One more thing - I posted this on the Kickstarter site in response to an email I received, but it is at least as relevant here;
This has, indeed, been a learning experience for us, both in terms of running the Kickstarter (which I think went mostly well), and how to handle the administration and volume of models thereafter (needs a little more work).
Before the end of the month, I will be doing an update of sorts that looks how we handled things, what we have learned, and how we will be doing things better. I would very much appreciate any comments made to that update, as we very much want to hear from you on how we can improve things on your end.
For example, we should probably have not allowed quite so many changes and swaps (people are still making changes to their pledges now, in January!). However, I do think people appreciated the variety of models available and being able to tweak things as to how they wanted them.
So, for Rogue Trooper, we are going to make your choice much wider but also far simpler for both you and us to deal with. In a nutshell, you would be pledging for a number of 'sets' (a set being 8 models on average, such as a complete squad, say). Large models, such as the Blackmare MBT would be worth 2 or more sets each. At the end of the Kickstarter, you will know how many sets you have at your disposal and the survey will simply ask how many you want of each set in the entire range.
This means we do not need to seperate the different pledge levels, nor do we have to worry about one thing being worth more than another (such as how many box sets is a Manta worth), as this will all be set. This will result in you have the ultimate range of choice, and extremely easy (and quick!) processing of pledges for us.
I have also learned a lesson in deadlines when dealing with this volume of models; 1. Predict how long they will take to do, 2. Add to that. 3. Add to that again (and probably double it to allow the Cock-Up Theory to take effect).
We did steps 1 and 2 with Dredd. With Rogue Trooper, we will also do step 3, and get models in your hands before the stated deadline - so, if we think we will get models in your hands in 4 months, we will be saying 6 or 8 in the Kickstarter.
Allied to that, we were rather eager to get models off to people quickly - a bit too quickly. The Kickstarter ended on a Saturday, models were in the post on the onday, and some people had them in their hands on the Tuesday. Great, all well and good - but this _did_ have a negative impact on the administration of the pledges and, to avoid that, I don't think anyone will mind too much if we start processing pledges a week later rather than the same day the Kickstarter completes.
Anyway, there are more bits and pieces I want to go over, and they will all be included in the update later this month. Just wanted to go over the way we are thinking right now, and start getting opinions!
We want the Judge Dredd miniatures game to be the best it can possibly be, and getting models into your hands promptly is a big part of that.
