Author Topic: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Discussion, Vol. 1  (Read 171104 times)

DEZOAT

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #330 on: 05 July 2019, 04:16:29 »
 :D 12 DAYS to go until it starts. The count down has begun.

Tangoforone

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #331 on: 05 July 2019, 12:54:46 »
I imagine for many people on this forum the countdown started when the news dropped :)  I am excited though; I am very interested to see what Catalyst does for the different tiers and what their goals will be for the full rewards.

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #332 on: 05 July 2019, 13:04:00 »
I'm trying to get my finances in order so I can afford both the GoAC box my FLGS is still waiting for (the local distributor is a dead head) and support the Kickstarter after taking a hit in my personal life. I have allot of stuff I need to priorities first but I should be able to support one way or another as long as the pledge goals are reasonable :) 

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #333 on: 05 July 2019, 13:09:56 »
I imagine for many people on this forum the countdown started when the news dropped :)  I am excited though; I am very interested to see what Catalyst does for the different tiers and what their goals will be for the full rewards.

countdowns don't start for me until 10 because i only have that many fingers

i'm sure the KS will have a wide variety of tiers and stretch goals as well as some in reserve in the event things absolutely blow up

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #334 on: 05 July 2019, 13:16:50 »
countdowns don't start for me until 10 because i only have that many fingers

i'm sure the KS will have a wide variety of tiers and stretch goals as well as some in reserve in the event things absolutely blow up

I would also hope such tiers are realistic in scope and ambition...we don't need another RRT
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #335 on: 06 July 2019, 01:16:53 »
So pumped for this Kickstarter...

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #336 on: 06 July 2019, 15:26:01 »
Nevermind, it's not constructive. I am very hyped for this Kickstarter and will back the living jesus out of it. The only thing I'll say is that I hope that CGL learns a whole lot from the disaster that is the Sprawl Ops Boardgame fulfillment with hundreds of EU backers left in the cold without any of the rewards that they paid and backed for.
« Last Edit: 06 July 2019, 15:29:01 by PyreLight »

Lord Cameron

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #337 on: 06 July 2019, 15:54:32 »
Will there also be other payment options

Were you thinking arm & leg or perhaps firstborn?

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #338 on: 06 July 2019, 16:37:47 »
For anyone leery of backing a kickstarter, don't feel that you'll have to back this one to get the new goodies.  Unless I misunderstood, the point of this is to bring a new product to market.  You'll have to wait a little longer, but you'll have your chance to get it.
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #339 on: 06 July 2019, 16:45:06 »
For anyone leery of backing a kickstarter, don't feel that you'll have to back this one to get the new goodies.  Unless I misunderstood, the point of this is to bring a new product to market.  You'll have to wait a little longer, but you'll have your chance to get it.
Yup.
I'd imagine the idea is that the kickstarter products are priced like the box set, that is profitable, it is just a matter of gauging interest and initiating the production.
One time projects as kickstarters seem inefficient.

Personally i'll have to pass this one, bad timing (unless this is gonna be really cheap, which i doubt) but probably can buy stuff once they're on stores. Plus i've yet to get the new box sets anyhow.

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #340 on: 06 July 2019, 16:46:55 »
Yup.
I'd imagine the idea is that the kickstarter products are priced like the box set, that is profitable, it is just a matter of gauging interest and initiating the production.
One time projects as kickstarters seem inefficient.

Personally i'll have to pass this one, bad timing (unless this is gonna be really cheap, which i doubt) but probably can buy stuff once they're on stores. Plus i've yet to get the new box sets anyhow.

Pledge for a buck, put yourself on CGL's email updates newsletter (the real lasting benefit of a Kickstarter, if you ask me).
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #341 on: 06 July 2019, 20:58:37 »
Bingo. And while I have no idea if CGL will do this, but in some kickstarters, the pledge manager will stay open for quite some time after the kickstarter ends and you can keep adding during that time. So if you can't get in for more then a dollar or two, but you think you might be able to add more in the next few months, it might still be worth your time.

Again, before anyone starts building any actual expectations, I'll say it again: I have no idea if CGL will do it this way.
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #342 on: 06 July 2019, 23:16:09 »
For anyone leery of backing a kickstarter, don't feel that you'll have to back this one to get the new goodies.  Unless I misunderstood, the point of this is to bring a new product to market.  You'll have to wait a little longer, but you'll have your chance to get it.
You might also get the boxset for cheaper if you back, the DFRPG KickStarter SJ Games did a few years back had the physical product at $50, yet the price to buy it now is $75

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #343 on: 07 July 2019, 23:40:03 »
1/3 to 1/6 discount seems typical of what I've seen. We take the risk of funding their R&D, they cut us a break on the price of the final product. That seems to be the unspoken contract.
« Last Edit: 08 July 2019, 00:06:59 by Greatclub »

Chrome

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #344 on: 08 July 2019, 13:31:35 »
Given how Catalyst's current KS for Shadowrun is going, I advise everyone to be vary wary of backing this. This has been the shadiest KS I've ever backed, and I say that having backed Myth and MERCS Recon. The entire thing has been horribly managed on Catalyst's end of things - ineptly might be a better word. What is of the most concern to backers right now is a series of errors between Catalyst and their warehouse that caused hundreds of backers to get duplicate copies of the game, leaving Catalyst unable to fulfill ~900 EU pledges, but IMHO that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The SR KS consisted of a core game box for $50 and two expansions for $25 apiece. You could then Add-On 2 alternate boards for $10 apiece and an extra set of dice (its a dice-rolling game) for $25. I pledged $120 to get the game, both expansions, and both alt boards.

During production it was nonchalantly mentioned in a KS Update video (not the text of the Update that everyone reads) that Catalyst was going to give us a "Legendary box" which was a custom larger box that could hold everything - the core game, the expansions, the alternate boards, and all of the Stretch Goals (which included a 3rd alternate board) - because it all couldn't fit in the retail box. This sounded great. I mean a big cool box for free? Who doesn't like that?

What really happened was that instead of shipping all of the components to the US individually and having each backer's order collated at their US warehouse, Catalyst had the orders collated in China. And somewhere during that process, I'm guessing due to minimum print runs and the cost of collating each individual order, they realized that it was just cheaper to just give everything to everyone, whether they paid for it or not. So they made a box big enough to fit all 4 boards and the insert from the retail box and dropped them in along with the components from the Co-op Expansion which was a KS-exclusive (and thus had no box of its own). The other expansion did get its own box b/c it will be available at retail.

In case you didn't catch it, the "Legendary" box replaced the retail box for backers. And the kicker is that it's still not big enough to hold everything from the KS. I have to keep 5-6 Player expansion cards in their retail box and I haven't sleeved any of my cards.

So in the end, people who only backed $50 for the base game, or $75 for the game + 1 expansion, got everything that I paid $120 for. Now this isn't the first time that I've seen something like this happen, but it's the first time I've seen it happen with up to $70 worth of product. And it is the first time that I've ever seen a KS be so duplicitous about it.

And the backers who forked out money for extra dice haven't gotten any because for some reason Catalyst hasn't had them made yet and hasn't said why not.

And here's another kicker for all of you who are thinking that backing the KS will save you money over buying at retail - we paid more. The core game is retailing for exactly what we paid for it ($50) but they set the MSRP of the 5-6 Player expansion at $5 less than what they charged backers for it. And we had to pay an extra $26 for shipping.

There were several other questionable things too, but these were the main ones for me. They're already talking about KSing another Shadowrun board game, but there's no way in hell I'll be backing it. If you want to learn more, I'd suggest following the link at the top of my post and checking the comments and updates.

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #345 on: 08 July 2019, 14:29:46 »
One last quick thing - one thing that in retrospect was perhaps the shadiest thing going on, was who was running the KickStarter. If the BT campaign is run by some 3rd party who says that they're there to ensure none of Catalyst's past KS-problems happen again, don't believe them. This is exactly what was said at the beginning of the Sprawl Ops campaign and all that 3rd party (Lynnvander Games) did was run the KS page and then act as PR for Catalyst. They had no direct contact with manufacturing, the shipping boat, or the distributors in/outside of the US. They did a great job of posting KS Updates every Monday, but as things got worse and worse many of them included obvious CYA's like "I was told..." and "I haven't heard back from Catalyst yet..."

Worse was when you could tell that they had no real info from Catalyst but had to try and act like they knew what was going on. Like during the 6+ weeks between when the games arrived at the US distribution center (Apr 5th) and when people finally started receiving their pledges (~May 22). 7 Updates all with some flavor of "shipping is 'in progress'", with it all very obvious that the poor guy posting the updates had no real idea what was going on. Ditto for them saying in May that "EU, CA and AU are off to their locations for unpacking and outbound shipping" then back-tracking a week later b/c it hadn't actually happened and possibly still hasn't happened as of the latest update*. Or saying that 100 orders were sent to the wrong addresses b/c the distributor used the wrong spreadsheet, then later on saying (almost accidentally it seemed) that it was Catalyst's fault.

*On Monday the Update said that Canadian pledges had been shipped to their distribution centers, but the next sentence said "I haven't received notification yet...." so that's not confirmed. The rest of world's pledges are still sitting in Atlanta, where they've been for 3 months now.

Chrome

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #346 on: 08 July 2019, 14:31:48 »
Arg... guess you can't edit your own posts?

Just to clarify, I think that Lynnvander has been great thru this whole thing. But they put themselves between a rock and a hard place by running this KS.

GreyWolfActual

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #347 on: 08 July 2019, 14:34:19 »
Arg... guess you can't edit your own posts?
You certainly can. See the attached screenshot.
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #348 on: 08 July 2019, 14:38:42 »
What really happened...I'm guessing
You cannot legitimately start a paragraph claiming supreme knowledge and then, in the next sentence, follow it up with wild guesses. Thank you for playing.
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Chrome

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #349 on: 08 July 2019, 14:41:03 »
You certainly can. See the attached screenshot.

You're right. I looked right at it and overlooked it for b/c I was looking for "Edit".

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #350 on: 08 July 2019, 14:51:46 »
countdowns don't start for me until 10 because i only have that many fingers

i'm sure the KS will have a wide variety of tiers and stretch goals as well as some in reserve in the event things absolutely blow up

Just use your mech collection for counts.  It's what I use for numbers over twenty.
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #351 on: 08 July 2019, 15:14:58 »
based on past experience with CGL, i think a lot of us are at least a little nervous. you can detect some of the angst in the thread with people (myself included) hoping they don't get too wild with stretch goals and other addons.

hopefully they've identified what went wrong and have an action plan to avoid another catastrophe like the mailing debacle. besides the primary embarrassment of such a customer service disaster, it had to have wiped out much of any potential profit margin.

but honestly they had most of us at "classics lance packs"

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #352 on: 08 July 2019, 15:18:23 »
To make this Kick Starter work the way I think it will, we need to let people that don't view the forums or the battletech facebook page know! Shout it out from the roof tops, tell your friends and tell it to anyone you can think of! No I am not an employee just a fan that wants to see these mechs in plastic!  :D :D :D
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #353 on: 08 July 2019, 15:31:52 »
Just use your mech collection for counts.  It's what I use for numbers over twenty.

*glances nervously at the four double rifle gun cases full of minis*

i uh... am very bad with counting and money


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Colt Ward

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #354 on: 08 July 2019, 15:35:26 »
While I do not remember, I think it was announced before/during Origins about it and I think it will still be open for pledges during GenCon?  I have seen it posted in BT FB fan pages . . . besides posting in MWO & HBS forums (if allowed) I am not sure where else you can spread the word except FLGS.  Since I have not logged in to MWO forums for years (meh) or HBS (never bothered) I cannot say if someone has already done that but after that . . . where else do you go?
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #356 on: 08 July 2019, 15:44:10 »
https://youtu.be/aAHUNgoJQPw
One of the best movies ever made and one HECK of a soundtrack!
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PyreLight

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #357 on: 08 July 2019, 16:13:05 »
Yeah so I see that Chrome posted about what I had originally posted. I've backed multiple Kickstarters and the Shadowrun Sprawl Ops is by far the most mismanaged one in terms of execution.

After backing on a high level, I'm sitting here with nothing at all except some e-mail from a guy in Lithuania who has trouble communicating with CGL in the US that tells me that I'll get my rewards at some point in the future. And that's after around 12 previous e-mails that all read like he has no idea what's going on and the English language is unclear and a bit broken.

Like, there is literally nothing wrong with Kickstarter at all and I highly recommend using it to back the projects you love (such as this Clan Invasion thing), but this Sprawl Ops thing. Man, I tell you, it has been pretty bad.

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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #358 on: 08 July 2019, 16:45:35 »
While I do not remember, I think it was announced before/during Origins about it and I think it will still be open for pledges during GenCon?  I have seen it posted in BT FB fan pages . . . besides posting in MWO & HBS forums (if allowed) I am not sure where else you can spread the word except FLGS.  Since I have not logged in to MWO forums for years (meh) or HBS (never bothered) I cannot say if someone has already done that but after that . . . where else do you go?

Most Kickstarters run for a month or so, so this one is almost certain to be open through GenCon and beyond.
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Re: BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter Coming July 17!
« Reply #359 on: 08 July 2019, 16:47:41 »
kickstarter themselves recommend 30 days or less. a month will go about two weeks past gencon so that checks out

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