I figured this announcement was worthy of its own thread since it is about more than just delivey date.


Project Update #53: A look to the future of Sails of Glory
Posted by Ares Games Like




Sails of Glory backers!

The production of the first wave of Sails of Glory is behind us, and its arrival at your homes is ahead...

As we wrote yesterday in the “Comments” page, custom inspection delayed the delivery of the containers to our warehouse from the originally scheduled date, and more than one week was lost.

However the shipment was finally delivered (even if a few days late from our latest estimated date of November, 27th) and we expect the shipments of your rewards to begin any moment now. So, we think it’s now time to look toward the horizon, and see what 2014 is bringing us.

Where are the Victory and the Constitution?

First of all, let’s talk about the status of the first two new ships we announced as stretch goals during the Kickstarter, the Victory and the Constitution.

Already during the Kickstarter, we had the first prototypes of these iconic ships developed by our production team. Their development has further progressed, but not as fast as we’d like. We want these two ships to be special, both in terms of gaming contents and in terms of their quality as models. The initial prototypes we got were good enough to produce these ships on a similar quality level as the rest of the range, but not to make them stand out as we wanted them to. This IS bad news in terms of their release date – we can estimate these two ships to be ready probably in Summer 2014 – but we took action to find the best way to deal with this delay, to get along with the development of the range.

Fortunately, around the same time we started to work on the Victory and Constitution, we had begun to work on the development of several other ships – was it possible to develop them faster, and move them ahead on the schedule? Fortunately, it was. And here's what's happening.

New Ships on the Horizon

A little background on the reasoning we did on these new ships may be useful.

During the Kickstarter, it became clear that we all want Sails of Glory to be playable on several levels – historical scenarios (before you ask - the authors finally delivered the manuscript with scenarios you can play with the first ships, and we’ll soon have the PDF available as a free download), casual play, and tournaments.

The first wave of ships releasing now - including 32-34 guns frigates and 74 guns ships of the line - is a good start for casual play, and interesting as the foundation of several good historical scenarios... but we all want the game to be more flexible, more varied and interesting.

The classes of ships in the first release are essential, but not sufficient, especially for tournament play. So, clearly it was a priority for us to expand the range as soon as possible, to cover a wider variety of classes. To achieve this, we needed to expand the line-up of models: first of all, including 1st rate SotL, but also some smaller ships, and different frigates from those included in the first wave.

A first glimpse of the upcoming ships...

So, what will this new wave of ship packs add to Sails of Glory? Our selection includes four new triplets of ships, for a total of 12 new models:
•heavier frigates – 36/38 guns “Hebe” class frigates, flying both French and British colors (the captured Sybille);
•powerful “Ocean” class French 1st rate, with more than 100 guns (up to 120 guns!);
•agile sloops of the “Swan” class, in British (Swan), French (Alligator) and American (Thorn) versions;
•and, last but not least, British 1st rate of 100 guns… the “sisters” of HMS Victory – the Royal Sovereign, Royal George, and Queen Charlotte.

Once again, all these ship packs are going to be double-sided, featuring the stats of two different ships on the ship card, base and log.

So, when you plan to release these new ships?

With the experience achieved with the production of the first wave of ships, the pre-production on these models went ahead smoothly. As you can see from the photo above, pre-production samples are ready, and we can realistically expect the production to be ready in February (immediately before, or immediately after the Chinese New Year holiday) and to be in our warehouse in March.

So, these ships can be finished a little later than the original release planned for Victory and Constitution, but well before we are able to complete the production on those two special models.

What happens to my pledge for the Victory and Constitution?

Of course, many of you pledged to add HMS Victory and USS Constitution to your rewards. We're not happy with the delay - and we do not want to "lock" your money for such a long time. So, we will offer three different options to our backers:

(1) you can use your pledge for Victory and Constitution as credit against a purchase of the new ship packs. We will give full details in a future update, after the holidays – we don’t want to ask more money from you until we know you’ve received, played with, and feel content about the first batch of Kickstarter rewards;

(2) you can keep your pledge for Victory and Constitution “as is” – to be fulfilled with those ships later in 2014;

(3) you can get a full refund of your pledge for Victory and Constitution.

We plan to provide you with a new update after the Christmas holidays, explaining these three options in greater detail so you can make your choice.

What next?

In addition to the release of these new ship packs, and of the Victory and Constitution duo, we have been working both on a third “regular” wave of military ships, and on the special release “Pirates & Merchant” that was discussed on the Sails of Glory Anchorage. But it's too early to go into much detail about these new items and to give a reliable schedule of their delivery date.

Expect more updates from us in the next few days... We really look forward to hear from you as soon as the game will be in your hands.

Thanks!