[Kickstarter] Shadows of Brimstone

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 1:35 pm

Yes, that's what I was looking at - some lite commentary from the RoW crowd. I figured the KS site comments would be intense as they always seem to attract highs and lows. I had also assumed the BGG comments would be a good balance but also have more people in the middle just checking in. However, when I started expressing concern there back in August that we hadn't heard anything yet, I was essentially told I was being unreasonable and that I should respect Flying Frog for being able to create a product that never would have been possible if not for their successful KS offering. My opinion really hasn't changed and two months later I really don't have any idea when the game is coming outside of some nebulous "soon". I really do fear it's going to start showing up in retail chains before backers get it, mostly because Flying Frog seems very focused on showing off the product (at PAX, GenCon and now Essen) and hyping up sales. Delivering goods to the people that helped make that happen? Not so much.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 3:16 pm

Someone did say that they supposedly had all the shipments from China to cover the US backers (which is one reason people think that RoW is getting the shaft). I hope that is true. I'm fairly certain that it will be out in retail in the US before the RoW crowd gets it.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:17 pm

I'm still scratching my head over the mystery that shipping individual giant boxes to places outside of North America likely costs a ton of money. How are they just now trying to figure out a solution to this a month after the pledge manager opened? Would it have killed them to include a rough estimate for domestic backers how far along they are in the shipping process? States finished? Boxes shipped? I really will be amazed if this shows up at my house before December.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:38 pm

Smoove_B wrote:I'm still scratching my head over the mystery that shipping individual giant boxes to places outside of North America likely costs a ton of money. How are they just now trying to figure out a solution to this a month after the pledge manager opened? Would it have killed them to include a rough estimate for domestic backers how far along they are in the shipping process? States finished? Boxes shipped? I really will be amazed if this shows up at my house before December.

Don't forget, people will be buying/picking these up in Essen before we get it!

My Arcadia Quest KS beat this one by at least a week. People pick on Cool Mini or Not mercilessly for dropping the ball with the Zombiecide seasons and other projects, but they had far more open communication that FFP here. It isn't that I need the game right away, but I would at least like to have some sense of where we are in the shipping, considering I paid likely more that retail cost for it.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:28 am

Buried in the KS comments is a post from someone sharing an email exchange with Flying Frog:

Thank you for writing. We plan on trying to have everyone's order to them before Christmas. I cannot predict a time frame on when your order will ship due to the logistics behind shipping almost 5,000 orders as quickly as possible but we are hoping to have them all sent out sometime between now and the end of November.

Here's what I think -- they were so completely focused demos and promotions for GenCon, PAX and now Essen the idea of coordinating/creating the pledge manager and shipping was a complete and total afterthought.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:48 am

Smoove_B wrote:Buried in the KS comments is a post from someone sharing an email exchange with Flying Frog:

Thank you for writing. We plan on trying to have everyone's order to them before Christmas. I cannot predict a time frame on when your order will ship due to the logistics behind shipping almost 5,000 orders as quickly as possible but we are hoping to have them all sent out sometime between now and the end of November.
Here's what I think -- they were so completely focused demos and promotions for GenCon, PAX and now Essen the idea of coordinating/creating the pledge manager and shipping was a complete and total afterthought.

That may include the RoW crowd. I would hope that they could get the US orders out before the end of November (but being that it is the ides of October now, that may be only the US orders).

How do they handle retail shipping? One would think that they should know how to ship out boxes. I have to say that I'm probably as excited to get the paint sets as anything. Still, the game is getting good reviews, so I hope it is worth the wait.

I'm not optimistic about getting all that extra stuff any time soon, however.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:02 pm

Maybe they completely misunderstood the difference in logistics between shipping a few large orders to distributors and having to handle orders for thousands of individual customers directly. Multiplied by the complexity of dealing with the various add-on combinations for each customer.

This is definitely not by way of absolving them. Kickstarter board games aren't new at this point, nor is Flying Frog a garage designer doing this "make a board game" thing for the first time. They should've known exactly what they were getting into before they launched the kickstarter, and had plans in place well before they offered to start taking people's money. It's actually pretty shocking that a company that's been in the business this long is handling this worse than some of those garage designers have.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:24 pm

Every time I see you guys post in this thread, I get a twinge of jealousy thinking one of you has received their shipping notice!

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 2:48 pm

Well, at least my BGG user-created Brimstone bank notes arrived from Printer Studio. I'd hate to think the game would show up and I'd be floundering about wondering what I should use for money.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:23 pm

I think that their preparation for Essen is also going to slow them down.

I feel the same way Hentzau, I keep thinking that at least one of us should get a shipping notice soon!

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 7:58 pm

Say, November?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:23 am

Zarathud wrote:Say, November?

November.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 3:27 pm

Five weeks after shipping started and I'm no closer to understanding when my copy will arrive and how many shipments they've processed since the second week of September. Reading through comments on the KS site doesn't reveal anything either - pledge level or number, when you locked it in or even the state you reside -- there's no pattern. It's PAX Australia in a few weeks, so I guess the carnival of shipping will continue as their attention is on events. I'm really beginning to think January 2015 isn't an unreasonable guess.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:26 pm

January? That's optimistic.

I'll be happy if I see the base games before summer. I'll be thrilled if I ever even see the extras.

And I'd be ecstatic if they would stop whining about how much things cost and how they are losing money. What, do they think we are all going to chime in and tell them "it's okay" and "just C.O.D. everything"?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 10:20 pm

TheMix wrote:January? That's optimistic.

I'll be happy if I see the base games before summer. I'll be thrilled if I ever even see the extras.

And I'd be ecstatic if they would stop whining about how much things cost and how they are losing money. What, do they think we are all going to chime in and tell them "it's okay" and "just C.O.D. everything"?

Yeah, I would feel more sympathetic if it didn't say $1.3 million every time I checked the KS comments.

I think we will see this before summer, and I'm hoping it will be at my door before Christmas (I'd be very happy if before Thanksgiving). But I do think it will be November at the least.

What I don't understand is why they are so slow. Cool Mini or Not made less money on Arcadia Quest, and shipped a medium sized base game, along with a slightly smaller extras box, and a first expansion to those who ordered it (me, for example), not to mention all the smaller extras. They also had 4,885 backers (more than SoB). According to their last update, they had most of America shipped to within four weeks. They, however, did not have a huge presence at Gencon or Essen and seemed pretty focused on getting this to US backers (the RoW crowd is another story). Why is FFP, which is ostensibly a bigger and older game developer, having so many problems here?

Lastly, and just to vent, I about lost it on the KS comments when I saw some guy being so happy his 7 Minecart pledges had shipped to him. He was asking if he should start ebaying the extras now or wait until after the KS. Yeah guy, we really want to hear how you got your six extra copies that could have been shipped to us and are going to sell them.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:33 pm

Yikes, was just reading a thread on BGG complaining about the minis and quite a few folks weren't impressed by the quality and all the time needed to put them together. On the other hand, once they had something on the table it seems that people did love the game.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:37 pm

Oh, and here I thought you were going to mention random people in Europe are receiving shipments of the game and domestics have no idea what's going on.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:39 pm

assembly of minis...

Glad I missed it!

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:13 pm

coopasonic wrote:assembly of minis...

Glad I missed it!

Perhaps I'm wrong but I've heard that this small detail wasn't mentioned in the kickstarter. I would not have been a happy backer.

Smoove_B wrote:Oh, and here I thought you were going to mention random people in Europe are receiving shipments of the game and domestics have no idea what's going on.

Oh I'm sure they were just folks that happened to show up to Essen 2014...

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:15 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Oh, and here I thought you were going to mention random people in Europe are receiving shipments of the game and domestics have no idea what's going on.

Thought the folks in Europe were getting their games from Essen and they hadn't started shipping to Europe?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:37 pm

No, if you read through the KS comments (last I checked was this morning), there are Europeans reporting that the game box is showing up at their door -- they didn't attend Essen at all. Whether or not they're trolling, I have no idea, but it seemed like they were legit comments.

EDIT: Yes, I just checked - people in France, Italy and the Netherlands all reporting copies have been received. NJ? Not so much.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:52 pm

Smoove_B wrote:No, if you read through the KS comments (last I checked was this morning), there are Europeans reporting that the game box is showing up at their door -- they didn't attend Essen at all. Whether or not they're trolling, I have no idea, but it seemed like they were legit comments.

EDIT: Yes, I just checked - people in France, Italy and the Netherlands all reporting copies have been received. NJ? Not so much.

Wow, not that I have any investment in this game but that's pretty strange and frustrating I'm sure.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:37 pm

Their shipping defies logic. If you read through the comments, they're going all over the USA in random deliveries. It wouldn't surprise me to learn they somehow air shipped a palette of games to Essen for their EU distributors to get as many random copies mailed across Europe to help spread the word and sell more retail copies. Or maybe their philosophy is if they can randomly pepper the globe with copies, they won't have a concentrated group of people that are irritated all at once - just small pockets.

I mean really. Over a month into domestic shipping and they haven't said a thing -- how many units shipped or what states are being targeted. I was second guessing myself for not upping my pledge to get all the freebies, but now I'm glad I didn't give them another single dollar. They are terrible at logistics. I would love to have a copy and tell you all how horrible/awesome the models are. Maybe Jürgen in Düsseldorf can help?

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:55 pm

Hmm.

Well, I'm still trying to remain optimistic. Let me say something optimistic now.

Let's see. Um.

Oh yeah!

There's a slightly better chance of me getting this before I get my copy of Up Front!

checkedout · Post by **checkedout** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 6:40 pm

UPS states my game(s) will arrive tomorrow. Well, it was first Friday, then Monday and now Tuesday.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:25 am

checkedout wrote:UPS states my game(s) will arrive tomorrow. Well, it was first Friday, then Monday and now Tuesday.

You are far from the first person I have seen where this happened. I'm not exactly sure why the shipping date moves around, other than the possibility that FFP is printing/buying UPS shipping labels and then failing to mail them on the day they bought them (thus pushing back the date).

I stated earlier that CMON managed to send out as much stuff to more people in the exact same time FFP has taken to basically "shotgun" the US with copies. How exactly does FFP manage shipping to retailers when they seem so terrible at logistics?

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:30 am

baelthazar wrote:How exactly does FFP manage shipping to retailers when they seem so terrible at logistics?

Publishers don't ship to retailers. They ship to distributors... actually their manufacturer probably ships to distributors.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:34 am

So I guess this boils down to them grossly underestimating costs with production and figuring they could make up the difference by shipping it themselves? Because really, at this point why wouldn't you have someone like Amazon handle all the logistics? I think the KS bubble has burst, but if they're going to make changes to what project creators need to demonstrate during the funding period clearly receiving/shipping needs to be a bit more transparent. We already received our "Once a month" update from them, so I guess any chance of us knowing how things are progressing won't come until next week. Then again, maybe they're getting ready to leave for PAX Australia and won't be returning home until later next week. If random backers down under start receiving copies, I guess we'll know for sure.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:23 pm

coopasonic wrote:
baelthazar wrote:How exactly does FFP manage shipping to retailers when they seem so terrible at logistics?
Publishers don't ship to retailers. They ship to distributors... actually their manufacturer probably ships to distributors.

I suppose then, since they are having to ship to individual buyers rather than in bulk to distributors and then to retailers, they are reeling from not having the personnel needed to make these shipments.

Like SmooveB said, they should have gone with Amazon or another distribution solution.

Me, I'm frankly frustrated. It isn't so much that I haven't got a shipping notification but it is more the total lack of information.

checkedout · Post by **checkedout** » Tue Oct 28, 2014 9:35 pm

The package arrived today. I literally watched the UPS man run out of the truck and pseudo toss the package onto my porch before running back to the truck.

Perhaps that is part of the 'flying frog' part of the order. Even more annoying that I snuck home a few hours early since a signature was required, yet the toss and run approach seemed to ignore that fact. The ship at our leisure approach doesn't seem to include much in the way of packing materials since all that was in the box was a very thin lair of peanuts on the bottom of the box. A Tossed 20 pound box with little packing material equals the corner of one box damage with the insert cracked. I am starting to resent plastic insert since they always seem to reach me damaged even when the box looks pristine.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 4:15 pm

checkedout wrote:The package arrived today. I literally watched the UPS man run out of the truck and pseudo toss the package onto my porch before running back to the truck. Perhaps that is part of the 'flying frog' part of the order. Even more annoying that I snuck home a few hours early since a signature was required, yet the toss and run approach seemed to ignore that fact. The ship at our leisure approach doesn't seem to include much in the way of packing materials since all that was in the box was a very thin lair of peanuts on the bottom of the box. A Tossed 20 pound box with little packing material equals the corner of one box damage with the insert cracked. I am starting to resent plastic insert since they always seem to reach me damaged even when the box looks pristine.

I would be tempted to contact FFP or UPS and relate your displeasure at the treatment of your shipment. UPS insures all its deliveries (particularly ones of the cost of SoB) and, depending on how damaged the box is, should be held accountable for it. I once had to do this when UPS mangled some games I ordered from Amazon, explaining that - as a collector - the condition of the box was important to me.

Glad you got it Checkedout. What region are you from? It seems like the shipping had little to no pattern. Hopefully I will get a notification soon, but I wonder if they are waiting on another batch from China. They should at least tell us that, if it is the case.

checkedout · Post by **checkedout** » Wed Oct 29, 2014 6:03 pm

Yes, I have sent some games back to amazon for excessive damage. I can live with a bit of box damage but when the insert is cracked it annoys me to all hell. I live on the mid-atlantic coast. I was a bit surprised to get the shipping notification since I closed the pledge manager on the very last day. I was so tempted to increase the pledge but the entire way FFP handled this thing caused me to decline handing them any more cash. Especially after reviewing the stretch goals where many of the items where just a piece of a larger expansion designed to make you order the rest of it.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:14 pm

Just got a UPS shipping notification. For a 20lb box. I don't see any info on who it's from, but this is the only thing that I can think of.

So hopefully I'll have it next Tuesday.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:18 pm

I'm number three!!! I'm number three!!!

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:18 pm

Weird -- I just received the same email. I also guessed it was this based on the weight listed. It hasn't shipped, I've only been noticed a label for shipment has been generated. Estimated delivery is next Thursday (11/6). Here's hoping...

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:26 pm

Wednesday for me. I really need to start working on the Sassy Gal or I'll never get her finished once this arrives.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:44 pm

Ha! Tuesday.

Suckers!

Maybe I should take Wed off....

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:45 pm

Figured out what I can do with my 25 vacation days...

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:45 pm

I hate you F*#$%ERS so much right now!

No love for me. I closed my PM fairly quickly, but who knows how they pick people.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 2:53 pm

I'd offer to let you come over to put mine together when it shows up. Oh, and read through the instructions so you could teach it to me.

But Ohio is a bit far away. Sorry.