live Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood

[aku-chan]

Made it with a couple hours to spare!

 

One day I'll remember Kickstarter doesn't do Paypal and get things sorted ahead of time.

[Hestis]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:34 AM, Maledrakh said:

This is the kind of project where I would be all over the monsters, if they were available seperately or in a just the minis pledge. But as it stands it is far too expensive.

 

They've said that the Mystery Chest (the box of enemy minis) will be available as an add-on in the pledge manager, but I'm not sure if you need to have a base pledge to get it or if you can pledge $1 and do so.

[odinsgrandson]

 

On 9/26/2019 at 9:55 PM, Darsc Zacal said:

Oh... Okay.

NOT the Oathsworn of Burrows and Badgers fame.

 

I was confuzzled there for a moment.

 

 

My first thought as well when I heard of this.  I'm kind of surprised that they went with a title that had been used before.

Edited October 9, 2019 by odinsgrandson

[Balgin Stondraeg]

On 10/8/2019 at 5:34 PM, Maledrakh said:

This is the kind of project where I would be all over the monsters, if they were available seperately or in a just the minis pledge. But as it stands it is far too expensive.

 

Well then I have bad news for you. It seems the monster box will be available separately as an add on in the pledge manager for people who want extra copies of all the monsters. I think they said it would be around $90 (all the monsters and all their gameplay elements).

[Balgin Stondraeg]

So yesterday or the day before they changed to something called "daily unlocks". I've heard of this phenomenon before but never witnessed it.

 

To my mind this could mean a few different things. First it could mean they don't need any more money and can comfortably afford to produce everything they're going to unlock. This could mean that they never needed to run a kickstarter in the first place (and were just doing so to gauge market interest) or it could mean that they've been much more successful than they expected. It could also mean that they're easily pressured by the vocal minority who were demanding daily unlocks because some other project did it (I did not check how many of those demanders had backed projects with daily unlocks before. That would be an interesting investigation).

 

Daily unlocks could adversely affect funding as it would give people less of an incentive to push that funding level. That would probably depend on how many of these unlocks were add ons. I love what I'm seeing with this project and the sculpts look great (as do the prototypes) but the price they're charging has me thinking we might get very inferior production quality when it comes to the actual miniatures themselves.

[aku-chan]

I like the idea of daily unlocks, but it is odd.

 

Middaras 2nd Kickstarter was widely panned as "boring" and "being a poor Kickstarter experience" for doing daily unlocks, so I don't see there being much demand for Oathsworn to do the same (I haven't been following the comments section though).

 

Maybe they don't think the pledge total will get much higher? Any add-ons are meant to be purely cosmetic, so most of the gains will be coming from new backers rather than the existing ones upping their pledges, and it looks better to keep unlocking stuff rather than very slowly creeping towards each stretch goal?

 

I dunno.

[ced1106]

KDM did something like daily unlocks with their Gambler's Chest, but with more fanfare (rolling dice to see which item was unlocked). 

 

Middara's were predictable standee upgrades to plastic, so mebbe that was why it wasn't as well received?

[Kangaroorex]

Sigh,  I give, I'm in for the game and minis.  I did speak to them at Gen Con and they the plan they told me was that the game is done.  From what i saw and what they said, it sounds like they are well funded and well backed.  the only real concerns i have for the KS are purely logistic, and i love this style of soft RPG so once i saw that it looked to be complete, I was pretty much committed. 

 

I better not get hit by a bus.  I have way too many storyline games to play through.  I just need the time to play them!

 

They Said that the design was done and everything was laid out.  If I were to guess; they are running faster than planned and have the minimum funds they need to make everything but if they go too fast they will run out of stretch goals before they run out of time on the kickstarter.  having your final reveal 15 days in usually means the KS buzz goes flat from there on out.  If you only have a fixed number of goals and dont want to over promise but do want reveals throughout the kickstarter, the daily reveal may be the best option. 

[aku-chan]

On 10/12/2019 at 9:17 PM, ced1106 said:

KDM did something like daily unlocks with their Gambler's Chest, but with more fanfare (rolling dice to see which item was unlocked). 

 

Middara's were predictable standee upgrades to plastic, so mebbe that was why it wasn't as well received?

 

Possibly, but even the Gamblers Chest didn't go over that well. Not having stretch goals just seems to totally freak some people out.

 

I've dropped my pledge on this one.

Was watching a playthrough video last night, and the whole battle part of the game just looks very fiddly and not much fun as a solo player (IMO), I got so bored I didn't even watch the whole thing.

It's a shame as I've been looking forward to this one, and I love the setting and the exploration part of the game, but it looks like the actual "meat" of it just isn't for me.

[SamuraiJack]

I dropped my pledge last night..  I like the minis but there is a whole lot of resin 75mm and busts coming out that I'm more likely to paint and care about...

[Kangaroorex]

Well I will be staying with this project.  Worst case, I can modify the combat rules to make them match what I want to play.  From what I read and watched its no more fiddly than KDM or Warhammer and I like both of those.  Then again, I don't play solo board games (that's what I have a computer for ) and I love what I saw in the minis, especially with the larger size:  as my eyes get older it becomes a lot easier to paint bigger minis!  To me the important part of these games is the story and that sounds pretty solid.  anything I don't like in the combat system can be modified or thrown out as necessary to make the game customized for my group.  To me the 'meat' of the game is the exploration, the combat is just to add the element of chance.  But I see KDM the same way.  the village and the story is the campaign and the real game as the village tries to survive 30 years of horror, the actual showdowns are just little vignettes to add an element of interest and chance.  you could probably replace the combat with a calculated dice roll for each hunt party member and I would be just as happy (hey no one ever said I was normal - I don't like sports games either, though I find tracking a teams progress through a season intriguing) 

 

As I have said before, it looks like they have made what they want to from the KS and what they are looking to do now is offer the items they want to show off without closing down the project.. IMO I don't think they want that many more pledges.  It sounds like they had a specific number of games planned for the print run and going too far beyond that can get them into a lot of trouble with either having too many left overs or not enough to go around. In part, at this point, I think they want the remainder of the kickstarter to be boring as the alternative could get them into an overpromised situation.

 

But to each their own.  at this point in my life, I don't have to worry about my hobby budget and the project looks worth supporting.  I did watch the playthrough at Gen Con and it looked like fun, especially the balancing of time spent investigating vs the goodies for rushing in headlong.  There seems to be a lot of story and investment there, we will just have to see what it brings.  I cant really defend the game cause I haven't played it but as long as I don't see any delivery problems I think the final creation will be fabulous!   Of course it does help that I really can't stand busts - unlike most people, I have no real memory or attraction for faces: its the entire miniature that interests me, the face I have no real skill with and not that much interest in.  And to some extent that extends to the 75 mm figures:  metal is too heavy at that scale and resin is simply too expensive and fragile. 

 

I am looking forward to the game and the story that goes along with it. 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Kangaroorex

[odinsgrandson]

On 10/12/2019 at 2:17 PM, ced1106 said:

KDM did something like daily unlocks with their Gambler's Chest, but with more fanfare (rolling dice to see which item was unlocked). 

 

Middara's were predictable standee upgrades to plastic, so mebbe that was why it wasn't as well received?

 

 

Kingdom Death 1.5 did daily unlocks for everything.  They had a daily roll for the Gambler's Chest, daily reveals for what was already included in the 1.5 upgrade pack, and non-funding related unlocks for new stuff (new expansions, new pinups, and even reprints of some old stuff).  They did one update every day, and nothing was unlocked via traditional stretch goals.  You figure that happens when you hit 4 million on the first day.

Middara's issue was mostly that the unlocks themselves didn't incite a lot of excitement.  Kingdom Death's daily reveals did (and they did include some fanfare- like the "trap" where Adam wouldn't reveal any more stuff until someone beat his extremely difficult Mario Maker level).

Trudvang added daily unlocks when it started to slip (they kept up with funding unlocks as well, so it just looked like a lot of extra stuff).

 

 

I don't think that daily unlocks makes a Kickstarter funding lower,.  I mean, there are some people who are increasing their pledge in the hopes that it contributes to reaching the next goal.

The purpose is to take some of the pressure off, or to space things out 'just right.'  It is clear that a lot of the bigger Kickstarters just make up goals based on what they think they'll reach in the next day or so, rather than how much they legitimately need to produce the extra content.  If the pace drops, backers start getting kind of disgruntled, and the comments section gets pretty negative.

On 10/14/2019 at 3:24 AM, aku-chan said:

 

Possibly, but even the Gamblers Chest didn't go over that well. Not having stretch goals just seems to totally freak some people out.

 

 

 

From a funding standpoint, the Gambler's Chest was received just fine.  There was a backer or two in the comments who were decrying that there should be more stuff since it was funded so high, but other backers kept telling them to back down.





- As for Oathsworn, well, before Kickstarter, awesome miniatures releases were rare enough that I felt like I needed to try and get them whenever they came out.  After Kickstarter, they've become common enough that I seriously need to pass on a lot of the best looking minis releases, because I'll never be able to paint them all.

This year, I'm starting to think the same thing is happening with games.  I'd love to play quite a lot of the games that have Kickstarted this year, but there are now too many that look awesome, and no way that I'll be able to play them all.  Got to start passing on some that look great now.

(mind, a friend of mine is in for Oathsworn, so I'm planning to play with him anyway).

[Balgin Stondraeg]

The project funded yesterday and they've done really well. I've particularly enjoyed the sculpting streams (although Toby really needs to sort his microphone level out as he's barely audible. He actually sounded normal for once in the King of Average interview so I know he can do it). They claim that they'd run out of stretch goals after the first few days so they switched to daily unlocks to keep the project scope reasonable.

 

If you really want to see performance sculpting then you're better off trying to find the Guild Ball sculpting videos (that guy's really good at chatting and keeping it entertaining while he sculpts) but the Oathsworn sculpting streams have been a lot of fun too.

[Kangaroorex]

I am very much looking forward to this.  I am looking forward to the storyline and seeing what lies in wait...