Hello Everyone. Today we will talk about one of the prickly issues that have caused the most confusion and trouble: The changes that have occurred in the project with respect to the crowdfunding.
But before we start we need to explain a few things. When this project was started, and I’m talking about its concept state, one of the things that was very clear was that GZ wanted this game to be a new standard in quality, not only finish, but sculpted miniatures and scenery elements as well. They had to bring the games to the next level.
With this in mind the project was founded, but when Gamezone began working seriously to try to do things they had not done before, they realized that there were some concepts and ideas that did not work well, and in other words they paid for the rookie mistakes. Unforeseen problems arose, so they had to make decisions and change some of the concepts that had worked previously, always bearing in mind that the end result would always benefit the buyer, that is, us. That is why, with some delay, we will try to explain the changes made so far and the official reasons why they have been done.
CHANGE OF SCENERY EQUIPMENT
The first pieces that were built were precisely scenery pieces, as there are so many. To begin with everything it went pretty well, but soon GZ realized that some of the pieces were too flat and were getting stuck to the molds more than expected. Resin is a very aggressive material on the molds, which are made of a type of silicone, and degrade them quickly with use. That said, the pieces were to flat, such as door frames, landslides and others like it, were sticking to the molds in such a way that while removing them they would tire out the material of the mold, which left them useless. Another reason was that some parts were too slender, and because of properties of the resin, which is tough but inflexible, these pieces were susceptible to breakage, so this lead to a material change within the production of certain pieces.
OPEN AND CLOSED DOORS
With the doors the decision was something that came much later, once the material was changed to plastic. In this case the original design was the door frame, in which, A clip system was used to provide movement to the door. After much trial and error in design and a series of consultations with exterior designers, they realized that the Clip system in the plastic would eventually wear out and the door would end up not working as all.
So, in the box there will be what will be a series of closed doors and a series of open doors.
MINIATURES WITH METAL ELEMENTS
As already mentioned resin is a hard but brittle material, so that the elements that are too lean do not pour well and are at high risk of easily breaking. To remove this possibility it was decided to make certain pieces in metal, a material that holds much better. It is preferable to the element bending and breaking.
The last news I’ve had in this regard is that, once the game comes out, GZ will be selling these pieces that they have changed in two versions, the resin and metal, so whoever might want to buy the pieces in resin can do so at a much reduced price. Some may ask, why have these pieces of resin not been directly put into the game box? The answer is, it was thought that users who want (and not everyone will) the resin version could purchase them knowing that they have more risk of breakage. While on the other hand it ensures by using metal for such delicate pieces that breakage will not occur.
Uncleaned miniature of the sorceress, the white on the arm is a white bluetac putty.
Personally, after seeing and working with both versions, I prefer the metal version, mainly because I had a mishap and broke my weapon, which would not have happened if it had been metal.
CHANGE COLOR OF MINIATURE
Another change for which some of you have cried out for is the color change for the extra heroes, about 8 heroes that will come in the basic box. In this case the change was made, basically because of a production issues. To be honest, GZ has to accelerate the proses to deliver the game as soon as possible, and making grey minis is faster than colouring them. But this is not the only reason, tinting miniatures is done by adding another element to the resign. The resin needs an extra product which is called a hardener, and it needs a very specific dosage, i.e. X parts resin must be added to X parts hardener, if the dosage is not done properly the miniature is, or remains soft, too fragile, so it is something which must be done with great care. To put color into this mixture they must add Z parts of dye, which makes the dosages different. And what’s the problem then? Well straight up it’s the dye, if you follow the dosage amounts that the resign company says to use the final color is too pale as the image below shows clearly.
The figure on the left was made with the exact dosage the manufacturer recommended and the figure on the right a much higher dosage created good color. Both were discarded for various reasons.
To get a good color GZ needed as much as 5 times more than what the manufacturer says to use. The problem is not the dye in itself, so I am told, that is relatively inexpensive and the cost can be assumed without any problems, but a failure in the dosing causes the materials to behave differently that what is expected. For this reason GZ has had to classify some runs as defective simply because the color is not right or something strange happened (flaccid spears, sticks that break easily on touch, etc).
PRISONER
The changes in the prisoner seem to have generated the lest conflict, perhaps because it was one of the first things in the list that was not working well. The original idea was a prisoner who could be freed and used later, but at first what may seem like a great idea, is not so in reality.
The change in this case is quite logical if you think about it. The position of a person with their arms tied up does not look anything like a person whose arms are lowered, especially as far as clothes are concerned. When the designer were not convinced at all by what they saw it was ruled out.
Eventually it added a more miniatures to the game, that is, what was once a prisoner who could be released, is a chained prisoner and another miniature showing its release.
Well that’s it so far, I don’t think I have anything else to add at this moment. I hope this has served as a response to many of the doubts that have arisen. See you in the next post.