Delayed Super Dungeon Legends

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

I think the problem was they thought the rules were in Alpha (or even early beta) but everything they showed got picked apart by a fair number of the backers (and a fair few strong supporters on the soda pop forum) so it was a case of taking several steps backward or having this being just as devisive as the SDE 2.0 changes ended up being

 

and the moment you make decisions leading to significant displays it kills your production/development schedules and plans

[pcktlnt]

Bumping for those that do not go to the comment sections.

https://imgur.com/a/2bao9Kx

 

" Soda Pop Miniatures 7-time creator 32 minutes ago

Hello Explorers,
We will be suspending updates until we next have a firm production update to share with you. We share your continued frustration, and apologize for the extended delays we are having in manufacturing and fulfilling your pledges. We remain 100% committed to providing you with an exceptional Super Dungeon product. For those of you who enjoy the continued exploration of the world of Super Dungeon, we will be moving our previews of the fiction content from the Explorer’s Guide to the website."

 

They posted on facebook instead of updates. Some backers are asking the owner questions and he had a meltdown. From what I gather, he deleted some comments from Facebook.

 

"John Starck Cadice Nicholas E. Kelsch no one is lying Nicholas, we have a delayed project, it sucks, and we are working on it daily. What you believe or become hyperbolic about is not helping anyone, let alone helping us get the project sorted and paid for - 
Open up your myopic view of the universe, and mind you, I am talking to you, not the people with valid complaints and issues we are trying to sort. 
When this snowball hit us last year, we had 5 outstanding Kickstarters we needed to dig out from under, we have delivered 2, we are delivering 2 currently, and the biggest project that needs the most attention will be when we can lock ALL missiles on the target and get it done -"

 

John Starck Cadice Nicholas E. Kelsch Love ya man, your logic in this engagement is to attack and malign. Situations change, and we have to change with it to deliver. What was true one day, changes the next, the volatility of these situations, though beyond your grasp, we have tried to share, sometimes with success, sometimes with folly or false information provided to us - yet the constant remains, we are working through our troubles, delivering on our obligations (however late), we have regrettably had to withhold refunds until we deliver on projects and stem the bleeding of cost overruns and explosion of scope. 

If you asked for a refund, you will get one, we will service it as soon as able. If you have any more questions, I am sure I will be seeing you soon.

platypus note: This is not true so far. It has been a long bleeping time since I have gotten my refund request. NO refund has been issued yet. They even claim it was starting in July. Close to 50% through the month and no refunds yet. 

 

John Starck Cadice Nicholas E. Kelsch you are pulling at strings man, I think you just want something to be mad about. You stay there behind your keyboard, the answers you have declared are so invisible are, where appropriate, online for all to see - we are done talking about this, ill save the time and energy for the community and our updates as we proceed.

He's now beginning to attack one person for persistently requesting answers.

 

 

John Starck Cadice Eric J Beck This is all true, timetables and resources need to align, we are chipping away at and delivering on our other KS obligations in as strategic a way as possible to ensure we are not spreading ourselves thinner and dropping ALL the balls. Its a real risk, as the explosion in scope really hit hard - the product is now 2 or more KSs in content, and we have to take small bites to get it done. Its the biggest hairiest one, and requires time to move other elements in the business along as well.
So, yes, we have a new manufacturer, we are still working on elements with our old one. A full push to manufacturing is to greenlight the mold making process and purchasing of material to start the engines. The new manufacturer has offered great pricing and quality to meet our needs, so when we go, we can run separate projects, hopefully to deliver more quicker, at the very least, with some molds done and locked up at one of the factories, we will keep manufacturing with these partners as well. As there are multiple box printings, miniature sets, and materials to make. 
Summarizing our progress to date:
We have COMPLETELY sculpted, designed, tested, laid out EVERY CORE product and miniatures set in the first waves of content barring the Legends Box itself, which is slotted for manufacturing in the last wave after 2.0, Arcade, and the minis hit.
We are finishing up Starfinder, starting Relic Knights delivery, and trying to streamline our operation to be more effective and to NEVER have problems like this again - the rest is our business until we can get verified confirmation that we can and have started the key milestones needed to activate and manufacture the first waves of products. Starter boxes, minis, all of it. 
Queue NK jumping in to shout "lies! deceptions!" like the Star Wars character Sol Guerra

 

So... why can't they provide some proof for us?

 

John Starck Cadice Nicholas E. Kelsch Allusions, we still have work on the final Legends box content, so that continues as we have a bit of time. Current product cannot start until we are ready. Spending all your shekels at once means we bury a company and you guys never get your products. We are done with this line of inquiry sir, there is a boundary to what should be shared, and you are proving all the reasons why companies get shy about sharing anything at all. This conversation has run its course Nick.

 

John Starck Cadice Gilles Chirici We will service them when we can, we are strategically allocating resources to move through all our obligations, your refunds will be returned. We will notify people when they will be serviced.

His answer to refunds...

 

Maybe it's all one sided, but I'm tired of waiting for this with no movement. Just like how I'm tired with Megacon with Myth. Sigh...

 

[Glamberry]

I'm in the same boat with Relic Knights 2.0. in one of the comments there he's saying they are starting delivery? As far as I know the two person started just went into manufacturing allegedly. The only thing they showed in the updates was a print of the rules. No proof for any minis and people in the comments are talking about how their refund request are being ignored.

Seems like they started too many projects in too short of a time without having the resources available. I'm still hoping for a delivery...best of luck to anyone who backed any of their outstanding projects!

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

Much as the delays are very frustrating (especially legends which by now has reached disaster status) people shouldn't expect to get refunds (with the exception of a company deciding to dump a project without going bankrupt),

 

you should go into a kickstarter realising that you may end up with nothing, or having to wait (almost) forever for a project to deliver

[Asuranshadow]

Thanks for highlighting the comments. I think the stop to fluff updates is a good choice, it always irritated me to see them over and over, after all the updates on how close wave 1 was originally.  And from comments, I was not alone in annoyance.

[redambrosia]

Wow. They seem... stressed.  Seems like they took on way more than they could handle in a short period. Ah well, it'll come eventually. Or not.

[pcktlnt]

I'm just annoyed that relevant information is posted on places other than kickstarter. I only happened to check the comments last night to see all that. Wasn't a fan of the owner picking out one person and saying he's not a die hard fan because he can't make it to gencon to ask him questions face to face about the super dungeon legends explore and that it's easy to question and ask questions while hiding behind a keyboard. 

 

Why would someone need to drop money to fly to another location? Why do they need to drop money on convention ickets to go inside and ask questions? All of this on top of what they dropped on pledging.

 

Also, if they were not willing to give refunds, they should not have offered the ability to request refunds.

[Kuroneko]

I dropped $250 on this debacle, all I wanted was the minis :(  They're really expensive and hard to get over here, so I thought "why not?"

 

 

[skippen]

10 hours ago, Glamberry said:

I'm in the same boat with Relic Knights 2.0. in one of the comments there he's saying they are starting delivery? As far as I know the two person started just went into manufacturing allegedly. The only thing they showed in the updates was a print of the rules. No proof for any minis and people in the comments are talking about how their refund request are being ignored.

Seems like they started too many projects in too short of a time without having the resources available. I'm still hoping for a delivery...best of luck to anyone who backed any of their outstanding projects!

 

That's why I didn't back Relic.  I wanted to, but I wasn't going to hand them more money when (at that time) were not even close to delivering SDL.

[odinsgrandson]

I can see why they would make this call.

Honestly, SDL isn't the latest kickstarter that I've followed- but it seems to be the one where the fans are the most toxic.

I blame this mostly on SPM's regular update policy.  When you're this late, then all your weekly update does is remind your backers about how late their game is.  And even if you do have something to show (and SPM have done this from time to time) they haven't been able to garner any good will for more than a week (because they won't have news two weeks in a row).

 

With most super late projects, the creators say almost nothing for months, updating only when they have significant news.  Backers mostly forget about the project in the mean time.  Then, there's an update with some REAL ACTUAL NEWS in it- and backers are placated- up until they forget about the project again.

10 hours ago, Asuranshadow said:

Thanks for highlighting the comments. I think the stop to fluff updates is a good choice, it always irritated me to see them over and over, after all the updates on how close wave 1 was originally.  And from comments, I was not alone in annoyance.

 

 

Yes, that's exactly my point.  I think that the fluff updates were bothering people a lot- more than no update at all would have.

I'm honestly glad to see John Canice's word on how they're doing fulfillment (prioritizing smaller kickstarter obligations before taking on the big dog).  It seems like a reasonable plan to get out of the mess they're in.

Edited July 13, 2018 by odinsgrandson

[Glamberry]

4 hours ago, skippen said:

 

That's why I didn't back Relic.  I wanted to, but I wasn't going to hand them more money when (at that time) were not even close to delivering SDL.

 

I sadly wasn't aware at the time (I was fairly new to Kickstarter and didn't check on those things). While I agree that Kickstarter generally is a risk to not deliver and such I'd personally which for the platform to still be monitored. Aka companies not being able to start project after project when they failed to deliver or are largely behind fulfillment, but I know that's not going to happen. Also I think at the very least shipping should be refunded.

[redambrosia]

Those are really good points @odinsgrandson. I mostly ignore their updates, because they're pointless. Kudos, I guess, for trying to stick with the update schedule they promised, but they're mostly just annoying.

[Leader of the Rats]

I think they used this KS money to prop up their business or fulfill other late projects. They were ready to go to production with all the blank boxes samples and pics of the tooling (a year ago? memory fails me) then suddenly, nothing for a long time. Absolutely no news about what happened for the backers, refusing to give refunds, the April production start promise long since past, their other projects plagued with problems. Seems SPM may be circling the drain unfortunately and I hope I'm wrong but all the signs point to sudden chapter 11 or worse chapter 7.

[redambrosia]

That would suck 

[odinsgrandson]

Quick question- does bankruptcy protect a company against their Kickstarter promises?  Because, if NJ isn't taking out bank loans, then there's not a whole lot that it would do for them.  And remember, bankruptcy does not mean the end of a business (although it is horrific PR, but a lot of companies get out of it).  

I certainly hope that they don't go under, though it does look like their expenses have gone over.  I certainly hope they can save their company (to be honest, I'd be out a lot more than just the one KS worth of stuff).   The company has just been going on for too long without regular releases (due to their KS projects) and I'm sure that's hurt them a lot.

It seems like their first priority is to partly deliver on all of their Kickstarters, to garner some good will, and they seem to be trying to support their company with smaller releases in the mean time.  I suspect that a few Kickstarter items that I'm most excited for will be a low priority (the Mutant Chronicles crossovers, for example).

 

I actually think that a number of their recent moves have been smart ones.  The Masterclass line is pretty great (although you have some folks swearing to not give them a dime, others are happy to buy cool minis from them).  The Ninja All Stars crossover is also really good (and adds value to product that is just sitting in their warehouse right now).  They also have Doomseeker coming out soon (a card game that is probably relatively cheap to produce, but with really nice art and the Warhammer setting attached to it).

 

They've definitely dug themselves into a hole, but to me it looks as though they're actually digging themselves out of it (slowly, and with Super Dungeon Legends at the bottom of the priority list).

Edited July 19, 2018 by odinsgrandson