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[hemmingjay]

Kickstarter campaigns troubles? Lets insult our supporters!

Exactly. Not sure how Draco18s is able to defend that, but it's his prerogative. I am CERTAIN that we are not "deserving of the scathing remarks" for any reason, but especially because his tracking was wrong. Both you and I at least backed the project even though his tracking showed everyone from DF supposedly dropped support when the delay was announced. In fact, we never even discussed the delay, as it was kind of a buried update.

To further address Draco18s, it is quite possible and routine to write easy to understand reward tiers. They botched this, like they have with much of their communication, including their post mortem where they managed to insult many of the people who gave them money and appeared to be ungrateful.   

Making fun of people who write in genuine emails who are new to kickstarter, the internet or english is in bad form.

Suddenly realizing that you have no time to complete the project that you decided to ask for funding for? Incompetent, and potentially fraudulent. They knew that they had other obligations but went ahead and proposed a schedule and requested money based off of that. Then, when NOTHING changed, they decided to delay it. This is even worse than insulting your supporters.

[Draco18s]

I'm not saying what they did was right, what I'm saying is that what they said was not baseless.

[10ebbor10]

Does anyone have the text of that comment. Haven't had a chance to read it.

[hemmingjay]

No, they pulled it down after a few people immediately responded and it became evident that once again, we all misunderstood their comments. They have made no comment about tking it down, or about reposting an edited version.

The stuff about Bay12 was that they said we originally supported them but then when they announced the delay we all turned on them and cancelled our pledges. This was not true and as far as I know, none of us knew about the delay and at least 2 of us did in fact donate. They also said that "people" were insulting them about stealing DF ideas without any of their own, although they did not cite a source for those comments.

They were also unhappy with the fact that Reddit takes offense to advertisers. And finally they complained about emails from people who thought they were getting immediate access to the game because that is verbatim what their descriptions said. They also mocked the poor grammar and english of those who backed them and sent messages.

Additionally, they made it clear that all of the problems were due to how other people responded to their words and actions, not themselves. In short, these guys really have a lot of growing up to do.

"Unless you want to get thrown off a wharf,
Don't come messing with this bay of dwarf"

[mendonca]

They did twit / tweet (they twatted?) an admission of messing up on the postmortem.

I find it hard to interpret Bay12 as being anything other than generally supportive ... ? Any comments that were in the least bit 'negative' were most certainly well-meant, and sincere attempts at being constructive.

In short, these guys really have a lot of growing up to do.

I think it is probably down to a bit of this, possibly a poor choice of words on their part (perhaps aiming for some humour, and failing?), but mostly this.

[boki]

Off Topic... but did i heard good there will be a possibility for towns 2? 
Did they said anything more about it?

[hemmingjay]

Just these guys saying Towns 2 was supposed to run on DwarfCorp's engine but that they got selfish and decided to keep it for themselves.

[Draco18s]

And finally they complained about emails from people who thought they were getting immediate access to the game because that is verbatim what their descriptions said.

"Immediate Access" on a crowdfunding site where it is painfully clear that the project creator is under no obligation to fulfill rewards unless the project succeeds.  Anyone who doesn't understand that doesn't know how Kickstarter is supposed to work.  DwarfCorp is not the only project to have this problem, which is why Kickstarter has had to drop "Kickstarter is not a store" labels on every freaking page.

It should also be apparent to anyone with half a brain that unless money changes hands, the "seller" is under no obligation to provide anything.  This is true for any and every kind of store.  I'd love to see a counter example.  And no, a grocery store doesn't count.  A shopping cart full of goods isn't yours "because you promised you'd pay."  Leaving the building with them and leaving an IOU* will still get you arrested for shoplifting.

That said, the use of the word "immediate" wasn't the best choice, but impossible to fix once the error was discovered.

For example, take these two reward tiers from my own project:

THE FULL CAST: A limited edition of the full physical game with the completed artwork. This includes the 7 player mats, the main mat, game pieces, and 115 cards. This level includes shipping WITHIN THE USA.

THE CAST ABROAD: A limited edition of the full physical game with the completed artwork. This includes the 6 player mats, the Kickstarter exclusive character, the main mat, game pieces, and 115 cards. This level includes INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING.

How many play mats come with the game?

*Checks and credit cards are a complex form of IOU that society and the capitalism machine has declared as legal tender.  In most cases the payee of a bad check is still under some form of obligation to cough up the funds.  Not doing so tends to ruin your credit rating and attempting to subvert the system is called credit fraud.

[hemmingjay]

And finally they complained about emails from people who thought they were getting immediate access to the game because that is verbatim what their descriptions said.

For example, take these two reward tiers from my own project:

THE FULL CAST: A limited edition of the full physical game with the completed artwork. This includes the 7 player mats, the main mat, game pieces, and 115 cards. This level includes shipping WITHIN THE USA.

THE CAST ABROAD: A limited edition of the full physical game with the completed artwork. This includes the 6 player mats, the Kickstarter exclusive character, the main mat, game pieces, and 115 cards. This level includes INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING.

How many play mats come with the game?

*Checks and credit cards are a complex form of IOU that society and the capitalism machine has declared as legal tender.  In most cases the payee of a bad check is still under some form of obligation to cough up the funds.  Not doing so tends to ruin your credit rating and attempting to subvert the system is called credit fraud.

I can see the problem your own KS must have had regarding the confusion about mats. Your language could have been more clear and consistent, but was not too bad. Is it 6 player mats and the main mat? or is it 7 player mats and the main mat? Your tiers are obviously conflicting and the reader is not the one in the wrong.

Likewise, you state that anyone who thought they were getting immediate access to the game should be painfully aware that it's not the case, but I beg to differ. When you start a Kickstarter you are starting a business and you need to assume that every customer is new to the business model and your product. It is your duty to explain to them in clear terms how the process works.

On an unrelated note, were your backers ok with the 1 year delay? Why or why not?

[Draco18s]

I can see the problem your own KS must have had regarding the confusion about mats. Your language could have been more clear and consistent, but was not too bad. Is it 6 player mats and the main mat? or is it 7 player mats and the main mat? Your tiers are obviously conflicting and the reader is not the one in the wrong.

That was one of the wording problems we were trying to fix in the early days.  That error still managed to creep in despite several rounds of editing by no less than three people.  It was supposed to be 6 + main mat, the "kickstarter exclusive character" wasn't a mat, but somewhere along the way it got counted as one (because all the other "characters" are mats).

It is your duty to explain to them in clear terms how the process works.

Except that almost every project on Kickstarter isn't aware of this, and makes the same mistakes.  I don't know who's fault that is, but if everyone is making the mistake, then is it DwarfCorp's fault?

On an unrelated note, were your backers ok with the 1 year delay? Why or why not?

Our backers have been superhumanly patient.  I've one had to deal with two people who have been anything but understanding.  One of those ended when the guy complained that he couldn't play the game with is girlfriend who was moving out of state in the fall to attend college.  I told him, "You have access to the print and play version, it's there, available, now.  Imagine how awesome it will be to greet her back from college with the professionally produced version when it does finally ship."  As to why, I have no bloody clue.

I've also noticed a curious phenomenon of there being no chatter from our backers (i.e. no comments, no private messages, no emails) asking for updates for long stretches, then I'll get a handful of them in a 24 hour period...the day before we were about to put up another update.  It's been like clockwork.  Hasn't mattered how long since the last one, hasn't mattered how significant the news, hasn't mattered what day of the week, but infallibly the day before we were going to push an update, I'd get a handful of emails requesting our status.  To which I'd reply, "Hold tight, we've got an update we're pushing tomorrow or the next day."

Our trip through Kickstarter has been a success in spite of our failings, mistakes, blunders, and other challenges.

We decided against physical rewards because we had no way to adequately calculate how much we'd have to raise our goal in order to cover the cost of producing the goods.  3, 6, 9, 12 months later we're seeing all of these Kickstarter projects have trouble paying for physical rewards, the shipping thereof, or finding that a larger chunk of their cash was going towards reward fulfillment than they expected.

We were having trouble getting the word out and finding a super-excited following.  Kickstarter featured us in their newsletter and our project exploded.

We decided to have only a handful of quantity limited "add content to our game" rewards, entirely based on how much work our artist was willing to do, and priced them in terms of how much it would cost her to produce the art.  Months down the road, all these other projects succumbing to feature creep as a result of customized content rewards or stretch goals.

There are so many ways our project could have gone wrong, so many ways.  And we navigated through it largely on chance.

[burningpet]

Just these guys saying Towns 2 was supposed to run on DwarfCorp's engine but that they got selfish and decided to keep it for themselves.

Hmm.. wait, let me get this straight. did he say WE talked with them about developing Towns 2 and having it run on their engine, or did he say that THEY envisioned it as being a potentially Towns 2 engine, without us asking for it or even knowing of it?

If hemmingjay and alexpoysky engage in some sort of campaign to use some method to crowd fund DF, i would happily join on the crusade for free. in fact, in the indie royale we participated, i had asked the indie royale guys to have a system that donates % from the total sales directly to DF (and potentially other open source/free games) from the bundles sales. in essence, taking the humble bundle donation to "child play" theme and changing it into a donation to notable free games. that was rejected because me being me, as in accustomed to coming up with ideas only in the last minute, i suggested it a week before the bundle started, ie, way way too late.

[hemmingjay]

Draco18s, I am so glad your project worked out so well! It couldn't happen to a nicer person!

Burningpet, they wrote that they were talking to the devs of Towns who had shown an interest in using the DwarfCorp engine to make Towns 2 but that DwarfCorp decided to not share their engine in the end. I don't know if they were talking to someone other than you or nobody at all, but it's part of the statement that was taken down. I really wish someone had screen grabbed it.

As for the DF Kickstart, to the best of my knowledge, Toady has no interest in doing this. Alex and I have a lot of experience in such undertakings and would do it for a very small percentage, but I must say once again that I doubt he would want to. By the way, I used to consult for free for many projects because I wanted them to succeed but I have found that people refuse your advice if you aren't charging for it. I don't know why but it's just the way it works. So I appreciate your offer to help, and if anything does come of it, we would be beyond happy to have your help, but only if you took an equal share. It's never about the money, it's about the principle. And likewise, if you are looking for some help with any of your projects, I am willing to work for just a token payment. My expertise is in Marketing/PR/Community Management and Business Development. I work in the advertisement field right now, but have done a lot with digital media business.

[Draco18s]

Burningpet, they wrote that they were talking to the devs of Towns who had shown an interest in using the DwarfCorp engine to make Towns 2 but that DwarfCorp decided to not share their engine in the end. I don't know if they were talking to someone other than you or nobody at all, but it's part of the statement that was taken down. I really wish someone had screen grabbed it.

I have the original article open on another computer.  IIRC this section was that "Towns showed an interest in the DwarfCorp engine for Towns 2" but that "the teams went separate ways (on friendly terms)."  There was no finger pointing in either direction as to why it didn't happen.

Simply "the idea was entertained, but ultimately did not happen."

[burningpet]

Holy hell! it required a lot of digging to find out what it was all about. the whole thing was a chat of around 20 minutes almost exactly 1 year ago.

this is the video that sparked that offer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZQWJVJOcC8&feature=youtu.be

This video is after bit less than a month of development. which means that when they can get the free time to work on the game, they can get things done pretty fast. so i think whoever backed them can feel pretty safe with this project.

But it does makes me wonder why they removed all those different dwarves and kept just one of them. it brings so much more personality to the game seeing all those different faces.

Hemmingjay - hit me up on skype, would love to chat with you

[hemmingjay]

Burningpet, they wrote that they were talking to the devs of Towns who had shown an interest in using the DwarfCorp engine to make Towns 2 but that DwarfCorp decided to not share their engine in the end. I don't know if they were talking to someone other than you or nobody at all, but it's part of the statement that was taken down. I really wish someone had screen grabbed it.

I have the original article open on another computer.  IIRC this section was that "Towns showed an interest in the DwarfCorp engine for Towns 2" but that "the teams went separate ways (on friendly terms)."  There was no finger pointing in either direction as to why it didn't happen.

Simply "the idea was entertained, but ultimately did not happen."

IIRC, DwarfCorp guy said something about deciding to be greedy and keep it for himself, in a joking manner. I would love a copy of that article if you still have it.