Wow, SypherV.

Have you read the post at all?

First of all, it's a test.

Quote:

This store is NOT the upcoming permanent virtual store. It is not even a mockup of it; it is more of a processing test - a beta for handling orders. None the less, it will be live and secure and perfectly capable of taking your money to be used on one of Doctor Tyche’s nefarious plans (robot soldiers being expensive and all). Our lure: t-shirts!

Second, yes, some people are that eager to get CoT t-shirts and/or support MWM. Disparaging them because of this is hardly proper.

Critique all you like, but please do so without resorting to insults.

I didn't resort to insults, please specify where i insulted anyone?

I was just giving an opinion, if you can't accept that then maybe you have issues.

Talking as a fan rather than staff, they're (apart from the KS exclusive shirt), exactly the same deal as was offered on the KS, I have no problem with the concept of offering them now, and think it will be a useful advertising tool for when the character creator appears. I intend to wear mine to various events that people who might be interested in the game will attend.

Hey, guys. Look, it's pretty simple. We have had a lot of people going 'we missed the Kickstarter, how can we help', and we had this opportunity. It's taken us surprisingly long to get the shirts ready. First the art wasn't right, then the background on the art was printing on the shirts, so there were these big squares of color - clearly, we wanted just the art to print.

So we said 'okay, just before we send the shirts out, let's see if this paypal account works, and give people a chance to pick some up.'
This is a very limited time thing, we're only doing it for two weeks, and then everything goes off to the printer.

It struck us as a nice last-chance opportunity.

Now, I can think of a bunch of places that have solicited more purchases before an alpha. Every single KS that uses Backerkit, for example, tends to urge people to upgrade their pledge or add more perks. And Star Citizen has done all kinds of things, from mouse pads to t-shirts to patches, after the KS and before even their proto-pre-alpha Hangar Module was out.

It's not that unusual, and really, given that we have this opportunity, why not take it? You get a thing, supplied by a reputable company ( http://teelaunch.com/ ) and you get to support the game.

As far as 'a decent trailer' goes, you may not know this, but early trailers, especially cinematic ones, tend to be made by outside houses and have nothing to do with the final game. You see that a lot in console ads that are ten times more detailed than the finished game winds up being. (It's part of why I always loved Interstate '76.)

Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6qpIlJCfk

We decided not to spend that twenty grand that way. That's a lot of money. A lot of _your_ money, that wouldn't be going into the game.

Any trailer that comes from us is done by us, in our engine.

And I think we'll have something you'll like better than a trailer. And I can _almost_ say you'll see it 'Soon'. ALMOST. But not quite.

Sound good?

warcabbit wrote:

Hey, guys. Look, it's pretty simple. We have had a lot of people going 'we missed the Kickstarter, how can we help', and we had this opportunity. It's taken us surprisingly long to get the shirts ready. First the art wasn't right, then the background on the art was printing on the shirts, so there were these big squares of color - clearly, we wanted just the art to print.
So we said 'okay, just before we send the shirts out, let's see if this paypal account works, and give people a chance to pick some up.'
This is a very limited time thing, we're only doing it for two weeks, and then everything goes off to the printer.
It struck us as a nice last-chance opportunity.
Now, I can think of a bunch of places that have solicited more purchases before an alpha. Every single KS that uses Backerkit, for example, tends to urge people to upgrade their pledge or add more perks. And Star Citizen has done all kinds of things, from mouse pads to t-shirts to patches, after the KS and before even their proto-pre-alpha Hangar Module was out.
It's not that unusual, and really, given that we have this opportunity, why not take it? You get a thing, supplied by a reputable company ( http://teelaunch.com/ ) and you get to support the game.
As far as 'a decent trailer' goes, you may not know this, but early trailers, especially cinematic ones, tend to be made by outside houses and have nothing to do with the final game. You see that a lot in console ads that are ten times more detailed than the finished game winds up being. (It's part of why I always loved Interstate '76.)
Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6qpIlJCfk
We decided not to spend that twenty grand that way. That's a lot of money. A lot of _your_ money, that wouldn't be going into the game.
Any trailer that comes from us is done by us, in our engine.
And I think we'll have something you'll like better than a trailer. And I can _almost_ say you'll see it 'Soon'. ALMOST. But not quite.
Sound good?

As far as star citizen goes it has been more successful than this project, so for them to have a merch shop seems more plausible since they have had trailers out, they have had parts of the game accessible to backers, they made like what 30 million so far? that's a poor example to use.

As for the coh original trailer they had a trailer, cinematic one albeit but it showed us what to expect, you cannot compare your project to that trailer it was far superior than what you have released to us this far.

I'm not arguing your point which is to give those who didn't back enough or back at all to get something good out of it i think that's fine, but if you don't see how this comes across to the majority of your community then i fail to see you succeeding in future endeavours.

Coh have been doing this soon rubbish for way too long and it's clearly rubbed off on you guys, basically if you read between the lines, soon means "not here, not even close, but when we feel like it" bad business if i'm honest, i know things take time i can be patient at times, but pushing out a shop which is live looks bad and doesn't really give hope for the future of the franchise, it just means you want money first before anything, something which you doubled your kickstarter funds anyway.

Yes. Star Citizen had venture capitalists backing them before their KS launched. They have full time workers. They have a lot of things we don't have.
I respect and admire them a lot.

I've given my perspective on this to you as best I can. We're doing our best to be fair to everyone. And we are slowly, but surely, fulfilling our KS obligations. Wait and see.

Izzy - I'm going to keep that answer a little quiet for now. It's almost Soon. But it's not quite Soon. Okay?

Shadow Elusive wrote:

That wasn't just hype talk at the beginning of the update SypherV. People - lots of them - have been demanding, and I do mean demanding, for ways to GIVE us money ever since the Kickstarter ended. It's been as much bemusing as touching, honestly. We more than doubled our goal and all these people are mad because they hadn't given us even more.
I assure you, Syph, and anyone else who is wondering, that none of the references to fans wanting to give money are exaggerated. Even the simpsons picture is a reference to player demands - we've had quite a few versions of that meme posted on our forums and various other media streams. People, many people, DO want to support us that much. And they have made this very, very clear over time. People have even expressed disappointed specifically over not being able to get the T-shirts. We knew exactly what kind of demand there was when we planned this. What can I say? We're a lucky studio. We have a community who wants to support us this much. All we can do is try to live up to it.
Yes, many will probably order thinking of it as a Kickstarter without Kickstarter. Well they will get a T-shirt anyway, and if they're that much a supporter of the project they will probably enjoy having them. But I can't see how a two week store selling honest products, doubling as an excellent beta of systems we'll need in the future, to people who have been demanding ways to donate, qualifies as greed. There are better ways we could have satisfied our greed. We could have skipped the product entirely. That would have been a lot cheaper. And they'd probably have gone for it. We really have seen that meme a lot.
Besides - even with double KS goals, ours is one hell of a shoestring budget to produce an MMO on. We can only do this because our members don't take a payroll. If enough people buy, if making these stores turns out to be a steady enough income, who knows? We might be able to pay some of our management, or maybe a 3D artist or two. It would make their lives a lot saner. Heck, it would make producing the game a lot easier. Greedy, I know, but a company can dream right?

That's fair enough, if people have demanded them for some time then i see no problem with it, as i said before my intention is not to insult anyone here, i simply wanted to make a point but seeing as there is a high demand for merchandise from the store then i see no issue with it, in fact i will step back and say well done for listening to the fans, i apologise if my earlier post came across rude.

I have to admit, news about the AB was my big hope for this special update.

That said, being able to select various backgrounds for AB screenshots of characters would be tres spiffy.

/end derail

AB updates are being held back by the character rig, it's been the major chokepoint transitioning from Unreal 3 to 4. We're making progress but until it's done we really can't display any of our progress properly.

So, you are prepared for the "I was in Bora Bora and missed the two week window but want a shirt" complaint right? And the Soon stuff to me is beyond hackneyed. Otherwise, I appreciate the T-shirt gesture and the rationale behind it.

Well, the soon thing is an old joke, honestly. Obviously we have plans, obviously many are hard to put a real date on. There's a limited list of things to say in response when those things are brought up. But maybe we'll cut back on that particular meme.

And yes, we are indeed prepared for those complaints :D. We kinda noticed the pattern, see.

A point about "Soon™": the other alternative is not to tell folks at all. We have absolutely considered that, but to be honest, the feedback overall — even when folks like or dislike one or another type of update — has been a solid super-majority in favor of "more, not less." I won't say "overwhelming majority", but folks can do the same counts we can (well, that I can, I don't handle the direct email feedback) if they want to put a precise number on it for some reason.

Speaking as the sheep currently wrangling the avatar body situation (for those who know my art skills, be reassured, "wrangling" does not mean "doing it myself"): no, we can't give you a specific date yet, largely because we want to show you something worth seeing. We're not waiting for perfect, just "clearly shows what folks care about a lot" — the problem is that even with an 'agile'-style process (part of why you've been able to see much at all yet is because we are heavily focused on "deliver early, deliver often") there are some things that just don't look like much until the 80-90% stage.

For those who didn't catch it, you might refer back to my detailed explanation of what exactly was involved with the fireworks update. The final (visible) results of a lot of things are really the tip of the iceberg. That was a couple of weeks. This is on the order of six months, depending on precisely how you count the time, although you *have* seen bits and pieces of it already. And Cabbit's "Almost Soon™" is a very deliberate attempt to not over-hype it by just saying "Soon", while telling you that there's a pretty big milestone quite a bit closer than "the horizon." But such big landmarks often prove to have nasty gullys deep enough to break a wagon wheel all around them, so just racing toward them isn't usually a wise idea.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go dig out my maps of the mid-Atlantic. There seem to be some strange bubbles coming from beneath the surface, off the port bow.

Edited: because I really can construct a proper sentence, despite all evidence to the contrary.

warcabbit wrote:

You're making me promise things, man.
Part of the plan does involve a 'pose your character and select a background' section, yes. It's the part that's hooked into the extremely theoretical 3D printing tech.

<fnord>Remember, it's also hooked into the sub-system that drives the holo-projector prototyping table…</fnord>

Look I'm not calling you greedy or anything and I do actually like that you are trying to give people who missed the kickstarter the chance to support and I do know you need practice with shipping and selling and all that, but this update should have been a side update, not the weekly update. As far as I know the most we got this month so far was an interview. I understand if you don't want to talk about mechanics until you are absolutely sure it will work but you should have at least given us some lore to chew on for the month this week.

This month alone, we have had:
Tech: Fireworks
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/900610
Lore: Charleston:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/906138
Interview: Dr. Tyche:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/917000
And now the T-Shirts.
I think that's a pretty good sampling.

As far as Paypal, the official store will certainly take more than just Paypal, but this quick version is kind of limited to it.

warcabbit wrote:

This month alone, we have had:
Tech: Fireworkshttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/900610
Lore: Charleston:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/906138
Interview: Dr. Tyche:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/917000
And now the T-Shirts.
I think that's a pretty good sampling.
As far as Paypal, the official store will certainly take more than just Paypal, but this quick version is kind of limited to it.

oh.... it seems I've missed some updates...... sorry folks nothing to see here my brain just went out the window....

The fireworks video was the tech for the month? I thought it was just a little bonus for July 4th festivities. I mean even admittedly by the devs the fireworks effect wasn't that great and we were shown that same unfinished I textured statute that we've been seeing for months. We just got "trust us things happened in the background" lol

A comment made earlier this month by one of the devs made it clear that the fireworks were not the 'real' tech update. I'd go hunt it up but, lazy.

Remember that there is one more Wednesday, and therefore one more update, this month.

Oh, you don't play it.

"The video games, they play me."

[b]IDEA[/b]

At some point, offer character commissions and the option to have art of your characters sold on t-shirts/mugs/posters.

Who wouldn't want to wear a shirt depicting the Nightmare in a maniacal laugh?

Nightmare Before Christmas?

I saw Nina Kissin' Santa Claus ;P
The Nightmare that Stole Christmas?

Buy donuts. Buy lots and lots of donuts.

Unless he's a Doctor Tyche minion. Then he might be more of a fudge man.

Mind-Freeze,
According to the announcement it seems the sale should end around 8/6/14 if I have done my math correctly.

Dated 7/23/14: "This temporary store test will only be live for two weeks, starting today, so get in and get stuff while you can!"

Hope this helps...

.....As a veteran of this magic time "before Everquest" I can assure you that was extremely exaggerated. AT WORST you had a GM with some insanely awesome program that responded to /commands with accurate and fair rolls and had to pay him 10 bucks a month to borrow it for your own games. If you wanted a MUD (Multi User Dungeon for all you young whippersnappers) there were plenty of sites that facilitated them mostly through AOL's service. And even then, there was Ultima Online which predated Everquest by 6 years AND had the same subscription model AND was the first true MMO.

Also, if you hate F2P models then you are missing out on many of the games I frequent (Dota, TF2, Planetside 2..) and the pure fun they can give.

Foradain wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
That reminds me, I need to order mine before Wednesday. need to get my face on everyone in my house's chest.

Just how many people do you have in your house's chest? ^_^

Is it an ice chest? Are these people each in one piece? :-o

masterghostartist wrote:

socialism. can't stand it.
i cannot wait for a store full of various things.
and i would love to pay a monthly subscription.
i hear that before everquest, people had to pay 50-200 dollars a hour for text based versions of dungeons and dragons. now that is insane.

Before the idea of a monthly fee for internet access came about, AOL charged about $6/hour for connecting to the internet, and other services were in the same price range I believe. Therefore, playing an online game (such as the original Neverwinter) would cost you $6 an hour on top of the game purchase. I don't know where you got a figure like this from.

Quote:

i will always hate free to play models, unless it is just to let people taste what they might have before paying for it.

CoT is a buy the box model so everyone playing (outside of a free trial) will have paid to do so.

Master, there's a single error in your calculations..

DnD NEVER happens more than once a week. Seriously. Everyone's schedules have to be in perfect harmony to have DnD night.. So you'd be looking at 3 hours tops, 5 if you're lucky/not lucky (trust me, 5 hours with a bad player/drama hurricane is a Nightmare..) a week, going at around 12-20 hours a month.. 120 bucks a month for DnD? Ehhh... Also, by that time not everyone really had a Computer so anyone who used MUDs were able to afford it graciously without any real dent in their pocket (USUALLY! Always exceptions.). Remember this was the late 90s, early 2000s. The net as we know it didn't exist then.

Not to worry. This was just a test to see if the ordering worked. You'll have plenty of opportunities to order shirts (or whatever) when the store goes live. At that point, at the latest, information about shipping outside the contiguous USA should be available.