True enough. Although some sailors will be late to the game and drive up the ebay price of the exclusives. Unfortunately most players and collectors are already onboard.
True enough. Although some sailors will be late to the game and drive up the ebay price of the exclusives. Unfortunately most players and collectors are already onboard.
I guess I kept skipping past the early parts too much as old news...I missed this:
"Additional Counters Option"
Ok, so...the counters that come with the starter set..how many ships is that good for?
From Ares:
@Anybody, tokens: normally, tokens are enough to play with 12-15 ships for sure. Also remember that, due to the way the damage system works, if you run out of damage counters you can always remove them from the ship logs of the damaged ships (except the last box) and throw them in the bag again. And when a ship surrenders, its counters are placed back in the bag.
Initially, I don't think the exclusives will bring much on the secondary market. Too many people getting them now, in multiple sets, for this very reason. In the long run they will go up in price though.
From a playing point of view, you are correct. From a collector's point of view these are going to be quite elusive in a couple of years. Some of the Wings planes have sold for stupid amounts over the years, and that was with them not being limited in numbers, time available, and being known to be reprinted at some point in the future. These KS ships will be limited in number produced (although it's not a set number), the time in which you can actually purchase them, the distribution method (no one walking into a store will be able to buy them for later resell), they have special packaging, and people know up front that they will never be reprinted. Still, I think my comment just above stands.Originally Posted by Coog
A couple of numbers to mull over...
Right now there are about 800 backers on the Kickstarter.
A bit over 50 of those are $1 backers.
How this ends remains to be seen, but it looks to be trending towards about 1,000 total backers about 930 or so of whom actually get ships.
At this moment there are 176 members on this site.
At any time there tend to be about 7 or 8 times as many guests as members on this site.
At this moment there are 3622 members on the Wings site.
The beauty of supply and demand, and the inherent relationship between risk and reward. It seems every miniature game I have gotten into I have do so late, and have witnessed tremendous price climbs that effectively knock me out of the market. With SoG, it will depend on how popular the game becomes, and becomes among collectors or folks that feel the need for complete sets. At this point, I am not sure how this will go - risk vs. reward. But like in most any market, folks will find alternatives if price is too high. As much as I like the WoG planes, and I do like them a lot, I will not spend $50 on a plane, sans Clipper's work. This is one of the reasons this summer will witness my hand at modeling for the first time in 35+ years - I have also been inspired by the work of others and have a greater desire to engage both of these games more deeply and personally, but if there was a line of planes on different Jastas and squadrons at the normal selling price, I would buy them all, reserving modeling for unique or personally meaningful birds.
The difficult part is playing and collecting. I want something to pass on or sell in the future and to play now. This entails two complete sets. One unopened and put up and another for the table. The cost is beyond what I should pay but my desires get the best of me every time. The Wizkids Pirates series case in point. With that said I am glad I did what I did because Wizkids is no more and some of this stuff just can't be found anymore. Because Ares has found my weakness, little ships for tabletop battles I am at their mercy. I have tried other games and sizes, ie 25-28mm but prefer the compact systems. Ares seems to have something good going and being onboard from the start is very exciting. It would be great if down the road Ares offered another thank you exclusive for KS backers post KS.
I also have a complete second set of the Wings planes unopened "in the closet".
I wonder if I can really call it an investment, however, as I never plan on selling them.
The scariest part is when I look at them and the thought crosses my mind that I really should have bought more.
I agree. I also have the "should buy more" thoughts all the time. Currently I am trying to juggle my finances to get more SoG exclusives to put away for an investment. Silly, I know but I just like having such things.
Kickstarter $ Total Question
Does anyone know if the pledge total shown on the KS page includes amounts paid for shipping? My guess is that it does, but I cant find any reference sources to verify that.
Good question. I would think that the total does reflect all monies collected postage included.
You can see the projections on Kicktraq.com and estimate the total users and final amount raised.
I never use the trending amount on the front page. Look at the projections and the backers by day tabs for estimated final counts.
Yes, I do not use the kicktraq trending values.
From early on in the project the pledge profile accums for both dollars and backers have looked to me to be following a curve shape of:
T = C x Ln(t) + f
T = total
C = proportionality constant
t = time in days elapsed
f = first day value
Last edited by RichardPF; 03-30-2013 at 08:27.
Wow...hate to follow a post with a formula. Always feels like my post is automatically 'dumber'.
That being said, I would love to think I'd have the resistance to not open exclusives but I know that just won't happen. Even if I got two of each KS exclusive I'd end up wanting to open them so I could use both sides of the cards. I don't get into many games and when I do I just don't seem to ever get rid of them. I have occasionally picked up some LotR collectible items (display, not game related) with the though of turning them in time but even when the price has gone up I find I just get more enjoyment from it than the money would bring. Now if could afford THREE sets of the exclusives I'd be set...two for play and then one to turn in a couple years. But I'd probably just end up giving that set away to a friend to get them to play.
I'm just no good at 'buy to resell'. Piracy, not speculative investment, would be more my idiom I guess.
Out of curiosity, how are you determining the proportionality constant? Natural logs are beautiful, aren't they?
If I want to get rid of something, I will resell it or give it away. I am not sure if I want to invest in something to resell it. The thought of that tires me for some reason. I have friends who have side businesses on ebay and amazon. It has never quite grabbed me. I think I might simply approach SoG as a game to enjoy, and not a product to sell. I like Bruce's comment on having them in the closet without intention of selling. It might not be a bad idea to buy the game for love. If one day the love is gone, then I can sell. If I worry about what I can get from it, it might detract from the game itself.
I am not so worried about making money as much as wanting to get a little back as well as have a fun new tabletop game to play. I also enjoy having found my way to this awesome site. I've enjoyed reading posts and learning a great deal.
Another survivor of that particular shipwreck, huh? LOL :D
Me too, I have boxes of the little Wizkids Pirates ships (I got rid of everything else just kept the ships and the tiny dice- great hit markers) I gave up on them around the fourth or fifth expansion, the shift to sea monsters, ghouls etc left me cold...err...in a manner of speaking. I think the ship sizes they did, and there were several, may have some compatibilities with SOG but we will have to see.
I agree with you about the the themes, they got pretty far out there. Being somewhat obsessive compulsive I kept collecting all the way through.
Well your going to be doomed with SoG then.
I know. Unfortunately miniature ships are my weakness. Like a moth to a flame I am drawn even though as you put it "I am doomed."
The good news is, not having to buy blind packs and end up with cases on cases of duplicates...
A complete WGF/WGS series-set usually runs me about $100-120, while with War at Sea it was around $300 and Pirates I don't think I even completed ONE release with chase, promo and prize-support cards.
I agree with you Diamondback about not having to buy blind pull packs. That drove me not only crazy but almost into the poor house. I unfortunately did chase every set, promo, and prize available. Outside of an item or two I am as complete as you're going to get with Pirates. SoG is going to be sooo much easier.
My favorite are the sigmoids. Log/exponential curve shapes apply in so many places it is almost spooky.
I am determining the proportionality constant value by a least squared error calculation of the dollar values after the first day (which is pinned exactly by the final term).
The constant can then be updated as additional data becomes available.
-------
On a more "finding images in clouds" note, it strikes me that if you look at the pattern created by the daily pledge dollar total histogram on the Kicktraq page, it resembles a cross sectional profile of a shoreline with a rolling sea where the water starts at about March 16th to 18th:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/140...t/#chart-daily
(I know, that was too analytical)
Perhaps there is a Tsunami a bit further off shore!
I will probably use some of the smaller ships for merchants, etc. It will be an inexpensive way to include boats that do not attack, but are targets and take up space in convoys, something the escorts have to contend with. They're also easy to carry around and can be used with other systems.
Really good idea to use the Wizkids ships as noncombatants. You could also choke a harbor making entry and exiting a challenge for a raiding ship.
Exactly.
Remove the sails and you have prison ships, etc.
I cheated -- I bought by the case; much cheaper that way.
I like the way you think Eric. You could run a raid to try and rescue captured comrades.
I did as well but it still cost a pretty penny. The wife still gives me grief even though I was able to make some money back on hard to get mail-ins that friends helped me hoard by using their addresses.
How did I miss this post?My favorite are the sigmoids. Log/exponential curve shapes apply in so many places it is almost spooky.
I am determining the proportionality constant value by a least squared error calculation of the dollar values after the first day (which is pinned exactly by the final term).
The constant can then be updated as additional data becomes available.
-------
On a more "finding images in clouds" note, it strikes me that if you look at the pattern created by the daily pledge dollar total histogram on the Kicktraq page, it resembles a cross sectional profile of a shoreline with a rolling sea where the water starts at about March 16th to 18th:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/140...t/#chart-daily
(I know, that was too analytical
Perhaps there is a Tsunami a bit further off shore!
What tool are you using to determine the least square error calculation?
The bar chart does look like rolling ways with a big one coming in.
My "day job" is building data mining and artificial intelligence pattern search applications for actuaries and analysts in the financial, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries so I build my own applications for things like this rather than using any off the shelf analytics packages. More often than not, I am building applications to handle mountains of data so my first choice coding language is SQL (even for neural network type pattern search applications).
Yeah, me too, and it was still a bloody nuisance of a PITA.
So, Bruce, what's your gut and your data telling you about how many more $25K goals we can probably expect? My gut says maybe the current and next, probably JUST miss the one after that.
Sorry have I slipped into the advanced Maths forum unwittingly?My favorite are the sigmoids. Log/exponential curve shapes apply in so many places it is almost spooky.
I am determining the proportionality constant value by a least squared error calculation of the dollar values after the first day (which is pinned exactly by the final term).
The constant can then be updated as additional data becomes available.
-------
On a more "finding images in clouds" note, it strikes me that if you look at the pattern created by the daily pledge dollar total histogram on the Kicktraq page, it resembles a cross sectional profile of a shoreline with a rolling sea where the water starts at about March 16th to 18th:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/140...t/#chart-daily
(I know, that was too analytical
Perhaps there is a Tsunami a bit further off shore!
The numbers tell me that without any "Black Swans", we are probably looking at a final total of about $220 to $230K with a backer total of just a bit shy of 1,000.
However, there are a couple of points that I could see changing that (more likely in terms of dollars than backers):
1) Additional full sets of the KS exclusives can be had for $66. I can see board activity in the last few days of the KS campaign (especially in this thread) reminding everyone that these are about to become permanently unavailable and this causing a significant late spike in dollars (I should't be harping on this. As an investor it would be in my personal best interest to downplay this angle).
2) If we do see the Donald MacLeod prints that were mentioned in Update #12 things might also change substantially.
The prints would likely go between $50 and $250 depending on size, material, numbered or not, signed or not.
This type of goal may be more agreeable to those who are dealing with SHMBO than ship models and accessories as it is an item of home furnishing.
If the prints are signed/numbered/limited editions, those who need to deal with financial advisorsmay have a more workable investment angle to play.
3) I also think that the Donald MacLeod original artwork that was also mentioned in Update #12 would be the real Black Swan possibility.
Kickstarter has an individual pledge limit of $10,000, but I would believe that original artwork of this type would be well into 4 figures.
A couple of those would move the total in a big hurry.
Hey! I resemble that remark!Sorry have I slipped into the advanced Maths forum unwittingly?
Shipping Charges
Ya know, if Ares does include this artwork as a stretch goal, perhaps there will be a shipping charge to the US but not the UK!
...
2) If we do see the Donald MacLeod prints that were mentioned in Update #12 things might also change substantially.
The prints would likely go between $50 and $250 depending on size, material, numbered or not, signed or not.
This type of goal may be more agreeable to those who are dealing with SHMBO than ship models and accessories as it is an item of home furnishing.
If the prints are signed/numbered/limited editions, those who need to deal with financial advisors
3) I also think that the Donald MacLeod original artwork that was also mentioned in Update #12 would be the real Black Swan possibility.
Kickstarter has an individual pledge limit of $10,000, but I would believe that original artwork of this type would be well into 4 figures.
A couple of those would move the total in a big hurry.
And I just asked my gal to tell anybody she knows into naval history... dunno what kinda crowd that is in her slice of Toronto Metro, but she sounds somewhat interested in giving it a whirl herself for some, ah, "interesting" wagers ;) as long as I'm building the collection. LOL
Artwork is nice but I'm into this game and the ships.
Go figure. In addition, I would sum up this discussion by saying multiple times I didn't feel equal to the task of contributing, which might be a common denominator among many of us, that is not being able to offer anything integral to the conversation, and so, feeling somewhat divided on the matter, and not having the power to continue, which I think was the real root of my silence, I left the remainder of the projections to Bruce. I tried to do this discretely, continuously and acutely aware this was the absolute best way to proceed, having considered all probable factors, though on the surface it might appear there was a series of posts between Bruce and me. I am positive my choice had no negative effects. This is my typical mode of engagement, or the angle from which I operate, that is to abstract or limit myself from such an area of discourse, which I posit is a good solution. I really mean that, and I seldom deviate from it though tempted a whole number of times, especially when my sense of identity is on the line. It is important to differentiate between the pluses and minuses of engagement, and not to have a skewed opinion of oneself, but to come to terms with the bounds of one's knowledge. So before I go off on any tangents, I think i will end this post and go watch the Matrix.Sorry have I slipped into the advanced Maths forum unwittingly?
We may be reaching convergence here.
Which log functions, despite appearances, actually do not!
The other thing that will throw projections off is more ships offered via stretch goals.
The Victory and Constitution don't fit into the concept I've been using for convention games, but I'm getting them just because I think it would be cool to have them and might come up with some way to use them in the future for a con game. If they offer some other ships like that, I'd probably get them just for the heck of it.
More ships? More ships? Looks like I'm going to need to print some more money!!
I think somebody just dropped a hint about 225 or 250... maybe 275. LOL
I believe in this project and 250 looks like the upper end. 275 is dreaming. But as you say they may start swinging for the fences soon with some goodies but 275 is a long shot.
Yes it absolutely would, however I wasn't expecting that that could be squeezed into the production pipeline in a timely manner.
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