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Kickstarter $200+ tiers?


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OK, so if anyone has been watching the Kickstarter, you'll notice a major anomaly in the pledges - the $200 pledge point is unbelievably popular, while nobody gives a damn about the more expensive stuff or really in the $100-$199 region, either.

This presents us with a problem. The artist who does the portraits only has so much time as he works with us around a job (and he doesn't want to leave his job), so we can't just throw open the floor to more people contributing $200. I think he'll be at full capacity doing the 100 portraits that are possible if people buy the full number of limited tiers.

This is especially true if we add female soldiers. This is a potential stretch goal, but I'd have to discuss it with the artist.

So - I'm open to suggestions on what can be an alternative reward in and around the $200 mark. And if there's a $350 reward we can add somehow (preferably without the portrait), then I'm open for ideas for that too...

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Hey Chris,

I would definitely pony up more if you could do some original artwork (preferably with the backer in there somewhere), or some kind of billboard in the game with the backers name in it.

350 is a good tier. The gap between 200 and 500 is pretty significant for most people, especially since theres no 'material' reward.

Just my 2 cents though. Awesome job on the kickstarter. First time I have ever given money (I am way too tight)

Cheers

Jat

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You already had my ideas but they were

1) Add an original piece of printed art perhaps for 500. Depends how your mockup art is done.. by hand or pc and the location of your artist etc for feasibility. It doesn't need to be framed, just shipped securely.

You could get some very high quality prints done for this.

2) Add a $ 350 tier. Say 10 copies. For this -As $200 + your home town/place of your choosing will appear on the strategic map and can appear in the scroll text. You get to choose the message linked to the attack- provided it is deemed game appropriate.

It is potentially a case that for 350+ you might add 2/3 things to each tier to really juice it up a bit.

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Idea for a 1 off maybe $5001 - your name will be added to the Xenopedia as the pilot who first encountered the aliens and escaped. Depends if you think this is soul selling or not. Therefore they could still be in the team, with portrait etc, as they will still be on active service.

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Original Artwork from the sketching/planning stages (assuming your artist didn't do everything digitally). Original as originally done/master, not a custom original drawing.

Someone suggested putting in a KS users hometown and an appropriate message for the ticker. (Santa Cruz strafed by UFOs, 32 surfers dead) (Hell, NJ strafed by UFOs, no one notices). The trouble would be having these fit the tone of the world, but you could negotiate that.

Someone suggested for $1k putting your face in as a scientist or engineer etc in the base. Not sure how many spots you'd need for that, but that could be an option.

Another suggestion was to have signs for city/industrial maps "icevamp's coffee shop" "radisters radish factory" etc.

Random physical paraphernalia used to make the game for a $500 or $1000 rank. Pens, pencils, mouse... um... dunno.

I don't think you'll sell out of the $1k and $5k tiers, but you do have use troublemakers that donated $170. ;)

Edited by erutan
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Idea! I don't know how feasible this is, but if people like art rewards, why not give them the chance to name/put iconography on planes?

Fighter pilots love to mark up their planes with names and nose art, right? Could be something cool, especially as planes are every bit as vital to the game as soldiers.

This'd have to be something which you guys heavily policed to ensure accuracy to the setting, of course.

As far as the more expensive stuff, no offense, but I just don't think it's very exciting right now. While it's certainly good value for dollar, "ten copies of the game" is not as enticing as, say, to use the Wasteland 2 example, "make a custom item" or "get swag". Obviously you guys can't offer as much physical swag since you are an indie studio with very limited resources, so it's no fault of your own.

Edited by TheTuninator
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billboards / vans / shopsigns / posters etc (add placements essentially) where donors get to design their own add (as long as it doesn't interfere with any copyright issues)

maybe it's a company that want to advertise a real product. Or maybe its someone that jsut want their portrait on a billboard with a ridiculous slogan. (saw someone wanting to advertise plasma weapons made by <name> or something.)

Edited by Gorlom
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Probably the best thing to do for the $1,000+ tiers would be to offer the person the chance to get drawn in as a "background" NPC in the Main Menu, Research or Manufacturing screens, if that's cost-effective. Right now there's just no real "pzaz" for those tiers, if you will.

As an alternative to offering painted-on icons for planes, what you could offer is callsigns.

This actually has an in-game benefit as well. Right now, all the planes spawn in as "F-17 1, F-17 2, MiG-32 1"-kinda boring, right?

What if donors could give planes customized callsigns, which then had a chance to appear whenever you purchased a jet? For example, "F-17-Maverick", "F-17-Goose", and so forth.

That'd be a great way to allow people to leave a lasting mark on the game (something which is continuously extremely popular across all Kickstarters) while still being (I imagine) quite feasible.

You'd just have to approve all the callsigns, naturally. We wouldn't want "F-17 Hugh Jazz" or something.

Edited by TheTuninator
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I am not sure this is a problem Chris. What you offered people here was a advanced version of one of the most beloved features of the old X-Com. Simply naming your soldiers. Having not only you name. But also your face made from a photograph was a great idea.

I hurried to grab just this one because i effectively did buy my face and name into the game! :)

And it felt exclusive

Worth alot to me.

If i wouldn't have made it into those 50 slots you had. Then i would have just gotten the 150 or something else to contribute.

I think you should have some "ice in your belly" (swedish saying) and wait a few days first. Its only been 1 day and you are almost half way there, i cant see what possibly could be a problem right now :)

50.000 was a very modest request for a remake that is so widely loved.

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Hmmm. The billboards / signs etc idea is a good one. I think we could use that. It's not incredibly difficult to do, but it could be pretty cool.

Yes, we could do little decals for the aircraft that people can put on the wings etc. There'd be an unlimited number of those, because they'd only appear on the Aircraft Equip screen and would essentially be non-compulsory unless people wanted to put them on, when they could choose from all the available ones. They'd also be useful in the sense that they could be used to set the aircraft apart from one another at a glance. Although we'd have to look up the feasibility of applying the decal to all 6 different interceptors...

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Name mentioned in research post...

Successful testing of the excalbur armour was carried out by Xenonaut Jack Pilchard, who suffered minor bruising and a black eye, but was otherwise unscathed.

Xenonaut Jeff Richards was instrumental in helping to develop the laser carbine MK6.. risking life and limb testing the unstable prototype design.

Edited by flashman
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Yes, we could do little decals for the aircraft that people can put on the wings etc. There'd be an unlimited number of those, because they'd only appear on the Aircraft Equip screen and would essentially be non-compulsory unless people wanted to put them on, when they could choose from all the available ones. They'd also be useful in the sense that they could be used to set the aircraft apart from one another at a glance. Although we'd have to look up the feasibility of applying the decal to all 6 different interceptors...

If that's feasible, what you could actually do in terms of "naming" planes is to allow people to pay, say, $350, and have their name appear as the pilot of a particular aircraft.

For example (very rough mockup):

NLjPW.png

This would also have the (highly desirable) side effect of actually getting people attached to their planes by attaching a name to them, something I think the game would be well served to do. You should wince when the pilot who's taken down three battleships bites it.

Edited by TheTuninator
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Billboards, custom places (Offenbach, Germany, bombed by unidentified bomber wing) and especially plane markings and/or callsigns sound like very good ideas to me.

Just be careful if you offer additional tiers above 200 as people might expect them to include everything below that pledge level, which you probably don't want as it might potentially mean another 10 to 50 portraits and names.

Maybe even offer the backers to write blurbs for the "Small-talk" feature - if that ever gets implemented. Might be worth less than your name and portrait, though. Maybe beef up the 100 and 150 tiers or provide alternate rewards at that tier (for people with strange names but nice ideas).

Maybe 350$ could be worth a chance to help design a new Xenopedia entry (maybe a nice fluffy one with names and a cool picture of something not-yet-thought-of).

Edited by The New Romance
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You could allow for more than one name to be added at 125/150$ tiers, the backer and their friend(s) for example.

Names could be applied to civilians and npc forces as well. For example dead civilians could drop IDs (dog tags for soldiers) that show the name of the "deceased". Civilians would allow for female names as well.

When the game ends (even if you didn't pick up any IDs/tags) all the name tags/IDs "collected" are shown on a special memorial page. It's a way to both reward backers and instill a sense of loss, the price humanity paid in the conflict.

Edited by Jean-Luc
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You could allow for more than one name to be added at 125/150$ tiers, the backer and their friend(s) for example.

Names could be applied to civilians and npc forces as well. For example dead civilians could drop IDs (dog tags for soldiers) that show the name of the "deceased". Civilians would allow for female names as well.

When the game ends (even if you didn't pick up any IDs/tags) all the name tags/IDs "collected" are shown on a special memorial page. It's a way to both reward backers and instill a sense of loss, the price humanity paid in the conflict.

I thought that too but it would devalue the names a bit, and make it that much harder for someone to get their own name in their game. The dog tags are a good idea though.

Edited by subject117
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I think civ/npc soldiers should be nameless, unless we go into cool random encounters with hireable mercs, which seems more like an xpac style feature.

I do like pilot callsigns - they can be a bit more "fun" than names. e.g. hellstormer works fine, and it's better than f-17 23 or whatever number we get now. I'm against pilot stats/faces, but I could also see pilots taking up living quarters space when you have a craft on base.

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The equipment etc is all already named and I'd rather not "sell out" to that extent, I think.

So these are the ideas I think may be viable:

- Pilot names (these would be shown as part of the "background information" for aircraft, quite a low reward tier)

- Aircraft decals that can be designed and applied to planes to make them more individual

- Billboards etc in the city maps, showing products - "Goldhawk Groceries" or something.

- Events text - "Local mayor Chubby McChubb abducted, 8 local law enforcement officers killed in firefight" etc.

Problem is, I can't see them being much more popular than the portraits. Maybe I'll see if one of our other artists can match the style of the other guy.

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Someone mentioned the small talk feature above. Maybe have the person in there well. I.e. "Did you hear that <name> took out a Cruiser class ship yesterday", or "there's rumours that <name> is spending a lot of time in <name2>'s quarters." Could be fun, and I am sure there are more creative things you can do with it.

Edited by bambam30
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- Events text - "Local mayor Chubby McChubb abducted, 8 local law enforcement officers killed in firefight" etc.

Unless these things are set to appear no more than once per campaign they could get a bit immersion breaking if the names start repeating.

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An optional $75/$100 tier with event text and/or something else. I think limiting this to town works better than names. Maybe town and some aspect/event in that town that stands out.

Another limited $150/$200 tier that has aircraft decals and pilot name - so a custom icon and a name in game.

The small talk idea is fun as it can be a little more relaxed and personal. Not sure what I'd charge.

Maybe add the custom signage onto the $500?

If your artist does paper/physical drawings the ones already done would be a good addition to $1000.

Perhaps artist 2 could do female faces so the style difference isn't as super obvious?

"Local mayor Chubby McChubb abducted, 8 local law enforcement officers killed in firefight"

YES.

One problem I can see with all these different "names in game" is that it dilutes them and makes them seem kind of non-special. Keeping them to pilots and soldiers kind of fits thematically.

Edited by erutan
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None of our artists are as backward as to use pen and paper, I'm afraid. For the small talk stuff, it's an interesting idea but I'm loathe to make promises about a game system that has not been implemented (we might decide to cut it, for example). It'd also be a tough sell.

Anyway, I'm signing off for the night. It's been a long day and all the excitement has tired me out.

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- Events text - "Local mayor Chubby McChubb abducted, 8 local law enforcement officers killed in firefight" etc.

His name is Tubby McChubbles. Hes second on the 6th page of backers.

Shouldn't you make some kind of update to recognize how much people have pledged already? Keeping up with the kickstarter on kickstarter will probably incite undecided to pledge.

(Granted you have keept up in the comments but I think an update would be effective.)

Edited by Gorlom
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