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 Myrthe wrote:
"Dungeon Saga was praised ..." By whom ?!!
"Star Saga will feature ... more detailed, adcanced mechanics ...". Like they promised Dungeon Saga would during the Kickstarter to raise pledge levels only to fall WAY short in fulfillment ?!!

Mantic has run twelve Kickstarters to date. 12 !! They say they improve and learn with every one but read what customers have to say about them.

If you're interested, do yourself a favor and take a look at their KS history and read the comments. Do your due diligence before you choose to invest.

They lost me and my dollars with the way they botched Dungeon Saga with all the broken promises, pathetic delivery and offensive treatment of customers.

If they can get the quality and replayability up where it needs to be it'll be cool, but given Mantic's track record I'll wait until I see reviews before I risk that sort of cash

So far it feels unimpressive and Mantic seem to not put any effort to motivate backers.

Stretch goals do not seem to add value and the whole design feels uninspired.

It somehow feels like a KS not done by Mantic, maybe it is the fatigue of their various missteps, I see complains everywhere about it, especially for dungeon Saga, its a bit sad because I would really want to see this one become something good.

Well I've just had a mantic email saying they're looking for rules committee people for dungeon saga (free download of eventual changes promised for KS backers) ......

and if they get on well with it they may get to play with Star Saga too

a good thing on one hand as the RC has made a good job of the stuff they've done with Kings of War, on the other hand it probably means they won't get a chance to do anything before version 1 in out and in peoples hands so we'd likely be looking at a version 2 reletivlely soon afterwards

but on the other hand it's almost an admission that Star

Why can't they try to make it work good from the start? they better recruit a rules committee for star saga and dungeon Saga or Star Saga alone and make sure they deliver that properly and then work with dungeon Saga...

So outsourcing rules design to volunteers is pretty much the business plan now. Maybe they do the same for models, it would explain some sculpts.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So outsourcing rules design to volunteers is pretty much the business plan now. Maybe they do the same for models, it would explain some sculpts.

Hey, they could always pull a DeadZone and run another KS for the fixed version of the rules.

 CptJake wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So outsourcing rules design to volunteers is pretty much the business plan now. Maybe they do the same for models, it would explain some sculpts.

Hey, they could always pull a DeadZone and run another KS for the fixed version of the rules.

Well, they did it for Dreadball too...

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So outsourcing rules design to volunteers is pretty much the business plan now. Maybe they do the same for models, it would explain some sculpts.

Hey, they could always pull a DeadZone and run another KS for the fixed version of the rules.

Well, they did it for Dreadball too...

And kings of war.....

Next year it will be Dungeon Saga!!

To be fair, and KS fulfilment issues aside, the KoW rules went from very good to even better. The out of print so tidy up a 2e rather than simply reprinting rationale there i felt was reasonable. It wasn't a massive overhaul nor were the 1e rules inherently flawed, though it did suffer from "aspect the writer wasn't much interested in (sieges, campaigns) gets mostly passed over with lip service"...

 Azazelx wrote:
To be fair, and KS fulfilment issues aside, the KoW rules went from very good to even better. The out of print so tidy up a 2e rather than simply reprinting rationale there i felt was reasonable. It wasn't a massive overhaul nor were the 1e rules inherently flawed, though it did suffer from "aspect the writer wasn't much interested in (sieges, campaigns) gets mostly passed over with lip service"...

Mantic got Jake (who barely/never plays KoW because he wrote his own equivalent system that Mantic didn't pick up and Foundry later did, before treating it like a ginger-haired step-child) to write the Siege and Campaign rules for 1st Ed.

If I had to bet on the amount of actual, practical play-testing they got, it would be a very low guess

On the plus side, it does look like Mantic have given up on getting Jake to write campaign/progression systems now.

Jake is brilliant at core rules design, poor at playtesting and balance. A two-stage process is good to tidy up his stuff, but I can't approve of Mantic's reliance on volunteer work.

I see nothing wrong with that its what computer games industry has been doing for years and on many occasions quite successfully and lets not forget PP did it quite recently, what I have problem with is that they do it after they spend resources to print the rules waste money on them tarnish their reputation angry people and then rely on volunteer to find the issues and re release the game in a better state, spending again resources for it.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I see nothing wrong with that its what computer games industry has been doing for years and on many occasions quite successfully and lets not forget PP did it quite recently, what I have problem with is that they do it after they spend resources to print the rules waste money on them tarnish their reputation angry people and then rely on volunteer to find the issues and re release the game in a better state, spending again resources for it.

First thing you've said in this thread that I can wholeheartedly agree with.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I see nothing wrong with that its what computer games industry has been doing for years and on many occasions quite successfully and lets not forget PP did it quite recently, what I have problem with is that they do it after they spend resources to print the rules waste money on them tarnish their reputation angry people and then rely on volunteer to find the issues and re release the game in a better state, spending again resources for it.

No. The computer games industry and PP recruits playtesters to find bugs in a completed but unpolished product. Mantic proposes recruiting people to write the rules for them because they can't seem to be arsed to write their own or hire an in-house rules writer(s) instead of shooting money at Jake whenever they run a kickstarter to hash something together in a relatively short period of time, rubber stamping it at "good enough", and sending it out as a finished product....typos, inconsistencies and all.

They obviously don't want to be a professional organization or produce a viable product outside of the captive fan-base/kickstarter crowd.

I think the rules committee approach is probably best at this point to get the work done to a quality standard. A single person won't get everything right, it needs peer review, playtesting and iterative development.

Dungeon Saga committee is a very good idea, hopefully it can cover Star Saga as well. I won't be applying since I don't want my attention diluted over multiple systems, Deadzone is my focus.

I really enjoyed Dungeon Saga, and have a copy of Project Pandora which I'm looking forward to having a rules update for.

Very happy with the Kickstarter so far, only real issue was it coming hot on the heels of Dreadball 2.0, so funds are a little lacking.

 agnosto wrote:
No. The computer games industry and PP recruits playtesters to find bugs in a completed but unpolished product. Mantic proposes recruiting people to write the rules for them because they can't seem to be arsed to write their own or hire an in-house rules writer(s) instead of shooting money at Jake whenever they run a kickstarter to hash something together in a relatively short period of time, rubber stamping it at "good enough", and sending it out as a finished product....typos, inconsistencies and all.

They obviously don't want to be a professional organization or produce a viable product outside of the captive fan-base/kickstarter crowd.

Which is exactly what Mantic has done? The Rules Committees haven't been writing entire rule sets, they've been iterating on and balancing rule sets written by professional game designers - designers who sell their services as contractors to multiple clients including Mantic and Warlord, because it makes sense for everyone involved. Why would any sane company hire a full time rules writer to just sit around for months at a time doing nothing, because they only do a new rule set once a year at best?

You have a really misguided sense of what is, and is not, a professional organisation.

 NTRabbit wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
No. The computer games industry and PP recruits playtesters to find bugs in a completed but unpolished product. Mantic proposes recruiting people to write the rules for them because they can't seem to be arsed to write their own or hire an in-house rules writer(s) instead of shooting money at Jake whenever they run a kickstarter to hash something together in a relatively short period of time, rubber stamping it at "good enough", and sending it out as a finished product....typos, inconsistencies and all.

They obviously don't want to be a professional organization or produce a viable product outside of the captive fan-base/kickstarter crowd.

Which is exactly what Mantic has done? The Rules Committees haven't been writing entire rule sets, they've been iterating on and balancing rule sets written by professional game designers - designers who sell their services as contractors to multiple clients including Mantic and Warlord, because it makes sense for everyone involved. Why would any sane company hire a full time rules writer to just sit around for months at a time doing nothing, because they only do a new rule set once a year at best?

You have a really misguided sense of what is, and is not, a professional organisation.

We'll have to differ here because I'm unaware of people beta-testing video games actually entering new code. I don't know how PP handled things so I could be wrong there.

Maybe your experience and expectation of a professional product is different from my own. In my work experience and industry, it is generally frowned upon to produce documents with a large number of typos or that require a great deal of "polish" after a full print run and delivery to customers; these are generally things that could have been caught with a publishing industry standard proofing process. Models are one thing, printed products are another; when it comes to typos, there's no "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

All well and good and if your expectations differ from my own, we'll just have to differ.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I think the rules committee approach is probably best at this point to get the work done to a quality standard. A single person won't get everything right, it needs peer review, playtesting and iterative development.

Dungeon Saga committee is a very good idea, hopefully it can cover Star Saga as well. I won't be applying since I don't want my attention diluted over multiple systems, Deadzone is my focus.

I really enjoyed Dungeon Saga, and have a copy of Project Pandora which I'm looking forward to having a rules update for.

Very happy with the Kickstarter so far, only real issue was it coming hot on the heels of Dreadball 2.0, so funds are a little lacking.

I agree the RC is likely to be a big help,

rather I'd have preferred them to start with Star Saga (once mantic have finalised the rules) so what's printed as version 1 is the best it can be, rather than starting with a Dungeon Saga which is only just out, and releasing a rejigged version so soon (even with free rules download) is likely to leave quite a few owners feeling depressed that their shiney new game is out of date already

My only issue with the RC is that they're volunteers rather than paid for their work - especially since it is at this point key to having solidly playable rulesets come out of Mantic. Or be branded Mantic, anyway. It's great that Matt Gilbert got a well deserved position out of it, but the others deserve some reasonable remuneration as well.

 NTRabbit wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
No. The computer games industry and PP recruits playtesters to find bugs in a completed but unpolished product. Mantic proposes recruiting people to write the rules for them because they can't seem to be arsed to write their own or hire an in-house rules writer(s) instead of shooting money at Jake whenever they run a kickstarter to hash something together in a relatively short period of time, rubber stamping it at "good enough", and sending it out as a finished product....typos, inconsistencies and all.

They obviously don't want to be a professional organization or produce a viable product outside of the captive fan-base/kickstarter crowd.

Which is exactly what Mantic has done? The Rules Committees haven't been writing entire rule sets, they've been iterating on and balancing rule sets written by professional game designers - designers who sell their services as contractors to multiple clients including Mantic and Warlord, because it makes sense for everyone involved. Why would any sane company hire a full time rules writer to just sit around for months at a time doing nothing, because they only do a new rule set once a year at best?

You have a really misguided sense of what is, and is not, a professional organisation.

They wrote an entire supplement for Deadzone and seem to have written a large part of KoW2. Thats completely different from the computer industry and something people should get payed for.

Surely it is not too much for Mantic to "pay" members of the RC in the form if a basic Kick starter pledge level? It is a pity seeing the likes of ScarletSquig scratching around for funds given the work put into making Deadzone 2.0 a more balanced and fun game than the original.

(That said I have not seen any evidence of RC members wanting or expecting any renumeration, they genuinely do it due to their love of gaming. Kudos to them for that).

Full agreement with you on that. Mantic know who their key contributors are, and should at the very least be kicking back basic (or higher) KS level pledges to them. Volunteers are great and everything, but it's really getting to the point of feeling like abuse when they're essentially writing numerous complete full-priced, published supplements for free.

Early bird coming on line in about 2 minutes. I dunno, just not enthused or especially flush with cash at the moment. Looking at miniature market I can get 80-90% of the same volume of stuff for the dollar value I spent back at Dungeon Saga KS time. Losing 10-20% savings VS having the money tied up for a year..and having to watch updates. Hell, I've gotten almost as many updates through their other kickstarters emailing me as I have this one so far. I do think it will be worth a look at retail unless it just bomb/tanks, but I don't have the enthusiasm or financial fortitude to hang out for the whole ride.

 Azazelx wrote:
Volunteers are great and everything, but it's really getting to the point of feeling like abuse when they're essentially writing numerous complete full-priced, published supplements for free.

If only things were that good.

That aside, Agnosto's take on things is pretty accurate.

RC members do get paid in store credit, quite generously. It's really not an issue and it's done on a per-project basis so it's very formalized. Same applies to pathfinders.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm happy with it and am really pleased with both the credit given, and the amount of freedom rules committees have been given by Mantic to really polish games. Writing the rules in the first place is only about a quarter of the work, balance, playtesting and polish are the things that take time.

Also, Matt might not be the only RC member who ends up being formally hired or contracted by Mantic, they were recruiting a few months ago. I didn't apply, but know someone who did.

I'll still get the base pledge for this, will just have to wait for the pledge manager for expansions and things. Or skip them, but I did that with Dungeon Saga and ended up buying them at retail because the base game was so much fun.

I'm feeling the same grim.

Just not getting me excited. I'll keep my early bird for now but I'm at this rate potentially looking to drop later on.

That's all great to hear scarletsquig. I'm still sitting out of star saga due to IA but that has eased a twig at the back of my mind

And the crawl continues to slow down almost 5k less each day and mantic seems to be surprisingly silent.

Seems odd to me, wonder why?

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
And the crawl continues to slow down almost 5k less each day and mantic seems to be surprisingly silent.

Seems odd to me, wonder why?

I haven't looked at the comments section at all. I know in past KS projects, when it got so slow the project seemed in danger of not hitting the right 'value' and the comments turned negative, eventually Mantic rejigged something to make the value increase.