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Agree to an extent, but the fact that Namco-Bandai have been so quick in approving, and the previous quality of the company's releases (especially as far as Guildball is concerned) I think is probably over-riding people's concerns.

By comparison with some other Kickstarters (HQ25, AvP, Conan spring to mind) this seems likes a surefire pre-order.

Nostromodamus wrote:Obviously only back if you're comfortable with the risks involved.

Of course. I was merely outlining some of my concerns with the project.

overtyrant wrote:

Spoiler:

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
So what have they shown production models of? Or is everyone pledging based solely on cool sketches of PVC minis ala Relic Knights?

There's prototypes of the Dancer, Knight and Herald. I love them and they seem on par with other high-quality board games like Zombicide or Blood Rage.

Otherwise it's just renders and artwork, but judging by Steamforged's previous work and the fact they are in partnership with Ludo Fact means I have no doubt the finished article will be excellent.

That seems fairly optimistic. It's not 2013 anymore- people expect at least masters of all the miniatures available on a Kickstarter. We already have elements of the mistakes of past kickstarters echoing all around this project. As I said artwork but no miniatures(Relic Knights), approval from X before releasing anything(Such as Fox and the AVP Kickstarter), and then they were obviously ill-prepared for the amount of interest(Bones 1, where stretch goals became filled with place holder artwork- I believe several other kickstarters have had this problem as well).

These are rookie mistakes that shouldn't be happening in 2016. Have they just willingly ignored every other project before their's? That's some worrying stuff that makes a body wait for retail and reviews.

I hear what your saying but almost 11,000 backers and almost 1 Million Pound's Sterling disagrees with you.

Ouya had ~63k backers and made ~$8.5 million. That doesn't mean the end product will live up to expectations.

Pacific wrote:Agree to an extent, but the fact that Namco-Bandai have been so quick in approving, and the previous quality of the company's releases (especially as far as Guildball is concerned) I think is probably over-riding people's concerns.

By comparison with some other Kickstarters (HQ25, AvP, Conan spring to mind) this seems likes a surefire pre-order.

Those are valid points, and hopefully they'll eventually release more renders and prototypes.

Dare I dream?! Is it happening?! IS IT REAL?!

Hey Unkindled,

You've just unlocked a pair of Crystal Lizards! You really are a glutton for punishment.



The next Stretch Goal will be at £1,000,000 and have we got something special to unveil...



What could it be? Comment below.

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

SOLAIRE! IS THAT YOU?!

Pretty sure we already figured out that's Black Iron Tarkus, Bane of the Ankles of Golems.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
SOLAIRE! IS THAT YOU?!

No, it's Tarkus.

My first thought was Solaire as well, but the lack of helmet plume is causing me to doubt.

PrinceOfMadness wrote:
My first thought was Solaire as well, but the lack of helmet plume is causing me to doubt.

Same here, but I'll remain hopeful until the reveal.

So, Dark Souls is entirely a sausage fest?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So, Dark Souls is entirely a sausage fest?

As much as armored figures, demons, and dried strips of beef jerky can have discernible genders.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So, Dark Souls is entirely a sausage fest?

No, there's at least 3 female Pc's so far.

Assassin, Cleric and Mercenary. All confirmed female by Element Games who are designing them. Lack of boob armor evidently confuses people.

What's the deal with the Crystal Lizards? Never found any in the games yet that I can remember.

Are they like the Basilisks?

I keep wanting to see some Black Knights. I love their Chaos Warrior looking horned helmets.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
What's the deal with the Crystal Lizards? Never found any in the games yet that I can remember.

Are they like the Basilisks?

I keep wanting to see some Black Knights. I love their Chaos Warrior looking horned helmets.

They run away from you and drop loot if you kill them.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
What's the deal with the Crystal Lizards? Never found any in the games yet that I can remember.

Are they like the Basilisks?

I keep wanting to see some Black Knights. I love their Chaos Warrior looking horned helmets.

Crystal Lizards exist since Demon Souls. They are tiny lizards that will ALWAYS drop valuable loot when killed. They will always run away from you and disappear if you aren't fast enough.

Silver Knights ARE Black Knights. They just weren't treated to massive quantities of fire that charred their armor black. (But yeah, IIRC Black Knights had extra spikes around the neck)

Ah! Now I remember the lizards. They were tiny and I would often end up in grave danger trying to chase them down as other enemies would rush after me.

I don't think I ever saw the Silver Knights. I can't remember if I ever got to Anor Londo.

I did not do well at Dark Souls.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
What's the deal with the Crystal Lizards? Never found any in the games yet that I can remember.

Are they like the Basilisks?

I keep wanting to see some Black Knights. I love their Chaos Warrior looking horned helmets.

Crystal Lizards exist since Demon Souls. They are tiny lizards that will ALWAYS drop valuable loot when killed. They will always run away from you and disappear if you aren't fast enough.

Silver Knights ARE Black Knights. They just weren't treated to massive quantities of fire that charred their armor black. (But yeah, IIRC Black Knights had extra spikes around the neck)

Black Knights actually have slightly different armour and very different weapons, too. Even their shields are slightly larger and a different shape. We definitely need some Black Knights!

Anyone else think that their choices of things to include are a bit... random? Like of all the areas in all three games to make an expansion of, why the Iron Keep? Why the Guardian Dragon, who is barely a speedbump in Dark Souls 2? Why not more obviously iconic things like the Taurus Demon? I can kind of understand Sir Alonne just because of the Iron Keep stuff, but he's a very obscure character/boss. As cool as he is, he's a very strange choice to pair with the Pursuer for the core expansion. And why the Winged Knights from 3 instead of the much less ridiculous Lothric Knights?

I've always wanted Dark Souls miniatures. It pleases me to no end that a Titanite Demon is included, as well as the bonfire. I really hope to see this expanded a lot.

EDIT: Oh, and why the Four Kings? Of all the bosses from 1, why them?

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

Anyone else think that their choices of things to include are a bit... random? Like of all the areas in all three games to make an expansion of, why the Iron Keep? Why the Guardian Dragon, who is barely a speedbump in Dark Souls 2? Why not more obviously iconic things like the Taurus Demon? I can kind of understand Sir Alonne just because of the Iron Keep stuff, but he's a very obscure character/boss. As cool as he is, he's a very strange choice to pair with the Pursuer for the core expansion. And why the Winged Knights from 3 instead of the much less ridiculous Lothric Knights?
?

Inclusions are weird, as well as release boxes. Why the heck is the Iron Keep the focus for one of the first expansions?

Oh, and let's not forget about the barrels and more barrels. Yay, barrels! Can we roll through them?

We have reached the million!

Hey Unkindled,

You have just achieved another record breaking moment...£1,000,000 within 48 Hours!!!

We cannot believe the momentum of this project - its amazing and we thank every single backer for their support and commitment to bringing this game to life. Now, lets get into the goodies!



We are now into the realms of a brand new FREE expansion set - the Armour Expansion Pack.



The first of these unlocks is the Black Iron Set. Within this set you will get a sculpted model of the full Black Iron Set along with a set of Equipment and Treasure Cards specifically designed around this armour for use in your Dark Souls™ games.

There are several iconic sets to unlock and these can be used by any class - just like the real game

Anything Else?

Of course! We have now also unlocked the Four Kings Add-On!



Having just seen images of the model come through from one of our sculptors - we feel you will be blown away when you see it (we are now sending it along to be approved).

If you would like to add this Boss Expansion set to your pledge, simply add £28 to your overall total and you will be able to select it after the Kickstarter campaign ends. We now have several Add-On bosses unlocked with each being available for £28.

I wonder what the next one will be...and when it will arrive? Comment below your guesses!

Praise the Sun! \[T]/

ced1106 wrote:

 Barzam wrote:
Again, this is Bandai. They can pretty much be guaranteed to mismanage any property. Let's also not forget their habit of immediately giving up and dumping a product line if it doesn't perform to their expectations.

Like what? I'd like to look more into how well or poorly Bandai managed licensed products in the past. Links to forum posts, articles, etc. appreciated. TIA.

As Malevolence mentioned, pretty much every one of their card games. A lot of their own brands they've mishandled and drooped without hesitation as well, like Jagun Warriors, Digimon, D.I.C.E., Ultraman, Saint Seiya, Kamen Rider, Escaflowne, Danball Senki... this list goes on, and these are just some of the properties they've bungled outside of Japan. Gundam they handled decently at first, but once SEED came around, they screwed everything up and dumped the entire brand in the US and abroad. Then you have the stuff they half-assed and dumped immediately in Japan, like Nobunaga The Fool, Eureka Seven, Valvrave, Mars Daybreak, Nadesico, several Macross lines, Gyrozetter, Aquarion, and many, many others.

What makes them even more infuriating when they dump these, they tend to have a lot of merchandise planned that never sees the light of day. For instance, D.I.C.E. had a whole second series ready to be released when they canned that line. It was going to have 1/18 scale transforming dinosaur and Egyptian themed mecha. Gundam had tons of stuff planned that never saw the light of day in the US or Japan


It would be nice if they didn't succumb to their usual tricks here. Hopefully Steamforged has more control over things than Bandai does with this project.

Only they know

They'll be juggling size/tooling etc to try and keep the costs of the same classes of boxes similar (so they can hit the same retail price point) I should think

they may have cool game mechanics/ideas that tie best to certain bits of the video game

they may just like some stuff more, if i'm making a game i'll put my favorite stuff in first (within reason)

plus theres is a chance that Bandai may have wanted some stuff in because it might tie to other stuff being done for the franchise now or in planning)

At least we got Turn A, and then Build Fighters. Totally worth it, right?

Damn .. black iron set.

I wonder when we will get to...



???

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
So, Dark Souls is entirely a sausage fest?

No, the assassin is female and they've said in the comments there will be several female characters. Might look like a sausage fest because they've mostly been using male artwork.

Edit: I'm late apparently, sorry

Aside from the pyromancer and the deprived, none of the character models (from the renders and artwork we've seen) are obviously male. I'm not sure why people have been assuming that they all are.

All (pyro and deprived excepted) could easily, realistically and appropriately portray either a male or female.

I expect that it'll be the same for all the additional player armour sets to be unlocked.

As it should be.

Who's to say what's under a knights armour after all?

 Barzam wrote:
As Malevolence mentioned, pretty much every one of their card games. A lot of their own brands they've mishandled and drooped without hesitation as well, like Jagun Warriors, Digimon, D.I.C.E., Ultraman, Saint Seiya, Kamen Rider, Escaflowne, Danball Senki... this list goes on, and these are just some of the properties they've bungled outside of Japan. Gundam they handled decently at first, but once SEED came around, they screwed everything up and dumped the entire brand in the US and abroad. Then you have the stuff they half-assed and dumped immediately in Japan, like Nobunaga The Fool, Eureka Seven, Valvrave, Mars Daybreak, Nadesico, several Macross lines, Gyrozetter, Aquarion, and many, many others.

Thanks! Were these licenses through a third party, or "directly" from Bandai? Really hard reading these tea leaves!

Steamforged replied to my question about how much control Bandai has over the project: "We have their full blessing, but any use of their assets must be approved by them first. We have good business links with Bandai Namco as one of our Directors worked in the Video Game Industry with Bandai Namco previously."

An otaku / gamer friend of mine says that Bandai gives free reign to the licensees, not always with good results. Guess I'll look closer at Stronghold's previous project to see the quality of their work.

Some are entirely their own, others are collaborative with other companies. Gyrozetter for instance was a Square-Enix game, the anime was by A1 Pictures with TV Tokyo as the network that aired it, and Bandai made the toys. So, there's a lot of companies involved with some of these properties. Going back to the example of Gyrozetter though, the game seemed fairly popular. The game has, to date 74 playable mecha with new updates adding more, actual car company involvement, and collaborations with well known mecha designers. The show lasted 51 episodes, which is actually quite long for an anime these days. For Bandai's involvement, they made a whopping 12 small budget priced Matchbox sized cars and all of 6 DX sized cars before scrapping the line. There was only one full wave of releases with a few of the small cars being released in sporadic 1's and 2's while the 6th DX car was released by itself just before the line was scrapped. Supposedly there were supposed to be two more DX releases, but I've never seen any evidence that they actually came out. So, you have a relatively successful franchise, but Bandai half assed the toys (I have some, they're not very good) and when kids didn't go crazy over the mediocre first wave of releases, they killed the line. I should also note that they abandoned the line before the show even finished airing. The manga came out first in 2011 and is still going, the game came out in 2012 and is still being updated, the show ran from October of 2012 - September 2013, and Bandai's supposed final releases were slated for June 2013, but those were scrapped as far as I know, so they ended their involvement after only a few months of producing the toys.

Thanks to you, Ced it sounds like we have confirmation that this is mostly in Steamforged's hands and not Bandai's.

Do killed miniatures ragdoll and go flopping around the board?

No, but it's encouraged you act that out for yourself.

Hey, MrDwhitey! Haven't seen you in ages.

I'm surprised you aren't arguing for a patches model so you can kick other players into pits. Seems like your kind of thing.

Loving this whole kickstarter! Dark Souls ftw!

*SUN PRAISING INTENSIFIES*
\[T]/