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The Wolsung SSG Kickstarter Is Now Live!
June 21, 2014 by lloyd
The Wolsung SSG Kickstarter from Micro Art Studios has begun! If you fancy diving into an awesome world filled with interesting and vibrant gangs then head on over and see what you can get your hands on!
Of course it wouldn't be a Kickstarter without a whole bunch of miniatures to pick up so let's take a look at what's on offer pledge wise as we kick things off...
At a basic level you can pick up the rules for the game, some awesome looking playing cards and of course brilliant steampunk-style dice by the brilliant Q-Workshop (I have some of their fantasy dice, very nice!). As well as that though with some of the higher pledge levels you can grab some of those all important gangs!
...and on top of that once you've got the rulebook, the dice, the gangs and the cards you can also start thinking about picking up some of the terrain as well with different pledges!
Some very cool bits and piece I think you'll agree! Of course there are plenty of extras already and many, many, many stretch goals planned for the future if the campaign does well (and it should!). So keep an eye on the Kickstarter!
Wolsung Demo Game Part 1!
We thoroughly enjoyed checking out Wolsung with our massive three player demo game that went live this morning! You can go and check out the video by following the link above. We have funny costumes, plenty of interesting characters to play with, and the system is dead simple to get your head round. I reckon you'll be making some tactical decisions for us in no time while watching!
The Wolsung Hub
As well as the demo game we have a dedicated hub for Wolsung on the website here at Beasts of War so if you want to see what new stuff is coming out and indeed check out a back catalog of news pieces and more then delve away.
Have you been swept up in Wolsung?
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It looks good but at a $140-150 dollars to get a pledge that allows you to start playing puts it a bit beyond my budget. I hope it’s a big success and lets Micro Art Studios release a boatload of stuff for me to choose from at retail.
It’s worth pointing out that you can already download the rulebook for free, and it uses d6’s and playing cards which you probably already have. There’s a $75 pledge that will get you two faction’s starter sets plus a couple of extra minis, which would get you going.
It also remains to be seen what the addons and stretchgoals will bring, there’s only a handful there so far.
With shipping the $75 pledge is $90 and would get me two starters and one or two other minis. It’s not much less than buying from Wayland, has no stretch goals, and I’d have to wait a few months before I received anything. This isn’t intended to critcise the value of the KS, just to explain why I’m better off doing it at retail a bit at time.
Yeah, fair point – I’d missed that the $75 pledge won’t include any free bonuses from stretch goals.
I have to agree, comparatively the Kingdom Death Kickstarter, the cost of entry for the boxed game and what is in that is really good.
I was somewhat interested in the scenery here, but even those sets are quite pricey with the shipping.
There is definitely the feeling of Kickstarter fatigue. And more so when there isn’t a decent low cost entry (why no two player set that is two boxed forces and what you need and perhaps some printable terrain).
I’m in for a terrain bundle earlybird. 😀 Just to add on some halfling mobsters.
Well it is funded now. 🙂
Have to agree that a lot lf the components wre really nice, not ground breaking sculpts, but nice enough imho. Have to say though that the dice are nothing short of shocking and I think I would only throw them once, sadly they would still be in the packet and I would hope never to see them again. Those dice should be an addon to allow people a cheaper intro to the game and picked up if wanted. I think the designer of the dice was just trying to hard tbh.
It is a little expensive atm, but so was Dust when it first started. I think kt wise to jump on board and check back in a week or two when we see what MAS has in store. I can honestly see free bases being dished out, as they specialise in these anyway. Lets just hope new dice are on the way! Oh and did I mention that I hate those dice? No? Well I do, I hate those dice, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. 😛 I can see me either returning them to sender or filing a police report for them sticking dogship through my letterbox, hehe.
Looking forward to seeing how this pans out, as just started loking into Malifaux minis too, and they both seem aesthetically pleaeing in the same way. 🙂
I don’t doubt the $140-150 pledge level will become good value, I just don’t have that to spend on the game right now.
Get your body used to consuming grass and all should rectify itself Ben. 😀 All that spare petrol money, must have to go somewhere. 😉 agree though £100 does seem a lot to get started. Just wondering if people can join forces to reduce cost of P&P? Or better yet, Santa distribution ltd? 😀
I haven’t been down to Mecca since January! It’s more so that this has come at a bad time. We’ve just bought a house, I’m off to Gencon in less than two months, and I’m funding new projects by selling old ones at the minute. Had the $75 pledge level included some stretch goals I could probably have stretched to it, but as it doesn’t there’s no need to stretch my finances right now to get it. Like I say, I’ve no complaints over the value and I’ve no doubt once stretch goals start getting unlocked it’ll be well worth it. Please everyone keep pledging as much as you can and get lots of new things to retail for me 🙂
I’m just wondering about the Malifaux crossover too. That is one of my absolute all time favourite games because of the mechanics and feel of the game. Wolsung could do worse than to dip into that market. The real kicker has got to be the terrain, and putting that up as it’s own pledge kinda says that Microart know it.
Agreed, HDF and MDF terrain has a great mark up and they do it sooooo well imho. Their products do scream quality, and I can imagine the models getting better in time too. Would be great to see a plastic range, as metal and resin have slow production times as opposed to plastic 1 second a sprue. But then you have to transport it, as opposed to hiring staff to cast it all. Plastics do reduce the human sickness factor though and once a mould is made, it lasts for life. 🙂
hmm, thinking about jumping in on this one, looks interesting ,
I might even just back it for the deck of cards 😛
… although I’m probably only going to get a few minis, just to paint them,
… but the point systems a little confusing,
whats the price to just get some “a la carte” minis (@ , @) ?
There’s a $75 pledge to pick 10 points of models (you’ll notice in the pics that each model costs 1-3 points depending on the size of the model).
There will be addons if you want more/less than that, but the addons haven’t been put up on the kickstarter yet (they originally said Monday for addons, but apparently they’re working on them now).
yeah I saw that, I might just go on for the card pledge for now,
and see what they say about the mini prices later 🙂
… plenty of time to find out how much things cost 😉
really got in to the first part of the demo game, I will be keeping my eye on this one.
After watching the BoW coverage I was pretty hyped for this. Now after looking at the Kickstarter… Not so much.
Think i’ll wait untill retail.
it looks good and not terribly priced and if you do want to wait you can just order bits now from you FLGS only the new stuff is being funded the rest is already available
I am up for a couple of sets of minis. Might grab the Micro Art bases too since they are well priced. The shipping does make this less of a saving but, hey, I want to play this game and it seems a great way to support it by being part of the kickstarter.
I definitely want to check this game out eventually. Having just dropped a ton of money on Dust, I don’t have any budget left. However that will change, and I will play this in the future.
Kickstarters are Risk Capital. Risk Capital is defined by having a high-risk (eventually total loss) but also potentially gaining high rewards. In this case I see risk but not much rewards 🙁
In short: Its too expensive (in my opinion)
Right… help me understand this
You place a completely non binding pledge that you can remove any time before the campaign stops.
Every day you can see exactly what is included in your pledge and if stretch goals have been added to give more value to your pledge.
You have direct access to the creators of the game to influence where the funding campaign goes.
If your happy, stay in, if not, pull your pledge.
Where is the risk?
Almost every kickstarter I see now, people come up with the it’s too expensive, but most are basing that on their experience of how they close not how they open.
The value from a kickstarter unlocks as more and more backers join, giving the companies the resources to push more value into the pledges etc.
I thought this was fairly obvious?
The risk is that it might not get fullfilled and the pledge is thereby lost. That risk is contained in basically every crowdfunding project.
Currently for 120$ + 30$ shipping you get 2 Books, some cards, some dices and about 10 miniatures. Not alot bang for the buck. If stretchgoals will provide alot of free stuff it can change though.
Currently it looks more like they are jumping on the Kickstarter bandwagon while the goldrush is still going.
But that is just my opinion, everyone has to decide for himself.
I agree there is risk in every kickstarter should the company not follow through, but with a company like micro art, its not likely.
Also i think $150 ( roughly £90) is very reasonable for a rulebook, expansion book, set of dice and 2 starters, especially when compared to other companies.
Remember kickstarter is not a way for us to get cheap/free stuff (though it is a nice incentive) its a way of allowing, in this case micro art to have the available capital to expand on an already awesome game
My 2p worth anyway 🙂
The price might be reasonable if you compare it to retail prices. For a crowdfunding project it is too high in my opinion due to the general risks involved (see my other reply).
“Remember kickstarter is not a way for us to get cheap/free stuff (though it is a nice incentive) its a way of allowing, in this case micro art to have the available capital to expand on an already awesome game”
This is spot on. Many people view Kickstarters as bargain hunts, when more accurate analogy would be that it’s a business case, with us as the banks.
The company is asking for funding, where once that would have been hat in hand to a bank, now its direct to you and I. They put forward their case, we decide if it’s a project worth backing, and in return instead of interest paid on a loan, we receive goods from the project.
It’s as simple as that.
If your sole goal is to get cheap stuff KSs are probably not for you. But if you want to see companies fulfill their potential then they’re a god send. Imagine what GW would be today if instead of when they needed capital going public they had Kickstarter…
Given that Micro Art Studios are an established company with a good track record, and that the game already exists with three factions available, I’m going to go out on a limb and file the level of risk involved in this kickstarter as “low”.
FAO Nightmarus
with respect, your looking at it as a way of buying a product. that is not the case.
you are backing a project and giving the company a helping hand to achieve their goal.
the products you receive are a thank you from the company for your support, kickstarter doesn’t really present it in a helpful way, but you can simply donate as much as you want with no reward if your so inclined.
unfortunately us wargamers seem to have the attitude that if we back a project, we deserve hugely discounted products. but that would defeat the object of the kickstarter as the capital gained from the campaign is reduced by the production costs of the products being rewarded to the backers (including staff wages, light and heat charges, rent, machinery, electricity, water, tax, and many other things I cant think of) not to mention the lost time producing the rewards which could have been used to manufacture retail products.
take a look at campaigns in other categories, allot of rewards are simply names in the book/film credits. an email from the creators, a plaque or certificate etc.
at the end of the day, if all you’re interested in as far as crowd funding goes, is what you get at the end of it, then fair enough. each person has to make their own decision about it.
but the fact remains that KS is not a shop, its a way of funding projects.
I think the main risk is that sometimes projects fail despite getting funded.I backed something called Mechabrick by Dubreq and from what I can tell they Iiinvested the money in other projects in the hope they would make more money to support Mechabrick. They also refused to give a refund despite not spending money as they advertised. They also informed me that they are £2000 in debt and needing to sell assests of the business, so if they have acted outside of their responsibilities a lawsuit could follow.
Whilst I 100% agree with @warzan that the product is not fixed until the final whistle, sometimes having an awesome record of producing high value can aleaviate people sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to pledge. I think the recent Dust KS started off very eh, but then turned into quite an awesome buy imho, sadly had to drop the pledge though, grrrrr.
So I guess the risks are AFTER (or 24hrs prior to end ex)the closure of the KS and not during.
My simple stratergy is to grab an early bird if possible and sit on it until the last couple of days as you can notify yourself for the last 48hrs. You then have 24hrs to canx your pledge if you think it is not to yoour liking and increas it if it is.
An Additional problem people can have is that a delay in a product can result in a loss of money in real time, as the money in your account recieves interest while you have it. Take Relic knights as a prime example that people know of. I think it took 2 years to produce, in which time your pledge wou.d have gained you interest that would then be worth more than the value of your pledge, making the benefit of saving money on a project reduce in value and even make it cheaper to wait until release d in stores as your capital has chance to work for you and further I crease your purchasing power, especially as if you have a FLGS that is stocking the item, you would also save money on P&P.
I hope this makes sense, writting isnt a strong area of mine. 🙂
It makes perfect sense 🙂
Whilst you’re right about lost interest, the actual amount of money you lose is pretty small. Especially at the moment with the base rate being so low. I backed RK at around $250. If I left that in account for two years at 3% interest I’d make $15.44, which is way less than I saved against buying from a discount retailer. The issue is more one of the “bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” principle. A product you can get now is worth more to you than one you have to wait a year for. It’s essentially why the $75 pledge level for Wolsung isn’t worth it for me even though it represents a small saving over a discount retailer.
In the case of Wolsung I think the risk is very low. Much of the product your pledge could get you is already available, a lot of the rest is well advanced, and there doesn’t need to be any plastic tooling. Take into account that MAS are a well established company with a lot of experience then this isn’t a high risk investment. The fact that it doesn’t represent huge savings (at least at this point) makes it an even lower risk, as the money raised should adequately cover everything.
@redben,
Whilst I know, depending on interest rates etc, the loss can be minimal but I was mearly suggesting a process that makes a difference, no matter how big/small. I trust your figures are correct, but all things mount up.
Another thing is that people want more product for their ££, the reason for this can be a number of things ranging from, spoilt by other larger companies offering huge amounts in order to dominate pledgers money, they need more for their money because they have so much stuff back logged that many games dont appear interesting or dont appear to good to miss. Other people may just have too many games on the go, thereby only jumping on games that offer a lot of playability, eg free expansions or multiple game modes and extra stuff etc.
Again, I am just generalising on matters and not trying to pin point a certain issue, as desire plays an important part which is a huge variable that Iis very hard to satisfy with numbers imho. Just trying to make sense of the negative aspect that people fear to discuss. 🙂
I agree with all your points :). I just wanted to bring out one of them a bit more. As it’s not as tangible as lost cash it can get overlooked or played down but it is very important. The value of something does go down the longer you have to wait to get it. Without meaning to get too dull it’s to do with opportunity cost, which is the process of choosing the best alternative to spend your money on given limited resources. The time it takes to receive KS product reduces its opportunity cost in comparison with buying a product you can get straight away. The main way a KS offsets the devalued opportunity cost is by being better value for money. If it isn’t then many potential pledgers will decide to wait till it hits retail and spend their money on something else now. So if anyone ever accuses of you being mercenary in choosing which campaigns to back, just tell them you’re behaving in line with sound economic principles lol.
I always act like that Ben, hehe… I just suck at explaining it, which is really frustrating tbh. If their could be one thing I could change about myself it would be my ability to explain things in the written form. I would like to stay dyslexic though, as it gives me some very good traits, but sadly find it hard for people to trust my written judgements as it all to soon gets into a internet misunderstanding. Doh! 😛
Whilst KS is good for new companies, I can see it getting harder and harder to tempt people, sadly saturation will kick in at some point, unless it adds to an already existing gaming experience, which we have seen witb the likes of Dreadball and Zombiecide. I do hope Wolsung gets a firm footing though. 🙂
I’m more optimistic than you are. It’s not too long ago that minis crowdfunders were few and far between and made hardly any money. The big KS campaigns have pushed crowdfunding’s profile through the roof and brought a lot of people in. Wolsung getting $35k in a full campaign would have been a big achievement back then, now they have that much in a weekend.
I think there’ll always be room for a good product presented in a well-run campaign, and I don’t believe in a campaign failing because of market saturation. If it fails then consumers are telling you that there’s something wrong with your product. Even if they’re backing other KSers and can’t afford to stretch to yours as well, that means they’ve chosen those other campaigns ahead of yours and you need to figure out why. What is it about those other products that make them more appealing than yours. Then you either improve or you go home.
Agreed Ben,
When I mean saturated, I mean that people have games stacking up at home rather than lots of projects active on KS. Also agree with what you say about having a long hard look at your marketing, which I believe starts prior to going live, just as Wolsung has done. The fact that they have been very supportive with their products have definitely served them well imho. They are certainly market leaders with their bases as they look REALLY crisp and neat.
There is one more risk involved in projects that are created by people which do not live in the Kickstarter supported countries: They have to use a trustworthy person as proxy to channel the funds.
In the Wolsung case: Micro Arts Studios are from Poland. As Kickstarter does not support Poland at the moment they officially created thier project in the US. To create an US project you need to be an US citizen with US social ID, bank account and real address. So they need someone over in the US to stand in for them. When the project is funded, all funds from pledges are transferred to that US person.
Ofcourse it is possible that this person who acted as proxy could simply run off with the money. It is rather unlikely that this happens as it would cause a criminal lawsuit against said person. However what is more likely to happen is, that the funds may get frozen/stuck/lost in the US due to reasons that may have nothing to do with the Kickstarter project like:
– The person does have unpaid debts and creditors are after it. Like a mortgage, unpaid taxes, alimonies etc.
– The person or company that is used as proxy may suddenly go into insolvency.
– An unexpected lawsuit comes up or some issues with the bank itself which freezes the bank account that holds the funds.
Please don’t get me wrong, my intent is not to speak of the devil here. I am sure that Micro Arts Studios are a competent and reliable company. I am just pointing out some general issues most people forget about when it comes to crowdfunding. Up to now we haven’t seen a major project going down the drain, but according to Murphys Law it is just a matter of time when that will happen. All those risks the backers carry have to be paid back in one form or another, otherwise you could just wait until the stuff goes retail and get it without any risks at all.
You don’t need to be a citizen, though you do need to be a permanent resident. Mantic run their campaigns from the US and are a British company. I don’t recall anyone worrying that the proxy would run off with the money in their campaigns and there’s a lot more money involved there Sure, those things could all go wrong with the proxy, but if you’re going to drill down into that level of risk then you’d be better off never backing a KS. You probably also shouldn’t buy anything by mail order either, or book a holiday, or leave your savings in a bank account.
I backed 3 Kickstarter projects so far. I am not risk-averse, I just like getting something in return for the good faith I invested 😉
As all investors do 🙂
Btw, I have backed Wolsung in hope that it does grow in strength. I dont think it will be a £1m project, but would love to be proved wrong on this as MAS have worked very hard within the industry and deserve a firm standing withh the inclusion of a miniatures game imho. 🙂
Wait a second. Has the $75 level been changed to include stretch goal. It looks like it now does and a comment on the KS page from yesterday seems to be saying they changed it.
Looks like it.
If that has happened it might be a good idea for them to publicise it a bit. I can’t have been the only one who would have been interested in that level if it had SG. Suffice to say the KS has now popped back onto my radar. Here’s hoping I can flog some more stuff!
I’m just waiting for Kingdom Death to ship. I was able to piggy back for the game and the Dragon King expansion. Given that and the other stuff I need to paint and play (Batman minis with all the terraclips terrain) I just don’t see myself grabbing anything else.
Though Drakerys is very tempting. The price point for their set is very good. A lot more minis than this. Even discounting the stretch goals.
Had to go whole hog with this one. its the only one ive been tempted to on. cant wait to go through the process 🙂
So yeah… racism(Asians as Orcs and zero characters of African or South American descent), rules that read like a more cluttered version of Malifaux’s, and static metal figures. Malifaux’s going to eat this game alive despite BoW shilling for it.
What a disgusting comment. 🙁
Malifaux has Gremlins as Bayou dwellers. So there’s that. It’s not exactly blessed with African characters and they didn’t launch with any Asians either.
Really? A game is rasist because it does not display every culture known to man? Also which is a negative aspect of Asian Orcs? As a negative should be identified to think that something is depicted as racist. Whilst I agree that the models may not be to the standards of Malifaux, but Wyrd have got plenty of years to refine their models and it is not so long ago they were metal to.
If you dont like something because you prefer another is one thing, but to slur something because you want it to appear bad is really poor sportsmanship imho. I agree that Malifaux have some really nice models out atm and are getting better every day, but for me MAS have supported other games for a long time and deserve the communities support imho, whether you want to support via a pledge is up to you, but respect their presence as they have always done good by their customers, at least in my experience when I didnt get some of the bases I had ordered they posted me more without delay and never questioned me once, that bloody good customer support imho.
I think on the Asian Orcs, it could be seen as a troublesome trope.
Consider that since the 20s we’ve had rather awful depictions of Asians, or at least characters that are clearly derived from that culture (The Mandarin from Mavel comics was green skinned, pointy eared, fu manchu facial hair. Or what about Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon… again in a lot of depictions he had pretty much the same sort of design as the Mandarin).
What this gets us into then is the problems of cultural appropriation. Combined with the connotations of class, it is fair to say “Asian styled orcs” is a bit backwards. It is just as bad as the Shantor from Fading Suns (I’m a freelance writer for that game and I hate that alien race). The Shantor are horse like aliens, and they have been forced onto reservations, oh and have a Native American culture. Yeah…… because that is pretty horrible and lazy. You may as well have made a game based on Disney’s Song of the South.
And that then brings me my main point. Cultural appropriation, to give an exotic feel to a fantasy race, is really really lazy. Have any of you ever read World of Darkness: Gypsies? That was notoriously foul for exactly the above issues. I think it is often far better to give a fantasy race it’s own culture (inspirations are fine, but lets not just appropriate). And this seems even more symptomatic of Victoriana (note I did not say steampunk because that is actually a broader term). Victoriana is a very rose tinted view of the Victorian period, in particular the UK in that time. It treats the racial, social, political issues as trivial while focusing on the superficial elements – tea sipping, top hats, Victorians plundering the world for culture and making it their own but divorced from the original meanings.
and lets not forget… its a game 😉
Actually in rpg circles that is perhaps one of the worst things to ever say.
So women always depicted in ridiculous boob armour is fine so long as it is “just a game”. “It’s just a movie”, “Just a book”.
Don’t get me wrong, we are free to freedom of expression, but that doesn’t prevent freedom to critique.
That’s a little bit of a straw man argument there…
As I didn’t say… “women always depicted in ridiculous boob armour is fine” nor was that related to ‘Orcs From the East’ 🙂
I agree with you @warzan it’s a game.
We must remember that this is a game with miniatures and dice and nothing else. What makes this game look good is the way the models act with each other as both Beasts of War videos showed. I would like to thank the BOW team for showing me this product as I seen Wolsung at Salute but didn’t have time to get a game, but after seeing these videos I’ll be looking at the kickstarter.
I agree with you @warzan it’s a game.
We must remember that this is a game with miniatures and dice and nothing else. What makes this game look good is the way the models act with each other as both Beasts of War videos showed. I would like to thank the BOW team for showing me this product as I seen Wolsung at Salute but didn’t have time to get a game, but after seeing these videos I’ll be looking at the kickstarter.
My point with my comment with the boob armour, was that I was presenting another case where you always get the response “It’s just a game”. Such a response is not adequate. While the discussion we had further down the thread is more appropriate. Saying it is just a game is simple dismissal and silencing, and appears as if not taking the issue seriously, or worse, presents the impression that such stereotypes are fine in games in this day and age.
I think @doctorether makes some very valid points. You are treading on a minefield of casual racism and cultural appropriation when you draw on the colonial era, especially as refracted through the pulp fiction of the time. It is a very difficult balancing act to capture the flavour without also grabbing onto some of the negative connotations. Whilst I am sympathetic to the “just a game” argument, I would hope that as gamers we can still be sensitive to the issues.
while I agree that we cant loose sight of real world issues and drop into casual racism, I must argue for the its just a game point of view.
my reason for that is that each individual person has a completely different view of what racism is, and there is no way to define what is and isn’t racist/sexist etc.
a male comedian could make a joke about a womans place is in the kitchen, and a crowd would go mental, where a female comedian could make a joke about men sticking to fixing cars or something and people would laugh.
the same goes for racism, what one person perceives as a joke, another could take to heart.
all I can say, is that providing the games designers don’t refer to anything in game in derogatory fashions, that players (or potential players) get off their soap boxes and leave them at the door and have fun with it
Agreed, but it can be a little tiresome when things are over-analysed to the point where the things make little sense (Creators of a game needing to cater for the ‘evils of victoriana’ because every piece of fiction is affected by something historical – as I’m discovering these days)
Coupled with the fact that I would bet good money none of us have read the expanded background to this game and the RPG that it is based upon to actually form such a considered opinion.
I don’t know, I just wonder about allowing our intellectual prowess to get in the way of having some fun, with a well constructed little game.
I think what is apparent here is that people need to be accepting of such critique levelled at their something special. Because guess what – you can like things that have problematic issues. This is the same as the kinda of talk you hear about “bad wrong feminism”.
It comes down to being aware, noting the critique, but not getting butt hurt about it, and perhaps in future thinking more about inclusiveness and better world design that doesn’t rest on tired old tropes.
I mean hell, I pledged to Kingdom Death, and boy did that get a proverbial kick in the nuts from the sexism angle. But, it is a horror game, and with that genre the line in the sand, especially for body horror, can vary for a lot of people. The same sort of thing happened with Exalted’s Infernals book….. dear god the comic at the start of that book was foul. But how else do you do depict hell? But I also have that book. But, I am aware of the issues and I certainly don’t try and silence such critique because I now feel guilty for playing (which I don’t).
So while some of us here are critiques, those who want to play should feel free to do so. There is no guilt tripping going on. Just fair critique.
Fair point @doctorether
Just to pick up one point you made about ‘better world design and tired old tropes’ whether we may like it or not, the market enjoys those ‘tired old tropes’ as they can relate to them.
Especially in the more western markets (UK and US) is this a case of dumming down, (personally I would say most likely) but it is what it is, and creators have to be aware of it, if they would like to have a livelihood in the industry.
I think it’s important to either take that into account or at least recognize it when embarking upon a critique.
Interesting topic though.
@warzan Tired tropes though should always be questioned when there is always a reasonable space fro them to be innovated. Otherwise we have just have more Ubisoft scenarios.
@warzan Well Said
I have always wondered who gives the labels of goodies and baddies to these races. As per LotR film where Farimir asks whether that the enemy is really evil at heart. Everything is alwaysshould be a viewpoint of the person viewing it. All games have different background etc, so to apply the priciples of game X onto game Y is a mistake, especially as it is well known that most games are fiction. There are historic games however with WW2 forces that killed masses of people because of a hatered of that religion and culture, but this is viewed in good light despite these things ACTUALLY happening. The mind boggles tbh. I had made some German Chaos once and was asked to remove them from the store because it was viewed as rasist. Hiwever the dictatorship of the false emporer that burns down the last religous place on earth……..
I think this will always be just a discussing exercise tbh as it allows people to view their opinion that will never be proved one way or another. As @warzan said, its just a game and if certain groups dont like that, then they are allowed their self justified view, just how every man and his dog is entitled to theirs, which just promotes people to bounce their belief of the face of each othher in hope we recruit someone to our beliefs, thereby validating their own views. Feel free to disagree though, lol
WW2 is the horrific end to ideas on race and culture that arose in the late-eighteenth century. Which is why tapping into the nineteenth century imagination is fraught with danger. Warren is right when he says that it isn’t reasonable to expect a game designer to be aware of every historical and cultural context of their source material. The good doctor is equally right to point out it exists. We can take a balanced approach to it and it’s pleasing that this is what’s happening here.
I think a good comparison is Iron Kingdoms. There a character is very nuanced. They are defined by not just race, by country, or even region, that they come from. And while IKRPG draws on some cultural concepts from the real world, we get enough from the setting that shows us enough diversity that it means there are very few awful stereotypes. Trolls can belong to a number of nations, and can be engineers or barbarians. The same with Elves (I find IKRPG elves a good breath of fresh air). People of Colour exist in all nations in the Iron Kingdoms.
The problem with Wolsung currently, is that the Asian Orcs are presented as “The Triads”. As prostitutes, drug dealers, smugglers, racketeers. We have been given a limited world view. All the models for that faction are orcs. Note all the human figures are white.
Now the rpg may elaborate on the intersection of race and state, but, this is the same rpg that for 2 years prior has had a lot of critique on the same grounds (Jewish gnomes?!).
Now with regard to World Wars, we still have very raw, very real, understandings of those times, and how the pressure of being a patriot can lead to being on the wrong side. We know the world wars are filled with intersecting issues, and people on all sides disagreeing.
In some respects that is why I can deal with armies themed on military design taken from the World Wars, so long as it is not a Nazi flag (you only have to go into the alternative-goth-industrial music scene to see the problematic issues with the love of German military clothing and of course the connotations that come with that).
Now with Victoriana, there is such a big love for this genre, which often is used in such a superficial way (put gears on it! We all drink tea! We all like to dress up as Victorian upper class snobs and adventurers) that the games, and fictions, and media, that draws from this genre, can also come off as superficial, and catering to this fantasy, fall into dangerous habits.
It is the 21st century, and while we do talk about how wargaming (and rpgs) should be more inclusive, this is true not just of gender but of ethnicity.
So really the best thing for Wolsung is for the game world to be presented in as broad a slice as possible to just show how the game factions are really such a narrow slice of that world.
I think in order for them to do this they must be given the chamce as it is early doors still, so back ground etc is still thin compared to other systems. But i think people have to take responsibilty themselves to see past all the ism’s hehe
Background thin? The rpg has been around for a good 2 years already. I think they could have easily just this as an opportunity to address much of the problem areas and at the same time diversify the setting so that they present archetypes more frequently rather than stereotypes.
Sorry gents, have I missed the announcement of the Wolsung competition? It’s a cracking looking game and world though I’m excited.
One way of analysing Kickstarter is that we are alternative sources of funding to traditional commercial banks. We are the bankers. Instead of having to pay a bank interest from the time of the loan until it is paid off they get our money for no interest at all. Plus they can be earning interest on the principal until they have to use it.
There is nothing greedy about looking at the ROI for our contibution. And if there is no perceived additonal value versus buying from a FLGS, then the Kickstarter better have a really good product that they know is in high demand and that people will pay a premium for. IMHO.
That should be the main way of analysing them. We’re investors in a project and we expect a return on our investment. Giving money for a creative project with no expectation of a return is philanthropy, not investment. You then get into the question as to what exactly constitutes a return. In the case of gaming KSers it’s overwhelmingly going to be tangible product. The main reason gaming KSers punch above the average KS success rate is because they can offer tangible returns. Like any investment opportunity, the greater the prospect of a return, the more likely it is that someone will invest. The lower the prospect of a return over what is available at retail and you run into the opportunity cost issue I mentioned earlier.
Has anybody checked out Drakerys Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dontpanicgames/drakerys-the-miniature-game
The miniatures are great with a lot of bang for your buck and the game seems to be fun as well.
Yeah. While I have not kicked into that one I have promoted it where I can.
And looking at value for money is no bad thing.
I did compare on a different forum just what you get from a particular kickstarter, because, as more and more of these turn up, there is going to be a saturation point and potential banks are going to look for best value. Getting the price point right is going to be a dark art.
Below I compare Sweet Spot pledges for a range of games, assuming EU shipping. And assuming no stretch goals.
Drakerys, $135 gets a boxed game of two armies. 40 minis (perhaps almost double now with stretch goals), rules, dice, rulers and gaming maps.
Kingdom Death $145 and has about 12 figures (at a guess, it’s now has around 24) and then 5 monsters (some are huge) and dice, cards, books etc.
Deadzone, $65 for 18 minis, scenery and dice etc. That is a lot of scenery too.
Relic Knights, $115, about 25 models, depending on the two factions chosen. Books tokens etc included.
Wrath of Kings, $125 for about 45 + models (doubled with stretch goals) and rules.
Obviously there is quality, rate of delivery, and just how well a range integrates with your hobby (is it a weird scale compared to the rest of your stuff, good for an rpg you play, etc etc), and how the entire campaign is run (you get the rules early to look at and beta?), and if the game will be support more than a year from now.
Backers not banks….. I need sleep.