of this thread for the past few pages, seems to have turned into something of an echo chamber with 2 or 3 people continually spouting negative opinions disguised as fact. Oh and one person spamming art that is in my opinion absolutely awful (sorry Alex really don't like your redesigns).

I'm going to try to post something positive. I like all the miniatures that are part of MEdge so far, yes even the contractors. When I fist saw them I didn't like them at all really mostly due to the big metal shoulder pads, but even then I saw that a different paint job could work wonders. As a result of that line of thinking my opinion of the contractors changed. They are still the miniatures in the box that I like the least but I do at least like them. I'm also looking forward to having a look through the beta rules, not sure if I'll get an chance to play test them but I hope I do. I've always liked suppression systems in games and the system in MEdge looks pretty damn good. I do have to admit though that I will probably never use the tokens, instead I'll use different coloured dice simply because they'll take up less table space.

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:
I'm really glad that I've stayed out of this thread for the past few pages, seems to have turned into something of an echo chamber with 2 or 3 people continually spouting negative opinions disguised as fact. Oh and one person spamming art that is in my opinion absolutely awful (sorry Alex really don't like your redesigns).

And here i thought i was helping medge to become a better product, i am just being negative

Thanks for self-identifying

 MajorTom11 wrote:
I realize Alex is not likely reading my responses

I am.

I'm just going to say one thing: you seem to have read a lot into the exo-suit design even though I stated it was a stalled design I wasn't happy with.

With that, I'm out. You win. The thread is yours.

Looking back at some of early Infinity stuff, that is gods awful but it just got better and better (imo).

It's fair to say that most miniature lines only improve*.

There were was some fair commentary on the minis for MEdge and some pointlessly repetitive griping, but I would think that SAS would consider some of the more constructive feedback in the next round.

(* which is really strange - there are the same sculptors and manufacturers, but quality just isn't consistent. Why is that? I mean, look at Mantic's Undead - mainly incredible. Then look at their large Abyssal Demons. WTF?!)

@Tom:

I think you are right in many of your points about Bob and the gang (tm?), but you seem to be analyzing his behaviour in a vaccuum. For years Dakka has been the place where all the cool kids who probably smoke would go to hate and harp on GW games with next to no consequence from Mods - Hell, some of the mods have even started some of the derogatory meme's that constantly being posted on here.

But suddenly SAS appears and now it's not cool to hate. Now we should bring forward well thought out critique of models and buisness plans and delibarate considerations of wrist bending angles and what not, and I think that some users just wasn't clued in on the fact that the cool thing now was keeping an open mind and just reviewing the product objectively. And I think you as a mod need to realize that you have a lot of the responsibility of this culture of harsh criticism instead of threatening users with "what you would have done to them".

But now the product is funded so lets hope the debate about this round of products will soon die out so we can get to discuss a potentially great ruleset. So, Great News! It's time to go back hating on the H-h-h-hobby again and let SAS do their work

 Gorlack wrote:
@Tom:

I think you are right in many of your points about Bob and the gang (tm?), but you seem to be analyzing his behaviour in a vaccuum. For years Dakka has been the place where all the cool kids who probably smoke would go to hate and harp on GW games with next to no consequence from Mods - Hell, some of the mods have even started some of the derogatory meme's that constantly being posted on here.

But suddenly SAS appears and now it's not cool to hate. Now we should bring forward well thought out critique of models and buisness plans and delibarate considerations of wrist bending angles and what not, and I think that some users just wasn't clued in on the fact that the cool thing now was keeping an open mind and just reviewing the product objectively. And I think you as a mod need to realize that you have a lot of the responsibility of this culture of harsh criticism instead of threatening users with "what you would have done to them".

But now the product is funded so lets hope the debate about this round of products will soon die out so we can get to discuss a potentially great ruleset. So, Great News! It's time to go back hating on the H-h-h-hobby again and let SAS do their work

Shots fired.

 Gorlack wrote:

But suddenly SAS appears and now it's not cool to hate. Now we should bring forward well thought out critique of models and buisness plans and delibarate considerations of wrist bending angles and what not, and I think that some users just wasn't clued in on the fact that the cool thing now was keeping an open mind and just reviewing the product objectively.

No, that was always the ' cool ' thing. Hate just for the sake of being edgy has never been encouraged. For the most part, those companies that cop the most scorn are those who have put serious effort into earning it. Dakka has always been a community that was happy to point out the positive when a company did something right.

And for the most part, that held true here. The positive reactions that MEdge got from most of the community are a stark contrast to those who seemed to just want to focus on what they see as negatives.

Its a fair point to make Gorlack.

Thing is, I'm not a MOD anymore and haven't been for a good long time. So I'm not threatening anything lol, i am just a user. As mentioned, i hit the triangle a few times even, nothing happened lol!

I dont take personal responsibility for the Tone of this entire website either lol, sorry. Dakka was around before me, it was around with me, it will be around without me. The tone is the result of the interactions, large and small of about 60,000 people. It's not really controllable... We didn't install the attitude you refer to, and the tone is self propagating as it obviously will attract people interested in the subject.

Frankly i would personally consider not turning your subjective statements into objective ones to be part of rule #1, be polite. Imagine the tone change if it were just generally enforced? Everyone still gets their opinion, its just a lot tougher to express it in a super offensive fashion as it limits the scale of implication? Im not a Mod anymore, but that is something i genuinely feel would help this place mitigate what you describe a bit.

Finally, i personally don't believe Anyone, including the creators, should be pretending Medge is the same as any other game here. As a matter of principal, it sounds nice, but it makes no sense ultimately to me. The public will always be hyper sensitive in this forum to any perceived pro SAS action. Meanwhile this actually shackles the team from acting in any way 'just like anyone else' and they in turn are hypersensitive to offending said public in this forum and tie their own hands from using the powers they possess to say, get rid of poison clients hurting their business seemingly for nothing but kicks.

Plus, everyone knows the creators are right here. We arent talking about some abstract presence of a monolithic corporation, or petsonalities who are not present or active here. Its kinda like gossip, you say things things behind 'closed doors' that would not be cool to say to the persons individual face. GW as a company gets a lot of crap, but it is an an abstract here. We actually did discourage personal attacks on individuals like Ward or Romeo though. It was all how things were worded. Basically rule one applies most to our members, and can be looser on faceless corporations in my view.

And by way of that explanation, SAS is literally entirely here, all the time. Pretending it isn't different when it is does't mechanically work for me.

That being said i find it extremely unfair the sentiment that them acting on their own behalf is unfair or predatory. They have a business now, and i dont think they should be handicapped into inactivity because their is an expectation for them to not leverage any of the advantages owning this forum should bring at all. They seem to be genuinely attempting this though, and good for them, in principal, even if I think that is a mistake business wise and a bit unrealistic in the long term.

So, based on all the above, i have no problem calling out Bob or any of the handfull of others, i think we know who they are, and defending SAS here. GW isn't on this forum as a company. They are. GW didnt build this place and gift it for all of us to use for free, they did. I won't make things up to enact that defense, nor do I seek to eliminate critique or anyone's fundamental right to their own opinions or expressing them. But yeah, if you express those opinions in an absolutely unneccesarily rude way, or start trying to install lies as defacto facts that hurt people you know are right there in the room with you so to speak, i don't see why anyone needs to pretend it's not to their face.

To e the expectations of fairness should go both ways. From them, but from us too.

Hope that makes sense even if you may not entirely agree.

I was under the impression that the bulk of information would be shared on the main MEdge site, with it's presence here mostly relegated to discussion like any other company on dakkadakka. That's just the impression I have, mind.

Yup and that is exactly what they are doing. I'm just saying I don't particularly agree with the any other company bit in practice but do in principal. My personal take, but they are proceeding as you describe.

GW is a $150 million company that has spent the past 10 years almost systematically destroying everything people loved about the HHHobby, only resting from that activity to increase prices massively when they aren't taking vindictive, unjustifiable IP legal actions against minor SF authors, small modding parts companies, and even their own fans.

SAS is a bunch of regular guys like us, except they have a wargaming dream they have the guts and grit to make real, but they made a model with a chunky shoulder and another one with a bent wrist, and God forbid you might correct that by 30 seconds with a craft knife.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW is a $150 million company that has spent the past 10 years almost systematically destroying everything people loved about the HHHobby, only resting from that activity to increase prices massively when they aren't taking vindictive, unjustifiable IP legal actions against minor SF authors, small modding parts companies, and even their own fans.

SAS is a bunch of regular guys like us, except they have a wargaming dream they have the guts and grit to make real, but they made a model with a chunky shoulder and another one with a bent wrist, and God forbid you might correct that by 30 seconds with a craft knife.

I'm not sure sure how good the comparison is, but isn't Adam Poots' Kingdom Death:Monster a one-man operation(plus the factory)? The project is being some in HIPS, with each armor set having many different weapon and cosmetic options. Based on the photographs he's shared in his massive updates he seems to have done well with his first try at the material, with most complaints being about the unarmored torsos having gaps and lack of detail on the back.

Granted, Poots got the money up front, while SAS asked for it after most of the design work was finished.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW is a $150 million company that has spent the past 10 years almost systematically destroying everything people loved about the HHHobby, only resting from that activity to increase prices massively when they aren't taking vindictive, unjustifiable IP legal actions against minor SF authors, small modding parts companies, and even their own fans.

SAS is a bunch of regular guys like us, except they have a wargaming dream they have the guts and grit to make real, but they made a model with a chunky shoulder and another one with a bent wrist, and God forbid you might correct that by 30 seconds with a craft knife.

Oh hey, some sense after how many pages of debating forms of criticism and whatnot. Seriously, unlike GW, I perceived exactly 0 instances of d-baggery coming from SAS. Their sculpts may not look top-notch-extra-deluxe, but they are serviceable and a decent paintjob will make them shine (unlike the current two GW releases. I have no idea what would be necessary to make that librarian looking good to me). So far, the factions are a bit generic. We have high-tech-humans with robots and we have fanatics who fight for salvation/greatergood/cleansingtheworldofheretics/cookies. I guess it wouldn't be a complete set without those. Now, for the remaining factions, I hope SAS will come up with some interesting twist, even if they do uses some old sci-fi tropes as base material. What this game needs are some alien species, preferably non-antropomorphic.

One thing I haven't figured out yet is, we convert models on the daily right?

I mean that's the point of most plogs. If you hated one part or another with the faction infantry, or whatever, couldn't you sculpt or order helmets/shoulders/whatever you needed to make them work?

We've mentioned cutting and altering but, nothing about swaps thus far.

Is the scale right to even swap bits with other companies at the moment? I don't remember off the top of my head, even though I have totally seen the chart somewhere that Lego did with the Lego fig in it.

 MajorTom11 wrote:

That being said i find it extremely unfair the sentiment that them acting on their own behalf is unfair or predatory. They have a business now, and i dont think they should be handicapped into inactivity because their is an expectation for them to not leverage any of the advantages owning this forum should bring at all. They seem to be genuinely attempting this though, and good for them, in principal, even if I think that is a mistake business wise and a bit unrealistic in the long term.

To be fair, Tom, they have two businesses now; Dakka and SAS.

Whether or not Dakka is technically a 'business' doesn't really matter. Folks like LEGO and Yakface have an interest in the growth and popularity of Dakka, and I think it is fair to say that their advertising, moderating, and administrative philosophies have significantly contributed to the growth of this website.

So to me it makes sense for them to put up something of a Chinese wall between SAS and Dakka, as opposed to exploiting one to leverage the other. I think they are, correctly, sensitive to the harm that could cause (and to some extent has already caused) to the goodwill of both entities.

Anyway, to be more on topic, for me MEdge came off as strangely underwhelming. That's just an honest assessment of my reaction to the promotion and the Kickstarter campaign. I say strangely because it is clear a ton of hard work and a great deal of money has gone into the project. At the end of the day, I think I'm a little to one side of the target market.

It looks like MEdge has legs, so long as SAS can maintain the requisite cash flow to keep releases rolling along at a regular pace. I look at this whole business as an example of the inherent toxicity of Kickstarter. The platform has the potential to produce great value, but it going to Kickstarter is like playing with fire.

I hope that SAS came out on top. Eight hundred backers is a great start!

Yeah, I feel the same as you Weeble. I support Yakface and Legoburner and think they've been very restrained and careful with the PR surrounding this campaign, but I think in some ways they suffered from giving the community what the community thought it wanted, rather than what it really wants.

I'm trying to find the Extra Credits video where they talk about how companies that are honest with consumers (not doing "deals" and "sales" and so on) actually lose a lot of money and increase customer dissatisfaction, because consumers actually prefer to be told that things are awesome.

In any case, I am hopeful that Maelstrom's Edge will be really successful, though I am also perhaps not directly in the target market for it at the moment. That could change though, especially if any new factions come out that I find really interesting.

Hi, I'm a little late to the party. Is there a thread where we can talk about how the game plays, and what the rules are?

@weeble and da boss, i 100% agree with that assesment in principal, my issue or worry is that to the public, no matter how seperate they are in fact, they will never be seperable in the dakka conciousness... At least to those inclined towards conspiracy and hyperbole. Its really more a concern about what the pr perception allows them to do, and not the honor of their intent if you see what i mean. Its going to be a giant spin game no matter what in my opinion, if you take that for granted i would advise to position yourself in a way to leverage what you have towards the spin game, like it or not. Does that make more sense? 100% though that is not my call to make, and there are certainly other ways to engage that could work too.

@nomeny, check the medge sub forum, i think there will be a lot of chatter there once the beta rules drop! I am sure yak would answer any questions you have inhe meantime too -

Nomeny wrote:
Hi, I'm a little late to the party. Is there a thread where we can talk about how the game plays, and what the rules are?

I'm just seconding this. This thread seems to be the main one I can find for MEdge, but it's not really a discussion about the game, but a discussion about discussions.

ziggurattt wrote:

Nomeny wrote:
Hi, I'm a little late to the party. Is there a thread where we can talk about how the game plays, and what the rules are?

I'm just seconding this. This thread seems to be the main one I can find for MEdge, but it's not really a discussion about the game, but a discussion about discussions.

There's a thread in News and Rumors, and if you go to the Forum Index there is a subforum specifically for MEdge.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
@weeble and da boss, i 100% agree with that assesment in principal, my issue or worry is that to the public, no matter how seperate they are in fact, they will never be seperable in the dakka conciousness... At least to those inclined towards conspiracy and hyperbole. Its really more a concern about what the pr perception allows them to do, and not the honor of their intent if you see what i mean. Its going to be a giant spin game no matter what in my opinion, if you take that for granted i would advise to position yourself in a way to leverage what you have towards the spin game, like it or not. Does that make more sense? 100% though that is not my call to make, and there are certainly other ways to engage that could work too.

Fair enough, but my counterpoint (generally speaking) is that sometimes integrity for integrity's sake is important, and also valuable in the long run.

There are some lines you just don't feel you should cross, regardless. Being perceived of as a person/institution of integrity can be very valuable, but so can personally feeling like you haven't compromised your values. What is the business cost of regretting a decision for years? Hard to quantify, but I think such costs exist. Do you put a little less effort into the business? Are you a little too cautious in future dealings?

Your point is well-taken that if the relevant public perceives you a certain way, why not reap the benefits of a cost you have already paid? Once you reap the benefits, you now own the costs, both personally and professionally, and that can follow you/the company around for a long time.

@Tom: I get your points and I was also being a little extra accusing in my tone to provoke a reaction, but will try and reign it in this post

First off, missed the fact that you aren't a mod anymore - have been inactive on dakka a lot since I got a Windows Phone.

Secondly, I see a lot of your points and especially agree that it is foolish to pretend that Medge isnt special, and I find the attitude of those that complained about the adds to be ridiciolus - the owners of a game arent allowed to promote it on their webpage? Come on internet! But on the other hand I also think that the users should be allowed to be as dumb and unconstructive as they have always been.

And that was really what ticked me in your post. There was this tone of "Medge is so special you cant act normally around it". I dont think what happened in this thread or the other was at all helpful to the kickstarter, and I think a TON of leeway have been given by the owners of this site with regards to (somewhat unfounded) criticism of their other company - but I also think that is the only way it should be if Dakka is gonna remain strong - but in your post I got the feeling that you felt SAS should have some supremely special status. And after all, what happened here isnt any worse than what Gates of Antares, Battlefoam or Blue Table have been through, so even if we exclude the objectively-evil GW SAS have been treatet in a way that has Dakka precedence.

But all this said, I do agree with you on a lot of points and I hope that Medge grows HUGE with a vibrant competitive scene, if for no other reason than the hope that GW realizes that their two biggest competitors both sell WARgames and not COLLECTINGgames

I've been off for more than a year, many reasons but primarily I don't have the time to enjoy the hobby anymore with little ones etc. Will get back to painting one day but I am not the kind of dude who can pick at things every night for an hour, I need a day or two non-stop lol.

I must have misrepresented myself, because I think it would be poison to treat Medge as supremely special! That would be a terrible move marketing wise and understandably generate a lot of negative response. What I meant was on the other side of the coin, you can't pretend there is no connection and special circumstances either... so acknowledge the circumstances, but don't demand/expect special treatment from the public. It's more about how they themselves handle the special status internally than anything else.

This thread is actually a perfect example of the kind of problems they may face. This is a thread created by a person looking to undermine the product. It was called critique but the person spent most of the beginning of it using it as his personal toilet in my opinion.

Others adopted the same tone, some gave constructive critique too. But nobody, anywhere, got moderated.

The mods, and Lego and Yak, acted with a lot of integrity. A lot. They turned more cheeks than human anatomy should afford anybody lol... And some of the stuff early on in here, for any company but SAS, would have gotten MOD action, trust me. They afforded themselves LESS protection than others on here, not more.

Despite this, some people had the temerity to accuse them of not only stifling them but intensely moderating them. And they were getting away with it too until I had enough weren't they?

And this shows exactly what the 'specialness' of SAS is here on Dakka. All their integrity, unless recognized and defended, doesn't do much if they don't get credit for it. If it isn't recognized and spoken about. It might as well not be happening if no one says it. And Dakka staff, for better or worse, really don't ask for recognition or point out what they do almost at all. Because they have the integrity to be satisfied just knowing they did it, they don't seek praise.

But that will have to change for SAS I feel. Because any action they take will be considered 100X more severe because it will be perceived as abuse of power, they need regular users to step up for them when people are trying to spread malicious lies. They need people to 'see' so lies like that can't entrench themselves and dominate the conversation, wasting everyone's time and energy on a fiction. They need loyalty from the audience, not just appreciation. Most certainly they will need to earn and maintain that loyalty by doing the right thing and delivering their promises, and making a better and better product for you guys. But they can't just do it, they need to point it out to make sure it is noticed. They can't just be the quiet nice guy in the corner anymore, a little charisma needs to be injected and a little bit of sticking up for themselves via stating what they do in a way that is very against their nature will be needed.

SAS is special, basically, in that it needs to strike a crazy balance between being impartial with one hat on and yet still be able to transparently pursue their business with integrity with another hat on. It will be a fine line. But other companies don't have to worry about not being full on for their own product or being as available to their audience as some will expect SAS to be. It is not special at all in any way that requires anyone to like it if they don't, or to not offer any criticism they have so long as it follows rule #1 (which is univeral and SHOULD apply to them too! And mods for that matter lol!).

I hope this better represents my meaning! Thanks for the response though and the debate -