An Open Letter To MGP

[ScipioAmericanus]

Poko:

You and I seem to be of the same mind! MORE Fluff...for all the reasons we've stated.

The first SST pub I was in was Pathfinders. I was so jazzed when Ian told me they were using my stuff! I was on cloud nine for days and even lit a candle in honor of "St. Heinlein!" Mind you I hadn't just sent unit emblems, I'd sent along "interviews" with Pathfinders...1st person accounts about what it was like in training, etc., as well as a lot of narrative that drew directly upon my experience in Ranger school and beyond since MGP had said that the Pathfinders were "the elite of the elite." Getting my tab was probably the most important moment in my life...even more so than my jump wings. I tried to carry that over into the Pathfinders so that players could really get into the feel of this elite force.

Well...I think the army book was quite under-done. Not nearly enough background (for instance, the "Winged Spear" is briefly mentioned, but what is its significance? And what does "Nulli Secundus" (Second to None)mean? None of that was fleshed out). Hell the "Winged Spear" wasn't even capitalized in the text.

I even wrote after action reports detailing Pathfinder platoon actions during the Big K invasion. Fluff, fluff, fluff! I'm not saying MY stuff should have been included: I'm saying there should have been a LOT more content in that skinny little book.

Btw...Kieran Yanner's cover art still remains the most compelling piece of art I've seen! It's still my favorite!

I think we agree: MORE FLUFF!!!!! :lol:

Regards.

 

[ScipioAmericanus]

@ Old Bear:

I've read, and re-read all your replies.

Again, I'm trying to help, so take the following in that spirit, ok?

IMHO, you've got some paradigms (you, meaning MGP) that you need to shed. All your replies to suggestions (many of them darned good) were met with essentially "that won't work."

I encourage you to re-visit all those suggestions and ask "How could that work?"

Your CUSTOMERS have offered their help. You have admitted that you're resource-constrained. Ergo???

I've been a successful company President. I've been a Marketing Manager, a Production Manager, and a Sub-Contract Manufacturing Manager (I sourced and qualified 17 companies across the US and Canada with about $75 million in annual business...our customers were people like Intel, AMD, and HP...and ALL my subs were ISO certified before they even began to ship production product). There's a 90% chance that the silicon in your computer was made in a production line that I personally designed, and the thin film vapor deposits in your chips are from sputter source targets manufactured by one of the companies I personally qualified.

I'll throw down the gauntlet here and now...and in public.

I'll come to Mongoose Towers and HELP your business. I can guarantee success. Not only am I a gamer...but I'm a succesful businessman.

Here's the deal: you pay the air fare (Biz class or above---I don't fly steerage) and the hotel...and take me out for some beers... and the rest is gratis. Given that the going rate for "managment consultants" is $150/hr. plus expenses...well, you do the math.

If you're seriously interested, PM me. But be fore-warned: I am indeed a "Quality Nazi." Maybe I can teach you guys some of my tricks?

Regards.

 

[Old Bear]

That of course is something you'd have to take up with the directors - it's above my pay grade. :wink:

 

[xeoran]

Yanners piece of art is indeed fantastic. Never quite worked out why he wasn't hired for more.

Onto the fluff: hell yes. More fluff all the way. I feel that MGP hasn't amde the most of its fluff. I love all your suggestions Scipio: after action reports, quoted rumours, even clips from rolling news such as were used in the VASA army book for Void. Add adresses from the president, orders of the day, interviews with journos- everything! Not to mention some of those great old pamphlets ("Your weapon is your friend!", what to do in an Arachnid meteorite bombardment [hide under your desk etc.]).

On the darkness issue...well. I don't want the skulls/spikes path. I do feel AT 43 and Infinity ain't great examples (one is anime and very, very happy and the other is traumatised and darkish.). However I get what you are saying. I suppose what I mean more is that 1950's atmosphere of doubt, suspicion and paranoia. Not a totalitarian government but a government that is in crisis and trying to hide it. Imagine MacCarthy type trials and "Arachnid Peril". More 1984 that 40,000. After all, Heinleins government is basicly elitist. Not dark as much as the nasty shades of gray.

 

[Doghouse]

First off, with all due respect, I personally think that the biggest mistake Mongoose has made was stopping work on SST to do BF:Evo.
They've got an excellent licence on their hands, an extremely marketable one at that and they've ditched the entire production schedule in favour of a new home grown product.
I've heard talk of a WWII version as well here on the forums, please just focus on one system. Do the research, find out what system would sell best and stick with it before moving on.
This was their first mistake imo.

Second off, wargames are all about three factors, minis, rules and fluff. The ABS stuff was/is horrible, absolute nightmare to work with in regards to conversions and the kits were/are over complicated. Metal minis would have been a better, simpler solution if the castings are up to scratch.
You can put a brave face on it but I think the pre-paints will tank big time.
The background material in the original rulebook was written for roleplaying, it was over-indulgent in details like every rank in the service but little or no details on the actual troops/units fighting the battles, variations in uniforms for example, pictures of minis, etc.
Like it's been said before they should have played on the '50s style propoganda more in terms of background material, more patriotism, more posters, etc.
The rules are good but in all fairness they are little more than a 40k+, I suspect that this is how 40k rules should be as seen by Andy C. The rules alone can't be expected to carry the game.

Thirdly release schedule, we've seen some really nice bits up for grabs like the tac-fighters, dropships and the elusive (yet highly unimaginatively named) Fourth but nothing ever materialised. We waited and waited and waited then waited some more then the game was frozen in favour of BF:Evo?
This last statement, unfortunately, sums up Mongoose for me.
Shows us cool stuff that we'd all love to buy then takes them away.
Do more market research I think is the lesson here.

Honestly I'd love to see SST become a respected and much played game, but if things carry on this way it's not going to happen and you're going to lose out to AT-43 big time on this.

 

[BuShips]

Doghouse, they are doing both Battlefield Evolution and Starship Troopers. They just decided to pop out the BF product first, then roll out the SST:Evo second. I think they decided to hold off on SST because they had come up with new rule ideas when they were designing BF:Evo, which is based on the SST core rules. By folding these new ideas full circle back into the parent rules set and retooling the minis line for prepaints they were going to be able to push the SST product again, including the new concepts. By keeping the first line of figures available, they are hoping to grab customers from both camps, "old school" gamers and the newer prefinished (and probably more impatient) "ready to go" gamers. Time will tell if this works out for MGP. If enough of us like the bulk of the figures and the "new" rules, maybe we won't look back at our "old ways". If it grows the customer base then Mongoose wins. The "MIA" air support is supposed to be some of the first stuff up in a few months. I feel a bit like Malcolm Reynolds in Serenity Valley, hoping that the promised air support arrives. I just hope it doesn't turn put to be too much like that episode, lol. :lol:

 

[Galatea]

The ABS stuff was/is horrible, absolute nightmare to work with in regards to conversions and the kits were/are over complicated. Metal minis would have been a better, simpler solution if the castings are up to scratch.

If you aren't able to work with plastics it YOUR fault, not that of the miniatures.

I never had any problem with assembling or converting mine (and I have done a lot of conversion work on them) - in fact plastic is WAY more easy to convert than metal and has some other advantages.
-You do not need any heavy equipment for conversions, a sharp knife and a gasflamer is enough
-Plastic moldlines are way easier to cut away than metal moldlines are
-The parts weight less so the minis will not fall apart from the mass of it's components
-GreenStuff hold much better on plastic than on metal
-Fragile Miniatures are unlikely to be damaged during transport because of their reduced weight (compared to metal minis)
-You don't have to carry all those heavy metal things around when your going on a convention
-ABS Plastic minis (especially the Warrior Bugs) seldom fall apart when dropped and if they do they are easier to fix than metal ones - and due to the reduced weight the paint is unlikely to get seriously damaged when the model hits the ground

 

[xeoran]

I think Doghouse has a lot right though. MGP is doing too many products and it stretches them.

 

[BuShips]

Yeah, to each his own as far as plastic vs. pewter. I agree with Galatea on his comments and that the ABS stuff is downright fun to mod with. I took an upright pose and made him into a prone sniper with his scoped rifle and it was a blast to do. I then began having fun posing additional figures into sitting poses and running poses, etc. I really have grown to like the mult-part ABS stuff a great deal, especially using the right glue. A plastic 'weld' type such as acrylic solvent cement woks very nicely. I have used IPS Weld-on for over 30 years (!) on plastic styrene models and still love to work with it.

 

[Soulmage]

I'll come to Mongoose Towers and HELP your business. I can guarantee success. Not only am I a gamer...but I'm a succesful businessman.

I'll chip in that no matter how unusual or wierd it may seem, if you can verify his credentials, I would highly recommend you take him up on his offer! It will be well worth your money and an excellent investment in your business.

I'm not a professional management consultant, but I have worked in and been in management in a number of different areas of my company. . . a $50 billion dollar enterprise that is the largest and most successful insurance company in the United States with more than 70,000 employees and 16,000 independent contractor agents. Our operations are highly developed and very sophisticated because they have to be. A small mistake can cost hundreds of millions of dollars very very easily. Sure, there is a lot of beauracractic nonsense that goes along with working at a megacorp, but you do get an appreciation for how business is done.

From that perspective I can tell you that the #1 killer of game companies is lack of business expertise. It doesn't matter how good the game is, how great the products are, and how slick the marketing is. . the company will die if there is not sufficient business expertise at the top. Running day to day operations is very possible without it, but that expertise is what keeps the company out of disasterous situations, and helps the company survive disasters when they do occur (because they will, no matter how good you are at preventing them.)

The problem is, the founders of game companies tend to be creative types that while usually very smart (allowing them to get along on day to day management) don't tend to be the business hard-asses that are required as a part of any successful enterprise.

I don't know the background of any of you guys, or whether you have already hired some experienced business professionals who are non-gamers to assist in decision making and provide that "pure business" perspective, but I will tell you that even if you have, you will find Scipio's counsel to be worth many times your investment in it. (Assuming he is who he says he is . . Sorry Scip, this is the internet after all and I don't know you. LOL!!)

Anyway. . . probably get tired of reading this kind of stuff, but you guys are making games that I love, and I want you to be very very successful so that you keep doing it!!!

 

[Doghouse]

If you aren't able to work with plastics it YOUR fault, not that of the miniatures.

I never had any problem with assembling or converting mine (and I have done a lot of conversion work on them) - in fact plastic is WAY more easy to convert than metal and has some other advantages.
-You do not need any heavy equipment for conversions, a sharp knife and a gasflamer is enough
-Plastic moldlines are way easier to cut away than metal moldlines are
-The parts weight less so the minis will not fall apart from the mass of it's components
-GreenStuff hold much better on plastic than on metal
-Fragile Miniatures are unlikely to be damaged during transport because of their reduced weight (compared to metal minis)
-You don't have to carry all those heavy metal things around when your going on a convention
-ABS Plastic minis (especially the Warrior Bugs) seldom fall apart when dropped and if they do they are easier to fix than metal ones - and due to the reduced weight the paint is unlikely to get seriously damaged when the model hits the ground

Sorry mate but I have to disagree. I'm an extremely experienced kit basher, been doing it nearly twenty years now and I know what I'm talking about when it comes to conversions and models.
How exactly is it my fault that the ABS is hard to work with? Materials should be customer friendly. One of the biggest customer complaints I've heard is that the ABS is too difficult to work with and is poorly detailed (MI monkey faces for example), second is the poor quality of metal castings.
They need to keep it simple, ABS requires a specialist glue to bond correctly. Use Super glue and the bond is too fragile, any trauma impact on the model will cause the bond to break as the plastic doesn't fuse like styrene does with poly cement.
Problem is ABS glue isn't as easy to get hold of, it's all well and good being able to hop on the interenet and ask someone here at the forums what to use but not everyone has internet access.
From such a customer's point of view there is no contact with Mongoose other than what you get in the box.

Plus the early kits are over complicated, MI would have been better as plug and play for the starter set and don't get me started on the Tanker Bug. :roll:
Point is Mongoose has an invaluable resource here in the forums and they need to utilise that resource from a business perspect rather than the "buddys with the boss" approach used so far.
Yeah it's nice being able to chat with Matt but they need to stonewall their personal options and treat it as a business resource.
Matt's alledged "these new minis are crap" comment and the flip-flop "well I've been staring at these minis all afternoon and they're growing on me" is a horrendous blunder.
If an actor was interviewed about his/her new movie and said "nah, it's crap!" who would go and see it?
If the boss doesn't believe in a new product on first inspection then why the heck would a new customer? New customers are the life blood of a company.
If they want the new pre-paints to work they need to drop the camo and eyes being painted, it will only come out messy on a mass production. Stick to the block colours and market them as base coated, wouldn't hurt to make an initial loss and offer special deals on the first wave to shift them either.

The next problem I see is that they've told people that the second and third wave will have a much better paintjob, so they've stripped the incentive to buy the first wave. Who wants minis the boss said are crap when you can wait for the good stuff?
It's like I was saying earlier they need to make a plan and stick to one system, the problem here is how much are they going to lose on the first wave and can they make it back on future sales?
Trust me I'd love to see SST make a come back but they need to give themselves a kick up the butt!

Mail order and product quality control are also areas that could do with improvement. From personal experience I've had to wait two months for my orders on tow occations and the second time they sent out a double order. When I contacted the company to let them know they'd sent me too much stuff I was told to send it back at my expense???
Now there's gratitude for you, not thanks we're sorry about that.
I know that technically that Mongoose are a publisher first and foremost but if you offer a service you need to give it one hundred percent.
I've run goods in/despatch departments and the goal you should be setting is three days tops domestic deliveries and international six to nine.
Don't know who they got running that dept but I'd be embaressed if it was me.
It's all well saying use a LGS that stocks their products or order online but not everyone has interenet access as I said before or a local LGS, let alone one that's willing to risk selling SST.
They need to target stores like Waterstones, companies that aren't neccessarily gaming stores but stock those sort of products to create awareness and make their product accessible.

Reputation, Customer service and product quality/awareness are everything!

Most businesses go under due to poor planning and bad market research Mongoose is well on it's way (well the wargaming side is) unless it can turn this disaster around.

Hire Scipio as a consultant, he knows what he's talking about and has an invested interest in the game.

 

[BuShips]

You made some good points there. While the ABS MI are "fiddly" and not really easy to work with for the basic hobby-gamer, the new PPMs should plug that gap nicely, provided that they are acceptable. The cement that I use is easily found at any glass/plastics shop and "welds" the pieces together. While originally cussing all of the separate pieces such as shoulder guards and groin armor, the fact that they are seperate is their best strength for modding. If MGP had offered the preassembled/prepainted (PPM) figures for the "rip the box open and play" crowd (I'm guessing not you, Doghouse, heh) and then offered up the MI sprues later for special modded figures, they might have been better off, but that would have still left the gamers that wanted pewter MI wanting. One thing is for sure and that is that all of the large units should be made in plastic. On that point, I'd think we'd all agree. :wink:

 

[Galatea]

1. ABS-plastic DOES fuse. I don't know what it's in the rest of the world but I can by a standard revell plastic glue (contacta liquid) in EVERY big shop and it fuses perfectly.
The model will not brake except it falls to the bottom from above 1 meter. At least mine never did (and they got several drops)

2. ABS can be detailed. Just look at those beautiful Rippler Bugs. They ARE detailed. The problem of the monkey-faced troopers is NOT the ABS-plastic. Or why do the metal female CAPs look worst of all?

p.s. I have some years of experience in (tabletop) modeling, too.
And I had never any problem with ABS plastic.
(I also didn't have any problem combining it with toy rubber, modelling mass or metal/plastic components of any kind)

 

[Doghouse]

I agree whole heartedly mate, plastics are the way to go for large armies and the best way would have been like you said the open the box and play models then have the sprues for modders would have been an excellent way to go.
I'm assuming they went with ABS because it's a cheaper alternative?
Suprisingly enough I love the idea of these pre-prepared minis. I enjoy all the major aspects of the hobby like converting, painting and sculpting just as much as wargaming itself.
I'm seriously getting into AT-43 at the moment purely because the minis come base coated and based. A little touch up and they're done. I can sculpt bits on if I want or just have use the alternate heads provided and they're ready to go.
This is what I had hoped for with BF:evo and SST:Evo but I'm seeing a trend emerge here that doesn't sit well with me.
I sincerly wish them the best of luck with the Evo series and hope the newer models end up blowing people away and they make millions but in all honesty I think Mongoose are trying to run before they have learned to walk.

 

[Turtle]

Actually, one of the big reasons for ABS plastic was its durability. But cost and availability are also factors.

Most notibly, the warrior bugs have some pretty small joints, and they rest directly on their legs with no base to support them. The ABS plastic stands up to this very well, I've dropped many a bug from tabletop height and heigher only to have them bounce a little and be perfectly fine.

 

[BuShips]

Actually, one of the big reasons for ABS plastic was its durability. But cost and availability are also factors.

Most notibly, the warrior bugs have some pretty small joints, and they rest directly on their legs with no base to support them. The ABS plastic stands up to this very well, I've dropped many a bug from tabletop height and heigher only to have them bounce a little and be perfectly fine.

I agree Turtle. I hope the PPM Warrior Bugs are a durable plastic, or we'll have a mass nickname for them that will be the same as the familiar "Graboid" in Tremors... 'ol Stumpy. :roll: I can't imagine the complaints that Mongoose missed getting when they went ABS over styrene plastic. Talk about a dodge save :lol: .

 

[ScipioAmericanus]

I'll chip in that no matter how unusual or wierd it may seem, if you can verify his credentials, I would highly recommend you take him up on his offer! It will be well worth your money and an excellent investment in your business. but I will tell you that even if you have, you will find Scipio's counsel to be worth many times your investment in it. (Assuming he is who he says he is . . Sorry Scip, this is the internet after all and I don't know you. LOL!!)

Anyway. . . probably get tired of reading this kind of stuff, but you guys are making games that I love, and I want you to be very very successful so that you keep doing it!!!

No prob, Soulmage! MGP wouldn't be doing due dilligence if they didn't verify the credentials of anyone involved in their business, or potential business decisions!!!! I know indeed that the internet is full of people saying they're not what they are! Even if MGP didn't request bg, I would insist that they did.

Regards.

 

[roughneck GIR]

we'll have a mass nickname for them that will be the same as the familiar "Graboid" in Tremors... 'ol Stumpy.

But graboids would kick hiney replacing masses of warriors. My MI would of course become absolutely air units then, and we'd shake angry fists at the ground :lol: . I love tremors...

Another reference is Rico's boot camp, Camp Arthur Currie; Sir Arthur Currie was the commander of the highly successful Canadian Corps of WWI.

Everyone says the canadian army is so unoticable throughout the great wars and hienlien referenced 'em

I can't wait for those prepainted bugs, and guess what april's my birthday :twisted: . Anyhoo back to the forums and continuing my little venture for info on stuff I can use as fluff and I don't know where I'm going with this anymore

 

[xeoran]

Canadians aren't unnoticeable. Well, I noticed 'em (3rd biggest navy in the world at the end of WW2).

 

[roughneck GIR]

Yeah, well you know that whole "joke" thing? I always wondered what inspired camp currie.