ACTA RIP....

[Stonehorse]

I've had a whole day to think about this, I'm a bit more clear headed now the 'red mist' has gone.

ACTA as it is now is dead. I'll still play it now and again, but it'll be near enough impossable to get any new blood into this great game. I'll be picking up one or two fleets in the mean time... ebay will be full of second hand fleets. I aim to help keep interest in the game alive at my local club.

The ways I can see Mongoose making ACTA a success, is to produce high quality cards for the fleets and S&P articles for the year ahead.

Then if they have fixed their financial problems in time for 2009, then I think it would be in their best interests to produce the ships in either plastic or resin, but move to the older AoG scale. It looks better, and I'm making an educated guess that it is a lot cheaper.

If there are no models on the horizon in 2009, I'll either have to resort to sculpting my own for personal use, or wait till Mongoose lose the license and another company pick it up.

If none of the above happen, I'll simply have to adapt the game rules to cater for the vast amount of other Space Combat models out there.

The only trouble if Mongoose pick it up in 2009, is that people might not be willing to give Mongoose another try.

 

[DM]

I suspect a large part of the sales problem has to do with the choice of licence. B5 isn't exactly current in the consciousness of today's potential buying market. But then what would be? BSG maybe, but there are obvious limitations in examples of interesting ships to model (and I guess the licence would be pretty costly anyway).

Maybe, at the end of the day, it is best for MGP to concentrate on what they see as their core activity - rule and books - and leave the modelling side to players such as GZG who seem to be able to do it really well.

 

[Foxmeister]

The biggest hurdel is that old players only need new ships... so maybe instead of building a stock, keep it small and only cast models to fill orders. Make sure people are aware of the extra time and most people will be patient. A good example is one guy who recently recieved his mothership of late.

This sort of approach only really works if you're a small operation running out of your shed in the back garden and doing it for love rather than money, or you're a huge great behemoth like GW who can afford to employ a few additional staff whose sole reason for employment is to sit around waiting for custom orders to come in. Mongoose fits in neither of those categories, so I really can't see this happening.

ACTA is in many ways a victim of its own success - 200+ ship models makes it very difficult to get inventory levels right if you're going to hold stock, and very costly to start remastering models etc as the moulds start wearing - moving to a different "scale" would mean remastering virtually everything which would be prohibitively costly, and Mongoose would just hasten the demise that Matt is trying to avoid.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Jal]

well here we are.. "all this has happened before and all of this will happen again", seems like a fitting BSG quote from my perspective.

can`t say i`m surprised, i went through all this with AOG and what hopes i had here did not last long.

MGP should have went for the Fleet Action line from the start but went with the big is sexy view of gaming. :roll:

very glad i still have large FA fleets for nearly all the races and the old Chamelion Eclectic B5 rules to keep me going.

even with the continued production of suppliments ACTA may not be dead yet but it is going to be extremely hard to bring it back from the edge of oblivion.

i shall wait in the shadows and see what develops.

p.s. will post this elsewhere in case it gets "edited"

 

[Kosh127]

Its just sad that this is happing. Its hard the the poeple that spent alot of money to see the expanse of the game die. With the better 2E here and a chance to get the game to grow it dies. Sad. i think this will also hurt mongoose with old customers. Having been pulled into BFE with promises and hopes and kick in the groin. This feels like a sucker punch. We were told that ACTA was going good and was going to be around in the future. Well all i can say is this is very sad, in more ways than on.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Then if they have fixed their financial problems in time for 2009, then I think it would be in their best interests to produce the ships in either plastic or resin, but move to the older AoG scale. It looks better, and I'm making an educated guess that it is a lot cheaper.

Doing that will attract the same criticism GW catches oh-so-regularly: it will invalidate people's existing collections. But, you cry out, they let people use the older models the first time around, and the FA scale too! Sure they did, but when you've got a fleet of big models and all the new stuff is smaller, what are you going to do when you want that new ship they just released?

A better move, I think, would be to re-scale the line so that the large ships like the Warlock and Omega remain the same and everything else gets re-sized to match, like the new Olympus models were. It will invalidate less models and make more sense overall as the game's scale remains largely the same.

 

[Kosh127]

http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/
here is the full explanation if you havn't read it

 

[MustEatBrains]

The good news is that the license is still with Mongoose, and looks like it will be for a while. The other good news is that there are quite a number of Fans of the series and the game within Mongoose towers. So, there will surely be some Candy for the CTA players for a long time to come.

But without heightened interest in the franchise itself, like a new tv series or a exceptional success for the Lost Tales DVDs, I doubt that the market will ever be big enough again for a re-release of the miniatures.

 

[Reaverman]

The good news is that the license is still with Mongoose, and looks like it will be for a while.

For_the_moment :wink:

 

[MustEatBrains]

The good news is that the license is still with Mongoose, and looks like it will be for a while.

For_the_moment :wink:

And I hope that it will remain there for some time to come, because the whole game hinges on it, not only the miniatures. Switching the license to a new owner would mean a complete relaunch of a new game, which might or might not be compatible with my (or any other player´s) miniatures collection.

 

[Hash]

People of the Planet Houston. I am your ruler, General Zod.

I, like many of you, enjoy a good game of moving metal ships to crush my opponents. (I always win naturally and find it difficult to find anyone on this planet to even challenge me but I enjoy the aforementioned crushing and eventual kneeling of my opponents.). However I was promised the son of ACTA v1, ACTA v2 new and improved with many more alien species to rule over and conquer (although Kryptonian fleets are obviously far superior).

However, the inability of these humans at Mongoose to supply my demands for more metal ships is beginning to bore me.

I suggest this "Mon" "Goose" think carefully about this decision or all of their books may end up like this one!

 

[Shadow Queen]

she even poped up in 24

Yeah, when I saw her I hadn't seen B5 for ages. I knew I recognized her but just couldn't place it. Then suddenly... "OMG SHE'S A TEEP!!! LOOK OUT JACK!"

NYPD Blue

 

[JayRaider]

I don't want Mongoose to collapse as a company.
I was angry,disappointed, and stunned yesterday.
When those feelings began to subside i realised that i don't want Mongoose to go outta business.
If that means ending production of B5 and scrapping further miniatures plans for this year or next, then OK.
Do i like it?
Hell NO.
Do Mongoose like it?
Hell NO.
As Mongoose stated, they were having to subsidise the foundry in the US since it was operating at only 1/3 capacity.
Plans to increase this with ST output weren't adding up financially.
What would you have done in there place?
Risk the entire company on unsound financial realities?

 

[Shadow Queen]

Jay question for all.

Would a foundery in the uk would that of made a differance?

inc mongoose people please answer that one question

 

[H]

would a foundry in a country with a higher cost of living and higher tax been viable? I think we know the answer to that. sad as it is, this country's govt seem to want to force everythign but service industries overseas.

 

[Reaverman]

Jay question for all.

Would a foundery in the uk would that of made a differance?

inc mongoose people please answer that one question

Ask the Foundry

 

[Admiral Phlop]

If, and this is a big IF, mongoose is not able to make mini's for just one year and do start putting out models in 2009 then it is not the death knell for Bab 5. It just means that all of us that will stay with the game will get by without any new models. There will be plenty of product out there for sale if you have holes in your collection. I want to look optimistically at the situtation and hope that it all works out in the end. If and when the economy gets better we can get our fix for new ships. We as the players of this game are the ones that can keep it alive while it is in hiatus. Matt didn't say that they would not ever make any more mini's ever, just that it they need to take a year off. I personally take him at his word until he does not come through. I will continue to play with our group. Keep the faith.

 

[Burger]

If, and this is a big IF, mongoose is not able to make mini's for just one year and do start putting out models in 2009 then it is not the death knell for Bab 5.

You're right, 1 year is the kind of delivery timeframe we have already become accustmed to!

 

[H]

If, and this is a big IF, mongoose is not able to make mini's for just one year and do start putting out models in 2009 then it is not the death knell for Bab 5.

You're right, 1 year is the kind of delivery timeframe we have already become accustmed to!

only 1 year? Luxury!

 

[Grimbart_Kriegsaxt]

Äh so will i ever get what i ordered yesterday?

No seriously how can i get info on the status of my order?