Kickstarter Fuckery

Sending a fucker to Japan for a week costs, what, $3k?

Sure, now imagine you need to do that for every fucking stretch goal.

Especially after making a promise that this KS won't be late like the other one these guys worked on.

Look into ChromeStrike. Fully playable as a small scale war game instead of an RPG, if you prefer. No retarded 'real time' mechanics, but accuracy / evasion modifiers from movement work well to simulate high speed combat. And it's free.

thats a good chunk of money when you still might not even get the licence, doubly so when it comes to the boardgame industry. its not worth it when you can just as easily use a more ambiguous style / name.

Japanese Companies are pretty much all about face to face, you can't get anything done over E-Mail or Phone.
That being said, once you are their, most of them are great to work with. From what I've heard, From is pretty pleasant to work with.

I'm calling bullshit on this. If they aren't trying to scam people, they are, at the very least, dumb motherfuckers. Don't set up a fucking Kickstarter if you have't got your bases covered.

No, I know, I was just trying to make sure.
I wonder how the Dakku Soru KS did so well.

The Dark Souls Kickstarter is still having troubles cause FromSoft wont finalize or agree upon anything. The company making the Board game can't release the pledge manager or any new model images cause FromSoft isn't giving them permission or acknowledging them.

Fuuuck.
Might have to ask for a refund on this one, sure as hell didn't back it for the gameplay.

ole nippon simply can't into boardgames or licencing i guess (pkgo being the exception of course).

The problem is that licenses are handled by the execs, and the execs just don't "get" them like 90% of the time. Bet your ass that this has something to do with Nine Ball/White Glint shit not being part of the original V/Verdict day license they got. Pretty sure we never even got confirmation that the Karasawa is in.

PKGo is desperation, Nintendo is foundering.

So a few months back when I was looking around kicktraq, I noticed something weird was going on with LOAD:
kicktraq.com/projects/1915792245/load-the-board-game/#chart-daily
Anyone know what the drama was about?

Yeah, nearly every model was a straight up 3d rip with alterations from DOTA 2, the rules and abilities for the characters were renamed but also straight up copies.

Didn't affect game play but it was a seriously dick move.

I want this to work, because fuck me if I don't love Armored Core, and the franchise is dead in the water for years.

And I've said for years that I would play Battletech in a momenti f the minis weren't so damned ugly, and that if I could get AC minis I'd play the game in a moment. I can upscale it for these.

And frankly, even if the boardgame itself sucks, someone here or elsewhere will make a turn-based rules conversion. Calling it RTS seems to be only partially true, as each game consists of a few 2 minute rounds in which you get so many actions, so it's more real-time-turns than taking your model and bashing it into things going OVERCHARGE HAHAHAHAHAHA.

But this fuckery undermines most of that. While I would still like the miniatures, strategically de-ACing them reduces the visual appeal, and leaves me wondering if that I really the game I want. I'll still consider it, but it now has to convince me from scratch. Especially since the game design is risky. I suspect that unless the campaign goes so far backwards it gets close to not funded, I'll pull my money and wait for retail, where I can pay a premium to know if the game is any good or not.

I feel bad for them. This is literally the worst thing that could happen short of someone bombing their office. It's highly ambitious project for a beloved franchise with some association with another highly ambitious project that got screwed to hell. I knew Serpent's Tongue, and backed this despite that because it looked and sounded much more professional. But losing the killer IP that drove interest in the game, even if it isn't the only thing, is a disaster for them. And of course it's a Japanese game firm. Their executives are notoriously incapable of existing in reality. Just look at shit like Konami and Squeenix.

I want this to work, but they need to give me a reason to stay on board at this point.

Sometimes big spikes happen. Just today a game I'm backing had two people drop over 2000 Euro apiece on the nobody-will-actually-buy-this level of the game, and that singlehandedly gave them, 10% funding and put them back on track.

But of course you can see the new numbers, and more convincingly, the Kickstarter campaign was hugely effusive about this happening. A campaign slient about a handful of people giving it double-digit percent of its funds is dubious as fuck.

Kicktraq says 51 people pulled ~$10k.

So far. This only came up recently, and most people only ever check their kickstarter once every couple days. I back like twenty projects (mostly because I prefer long shots where my momeny makes a difference) but that makes it impossible to check them all every day. I assume peopel who only ever back one will only ever check when they see emails. And who checks their junk email every day?

Most of the losses will happen within three days, and things will have stabilised within a week at whatever the new real level is. It'll be a big loss, I'd estimate $50,000-$100,000 compared to other campaigns. It would take way more than this to actually sink the campaign to underfunded, something like revelations of serious bullshit on the team's side, or if they handled this really badly. They're handling this very well, so far, considering how huge a fuck-up this is; obviously they learned from ST.

My greatest concern is that this doesn't fail to fund, but does underfund. Obviously, part of their tight shipping schedule is they were making calls and setting orders as the money rolled in. They also committed to not walking back a single stretch goal; ballsy, but frankly necessary to keep consumer confidence. But even if they had unusually generous safety margins in their funding amounts, there's no real way to make stretch goals budgeted at $250,000 at $150,000, say.

And we all remember that, frankly, nothing kills a KS faster than successfully underfunding. A failed KS costs nothing and can be a springboard for a second, better go around. But if you fund and fail, people will remember that shit for a long time. Hell, Serpent's Tongue did this and people were way angrier than if it failed and went for round two.

Honestly I don't care too much. I could tell from the beginning that there was a high chance of some sort of licensing issue due to them using art from AC3 -> LR, AC:4A and AC5, if not just a large dissonance to the theme since none of the aesthetics match up properly.

As long as they are offering Armored Core-like minis I don't care. If they alter the designs so much that they no longer resemble ACs from any of the various games I'll pull my pledge, that's all I'm really in it for. The Advanced Recon mini looks very close to AC3 era parts, yet the only thing that changed about it was the melee weapon, which was a specific weapon from AC:V (and was advertised as such).

The 'RTS' branding is just a gimmick to pique interest. It still has turns, or phases; only that players perform their individual actions simultaneously during a turn. I don't expect (neither do they, judging by comments they made in the comments section days ago) for people to actually play it as fast as they do in the gameplay preview. There's nothing stopping anyone from just houseruling initiative like every other tabletop and then alternating between movement and firing phases if that's what suits them. The Dark Souls kickstarter boardgame has it's own wonky system (and similar licensing issues) too.

The main reasons people are interested are because it's Armored Core and/or they want the minis. If people aren't happy they can easily just say fuck it and pull their pledge. It's not like it's already funded and they are swimming in your money. In 15 days if they haven't resolved their licensing issues or if everything's still shady as shit when they start officially taking people's money then that will be different.

That's fair. I think I'm with you, come to think of it.

Although I really would like the little lore areas of the box and rules to be AC-style, and without the use of the license, there's much less reason for them to have that at all.

Good looking battletech minis(MWO rips):
Warhansa for plastic.
Insane Kangaroo on ebay for pewter.

Kickstarter has been much, much better when it comes to tabletop games than it has for video games (and I say that as someone whose favorite video games of the last few years came from Kickstarter) but you're still taking a gamble when you invest in these things. Same this one's fallen through like that though, I didn't donate but it looks cool.

This was their previous kickstarter:
kickstarter.com/projects/500894669/serpents-tongue-a-new-magick-experience

Apparently it had a lots of problems, partly due to being over-ambitious, and delivered very late with lots of problems. Whichs made lots of people wary of this new KS.

Also, they changed names to create this new project.

That is incorrect. Serpent's Tongue was made by Chris. This currently generic mech RTS board game is made by his brother Matt. Christopher has no ties to this project outside blood.

On the plus side, with the comments section blowing the fuck up that's a handy reason to stay pledged. I'm getting some value for money right here out of the drama.

Niche market. Vidya is the big thing, so more people trying to make a quick buck out of it. Look at the shovelware that gets released on Steam on a daily basis.

I felt the same way about Prodos' AVP boardgame.

While I was one of the lucky ones who got (most of) what I paid for Prodos has made a massive fuck up of things and pissed off a lot of people.

>Look at the shovelware that gets released on Steam on a daily basis.
>mfw all those amateurs not going for the big scam

Wing Commander kickstarter? Where?

It does seem like a shame. I thought the real time mechanics actually seemed kinda fun, but the generic mech designs are just kinda crap.

>real time strategy board game
Can anyone find a video of how this would actually play?

Because it sounds like a clusterfuck of a bad idea.

Always loved me some AC.

But there's no fucking way this game is anything but shit. Real-time boardgame? No dude. No.

They had a video up on their channel showing it off, and it actually seemed potentially interesting.

Each phase everyone had a pool of energy they could spend on actions, but you had to pay for each action individually. LED's on the bases let you see when you could target opponents, and all you had to do was call a Hit, spend energy and put damage cubes into their tray.

It seemed like it could work, to me. While you could try and act as fast as possible, there's also an element of waiting to see what other people do, but at the same time it seems like the entire round is on a timer anyway, so you can't stall That long.

Still, the mechanics being potentially interesting were less than 50% of why I was interested in the project. No AC models? I'm out.

>LED's on the bases

Thanks for the explanation though.

I actually kinda like it as a mechanic. Determining LoS is always the biggest bitch of wargames, for me at least. Having bright LED's in bases and using 'Does the light touch it' as the groundrule for LoS makes a lot of sense to me.

So glad I bailed on that one. The models are ok, but the gameplay looks pretty awful.

Same here. I really wanted that Gaping Dragon, but the sheer scope of the project by the end made me sure there was going to be trouble, and I just couldn't justify buying so much of a game with such generic, boring mechanics that don't fit the style or theme of the source material at all.

kinda reminds me of using a laser pointer to check LoS, but built in, could be neat.

>a game with such generic, boring mechanics
The great thing about games with shitty rules but awesome components is the homebrew viability.

>A clusterfuck of an idea.
There have been good real-time strategy boardgames in the past.

It can work.

Jeez, I'd seen it and gotten excited, then kind of nope'd out when you're supposed to be moving and talking about hitting and whatnot. Not entirely certain how that wouldn't end up being a giant cluster. If i decide to back something, probably going to go with Giga-robo instead, but I need to finish looking into that one better.

Worst-case scenario, the rules are not viable.

Homebrewing a turn-based tabletop game is very easy. I imagine as long as the community is a few hundred strong at least one of them can make a genuinely functional system.

Really, it's all about the models.

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.
Run along now little Jammy. The grown-ups are talking.

>There have been good real-time strategy boardgames in the past.
Name three.

Rock'em Sock'em Robots
It From The Pit
Chess

Checkmate

>Chess
>Real time
>Not turn based
I'm going to assume this is a weak attempt at trolling, and that you aren't actually that retarded.

WW1
WW2
WW2:Pacific Theater

They were limited release, only to be found in Berlin, London, DC, and Tokyo.

Ever play tourney Chess? There's a timer. You can run out of time which means it plays more like a RTS. If you don't recognize the need for speed you probably haven't played chess.

Having timed turns doesn't make it real time.

Hell, you can put a timer on Civilization turns, does that make it an RTS, too?

Try moving all your units lategame under a timer with shared turns, you'd realize it functions way more like an RTS with combat, empire management, and min-maxing cities so you don't fall behind.

somebody brought up some good points in the comments section of the kickstarter just now

the reason for the name change is because of the add-ons are having licensing problems but the main game already had all of the licensing issues worked out and was ready for launch.

so what's stopping them from releasing this as mech commander rts: armored core edition? or at least making the armored core stuff an add-on itself? since they already went through the trouble to getting the license & they still have the basic license for the main game

I think that user has a point. If you think about it, every video game is turn based because of game loop. Those turns are just really short with limited time to make decision (usually 60 "turns" per second) and in effect makes it real time.

Never underestimate the power of Japanese Licensing Bullshit to fuck over projects.

If you read everything Arron has said, since he seems to be the one taking direct and total responsibility for all licensing matters, then it is a matter of several parts;

1. That the license was not actually final, nor in contract, and that their 'agreed in principle' was actually no such thing; this is speculating on my own experience dealing with Japan.

2. That multiple items that they had already promised to backers via stretch goal unlocks were going to need to be negotiated, as were further items in the campaign, so they were having to negotiate every new item in the campaign separately with FromSoft. At best the current items were okay but all future ones had to go through the process, and at worst only the core game was okayed and everything else had to go through them. This raises the spectre that they may have to renege of promised minis, which would be very unpopular.

3. That the negotiations, if carried out, would lead to at best very substantial delays. Given half the team had just come off a campaign gone to pot because of huge delays, they likely wanted to make a huge point of delivering on time. And being fair, even despite the fistfight over licensing, if they deliver the promised items on time this time, I'd forgive them for Serpent's Tongue as a matter of inexperience.

They need to balance the commercial viability of producing the game and making some money, the success of this campaign, and their long-term interests, against the exact and everchangeable anger of the community.

I've been in positions this shitty before, and you really just try and save what you can. After all, for all Jap game companies are fuckers with IP stuff, rights companies for theatrical productions are professional turbocunts. I would walk back over my burned bridges to Konami rather than deal with the fucking rights to staging Broadway musicals again.

You didn't really miss out on Star Citizen, did you? Where have you been for the past few years?

>tfw you're hoping that drop fleet will ship within the week or two, and no more delays
One month within projected delivery is pretty good, but still, I'm antsy for my space ships.

You don't suddenly acquire new designs and shit in a short time, i'm suspicious that they never intended to get the AC license in the first place.

Alright, fun developments. Turns out that a chap called Dmitriev Vasiliy has made some 3d render designs that look to be outright two of the models in the A.I. expansion.

I assume that it's because they licensed his shit or hired him into the sculpting team, since that's the obvious explanation.

I hope this isn't more antics, because on occasion KS teams have panicked over issues like this and done very silly things.
Don;'t know why anyone would have a problem with the big robot being outside licensed, because it's damned cool.

He could have just not known it was a Wing Commander thingy. And besides, although it was highly publicised in the non-publisher games space, that's still a tiny tiny space. I daresay less than ten percent of the ordinary AAA-only gamer crowd would have heard of it.

This didn't start as an AC game; apparently it spent a year as a standalone IP before it slowly became one. They likely had a goodly amount of the content from back then to revive.

Forget this shit, post more kot.

It could more easily be explained by assuming that they never actually had the licence to use the Armored Core brand and likeness but hoped that with a highly successful Kickstarter campaign they could convince From Software to allow them to proceed with them taking a cut.

Why operate this way? Well it has sort of worked with the Dark Souls board game and other similar titles. To someone not familiar with intellectual property negotiations it might seem better to have a large gathering of backers and publicity so that you appear a more wise investment.

However with From Software already having to deal with the whole Dark Souls thing I’m sure they shut it down as effectively as Konami did with the Metal Gear remake project after they realised the other company would be making more money from a product they couldn’t control.

The fact that they were able to switch over all the art, name, game designs etc so quickly to me confirms my theory. In the comments backers are requesting that they re-launch the project so that the high price point can be amended (it was believed that the money was going to the use of the licence).

I’m not normally one to get too involved with Internet drama as it’s usually something simple blown way out of proportion but the management of this campaign seems … off to me. Perhaps they hoped that most of backers wouldn’t check that the game had been modified until after their money had been collected?

The new mech designs really look crap in comparison

Could be. But I also worked briefly with a group of people who had to do deals with Japanese IPs, and they are just shit to work with. Of the five of them, only one of them ever worked with Konami a second time, for example. The others were asked but just didn't want the shit.

Pokemon isn't owned by Nintendo, it's owned by the Pokemon corporation, which used to be a part of Game Freak, they just have an exclusivity deal with Nintendo. Like how Insomniac used to only produce PlayStation exclusives despite being a different company. Or Bungie's Halo being exclusive to Microsoft platforms (especially considering their previous series Marathon, started as a 'Mac-can-do-games-too' proof of concept). It's worth noting that all of those devs now make games for more than one console manufacturer. While Nintendo may be having trouble keeping up, Pokemon is always making money and is totally free to open up development to others if they think Nintendo can no longer hack it. So your argument is basically shit Tl;dr Pokemon is not owned by Nintendo learn about the world before you decide to talk shit.

The Pokemon Company

They don't look different enough to me to matter.

Pokemon is owned by the Pokemon Company, which is owned by Game Freak, Nintendo and Creatures.
So yes, Nintendo does own Pokemon. They just don't exclusively own it.

You honestly expected Konami to give a shit about anything other than its pachinko business?
Breh sounds like you're not competent enough to be licensing other people's IP to begin with.