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"Hey moldy alien testicle monster, does this pleather halter top jumpsuit make my ass look big?"

ecurtz wrote:
"Hey moldy alien testicle monster, does this pleather halter top jumpsuit make my ass look big?"

Ha ha.That's gross on so many levels.

Now that is campaign is live, and we're seeing more...I'm liking this more than I thought I would.

In fact, I like it a lot.

Now to figure out whether or not I want to pledge!

I'm sure the 'value' will be there in the end, but I'll probably wait until then to decide.

Aeneades wrote:
Several of the stretch goal miniatures are based around the game designers / workers. Eightball for instance is based on Thiago and Gavin is Paul Bonner.

Not sure if this next one if meant to be someone famous or another designer -

Spoiler:

She kinda looks like the actress/comedian Mo'nique to me, but if that is the case I don't get the sci-fi connection.

ecurtz wrote:
They're now entirely based on blockbuster franchises no matter how vaguely related to the theme of the game (Morpheus, really?)

I don't know. He has been in a movie which seems to fit in a bit...

Today felt really boring with regard to stretch goals. Hopefully tomorrow is more interesting, even if it is likely slower than today.

The "big boned" survivors just look like they would be the first to die if the party ever had to pick the pace up above a shuffle.

Rule #1 of Zombieland was Cardio.

Then again, according to the movie Paul, it's not fat, it's power.

Latest stertch is Will Smith. While the art makes it clear who it is, thankfully the actual mini doesn't and can easily be made to fit in with the others. I can't say I'm feeling a lot of the cameo figures, but I do like the majority of the game original ones. I hope they do some more of those. I'd also like to see some more of the soldiers with their helmets on.

The survivors are supposed to be inviduals, not faceless mooks, so I don't expect there be many (if any) helmeted heads. Right now the only one with helmet/face covered is an invidual because of it...

I don't know who either of the big boned women are supposed to be, but both are mechanics in the background... I guess we now need a male big boned mechanic too.

The weapons are odd looking as every weapon seems to have 3 barrels minimum and at least 2 clips attached.

I bet none of the actual weapon cards has alternate fire modes...

Didn't the third Zombicide have npc support "characters?" They were essentially faceless mooks who could accompany the suvivor characters. They could totally do that with this, too.

If CMON decides to add the NPCs to space too, it would totally be ok for them to be faceless IMO.

But the Fantasy version did not have NPCs, so who knows if SciFi version have them or not...?

 judgedoug wrote:
I mean, I don't fault CMON for being in the money-making business. This Kickstarter panders to the lowest common denominator of Big Bang Theory nerds - the largest possible consumer sample of edgy-board-game-but-not-mainstream-Settlers, so I'm sure they'll make a pile of dollars on HEY LOOK IT'S KINDASORTA MARTY MCFLY. Their marketing and design is so exceptional that they've managed to polish a turd into a million dollars. It's brilliant!

All the other Zombicide KS's did this, and they were celebrated.

Why is this one making people so angry?

I think it is because they feel disjointed, they come from the wider genre of sci fi movies but they do not feel they belong, something the other Zombicides did, they choose subjects that were from the correct sub genre and made them fit, admittedly in the first it was not that difficult and in the second the fantasy genres are clearly separated, they would have been far better if they drew from video games than from movies.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I think it is because they feel disjointed, they come from the wider genre of sci fi movies but they do not feel they belong, something the other Zombicides did, they choose subjects that were from the correct sub genre and made them fit, admittedly in the first it was not that difficult and in the second the fantasy genres are clearly separated, they would have been far better if they drew from video games than from movies.

The first Zombicides had Sheldon from Big Bang, Barney from The Expendables, Quinn from Glee, Ron Burgundy and Austin Powers!

By what metric do these feel 'disjointed' and feel like they don't 'belong' compared to that?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
I mean, I don't fault CMON for being in the money-making business. This Kickstarter panders to the lowest common denominator of Big Bang Theory nerds - the largest possible consumer sample of edgy-board-game-but-not-mainstream-Settlers, so I'm sure they'll make a pile of dollars on HEY LOOK IT'S KINDASORTA MARTY MCFLY. Their marketing and design is so exceptional that they've managed to polish a turd into a million dollars. It's brilliant!

All the other Zombicide KS's did this, and they were celebrated.

Why is this one making people so angry?

People have wanted a Sci-fi zombicide for so long that they came up with ideas in their head as to how it WAS going to be and this isn’t like it. They were waiting for the EPIC characters that would fit the genre and they just haven’t popped up yet (at least to me) there’s one I’d like to get, but none I HAVE to have. The change in art style has left me high and dry and lets face it the aliens are still alive... this is not Zombicide, it’s a poor money grab using its name. There was similar hate when Prodos (by whatever name they were using at the time) popped up with Space (C)Rusade. They took the name of a beloved game and hocked the contents of their underwear with it.

If they'd just recast the minis from sedition wars to make them acceptable I'd have bought this.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Spoiler:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I think it is because they feel disjointed, they come from the wider genre of sci fi movies but they do not feel they belong, something the other Zombicides did, they choose subjects that were from the correct sub genre and made them fit, admittedly in the first it was not that difficult and in the second the fantasy genres are clearly separated, they would have been far better if they drew from video games than from movies.

The first Zombicides had Sheldon from Big Bang, Barney from The Expendables, Quinn from Glee, Ron Burgundy and Austin Powers!

By what metric do these feel 'disjointed' and feel like they don't 'belong' compared to that?

No because they were normal humans in a normal human setting, nothing out of the Zombicide, it is what Theophony said, we had an idea of what we wanted sci fi Zombicide to be (reinforced by the art direction of the previous ones) and the IPs CMON had so we either expected a Not Mass Effect or a Xenoshyft, with a minority expecting a sedition wars, this is nothing like we expected, moreover the additional characters do not fit neither the setting they set or the characters they homage.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Spoiler:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I think it is because they feel disjointed, they come from the wider genre of sci fi movies but they do not feel they belong, something the other Zombicides did, they choose subjects that were from the correct sub genre and made them fit, admittedly in the first it was not that difficult and in the second the fantasy genres are clearly separated, they would have been far better if they drew from video games than from movies.

The first Zombicides had Sheldon from Big Bang, Barney from The Expendables, Quinn from Glee, Ron Burgundy and Austin Powers!

By what metric do these feel 'disjointed' and feel like they don't 'belong' compared to that?

No because they were normal humans in a normal human setting, nothing out of the Zombicide, it is what Theophony said, we had an idea of what we wanted sci fi Zombicide to be (reinforced by the art direction of the previous ones) and the IPs CMON had so we either expected a Not Mass Effect or a Xenoshyft, with a minority expecting a sedition wars, this is nothing like we expected, moreover the additional characters do not fit neither the setting they set or the characters they homage.

I think is is true for previous Zombicides too though. I backed Green Horde and I’m really pleased with the base game I’ve received so far. However I know that when I get the bonus survivors, most of them will never get used. I probably only like about a third of them and the rest are garbage.. they’re not to everyone’s taste and most are not to mine, but the ones I do like, I really do like.

I’m feeling the same way about the sci fi version. The base game looks good and the stretch goals so far range from amazing to utterly terrible. I have decided to back it yet, but I also haven’t ruled it out.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
No because they were normal humans in a normal human setting, nothing out of the Zombicide, it is what Theophony said, we had an idea of what we wanted sci fi Zombicide to be (reinforced by the art direction of the previous ones) and the IPs CMON had so we either expected a Not Mass Effect or a Xenoshyft, with a minority expecting a sedition wars, this is nothing like we expected, moreover the additional characters do not fit neither the setting they set or the characters they homage.

I'll just add that, with generic fantasy and modern-day, we can usually agree what setting to use. However, with science fiction, we have many different interpretations of the future, so there's less of a standard generic science fiction world. Sedition War's future is not the same as Xenoshyft is not the same as Warhammer 40K is not the same as The Terminator is not the same as Ogre is not the same as Aliens. ZI's sf world seems to be arbitrarily derived from a number of sources, none particularly popular: tentacle-faced aliens, Warhammery space suits, and homage figures that don't really tie in with the base game. Dunno if this is really anger, just disappointment. Personally, I'm not looking for tentacle-faces any more than I was looking for zombie orcs, nor particularly enamored with the homages, like I was with Moderncide and Black Plague, so that's why I only pledged $1. YMMV.

I think it sums it up quite well, Sci Fi is not as well defined as the other two genres and the homages feel incoherent because they come from different genres of sci fi.

I don't see how the survivors are supposedly NOT fitting the game world. They are civilians in a civilian run mining station or they are military assigned as security force for the station.
The alien survivors are traders/scouts/whatever that happened to be in the station in the time of the incident. Obviously the humans have mostly peaceful relations with the various alien races to allow them on the station.

So far I haven't seen any survivor that doesn't fit the setting, lookwise. I ignore the background blurps as they are obviously written tongue in cheek (like always in Zombicide games).

The main reason I don’t like the stretch goal survivors compared to previous campaigns is that they previously were a slightly comic book style inspired by the character but adapted where needed to fit into the Zombicide settings (modern or fantasy). The sci-fi characters come across as a style from a movie that has just been half heartedly painted over making them look like an obvious copy rather than simply inspired by.

I agree that the survivor homages so far look really out of place. I still think they will be useful for me for various sci-fi settings. I do think this would be better with a Xenoshift or Sedition Wars aesthetic, because then you could have the survivors in the same sort of armor as the troopers and they wouldn't look quite so out of place. Personally I'm most exited for the tentacle gribblies because they will work great in fantasy settings as well as lovecraftian style horrors

Sedition Wars anything would be too much of a third rail here - best to leave that one in the dimly remembered and CMON-hoped to be forgotten past.

But yeah, a slightly better alien aesthetic would have probably helped here, but it is still looking good so far, and will probably finish in that $3M-$4M range.

I just asked @Thiago in the KS comments if there was any chance of reposing some of the Alien workers.

My impression of CMON campaigns is that backers actually have very little power to affect the campaign, because in previous games their stretch goals seemed to be preset and planned well into the 3-4 million dollar range. With Black Plague, at least, it seemed like only the final 1 or 2 figures were influenced by comments section input from backers.

I doubt CMON will change the Worker poses, but since many people have raised the issue on this thread and I fully agree, I thought it couldn't hurt to ask them to consider it. If I get a response, I'll repost it here.

I'm just going to say it, Sedition Wars had better cameo characters. The choices made more sense and their designs actually fit the aesthetics of the game. Adding knee pads and a headset to Will Mith or Marty McFly does not make them fit the aesthetic Smith is going for, here.

Whoever suggested using video games for cameos over movies, I think you're on the right track. I think that would have worked out better. Duke Nukem, Doomguy, Commander Shepherd, Isaac Clarke (again), Solid Snake, those would have been so much cooler and probably better received.

New Xenos Civilian stretch goal. Love the name!

 Barzam wrote:
I'm just going to say it, Sedition Wars had better cameo characters. The choices made more sense and their designs actually fit the aesthetics of the game. Adding knee pads and a headset to Will Mith or Marty McFly does not make them fit the aesthetic Smith is going for, here.

Whoever suggested using video games for cameos over movies, I think you're on the right track. I think that would have worked out better. Duke Nukem, Doomguy, Commander Shepherd, Isaac Clarke (again), Solid Snake, those would have been so much cooler and probably better received.

For Sedition Wars they were really just winging it most of the cameos weren’t planned in advance and a lot came from backer requests. Today’s CMON is very different and everything is already planned and sculpted.

I find most of the cameos so far very underwhelming and I think that sticking on some knee pads and armour here and there doesn’t really fit the bill. Dr. White is a particularly poor example. Long time left though and it will be interesting to see the designs in paid add ons.

Dorian the Grey artwork is by Adrian Smith. Also note it's not KS exclusive.

Sedition Wars did cameos better, but also worse. We got not-Riddick and not-Ripley, but they were too small to scale well with just about anything else, other Sedition Wars minis included.

That's why I'd still love to see Z: Invader do a not-Riddick.

On a positive note, I'm very impressed to see alien race hero stretch goals show no sign of stopping. I would've expected to see just a handful at the end of the KS haul. Keep 'em coming!

 judgedoug wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Wow, the not-Deckard, not-Entity, not-Morpheus and all the other nots are really dumb. Like, the worst kind of pandering homage. Ripped straight from the pages of some nerd's 8th-grade sketchbook, with writing style to match

I thought we all just said we liked them for the articles.


But if they pander to my mohawked Johnny 5 needs, I'm in.

I mean, I don't fault CMON for being in the money-making business. This Kickstarter panders to the lowest common denominator of Big Bang Theory nerds - the largest possible consumer sample of edgy-board-game-but-not-mainstream-Settlers, so I'm sure they'll make a pile of dollars on HEY LOOK IT'S KINDASORTA MARTY MCFLY. Their marketing and design is so exceptional that they've managed to polish a turd into a million dollars. It's brilliant!

I don't get the implied anger/nerdrage. You'rs not new to this, Doug. You know (or certainly should know) what Zombicide is by now. What did you expect?

The only surprise (sorta) is no Star Wars or Trek characters, but then again, FFG/Asmodee is in the miniatures/board game space with the same/similar scale models and the SW licence, and they probably don't want to court that kind of trouble. Wizkids/Neca are in a related space with Attack wing, and they probably don't want to feth with them either. How they feel about smaller companies like Prodoss and River Horse for not-AVP remains to be seen. I expect to see the Firefly crew make it in, though. Sedition Wars was a long time ago now.

I'm not excited by the overall package, I'll probably go in for a buck and then it's 50/50 at best if I follow up at all, but I'm not angry to the point where I feel a need to rage or piss on it.

fake edit - I just remembered, I already am in for a buck. I backed a few days ago and forgot, even though I have updates turned on. That's how excited I am about this particular campaign.