Update on Battlefield Evo - The Full Scoop

[docrailgun]

There's a huge difference between expressing one's opinion (or even complaining) and venting one's spleen. Was "...some of the kool aid drinkers..." comment necessary? Not in the least.
Ok, everyone understands that we're not happy with what's going on. But, what's the point of being offensive about it? At least Mongoose has tried to let us know what's going on, rather than there being silence from them.
I have to say this: if you don't like the miniatures, don't buy them. Can thos of us left not have to hear about it from now on? Please? There are plenty of forums for venting one's spleen. Maybe go there and have a good time?

This is crap. Mongoose puts the pictures up on the website, deleting the old pictures, so they think they are good enough to sell.

Then someone starts to complain about them. This snowballs.

Now they have to look into it.

This is enough for some of the kool aid drinkers over on the mongoose forum. "Oh, Matt is on it, he'll sort it out."

The result is things will be delayed for a while as the models are not up to standards.

Then lo and behold, the threads with that info on them are nuked, the models are good enough to put out.

All in one day.

Pretty dodgy stuff. I've liked what mongoose has done for customer service in the past. The light MI troopers were a fantastic example of good customer service after a screw-up and everyone screws up.

But now they are going to release those crappy figures? WTF!?

This stinks on ice.

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

It's fairly dirty pool to complain about Mongoose removing three or four threads that are just about the production problems as if it's censorship when there's still a thread going. It's just as likely to keep the info centralised rather than to censor thought or anything.

 

[SickBunny]

Well... it was "my" post that got deleted... and weirdly enough, I am not feeling Overtly negative over this whole thing.

A few things have popped to mind that deserve saying I feel:

1: Bendy plastic-The plastic used on this level of detail without there being the 'smooth face', the area on a model that is flat and void of detail, is Much more akin to resin than traditional plastic used either in plastic building kits or the collectible clix-games. Thus the bend does not come from the poor quality of the plastic and is Not natural to it. The bend happens if the model is taken out of the mold too quickly or is tossed into a bin or something while it is cooling, thus leading to other models pressure causing the bend to the yet pliable plastic. The lean and the bend can be fixed with warm water, just like with resin.

2: Paintjobs-These were a bit of a shock from the sharp images before, but I still Dont think that Mongoose has been purposefully leading people astray... Perhaps the only fault on this with Mongoose is that they are possibly an overtly positive company in that they dont assume bad things to happen to them at every fricking angle... And they honestly seem to assume the best out of everything... I prefer this approach to the jaded views of a dozen other companies. This Does explain the majority of snafu's in the past and this too falls under that umbrella.

I am happy as long as the paintjobs are even to the quality of AT-43 models which I do already own. Those paintjobs allow a Very easy pickup to be done on the models, acting much more like basecoat than anything else. And once more, they at least have colour on them already, leading to instant gaming out of the box, this has not changed. And with the clear windows, you can fish out the box with the least botox required on the poor, spooked soldiers... :lol:

3 Assumption that all positive statements here are by Mongooses yes-men without a clue-I fear this is rather false. I can see the obvious flaws and the lower quality of the models as well -if not better- than most, seeing as how I did originate the post questioning the quality. And yet, here I am, defending Mongoose again. Why? Because I feel that after twenty years of active gaming career, a part of which has literally become a career I still hold that the Evo-ruleset is the best damn thing out there. And the models are the easiest access to ultramodern miniatures here in the far north. And they are painted damnit! Not to the standard originally shown, but good enough that I wont feel massively pressured to spend hours and hours on painting them before I can play with them.

This seems to have turned into a slowly cascading rant so I'll quite now...

But one last thing, I will buy this game despite any and all nay-saying because simply, I love the game and I enjoy the concept of prepainted models in a regular game... So there...

 

[MaxSteiner]

It's fairly dirty pool to complain about Mongoose removing three or four threads that are just about the production problems as if it's censorship when there's still a thread going. It's just as likely to keep the info centralised rather than to censor thought or anything.

There has been way more than three or four threads removed.
Almost everything before midway through last year is missing from the SST forum for instance.
And thats not the first time its happened either, I can think of another two or three of the top of my head where mongoose has felt it was preferable to have no discusion then what was being said about the models.

===>Aside from that, its good to hear that Mongoose didn't get stiffed on the plastic as well as the paintjob (Although bent barrels were one of things you were trying to eliminate weren't they?).

 

[Mac V]

Well said. I'd just add that for the good of the game the quality must improve in the future.

 

[katadder]

looking at the "new improved" pictures i'm still not convinced on the worthiness of these when i and many other can paint far better and buy metal for the same price.
the squad leader for the brits in the new picture looks like an extra from planet of the apes.

 

[Quark]

Heh, I can't help but wonder what Scipio would have to say about all this...

 

[MongooseMatt]

There has been way more than three or four threads removed.
Almost everything before midway through last year is missing from the SST forum for instance.

That is an automated pruning procedure - nothing more.

It is very, very rare of us to delete any thread, and is usually done because of either a) extreme rudeness or b) to keep important information centralised.

 

[Hiromoon]

Heh, I can't help but wonder what Scipio would have to say about all this...

Dismay.

 

[MaxSteiner]

Glad to hear its not a complete change in direction for the way these forums are moderated!
The fact that I can only remember three or four other cases isn't really all that bad either tbh.

Seriously though Matt good luck with sorting this all out, I was never all that keen on the new prepainted direction, but I'd hate to see mongoose fataly wounded by something like this on the cusp of bigger and better things.

 

[shmitty]

Well, I am glad to see the new pics up. My thoughts:

1. These are better pictures than those from Tuesday. The lousy pictures weren't helping the situation. I do feel the models look better in these new pics, but that is better than the awful they looked before.

2. From these pics it is easier to draw comparisons to AT-43. We have been playing with that since mid-November at this point. When we first got AT-43 in hand we felt that they had not lived up to the pictures shown earlier either. The models were fine and more than playable, but not as nice as we had hoped.

3. The plastic looks similar to AT-43. As MGP has said it is between a hard, GW plastic and Heroclix soft plastics. The quality is actually very good and I doubt that the bending barrels will be too common. Some of this has been seen with our AT-43 models as well.

4. I am disappointed that the quality drop off was there. I am very curious to see how MGPs manufacturer responds to the quality issues.

5. I would say that the quality of these models is comparable to AT-43 if not a bit better and leaps ahead of many other pre-paints. The real difficulty is that by dealing in reality, the models are so much more complicated. As had been said, MGP may have been better served by trying SST first. These models are far more complex and interesting than AT-43 models, but with the same quality of paint, so they look worse for it.

I am much less discouraged about this game than I was a coupla days ago.

 

[MaxSteiner]

Good point there, even with paintjobs of this quality Warrior bugs would look awesome, and would definatly get me to have parted with some cash!
Come ot think of it, Exo's with their basic two colour scheme would have worked well to, and the forth, being more akin to action figures would have been so much eiser to detail...

 

[hisshers]

Please bear in mind that I am new to all this but I must say I don't see the big deal. The figs are assembled and painted (that says it all for me). Even though they they are different "quality" than what was first shown, I am sure that the originals had their naysayers too.

Seems that MP is more than willing to listen to our complaints, offer us refunds if we don't like the finished product. Is it possible that we as players are just trying to be gamer-divas here?

 

[MaxSteiner]

The problem is, these are being priced and marketed as premium miniatures. That was fine when they'd be ready to go from the get go, but now it seems like they'd also need to get the kettle treatment to sort out the rifles, retouching of the detail (So that flesh tone doesnt cover clothing) and a wash as well (at the least).
Add all that to the vehicle scale issues as well....

Actually that isn't much of a problem at all to be honest, i guess people who were gonna buy them will still pick them up, but following the egg on the faces of anyone who promoted SST first time round to this debacle and theres alot of egg on alot of faces.

 

[Galatea]

Have to agree here.

The models do not look that nice we were made to believe a few weeks ago, but long not as bad as we were made to believe a few days ago.

Comparison to AT-43 looks like equal painting quality, and yes the colour shemes of AT-43 are MUCH more simple.
Only thing that really, really borders me are the eyes (and the moldlines on the tanks).

I will wait and look what's coming up, I'm still engaged with SST, thus I wouldn't have the time for BFE anyway.

 

[boomgoose]

After cooling my head last night I began regretting canceling most of my preorders. Maybe the much more inferior figures would grow on me, I thought, and the rule set does seem like fun. Then, I read that the price of infantry sets should be $40 US :shock: . A possible future of five dollars a piece for one of those MEA ghouls? Not likely :roll: . Cancelations stand.

 

[Low Roller 1-1]

Matthew,

Any plans for an openday so we can all come and play BF:Evo and look at the minis in person,
this may put some of our conserns to rest :lol:

 

[MongooseMatt]

After cooling my head last night I began regretting canceling most of my preorders. Maybe the much more inferior figures would grow on me, I thought, and the rule set does seem like fun. Then, I read that the price of infantry sets should be $40 US :shock: . A possible future of five dollars a piece for one of those MEA ghouls? Not likely :roll: . Cancelations stand.

Eh? The price is $29.95. Yes, it probably should be $40, if you follow the exchange rates. But it isn't.

 

[PilGrim]

Actually, the problem is the initial hype.

We were lead to believe that BF.EVO figs were going to be painted to a standard that normal gamers would rarely achieve. The initial photos were certainly of a quality that suggested the hype had some grounding in fact........

Yesterday we got to see the first photos of the actual product, and they were not as good as we were lead to believe. Actually, looking at the photos, they're pretty awful, and it was not just the paint, so we were not impressed.

Many posters seem to be missing the point. It's not that the figures are better \ worse than AT-43, Star Wars Minis or Heroclicks, the problem is that they are not what was advertised and not what was expected.

We did not create the expectation, that was MP. I'm busy eating humble pie with those fellow gamers I highlighted BF:EVO to, and it is not to my taste.

Today we get a slightly more pleasant presentation of the same product, and all the old photos have been replaced. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, as it smacks of a cover up. Especially worrying was the fact that the old message posts in praise of the original photos are now (or were when I checked at lunchtime) attached to the new photos. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate move (I hope not and doubt it) but in any case the genie is out of the bottle now.

All in all, very dissapointing. I had intended to buy, but now, sorry, no sale. I can paint better than that, and the sculpts alone are not enough to warrant the price for a poorly painted plastic model as opposed to a better detailed metal mini that I can get for less, especially in what is essentially a skirmish game.

I suppose the bottom line is that this debacle has cost MP. No-one can predict what that cost is, in lost sales and revenue both immediatly and in the future, but if I were a shareholder I would be looking for heads to stick on poles. Unless of course this is actually part of the business plan, and a decision has been made that the savings in production costs can outweigh the loss of sale they create. If this is the case then the only solution is for us customers to take our custom elsewhere, or shut up.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Add all that to the vehicle scale issues as well....

Yes, now it doesn't actually matter how many times people say this - there are no scale issues with the vehicles.

I'll put it another way. The vehicles are in scale with the infantry to the nearest millimetre.