Live Q&A Kickstarter Update (2-13-18)

Didn't see a thread for this yet, so I figured I'd drop the link HERE.

Lots of neat art so far and plenty of behind-the-scenes info!

And now I realized I totally forgot to watch it yesterday :(

Don’t try watching it from an iPad it never loads for some reason. 

So, here's an interesting tidbit from the Q&A...

Prime War represents the "end point" of the Mist Storm timeline.

They said in a Letter's Page recently that we shouldn't get too attached to the Mist Storm timeline, but I wasn't expecting that it'd be ending so quickly!

Doesn’t necessarily mean we’re getting it all in chronological order, though.

That is weird, though. There are so many characters and storylines in that universe that they haven’t covered yet.

Like Catastrophe and Verge, and Warden [Redacted] (not Redacted by me; we never actually saw who it was) and Heartbreaker! (Man Heartbreaker was cool).

Yeah, it surprises me, admittedly.

I had assumed the intent of the rules revamp was to get the Tactics line selling well enough to start expanding it again, but this seems more like "nope this is it no matter how successful it is".

Keep in mind Prime War is out of order since originally the Broken City set was supposed to be first.  So if this does well it may go backwards.  

Aah. OK, that makes more sense.

But writers bein' mean to my precious Wardens, still tsk tsk.

It’s on the Youubes now https://youtu.be/7h3B65dOw3g

Yeah, I’m certainly hopeful that if Prime War does well they’ll go back and at least release a modified Broken City/For Profit since the story and (at least some of the design work, depending on how much will carry over) is done.

But the fact that there’s a relatively quick end to the story means I don’t anticipate many other expansions even if it does very well.

Is that Christopher making some meta commentary on how the Mist Storm timeline is clearly the sadder timeline? It makes us sad by ending too early?

It could just be that the Tactics style of game doesn’t sell to as big a market as other kinds of games, and they want to put out a new kind of game.

Does the Miststorm universe have to be inherently tied to Tactics style gameplay though?  I would think you could have a different style of game that still takes place in that universe, or even the same style of game that takes place in a different universe.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're becoming increasingly invested in the RPG universe at the expense of the Tactics universe.  There's so much room for it to grow and expand in interesting directions.  I have so many questions about all the hints C&A have been dropping about the futures of so many characters.

In contrast, the Tactics universe is just on a downward spiral.  So many deaths, so much destruction, so little hope.  I'm not sorry to see the end of it.  I'm curious about the new Ennead and that's about it.

I'm kinda torn.

On the one hand, yeah, I agree the storyline is wicked depressing.

On the other hand:

1. I love turn-based tactics gameplay in general.

2. The scenario books give us the closest thing we'll get to actual comics.

3. The miniatures give us the closest thing we'll get to action figures.

Like, a lot of my excitement about Prime War kinda admittedly amounts to "PRIME WARDENS COMICS AND ACTION FIGURES HECK YEAH" >_>;

I think you've hit it on the nose with the first sentence there.  There have been a fair amount of allusions to the idea that many of the SotM characters are from past rpg campaigns run/played by C & A.  Christopher has outright said on The Letters Page that he'd rather run a demo of an rpg than a card game or board game, even one he dearly loves.  I wouldn't be overly surprised if Tactics goes the way of the Marvel "Ultimate" universe, with Prime War bringing it to a close, and the remainder of the Sentinels product line moving towards the rpg.

Plus, from a business standpoint?  An rpg is much cheaper to make than a board or card game.  Not as lucrative, true, but much cheaper and easier to produce.

I was also thinking of the Miststorm universe as being like the Ultimate Marvel universe.  Which makes me wonder if they'll do a similar thing and bring some of the more popular characters from that universe into the "main" universe.

Did Christopher ever post the art from the stream anywhere? I can’t find any threads about it, but I may just be blind.

My understanding is that the transcript/"Cliff's Notes" version will be up sometime next week; I'd assume that the art pieces would be posted with it.

Specifically, Haka.

From what we know bringing the original Haka we know and the other Haka into the same universe means they lose their immortality.  

Yep, Haka definitely qualifies.  And then they could do team-up stuff with Aata and Arataki!

Would it be weird if they dated, or would that be perfect?

IIRC, not exactly.

They need to be killed at the same time, IIRC.  Being in the same universe makes that easier to happen, but it would still have to happen.

It was interesting to hear how thier approach to Kickstarter games has changed from:

Are people interested in a thing? They are! Let's make it. or They aren't! Let's not make it.

to:

Are people interested in this thing we are already working on (30%, 50%, 70% done)? They are! We will finish it. or They aren't! Scrap all that work.

The turnaround for successful projects would be quicker with the second method but the risk of wasted work for failed projects is higher too.

Still doesn’t change the fact this means they aren’t immortal anymore.  If they are in separate universes they remain being immortal.  

@cnranger:

The hard part is basically that, I think a lot of the complaining about OblivAeon's length is maybe not because it's actually taking longer than a board game would actually usually take behind the scenes, but because people are so used to board game companies using Kickstarter as a "finisher" that they're used to the "behind the scenes" period being mostly finished before the KS goes off--thus producing a much shorter turnaround time--that it feels like OblivAeon is taking longer than it should.

So I can empathize with Christopher deciding that they'd rather just take the possible financial loss in the future over trying to swim again against the firmly established trend of customer expectations.

I think the two very different development models also might help explain the schism in how different sides of the fandom have been viewing the matter. Since many of the digital-focused players like me are more specifically video game scene fans rather than board game scene fans, so we're used to an industry which primarily actually does use KS as a way to gauge interest and fund the entirety of development before actual work is started, thus often giving us a very different set of axiomatic expectations from the process.

Like I feel I can actually see the axiomatic differences over and over again in the discussions. The video game scene people are like "OblivAeon is coming out much quicker than the stuff I usually back comes out" and the board game scene people are like "OblivAeon is coming out much later than the stuff I usually back comes out" and then each side acts like the other side is right bonkers.

I agree with Jeysie. I could get into other opinions on the complaints on OblivAeon/GTG's pipeline, but I've said my peace elsewhere, so I'll leave that at the door. All I'll say on it is project estimation is one of the hardest things to do effectively, and when money is on the line, it tends to make people that much more vocal. :)

Re: GTG's changing model - One thing to consider with GTG and Kickstarter is that a lot of their games more recently have been acquiring licenses for games from other companies and putting a different coat of paint on them and adding touch-ups, rather than building them from scratch. Exoplanets, Dubai, Lazer Ryders, and Fate of the Elder Gods are all pretty good examples of gauging interest in a product without wasting as much investment in it should it not fund.

Meanwhile, products that GTG invested more time/energy into the production of (OblivAeon, RPG Core book, Prime War) are likely going to happen regardless of how the Kickstarter did/does, but it gives them information to decide how to further invest in the product lines. I expect we'll see Prime War someday (at this point, they need to do something for the backers of Broken City), but if the preorders for that don't get much attention beyond the initial backers, I wouldn't expect much interest in further products. Same with the RPG book.

Technically, no?  But effectively, yes?  If Haka were to somehow make it back to his original timeline (maybe with some help from a trapped-outside-time-and-space Commadora?) he and Lady Haka would continue to be just as immortal as they always were.

IIRC, even in separate timelines, there's still a possibility of them dying.  However, since the likelihood of both Hakas dying at the same "time" while living in separate universes is effectively zero, they are functionally immortal.  So them being in the same universe changes the possibility of death from "theoretically possible but realistically never gonna happen" to "this could actually happen".  Just depends how closely you want to be splitting hairs.