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Mantic’s Sci-Fi Dungeon Crawler Star Saga Launches On Kickstarter This September
September 16, 2016 by brennon
Mantic Games' Sci-Fi dungeon crawler, Star Saga: The Eiras Contract, is set to launch on Kickstarter September 26th 2016. Are you ready for this one?
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More on the game...
"Star Saga: The Eiras Contract will see players guide a team of space mercenaries on a mission to retrieve stolen data plans from a research facility orbiting a far-off alien world. Players will take on platoons of minions, powerful alien bosses and be forced to make difficult choices as the story takes unexpected twists and turns.
The spiritual sequel to Dungeon Saga, Star Saga introduces newly improved and stronger rulesets, 'learn as you go' rules for new players and, more detailed, advanced mechanics for seasoned gamers."
Does this sound like it would appeal to you?
Let us know in the comments...
"Star Saga: The Eiras Contract will see players guide a team of space mercenaries on a mission to retrieve stolen data plans from a research facility orbiting a far-off alien world..."
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Yet another Kickstarter from Mantic, what a surprise!
how many outstanding kickstarters do they currently have?
Mantic are a bloody joke x
Sometimes I wonder if they use the money from the current running KS to pay for the latest one?
so much for thier claims of supporting retailers and the statement that their games need to be able to stand on their own.
Ill back this when the ‘fixed’ second edition rolls around in 2 years
This is the ‘fixed’ 2nd edition of Dungeon Saga. Had to change the theme, would have been a little too much even for Mantic to release a fixed second edition branded with the Dungeon Saga logo not even a year after the previous kickstarter shipped.
If Mantic want to release a “fixed” version of Dungeon Saga (it doesn’t need it by the way) then re-skinning it and releasing a sci-fi version is not the way to do it. The best way to release a version 2.0 of the Dungeon Saga rules would be to release version 2.0 of the Dungeon Saga rules. Expect the Star Saga rules to be subtly different, beyond any general improvements made to the original rules. For example I doubt there will be magic, there will be more emphasis on shooting and possibly cover, area of effect weapons etc etc. This isn’t Dungeon Saga 2.0 it’s Star Saga 1.0
As I said, this soon after the release of Dungeon Saga is too soon for them to release an actual 2nd edition. They are trying to capture the same audience with a similar game and promises of improved rules, this game is 2nd edition Dungeon Saga in all but name.
I don’t think Star Saga is an attempt to fix the original Dungeon Saga, there’s not much wrong with it to be fixed. What seems more likely to me is that Mantic have decided to make a game simil
Similar to Dungeon Saga and took a critical look at the rules for ways to improve on them.
As for trying to appeal to a similar audience to Dungeon Saga, isn’t that just what businesses do? I’m sure it makes good business sense to do that
All of their Kickstarters have been outstanding so far. I’ve backed several and will probably back this one too. I’ve never had any issues with either delivery or communication.
Ive obviously backed differnt mantic kickstarters to you
I have recently (last 12 months) taken delivery of Dungeon Saga and Dead Zone Infestation and had no problems with either (and my Dungeon Saga pledge was huge). I believe Warpath is almost ready to start shipping.
No issues for me either.
Me either, always enjoy mantic KS and will probably back this one.
And… no thanks.
Never again Mantic. Never again.
My answer to the question is:
it depends!
I’d like a real sci-fi miniature game NOT a star wars copy. So not a space fantasy!
’bout the uproar:
Yes i do think Kickstarter is being a bit abused by some companies and i fear Mantic counts among them.
I mean… i do not mind if you pay the upfront costs through a ks campaign but the product has to live beyond that!
Mantic’s games are 99% what u get from the ks 1% new releases… and then another KS for the version 2.0
I absolutelly agree and this is reason why I dont do mantic kickstartes anymore. I like their products just not the way they do it,
In what way is it being abused? Mantic are a small company and Kickstarter is allowing them to make bigger products than they would otherwise be able to do. But so far every Kickstarter they have run has gone to retail and they have a good track record of delivering to backers.
I haven’t had any problems either. I’ve backed several of their projects and at least from my perspective there are no complaints about their KS projects. I am positive about their minis in general as well (good quality FOR THE PRICE). The only issue I’ve ever had with mantic is their rules and support are meh. But lets face it 85% of their business model is just providing proxy minis to be used with other companies (mostly GW) rulesets/game systems. At least here in the US that is the case.
I won’t deny that they probably do too many Kickstarter projects, they are as bad as Cool Mini or Not anymore. Just cash grab after cash grab after cash grab. But… they do deliver what is promised in terms of minis/terrain … so I agree they keep doing them because the vast majority of their customers find value in their KS projects and keep funding them. Until that stops being the case, they’ll probably keep doing this. Fine by me 🙂
Selling anything is technically a cash grab. As long as I am getting what I paid for I’m not overly fussy about whether it comes from a Kickstarter or whether it comes off the shelf in a store.
Mantic really likes funding they projects in KS do they. One would think that after all these years they would already have funds to do they projects without help from KS.
One might be surprised at the margins and finances in this industry.
^^^^
That sums it up completely 🙂
I place the tight margins Mantic faces on Mantics shoulders as they are the ones setting the price for the product. If I was them I would charge more for what they sell, but that me not them of coarse.
If they were to charge more they’d need to increase the quality a lot more first.
Never underestimate how difficult it is to convince investors to part with their money.
Those things tend to have strings attached.
To be fair, even Ronnie had a room at home full of money he swam around in like Scrooge McDuck, it would still make sense to take games to KS. There’s a reason they’re successful and it’s because they benefit all parties.
Ive found mantic to be the weakest of the ‘contemporary class’ of miniature games companies, but the one who is most reliant on KS.
everyother game, even those that were first funded on KS have grown organically. Mantic have a habit of chucking everything on KS, forgetting about the game for several years and then doing another KS when they are after money/remember the game exsists.
there have been many successful UK based companies of the last few years; Hawk wargames, Steamforged games, Gripping beast, warlord and so on, all of whom have found a niche within the market and success, none of whom have been reliant on KS.
Mantic continually let people down, and seem to never learn from previous issues
Steamforged have done two games with minis and both have been launched on KS. Dave did DzC before KS was a thing. When it came time to do DfC, guess what, he went to KS. That’s before getting into the fact that different companies have different business models that makes different things suitable for them. Mantic have built a successful business on big box games released via KS. SF and Hawk have built successful businesses by focusing on one game. More than one way to skin a mini cat and all that. No-one is obliged to buy anything from any of those companies, but so far enough people like what Mantic do to make their business model viable.
Guildball recieved intial funding on KS and has grown organically since then, they have not gone back to KS for Guildball.
Hawk have grown Dropzone and went to KS to fund a new game in Dropfleet via KS. They had the oppurtunity to fund resistance with KS but didnt.
To compare mantic, 3 KS a year and minimal support afterwards to these companies is a bit disingenious.
I would argue the claim that Mantics model is successful as they seem unable to exsist without a continual influx of money via KS
They can exist without the Kickstarter money but they couldn’t develop as many new products.
its the excessive development of new product that is unbalancing the game, look at DB 26 teams in 3 years then they reboot it with a second edition to fix all the issues these teams brought (and then blamed this on the fans for demanding too many teams)
What, like Kings of War Historic?
I just wish they would concentrate on 1 (or even 2) things at a time rather than all these endless kickstarters for new games.
What is happening with Warpath and Deadzone? Have people even got their rewards from the last KS yet? The one before that?
The problem is, people keep backing the kickstarters so Mantic keep doing them. They will never support the LGS and they will keep releasing incomplete game after incomplete game so long as folk keep throwing them a million + on each KS project.
dreadball 2 their last KS, made less than 200k, People may be wising up to their practices
They just fly by so often I must have missed that one entirely.
My LGS currently sells plenty of Mantic products. Deadzone and Kings of War seem to be quite popular.
But that isn’t because Mantic are actively supporting them in any way. By pushing all of their products’ initial sales via KS it means they are depriving LGS’ of a chunk of cash that instead goes to KS and Amazon.
Basically means that stores have very little incentive to get gamers hooked on a particular game as 2 years down the line, Mantic will just sell a new edition via KS again. All LGS’ get is the scraps of business left over after each Kickstarter. Also Mantic are not really providing ongoing support or expansion to the games. This in turn means that none of the games really take off as well as they should in stores and so many who back the KS’ or but into the games are left with a lack of opponents after any initial excitement generated by the KS dies down.
This may not be the case in your particular group, but I would guess it is more often than not the case in a large percentage of stores.
They should look at the pre-order system for the latest Frostgrave stuff. That has done really well and as retailers have been involved, gives them all incentive to further promote the game.
They’ve done retail exclusive models for the TWD kickstarter.
So if you want ‘everything’ then you’re going to have to visit your local shop …
That’s the solution to the problem.
Quite a few kickstarters have done similar stuff that makes it easier for retailers.
There is no ‘chunk of cash’ that shops would have gotten without Kickstarter.
I’d even argue that as a result of Kickstarter these games have an audience the moment it gets to retail.
But the audience you mention already have everything they will ever need from the kickstarter they backed so in reality there is no audience at retail.
As i said @limburger, all the LGS’ are left with are scraps. A few retailer exclusives.
“There is no ‘chunk of cash’ that shops would have gotten without Kickstarter”
Yes, there is. Quite a large one to the tune of a million dollars in some cases. Provided Mantic make a quality product (maybe that’s why there’s no cash?) and they push the product correctly through stores there should be no great loss in audience. I would even argue that the audience could be higher as there’s plenty of folk who won’t back a Kickstarter and have lost interest by the time the game releases.
As @growler78 said, much of the “audience” already have most of everything they need from the Kickstarter so are unlikely to make much by way of further purchase, especially when all the expansions are also available through Kickstarter.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. Dungeon Saga has been listed as “sold out” on the Mantic website at least once in the last 12 months which means as a product it is still selling. LGSs are more than free to sell that same product and make some money. And my LGS does sell Mantic games; they always have a decent selection of Kings of War and Deadzone products.
Frostgrave was also partly crowd-funded. It was just done via their own pre-order site rather than kickstarter. But they took a load of money from pre-orders and then used it to cover the manufacturing costs.
That could equally mean that retailers have ordered a few copies each to stock and Mantic’s supply chain is struggling to keep up. Fair play to your LGS. They must be very kind folks to actively support a company which insults them at every turn.
FG’s latest pre-order system was done via retailers, therefore not only giving the retailers an incentive to promote it, but actively ensuring they remain a part of the chain for the future of the game.
Again, you mention the scraps of business left over (“LGSs are more than free to sell that same product and make some money”) as if the retailers should be thankful that they get to see any action at all.
I think it might have been you who mentioned the “scaps of business left over”. I just said gaming stores are free to stock what they wish.
If I’m being brutally honest, I don’t really see why Mantic or anyone else are or should be obliged to support Gaming Stores. They’re very much a double edged sword and manufacturers make far more money per unit sold selling directly than they do through the gaming store system. It’s not so much that anyone should be thankful but I certainly don’t think that games manufacturers have any obligation to support retail stores.
Without retail stores, many players have nowhere to play so never actually play the games in the first place. Sure they can buy the game on Kickstarter but it is the retail stores and clubs that keep the game alive after its initial creation by recruiting new players and providing gaming space.
If Mantic had their own chain of retail stores with which to recruit players, it would be less of an issue for them.
Do you play at a store? If not, pretend that you do. If that store closed down through lack of sales, where would you play? Where would all of the store’s customers play? KS and Amazon are not going to provide space to play and neither are Mantic.
“Gaming stores are free to stock what they wish” = “Gaming stores are free to stock the scraps left over after Kickstarter”.
You keep talking about the scraps left over after the Kickstarters have been delivered. Without those Kickstarters there wouldn’t even be any scraps. Mantic use the Kickstarter revenue to fund all of the development costs for their products and without them most of the products probably wouldn’t exist. What you seem to be asking is that Mantic stop using Kickstarters, thus significantly slowing down the rate at which they can develop new products, in order to make sure that gaming stores and retailers get their share of the spoils. That doesn’t really make any sense from a business point of view, especially when you have the means by which to sell your products via your own webstore.
It’s not for me to tell anyone here what their principles should be but it does seem to me that your entire argument is based on a principle that Mantic have a duty to support independent retailers. That’s just your own opinion really but doesn’t really make any business sense. Especially considering that there aren’t actually that many local gaming stores in the UK. I live in Manchester, arguably the second biggest (and certainly the second most affluent) city in the UK after London and my nearest Local Gaming Stores is Element Games in Stockport, at least half an hour’s drive (discounting traffic). In the centre of Manchester we have a couple of comic stores with gaming “add ons”, mostly RPGs and we have Fanboy 3 which as a rule seem to focus more on card games and don’t carry a large stock of games beyond whatever is “cool” at the moment (X-wing gets shelf space, for example). i can’t say I blame them for not carrying a great deal of stock but it does mean I tend to shop elsewhere and it’s certainly not necessarily something I’d be relying on to carry my product range if I was a manufacturer like Mantic
All manufacturers who want the independent stores to stock their product have a duty to them, as do the gamers who play at those stores. Just as the stores owe a duty to the manufacturers to continue to promote their product and to the customers to keep providing their service. It is a symbiotic relationship that falls apart as soon as any one loses respect for the other.
It makes perfect sense as a business model for both the manufacturers who desire a wider, more permanent consumer base for their products, and for the store owners, who want to stock a popular, ever expanding and evolving product range. Mantic seem to miss this entirely. While I am sure if all retailers stopped stocking their products, it wouldn’t affect their immediate Kickstarter sales, it certainly would affect their ongoing player base in a negative fashion.
There is a number of reasons why many of the smaller retailers have failed, particularly those in city centres where space costs a fortune. Online sales with big discounts play the largest part, hence why most stores now do their own online sales. Another large part of it is the pre-order culture created by sites like Kickstarter that cuts retailers out of the equation entirely. Many people rely on game stores as a place to meet and play games, yet have never spent a cent at the store and have no intention of doing so because stores cannot possibly compete with the kinds of discounts available via Kickstarter and everything they need to play beyond the odd non KS model is included in the pre-order. Why should the stores cater to those kinds of players? Why would they promote games which gain them very little by way of ongoing sales?
What I would like Mantic to do is at least continue to evolve and support their games outside of Kickstarter. There was no need for Dreadball 2nd Edition to go via KS. Same for KoW. There was no need for all of the DS expansions to be via KS either. If they really do need a pre-order system, what is wrong with a system that is inclusive of retailers? Mantic are happy to give a large percentage to Amazon and KS, so why not to retailers who will actively help grow their business in exchange?
It doesn’t help that the Mantic business model also seems centered around the “fad” culture, rather than growing and supporting any game naturally. Run a Kickstarter, take people’s money and then before even delivering their rewards, throw a new shiny thing in their faces so they forget the first game and buy the new one. That way they never need to continue to expand or support the old games, just make new shiny things over and over.
At least it keeps the disappointment of receiving the sub-par product to a minimum if you’ve already forgotten about it I suppose.
It’s not that our gaming stores in Manchester have failed – they never actually existed.
As for whether things needed to go to Kickstarter, I believe @redben has already said why kickstarters are so popular, I don’t need to post it again. It seems to me that really, you just don’t like Kickstarters which means that you’re never going to like companies that rely on Kickstarters (Mantic, Battle Systems and so on).
I like Kickstarter projects just fine and have backed quite a few. I get why they are popular and why companies use them a lot. What I don’t like are companies who just sell via Kickstarter over and over and use it as a crutch to justify a poor end product.
I think Mantic’s initial ideals of supplying fantasy and sci-fi miniatures at low prices were admirable and I initially supported them heavily but their current practices just leave me bewildered. They seem to be just firing shots in the dark and hoping something hits. I think their recent industrial terrain releases were fantastic for example, as are the new Forge Fathers Steel Warriors, yet Dungeon Saga was just a box full of low quality miniatures and some card tiles I can use for D&D. The best part of it IMO was the furniture.
Battle Systems make some great, innovative products so I am happy to support them on KS. Also they aren’t the kind of company that needs to rely on local stores for players. I don’t particularly like CMON’s business model of relying heavily on KS and I don’t back them for that reason, but at least their products tend to be polished products and not second editions of fairly recent games or half-arsed rushed releases.
I hope to be proven wrong on the quality of their latest stuff as I think Ronnie has really good vision and his heart is certainly in the right place. I would love to see them do well as a company. They won’t truly impress me until they throw off this Kickstarter obsession though.
I think they’re doing more than firing blindly into the dark and hoping something hits; they have done 12 Kickstarters and all 12 have funded, that’s more than just blind luck. Personally I think Ronnie listens to what people are talking about, looks at what people are currently buzzing about and looks to get into that market as early as he can and he can do that because he doesn’t produce high end miniatures (he’s never made any pretence that he does) and because he uses Kickstarter. That combination allows Mantic to accelerate the time from concept to production. Generally I find the quality of their miniatures to be highly variable although for me it’s almost entirely a question of component and cast quality (things just not fitting correctly). The miniatures in Dungeon Saga are alright because they’re monocasts, no components to be assembled so no fit issues; they’re nothing special but they are better than regular boardgames pieces (for example Descent by FFG) and they don’t look bad painted up (in fact I quite like the Barbarian miniature). But let’s face it, you don’t buy Mantic Games for the quality of the miniatures, I know I certainly don’t. Quantity maybe, quality no. I buy Mantic’s games because they’re usually very easy to learn and fun to play and that has been my experience of both Dungeon Saga and Deadzone.
I’m not overly critical against Mantic some scuplts are even good like plague’s gen 1 the dogs, the zombies the enforcers
ther aren’t top notch compared to other companies but they are also cheaper!
And the Battlezones are REALLY cool!
I DO agree though they should make a product stand on his feet and not rely on the “next KS project” to carry on…
Wow, let it never be again said that only GW threads attract haters!
Wouldn’t call it hate, just seems like a few people a little disgruntled with Mantics reliance on KS, a few have maybe been burned on previous KS.
KS works for Mantic, may not be in the original spirit of crowdfunding but if it gets games on tables then so be it.
I really hoped by now Mantic were now big enough to not have to use a KS crutch but I guess their profit margins are not ready for that yet.
Those “disgruntled” do appear to beat the dead horse over and over again.
Almost exactly how the anti-Sigmarine crowd behaves for GW.
Yeah, we know it sucked for them.
Can’t wait for TWD to be delivered and prove them wrong …
I try not bash mantic despite personally avoiding them, because I think they are trying to do some positive stuff. Also they do things like free pdf of deadzone 2 rules.
However TWD isn’t going to ‘prove anyone wrong’ quality is poor, quality control is non-existant and mine and others have had poor customer service experiences. What will revise the opinion is when quality comes up and products get better supported.
Felt I had to comment as your post was rather dismissive of genuine issues Mantic have as a company. This, for many isn’t raging gamers, its genuinely disgruntled customers with genuine reason to be disgruntled.
Hope they turn it around but spamming KS isn’t the way to do that in my view
And most of the “hate” on GW articles is disgruntled ex players who either didn’t like paying what GW were asking or they don’t like the fact that the canned WFB. The reasons for disgruntlement are different but it’s the same concept.
The other thing worth noting is that with any Kickstarter some orders are going to be wrong or go missing. That’s always going to happen but it’s important to look at the number of satisfied customers and they never shout the loudest. When you run 12 Kickstarters, the dissatisfied customers from each one start to build up into what can seem like a large number however the overall success rate probably still remains quite high. Dungeon Saga had over 5000 backers which means that even if 500 incorrect pledges were sent out (I doubt it was that many) their success rate would still be 90%. But 500 angry voices will sound incredibly loud.
In terms of product quality yes, some of their stuff leaves a lot to be desired and very recent offerings from Deadzone and Kings of War have not remedied that. But their prices do reflect a drop in quality compared to other manufacturers and their Kickstarters are discounted even further (we got over £300 of Dungeon Saga stuff for £200 by backing it).
@onlyonepinman of course stuff goes wrong, stuff goes wrong with other kickstarters. Stuff went wrong with guildball kickstarter, its how stuff going wrong is handled that effects the opinion of the customers.
As to GW issue, there is more going on there, it doesn’t relate to quality or customer service, its more company direction and choices. That is a different kind of issue to my view.
As to quality to price miscasts, mispacks are not acceptable. Not cleaned up, lower material quality, lower res production are a side effect of lower costs
The motive for posting is disgruntlement, the only difference is the reason for the disgruntlement. I don’t really see how one reason is more or less valid than the other.
The unboxing of the TWD kickstarter shows that they’ve taken steps to make quality control easier. The minis are packaged almost exactly like Zombicide does.
I’m not denying that you may have experienced poor customer service, but I’m sure I can find a victim of poor service for every developer/publisher on the market.
Things do appear to have improved on their end based on what they’ve shown so far.
Whether or not that will work remains to be seen, but there’s hope.
As for their preference of using KS instead of traditional investors ?
I don’t care.
I do prefer their method of creating new games to that of GW, because at least there’s some effort involved whereas the GW line of thinking seems to be focussed on finding methods of selling the same mini at a different price point.
“In my opinion, they’re not as bad as GW” is hardly an effective argument in support of Mantic’s games and business practices.
Why do you feel the need to deflect the issue towards GW? This article is about Mantic and they really need to stand on their own by now.
surely its best to have the product in hand and know that its of good quality/not a botched delivery before proclaiming that it will prove people wrong?
In regards to that statement, I dont begrudge people backing certain Kickstarters, I am not a fan of Mantic and their policies, and from experience they dont seem to be making any steps to improve their services, but I dont want to see people disapointed. Hopefully the upcoming games (warpath, DB2, Walkingdead…) are what the backers are after and leave them happy.
I’m a critical bastard but im not an arsehole
Hahahahhaaahahahahhahahhaha…
No!
I invested a fair amount on Dungeon Saga…and have only played about 3 or 4 games. It wasn’t bad by any means – and the minis will find use in my KoW armies – but it just wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.
I am happy to play the timed missions of Star Wars Imperial Assault, but somehow the time restrictions inherent in DS seem more annoying. I have played games where it felt like you had to get through, say, a certain door by a certain round or you couldn’t complete the mission in time. This made things feel rather linear – as if there’s a definite best way to do things. For a dungeon exploration game, I want more freedom than that. I am happy for too much faffing around to invite random encounters, but players should be able to drag their feet a bit in order to explore without blowing the mission.
I only backed one Mantic KS so far, The Walking Dead. Apparently all is going more or less as planned and we should receive the goodies end of next month, fingers crossed.
However, I’m generally no a huge fan due to the long time it usually takes before you get anything (if at all).
I would like manufacturers taking a financial risk and therefore selling a polished and well thought through product they are willing to support wholeheartedly on a long term basis.
On the other hand beautifully designed projects like Kingdom Death probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for crowdfunding.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as I like the general idea. For me become a backer Manic will have to improve their sculpts tho, I’m not a huge fan of their current Sci-fi figures
The DS sculpts were very nice and the TWD figures managed to tempt me enough to back the KS.
Let’s wait and see..
For me Mantic’s biggest problem as far as miniatures are concerned, is the component quality – nothing fits together properly. The design of the sci fi stuff ix actually alright even if some of the poses can seem a bit awkward. Dungeon Saga mitigated the component quality by using single piece miniatures
Wait until after everyone receives their goods to declare it a success. This is generally the point where a Mantic kickstarter falls apart, either due to incompetence in the warehouse, or incompetence in the game design team.
I’ve never had any issues with missing components and I’ve made 3 pledges so far, one of the very large.
I’ve never had trouble with a kickstarter delivery either, but that doesn’t negate the experience of all the people that have. On the other hand, I’ve been very disappointed with not only the miniatures I’ve received, but with the rules themselves. Mantic rush their products to market when they start running out of time, and consequently things go unplaytested, get printed without proper error checking, and are made of subpar materials. Even the sculpts are generally kind of poor (although that is forgivable due to their price).
I’ve backed a lot of kickstarters and by far the most problematic are those done by Mantic. Not once have I been part of one of their projects (technically 6 of them, although I only pledged for a dollar on two of them to get the PDFs) where there hasn’t been massive problems with the shipping, or drama because of stretch goals they didn’t fulfil, or changes made to the product that make it significantly worse after the funding has closed.
It doesn’t negate it but nor does make bad experiences the norm and what you tend to find is that people who have had a bad experience shout quite loudly about it, people who had a good experience say nothing. Even if only 10% of their backers had a bad experience, after 12 Kickstarters that turns into a sizeable number of people being very vocal and it can end up seeming like Mantic are the worst company ever to hit Kickstarter which couldn’t be further from the truth
Totally agree. Look at the Adventurers Companion they rushed out and tried to get away with. The amount of corners cut with dungeon saga (and just plain mistakes) says it all about Mantics ability to run a Kickstarter (the most important part is after the campaign). Lots of company’s have delays or bits of pledges that they cannot fulfill but with Mantic it is endemic.
Also, why do people assume that just because a small minority are vocally unhappy, that the silent remainder are happy.
I have not posted my displeasure of DS on KS but I am certainly less than impressed.
Here’s the thing right. No one is claiming that Mantic is the worst company to hit kickstarter, but judging by the number of disgruntled customers they are far from the best. Aside from that what makes them an illegitimate target of criticism? They have yet to prove they can run one of these things without screwing up, and until they do I don’t see any reason not to give fair warning to people who might otherwise be unaware of their reputation.
As @lukeabberley says, there’s no reason to assume that ‘the silent majority’ all had a good experience either. But lets say that even aside from that your guess that only 10% of their customers are unhappy is correct, that is an unacceptable number, especially for a company that relies on repeat business. Over even a small number of kicstarters that starts adding up to a significant number of customers they are causing to swear off their products.
And this is where I think you have it wrong. Dungeon Saga got well over 5000 backers. Now, I don’t know what a normal delivery success rate is but even if Mantic have a success rate of 90-95% that’s 250-500 people who’s orders were wrong. 250 people on a Facebook page will look like Mantic are terrible but it’s still only 5% of the overall backers. Multiply that by 12 (the number of Kickstarters they’ve done) and suddenly you’ve got a lot of people on your hands. But where are the other 95% of backers? They’re at home enjoying their pledges and not commenting of Facebook. So when it comes to figuring out whether Mantic are good or bad, you can’t just listen to the online feedback because that probably only gives you 5-10% of the story, and it’s the shit part if the story at that.
I`m looking forward to my walking dead KS… be my first zombie game infact….. shame I have not painted any of my Mars attacks items…. I will back this if it ticks my boxes, we have to wait and see….
There’s going to be a New Blaine soo I’ve got to back it 🙂
While I would like to see mantic not seem beholden to Kickstarter, it works for them and I’d rather get molar cool stuff.
What’s a New Blaine?
Mantics Sonic the Hedgehog, intially a stretchgoal to promote DBX in the original DB campaign he has appeared in each subsequent KS. Imagine a rough and deranged Plo Koon from star wars
Mantic’s Kickstarters (with the exception of walking dead) always have a character called Blaine in them.
He’s like mantics Boba Fett, I’d happily bet my house on him being in their kickstarter.
Or their White Dwarf. They make a special version of him for each Kickstarter
Ah..okay.
Cheers guys!
Out of curiosity why all the bitterness towards Mantic about running kickstarters?
I see people complaining that about having multiple on the go still unfulfilled… Mierce miniatures has done 13 campaigns in the span of the past 2-3 years, and at least 4 of them aren’t 100% fulfilled, but i Never see this kind of comments about them; what’s the difference?
Quality?
And what about the costs?
Quality of what, product or Kickstarter campaign?
In terms of quality Mantic’s miniatures and models do fall well short of many other manufacturers and Kickstarters. But so do their prices and it’s a trade off alot of people are happy to make.
product mainly, rules second (mainly balance between factions). Id also argue that given the lack of quality, their prices arent even that competitive anymore
If it’s quality you get what you pay for. Mantic do produce a lower quality product but they charge a lower price. Their Kickstarters add a further discount onto the eventual retail price.
However the quality question isn’t really anything to do with why people are unhappy with Kickstarters. It’s more about whether people like Mantic products in general. The Kickstarters aren’t really affecting the quality, the quality is determined largely by company philosophy i.e. putting large armies on the table cheaply. The reduction in price comes at the expense of quality. This would be true regardless of whether they Kickstart a product or not.
Mantic don’t really charge a lower price than most non-GW plastic manufacturers. Only their huge army deals are really competitive.
Compare Mantic plastic Zombies (one of Mantic’s best looking kits IMO) to Wargames Factory (now Warlord Games). The WGF ones are better looking, more detailed miniatures for less money. OK, they may not fit into a fantasy game, which is where Mantic zombies are great, being usable in any setting.
Shieldwolf Orcs, WGF Skeletons, GBP or FFG humans. All nicer minis than Mantic for less money. Heck, even GW aren’t far above Mantic’s prices with some of their plastics and some are even cheaper when compared to Mantic’s hybrid kits (e.g. GW Savage orcs with bows £30 for 20, Mantic Orcs with bows £36 for 20).
ost Non-Games Workshop plastic manufacturers fall into one of two categories.
1) Historical
2) Low Quality
So without referring to historical miniatures, what other companies are currently making plastic fantasy miniatures that are higher quality than but similarly priced to Mantic (for reference Mantic work out at roughly £1/miniature).
How many games (heck, miniatures) has Mierce Miniatures re-done/re-hashed in those 13 campaigns? How many times have they said they are going to work to support FLGS? My guess is none. Mantic has frankly abused Kickstarter for every project with promises of big things but by the time the product is delivered is it not quite there.
The bitterness is due to the fact that a lot of the more recent kickstarters have been kickstarters for 2nd editions of their previous kickstarter games, people don’t like dropping hundreds of dollars on being a beta tester only to be told they need to drop hundreds more for the fixed game. Not only that but Mantic’s picking and shipping has been consistently bad, with people missing items they’ve paid for, or even entire pledges, and having to wait months to get them replaced.
For example, it’s been almost a year since Dungeon Saga went into the shipping phase and only now are some people getting their initial pledges. Meanwhile it’s been available on store shelves for that entire time. Not only that but they are now announcing ‘Star Saga’, a spiritual successor to the game with a supposedly improved rulebook.
I’ve never seen a Mantic Kickstarter where you NEED to drop hundreds of dollars. In fact, for a second edition (i.e. Dreadball 2.0) people only need to drop enough money to get the rules they need for their current teams. They don’t need new miniatures.
‘need to drop enough money to get the rules’ because mantic didnt control the game in the first place.
DB hit retail at the start of 2013 and has already done a KS for a second edition
DZ hit retail at the end of 2013/start of 2014 and DZ 2ed is already out.
3 years turn around on a ruleset is not something I want to encourage by investing in. I dont appreciate paying to beta test a system and then being provided the opportunity to buy the rules separately, regardless of the price, to get a working game (its also worth mentioning that mantic didnt even initially provide fans with the oppurtunity to get these rulesfor DB2 until fans had continaully demanded it for a couple of weeks)
But they did listen to fans and give them what they wanted. Just like they did with Warpath and the firefight rules. It’s OK to get something wrong if you also take steps to put it right.
I also don’t see any real issue with releasing a v2.0 rules after 3 years if that’s what the game needs. Dreadball, from what I’m told, is an excellent game and the fact that Mantic have managed to get so much content for it out in such a small space of time is great. I think dreadball 2.0 is probably just what the game needed, I think most people probably backed for a copy of the rules and I’d hope to see Dreadball stabilise now and possibly not be as reliant on Kickstarters for future content.
mantic have got a lot of content out of Dreadball and did so in a short time, but it ultimately broke the game, there was no balance.
Im a huge fan of Guildball, so im bias, but in year 1 they released 8 teams, year 2 they released 1 and year 3 is expected to see 2 more teams released, they are doing this to retain game balance.Compare this to Mantic, who threw out 12 teams off the bat with a crap tonne of mvps, some of whom (forge fathers mainly) were objectively significantly worse than others. They have since had ample opportunity to errata these issues(especially with extreme) but chose not to.
Mantic have explicitly stated the reason for season 2 is because the game became too unwieldy (unsurprising considering the amount of content) and needed a reboot. whats the first thing they do with this KS? announce 4 new teams, the one thing the game didnt need.
Mantic need to say no to fans more often if only to strengthen their game systems, they are capable of this (shooting down the stupid guff that pervaded the DZ KS with people continually going on about Brian Blessed needing to be in the game).
For what its worth, i initially really enjoyed DB, but the game didnt grow due to issues out the gate and the fact that mantic seem to offer no support to systems after the KS is done (outside of KOW).
Given how ‘unbalanced’ dreadball had become according to fans I’d say a 2nd edition was essential.
Waiting any longer would have been stupid.
One problem that people tend to ignore is the fact that rules for games never ever are finished.
That’s an assumption based on relatively simple boardgames that have existed for decades. However once you start digging through the history of even the most basic board game you will find evidence of updates and fixes in rules as it evolves into the games we know and love today.
First editions regardless of company are especially prone to problems because they haven’t had the field testing by actual gamers that subsequent editions tend to benefit from.
First time right would be ideal.
It is however impossible as the meta for games is impossible to predict.
I’m still not entirely sure what the issues you have with Dreadball have got to do with the Star Saga Kickstarter.
“I’m still not entirely sure what the issues you have with Dreadball have got to do with the Star Saga Kickstarter.”
Err, you were the one who initially used DB as an example @onlyonepinman
“I’ve never seen a Mantic Kickstarter where you NEED to drop hundreds of dollars. In fact, for a second edition (i.e. Dreadball 2.0) people only need to drop enough money to get the rules they need for their current teams. They don’t need new miniatures.”
They only offered the rules only pledge AFTER people complained and it became obvious the kickstarter wasn’t going to do well. Initially they were telling everyone that if they wanted the new rules they were required to buy the new boxed game and maybe they would consider doing a rules only kit on their store after the kickstarter was delivered.
@lunchbox I briefly mentioned Dreadball in passing (parenthesised and preceded by “i.e.”); it wasn’t done to hold dreadball up as some kind of shining example of a Kickstarter, it was more to respond @zethnar who was claiming that Mantic are mostly kickstarting 2nd editions of games. Reading between the lines, it’s pretty obvious what is being referred to when the author says “The bitterness is due to the fact that a lot of the more recent kickstarters have been kickstarters for 2nd editions of their previous kickstarter games” which isn’t really true. Deadzone and Dreadball have kickstarted new editions of the game. Dungeon Saga, Walking Dead, Warpath and Kings of War have not kickstarted multiple versions (Kings of War and Warpath are both second editions but their first editions were not kickstarted) and Star Saga is not a second edition either. So 2 kickstarters for 2nd editions of previously kickstarted games vs 4 (soon to be 5) for entirely new products. It seems to me that Mantic’s Kickstarters are launching twice as much new product as they relaunch existing products.
I wouldn’t go as far as calling Star Saga “an entirely new product”. It’s very heavily based on a supposedly improved version of the Dungeon Saga ruleset. The only reason this isn’t a second edition is that releasing a second edition of Dungeon Saga this soon after the first would almost guarantee its failure.
Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe Ronnie’s dream is to release a dungeon crawler in a genre that has not traditionally done well on kickstarter right on the heels of the poor performing Dreadball kickstarter.
It’s as new a product as Imperial Assault was. The rules might be based on Dungeon Saga but it’s not the same game. I would expect the rules to be tailored to suit more ranged combat than melee and probably not have any magic rules. So it’s not going to be Dungeon Saga 2.0 by any stretch of the imagination
I suspect Ronnie’s dream in this particular case is a Space Dungeon Crawler because if he wanted to release Dungeon Saga 2.0 rules, a reskinned sxi-fi version isn’t really the way to do it.
For me it is the lack of ongoing support for games in favour of the new and shiny, and lack of respect for the game stores they expect to stock post-KS product.
I have done most of the Mantic KS. Kings of War, Mars Attacks and Deadzone 2 are great games. Dungeon Saga not so much. I did the $100 thing for DS and got a load of stuff that I am never going to use because the game is OK and there is too much other stuff to play that is great. If you have never done a KS before I am fairly sure Star Saga will be a good bet – they have learned from DS and apparently the rules are much improved – and you will get loads for your money. As a vet I need to see the rules in detail before I commit to anything more than the basic $40 box set. It is also worth saying that DZ2 is a fantastic game. Really. It has tactics, balance and is a challenge to master. The minis are pretty bloody good too. Walking Dead looks great as well. Maybe Mantic are listening.
I don’t do kickstarters anymore, but I like some of Mantic’s stuff, particularly their orcs and undead. What I don’t like from them I buy elsewhere, like elves from GW, dwarfs from Scibor, AoW, and Mom Miniatures.
Not one for me, I don’t think space dungeons really work unless done exceptionally well. Plus Mantic still show no signs of addressing my issues with them and after Deadzone KS I won’t touch them.
A shame as Ronnie has infectious enthusiasm and I like some of the rules sets. However, I think constant KS campaigns hinders their development as a company and I do think downturn in dreadball v2 KS is a trend we will see repeated.
I think the downturn in Dreadball 2 is because existing players only need the new rules, they don’t need all the miniatures they did first time around.
i think mantic games suffer from not respecting the minis games rules : “you try the game for the minis but stay for the rules”.
while their minis quality has been growing over time, the rules seem to have of track record of not being thoroughly written by professionals.
with probably the exception of kow… look at dz2, the campaign rules had to be written by fans.
… that and their practice of throwing a whole product line into one ks while traditional companies work long term with small releases.
i would hope to see more product support / written material to grow their worlds on on their newly released games rather than getting some new hotness
It is/are kickstarters people, that means there is a risk involved, that what you get in the end may differ from what you see. Read the rules very well on Kickstarter. And nowhere it says that you MUST back this. To be honest every company in this hobby of ours has its issues, just look at a GW thread. I am not a fan of GW ether, but I don’t go on every form and post spilling my guts about how I feel I have been wronged. I have no knowledge in to the financial situation of Mantic or any other, if Kickstarters are there way to get there products done. Than that is that. It is there choice. If have backed a few that I liked and got what I expected. And yes, Kickstarters can go wrong, but luckily for me, a polite mail always solved it. Mantic is doing low prices, so the have to cut corners.
For me I will have a look at this one, it sounds fun, and rules are there to be bent or rewritten. No problem there.
I will certainly give this a look. I loved Project Pandora, and if this is a cross between Dungeon Saga and It I’ll be keen
There’s a strong possibility it will be. Dungeon Saga is a spiritual successor to Dwarf King’s Hold so it’s entirely possible that this will feature elements from Project Pandora. However I personally hope that it features some of Mantic’s other Alien races rather than Veermyn or Marauders because I think they’re the two weakest and least original of their sci-fi ranges while Dreadball and Deadzone seem to be awash with interesting alien races and robots.
I’d be interested to see more of the Z’zor myself
For me it’s the Sphyr or the Ada-Lorana (which remind me of the Dredge off of Titan AE). I think Mantic have a cool universe on their hands with Warpath and I’m not sure the realise it.
Wow, there’s now 102 comments on this article and almost all of them are slagging off Mantic for doing Kickstarters or defending them. And just look at the number of “gold” comments – people have definitely formed two camps on this one.
Okay as I stated earlier, I am backing this, and I understand if people don’t a particular game or company, it is after all their prerogative. I would like to know however what are people hoping to achieve by attacking a company. When will they be happy? When it no longer exists? Because I don’t see less choice as being something that better serves the community.
I understand that if you run a gaming store, you might be bloody annoyed at Mantic that their continual use of kckstarters is cutting into your sales. However, if I want to purchase gaming stuff, my choices are several GW stores, one gaming store which frankly should never have the letter “F” put in front of the LGS and two add ons to comic shops. I like Mantic stuff and can’t buy it in any of them, so i am not feeling any guilt at supporting the kickstarter.
The other people who are justifiably annoyed are the people who have had a bad experience with Mantic’s kickstarters. Aside from that awful misprint in the Dungeon Saga expansion book i have backed 7 of their kickstarters and have been very satisfied.
Not all gamers will ever agree on what they like, are nor should they, but the perverse glee that some people take when they see a thread of something they don’t like and jumping all over it, and trying to sledge the life out of it is getting a little tiring.
You don’t have to like everything, (there is one company I hate with a passion but hopefully you’ll never know who it is as you’ll never see me in their threads) but allow other people to take some joy from things in the hobby that they like. Cheers
I agree that if you don’t use the facilities at any stores then you should certainly not feel bad for purchasing through whichever means gets you the most bang for your buck.
I think we could all agree that mantic kickstarters seem to be a bit disorganised, and the quality of the products is debatable. Dungeon saga for me is a great game for my non gamer freinds. I play overlord and treat it more as an rpg, otherwise wizard squishing is too easy. So i can’t complain in terms of value for money. Mantic do seem to have issues with their rules sets though, the three mantic games I have played all have quite massive flaws. Deadzone, dread ball and dungeon saga.
Here’s an interview with Chris (who runs Mantic’s KS campaigns)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/kickstarting/13617-Mantic-Details-Kickstarter-for-Deadzone-Infestation-Miniatures
What was interesting was the bit about Cool mini or not campaigns, with there SGs running at 100K for a single “hero” figure…….but you get 7 on a single tool. So thats 700K raised for a single tool?
I’ve had mixed experiences with Mantic KS, however would pledge again.
There’s a nice blog post up on the Mantic Blog about Star Saga. Sounds quite cool.
https://manticblog.com/2016/09/19/star-saga-developing-rules/
It actually does sound very cool and it is very good of them to admit that they goofed badly with the DS Adventurer’s Companion. I sincerely hope that this game turns out as good as it sounds.
I signed up for the Star Saga newsletter and got an update today, including showing a few 3D renders of some of the miniatures.
The Kickstarter will be following a template used by The Walking Dead – Just 1 pledge level of $100 which gets you the basic game plus the Mission Generator and Character Creator expansions. The game itself contains 32 miniatures, including 4 characters and 3 bosses – so very similar to Dungeon Saga. The miniatures themselves actually look OK and, much to my delight (although it is early days yet and they have only showed off 5 miniatures!) there’s not a Veermyn or a Marauder in sight. The miniatures that they have show cased are:
Corporation Ranger – Looks like a bog standard human grunt
Captain Dulinsky – Looks to be some kind of corporation soldier
Curby the Utility Bot – a little floating robot (my favourite but possibly a bit cheesy)
“Wrath” – Not sure if Wrath is an Asterian or some kind of plague character
Plague Victim – a human who has contracted the plague
Overall I’m looking forward to this; I quite fancy a sci-fi dungeon crawler and also I’m sort of looking forward to exploring Mantic’s sci-fi universe a little more. I really hope they start stepping away from some of their GW stuff now and start giving more attention to their own races.
Wrath is Judwan who was tortured by the Corporation in an effort to turn him away from the Judwan’s pacifistic tendencies. It worked he is now very unhinged and very dangerous. I think he was a mentioned in one of the kickstarters … don’t know if he was turned into a figure or not before this.