by Miasma » October 30th, 2014, 4:23 pm
I've been watching this Kickstarter for ages. I've basically been holding off to see how good it gets, and I'll be honest, I've ummed and ahhed a bit. A LOT in fact. Do I go in? Do I need it? I could save the cash, the groups done without it before???! I've kind of made my mind to go in, but I'm an "all or nothing" sort of person. So I'd either want it all, or leave it. I'm a bit of a miniatures collector, so to get the set is how I think. Anyway, I don't want to rain on this and I assure you that I'm not a Troll and trying to cause upset (I've enough of that with work!), but I'm a bit disappointed.
Disappointed might be too strong a word, as it's been well run, excellently updated, professional, the organisers of it have listened to what people want and I like the products (most of them, nearly/virtually all), but just a couple of things. Now this is only from my perspective, and I'm going to be the only one no doubt (story of my life!), but the Completionist is the top whack deal. but it's not complete? Now I'm with that most people wouldn't want one of everything, each item, and you cannot please everyone.
The Gold bags are a great idea, as this allows for variation for everyone. But usually with Kickstarters, the top deal, most expensive, exclusive biggest etc, is the better deal. But there's no top deal of one of everything? I'm just putting this forward, not arguing, just saying. Usually the Kickstarter is gauged to "ease" people, tempt, lure with bags of goodness etc, to put a little bit more in to up it to the next level. But the Completionist doesn't seem that good a deal to the others. The encouragement is in newer items that will or could be produced, and people upping Gold bags to get those additional items. As the Gold bags increase they clearly get better in value. But the set deals don't? Would not a larger deal create more interest and nudge people up a level?
With the Completionist you get Tier 4, compared to the other deals that are there, but at the additional cost, it works out the same overall value? or is it me? If the most expensive deal was better, compared to the others, would this not tease people to "go all in?" Personally it would for me. I'm either looking at Completionist, or a large bag of gold to virtually buy the same. I think I could easily spend 250 Gold. Another question would be, will a 300 Gold or 350 Gold be made available? As virtually all the new items shown, up to 100k are all Tier 5. If it continues, I don't know if 250 would cut it? I think if it gets to 100K, then to buy it all would be 232 Gold, that's not including multiple doors, pillars etc. With multiples, that really adds up!
This is why I used the term disappointed. I'm here waiting to see what happens, but from 70K up to 100K, there's only a tier 3, and nothing to tease people into the highest bracket. In fact looking at the pledge calculator (thank you for doing that else I'd have added it up over a prolonged period) then the highest/top deal, which is Completionist, is actually the most expensive compared to all the other sets available. In fact the completionist actually appears to have got worse, in a sense. Now I haven't read the other 39 pages here or the 6000 comments on the Kickstarter site, so perhaps it's already been mentioned, and I'm missing something?
I understand the Gold bags, as logistically, they are going to more of a nightmare than the set deals. With Gold bags it will be hundreds of random orders. The time and effort alone, would, I'd have thought make them more expensive, compared to the packages, and I'd have thought that the creators would have wanted to encourage people to go for the deals, as the manufacture of a repeated set amount of items in the package, packaging etc, Would make it easier, and thus cheaper. I'd have thought a one of everything deal would be pretty easy organise afterwards, and possibly make things easier for the organisers. I assume I'm reading that right, and the Gold bags work out more expensive to buy items than the set deals? that's the way it looks to me from the Gold/GBP value.
The question I ask the creators, and you've done a great job (but from my understanding of Kickstarters, for you, the real work will start when it ends), is, will the top deals get any better to encourage more people? As I'm sat here thinking, do I?