Middara Kickstarter

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**FacelessMage**

This feels like I am taking a slight gamble. One that will pay off with a fun game if everything goes right.

You can read in the comments that the creators are getting excited and want to add lots of stuff and make everything top notch. But they are also making sure to temper their enthusiasm with reality so that they manage to do everything that they promised.

**Alpharius**

This:

Regardless of our decision, it’s important to us that the figures come pre-assembled, or in one piece.

can end up...not so great too.

There are some companies that I kind of sort of 'trust' with PVC.

I'm not quite ready to add these guys to that list yet!

**highlord tamburlaine**

Well the Okami looking doggy antagonists are in, and this thing continues to steadily climb upward. Things can get really interesting the closer we get to 200k, which I think is pretty much a guarantee at this point when the final 48 hit.

Very curious as to what will be in store for us all after that.

**Bioptic**

scarletsquig wrote:
I really like the look of this one.

Fighting Fantasy/ Lone Wolf combined with a miniatures board game = almost all of my gaming interests combined.

The stretch goals are being very generous with the free miniatures too!

Only thing that has me holding off is the dreaded "shipping charged after the KS ends" line.

Generally this means $50 shipping and then another $50 or so VAT and customs by the time it hits the UK.

Well, as ever there are no guarantees with Kickstarter, but the project is specifically listed as "EU-friendly" (i.e. VAT charges are paid before shipping and included in the final price) and they're targeting a $15-$25 shipping fee within the EU. They've been fairly forthright about the fact that $10 of the $100 pledge is used for the "Free US shipping", and they'll be using this to discount the EU shipping by $10 off the actual cost.

**ClockworkChaos**

Yeah the shipping seems pretty reasonable in most places (obviously some places get a bad end to the deal but I suppose that is the case for all KS). The pace of unlocks seems to be picking up a bit. I think the creators of this game had a pretty good gauge of where the KS was going (they already had goals up until the 213K mark and the KS seems like it will go just past that). They are also highly responsive and open/taking suggestions which is nice.

I suppose one of the reasons I like this KS in addition the the gameplay and models is the comments section actually seems really positive and supportive with ideas being thrown around and very few people just complaining (unless I have been lucky and just never seen any of them). They seem to have a good community spokesperson at the least.

**Wehrkind**

Hmmm pre-assembled PVC and no resin option means I will wait till after this hits retail to really look. Kind of a shame.

**Alpharius**

Wise decision here, I think!

**Everyman**

well the campaign has crossed the 213k mark and all the original stretch goals are now unlocked. They are now providing foreign language translations for the next four SGs followed by providing the first expansion for free. So allot of value in this one now.

**ClockworkChaos**

Enjoying the unlocks on this one. It has really picked up steam in this last week. I honestly thought by the end it would just be getting past 220,000 but it already beat that today before the 48 hour count down. While some people do not like the language stretch goals I think they are a great idea as it gives them some room to ensure they have enough finances to produce the models as well as ensuring the longevity of the game post-KS. That is not something you see a a lot in KS. The feedback from them has been pretty impressive. Also- someone should link the cross-over model they did. It is also pretty sweet looking.

**Everyman**

The Spanish stretch goal has now been hit so the game will now be fully translated into Spanish. They have also decided to add 6 new gear cards to each of the translation stretch goals to provide value for everyone with each goal hit.

This the new crossover figure from Demigods Evolution that they added

**Bioptic**

Well, this one certainly blew up in the last few days! All of the language stretch goals have been hit, and they were 12K each. So now the novel-esque campaign will be fully translated into:

- Spanish
- French
- Italian
- German

There's still 27K left to hit the final goal (that pirate-themed expansion pack thrown in for free), so it's anyone's guess as to whether the campaign will reach that.

As an interesting general point - is this the standard rush of the last few days for a Kickstarter, or is offering these extra languages providing a significant bump to the backer count?

This has been a very successful Kickstarter by any account, but there are still 'only' 2500 backers - a small enough number to be significantly boosted if a major European country decides "okay, we can jump on board now".

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

The wife has been hounding me to back this one. We love the art-direction, and are forever hunting for a game that will feel like a true co-op, RPG campaign system... but games like Myth fell flat in our house, and I worry Kingdom Death might have too much crunch to be casually enjoyed.

Fingers crossed... but i've gambled $100 on far more questionable games.

**highlord tamburlaine**

The rate things are going the pirate expansion should be unlocked pretty soon. About 17 hours to go and less than three thousand until 300k.

From the sound of things the creators are going to call it a day on stretch goals going forward, which probably isn't a bad idea considering how much is already in the box.

**ced1106**

Pirate expansion unlocked!

**Dentry**

Not sure I'll end up backing this.

Everything looks good but I'm getting strong Relic Knights kickstarter deja vu here. The Kingdom Death experience of some of the people involved is a bit reassuring but not sure that guarantees anything. (It doesn't.)

Time to reread the Restic Knight thread.

**Alpharius**

That's what's keeping me out here - among other things.

The Restic Knight Cave - quickly!

**ClockworkChaos**

Well that ended with a really sweet bang. I think it was a solid move not to create anymore stretch goals even though they went over the last one by about 50,000. They seemed like one of the better planned out KS that I have seen in a while (well at least one that wasn't from some massive company).

I think the Restic scare is way too emphasized here. Resin and plastic are clearly better but also not friendly to a board-game crowd- and that is where they are going to be getting most of their money from. Also from what I have seen with every game to come out so far is that PVC has come a long way from the terrible early days. KOW, Myth, and several others look pretty solid but maybe that is just me.

**highlord tamburlaine**

In a post- Myth Kickstarter world, I can’t　think of any well and truly scary Restic releases. Especially from larger companies using the material.

Let's see what Drakerys looks like when it releases.

Then again, most of that was all tabletop stuff, as opposed to board games.

Speaking of Restic and its previous users, Succubus mentioned in the comments that their next KS project (which they hope to do after this has fulfilled,) they wanted to reach out to more companies about doing crossover figures, Mantic included.

A Middaran Blaine could be interesting...

**Wehrkind**

ClockworkChaos wrote:

I think the Restic scare is way too emphasized here. Resin and plastic are clearly better but also not friendly to a board-game crowd- and that is where they are going to be getting most of their money from. Also from what I have seen with every game to come out so far is that PVC has come a long way from the terrible early days. KOW, Myth, and several others look pretty solid but maybe that is just me.

I think that PVC is fine for board games, but pre-built PVC is not terribly exciting for miniature gamers. I agree that PVC has improved, but the "scare" factor is still there for pre-assembled stuff that is targeting board gamers. They want different stuff than us war gamers. I might have gone in if the models were not pre-assembled, but not knowing if I can crack apart poorly assembled bits or whether they will be trimmed properly or just torn off the pour points etc., I am not willing to take that risk and will have to wait till it hits retail (and hope I remember).

Automatically Appended Next Post:
That said, congratulations to SP! A very tidy little KS, which will hopefully dodge all the big winners curse problems some KS have!

**Dentry**

I pledged a dollar. Whether that'll grant me access to the pledge manager I don't know. But if it does, then hopefully more details have been hammered out and I can decide then to back or not.

The caution here is that Succubus Publishing is an unknown. They've not, to my knowledge, produced anything mini related - or boardgame related for that matter - previously. Which kind of ups the restic scare factor.

If the minis (read: game pieces) are good and the game is bad, then at least I've got some sweet models. If the game and models are bad, then I've made a bad decision. Of course, the game could be good and the models bad and that would be a bit of a wash for me as my pledging is predicated on the assumed/assured quality of the production boardgame pieces first.

**PsychoticStorm**

An update for whoever cares.

After spending all this time making their own pledge manager to save from the fees a custom pledge manager would cost them (debatable savings?) the pledge manager is out (maybe? you will hopefully receive a private invitation for it).

But don't worry if you do not succeed in completing it in six weeks your pledge will be considered a donation to their cause, oh and the shipping either doubled or tripled from their estimations because they partnered with a bigger kickstarter to save up costs, by the looks of the ridiculous shipping probably CMON.

If you want to see the update for yourselves, honestly I did not made this up, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/succubuspublishing/middara/posts/1379017

**FacelessMage**

Yeah... That wording is a bit harsh.

They are already regretting it in the comments.

Hopefully they fix it to temper the anger.

**ClockworkChaos**

I am also apart of this KS but I really cannot see what people are getting so mad about. The update wasn't the best worded thing in the world but really the hate they are getting for it is rather insane. Also whoever isn't up to date about shipping is in for a shock but I cant say I feel too much sympathy for them as I expected my costs to be about what they are (not living in America anymore so I expect my shipping fees for almost any game I order now to be up to $40).

This I find is a hilarious scenario where they were upfront about this entire scenario and how they are going to roll things out and how it has come back to bite them. People want them to be honest about fees before they pay them then complain when they hear them (at least from the comment section).

Finally they do mention they will put non-submitters as donations but they did clear that up in the comments saying they will work with people but that only pertains to people who just straight up refuse to answer emails/communicate. Really I think the only people who need to worry are those who are dead/stranded on an island/in jungle who cannot access the internet in the next 6+weeks.

**PsychoticStorm**

Lets see

Shipping to US backers is free. So that all backers are treated equally, we will subsidize up to $10 (Approx. cost of shipping to US backers) for all international backers.

For international backers, Shipping will be charged after the Kickstarter concludes based on the actual costs incurred to ship. We will collect this via our pledge manager after the campaign ends. We will ship your rewards at our cost from our international hubs. The game will cost about $10 to ship to Hong Kong, about $15 to Australia, about $15-$25 in the EU and Canada, all the way up to $50 to Singapore and South America, but this may increase or decrease based on the quantity of stretch goals we might unlock and your carrier choices.

About 15-25, easily like saying 70, only 5 times more the lowest estimation and 3 times the biggest and no that shipping is outrageously expensive especially if you add up the fact the game is what 90$ that put aside they consider backer money who are investors as a (way too generous) donation if you passed 6 weeks of not competing the pledge manager since when? since today? since the send the last email? since the email has been received? as it has been pointed out in the case of non communication they have all the required information to send the basic pledge to the location of the unresponding backer at the very least instead of essentially getting free money.

Badly worded and badly timed yes I can see why so many complains happen especially since the money have already been collected.

**ced1106**

BGG has a few other concerns about the project:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1438183/feelings-after-update-43

**PsychoticStorm**

They are logical concerns, and are from update 43 the update 47 has increased the concerns.

They said they will make a new update today, time will tell.

**ClockworkChaos**

Ok so a new update clarifying everything they said the last update if you were offended/didn't understand what they said:

Hey everyone. We just wanted to clarify some of the stuff from our last update. First, we said that anyone who did not complete the pledge manager by the deadline would have their pledges treated as donations. This came across as a threat to steal people's money, and that was not the intent at all. We are sorry if it sounded rude or harsh. There are a couple reasons for this policy.

The most important reason is that we cannot ship the product while we are still waiting for people's information. The pledge manager is where we get billing info, shipping addresses, and the specific items that backers ordered. We don't want to make everyone wait for a couple people, so we are putting a deadline on the pledge manager. In addition, someone who does not finish the pledge manager has also not paid for shipping. If someone doesn't pay for shipping we will not ship them the product. We don't think that asking people to tell us what they want and pay for shipping within 6 weeks is unreasonable.

More over, we intend to make every possible reasonable effort to contact individuals who don't respond to us. We'll even work with individuals who contact us after the pledge manager closes to either get them on board before the shipping process has commenced, or to refund them their pledge as per our refund policy.

That being said, we want to get the game to everyone who wants it. If an issue comes up, just drop us a note on Kickstarter or at support@succubuspublishing.com and we will be more than happy to make any reasonable accommodations. Sorry for any offense caused by our previous statement.

One last clarification, the pledge manager will be open for six weeks starting from the date of the last email we send out. In addition, time left on the pledge manager will be mentioned on every Friday update so that individuals are very aware of the pledge manager and its status. Also, the six weeks is not a hard deadline. It will be extended to accommodate for any problems or errors we, or backers run into.

We wanted to give a quick shout-out to everyone for working with us on shipping. We know it came out a bit crazy for certain backers, but we feel it is important for us to be transparent and let everyone know what's going on. Everyone has been really understanding about it, so thanks for that, seriously. Again, we totally understand that shipping shock, and anyone who wants to get a refund can send us a message, and we will take care of it ASAP.

We appreciate your interest in our project and you guys are a great community. Thanks for all your support!

While most people seem placated now, there still who seems to be a few upset that if they don't pay shipping, don't post a shipping address and do'nt want a refund may have their money held onto. I can only assume they are trolling but at least most people seem happy with this clarification. Succubus really needs to have a third party read over their posts to check for misunderstandings as well as make sure they are not "brutally honest".