Update 62: First wave done!
about 5 years ago – Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 11:32:37 PM

 First wave of shipping complete!

 
 Greetings heroes! Sorry for the lack of update recently, I have had a lot on my plate for my day job and have not had time for getting back to messages. Bear with me as I work through to catch up with replies. From all these messages I have been happy to hear that the first wave has been successfully received by the majority of those on the list, here are a few stats. We have sent 230+ games to US backers in various cities at all corners and 8 games to backers in different countries to test international shipping dockets. For the most part things went smoothly, That is roughly a complete palette that had been moved and it took 1-3 days from the time it was picked up by our shipper. If anyone had any errors or difficulties with their shipment please send me an e-mail to [email protected] and I will try to send you a correction. Keep in mind the additional hero pack was not sent out with this first wave but will be sent seperately.
 We will be doing a few things different with the follow up waves of shipping, mostly in the way it is packed and how we are notifying and arranging pickup. Hopefully it will help smooth out the process even further. For now I am still trying to apply for loans and funding to help complete the remaining shipping, as we are still short for the remaining shipping, I'm not able to get enough by my paystubs alone. Lets talk about our next wave of shipping.

 
 Shipping plans

In the second wave I'm hoping to focus on international shipping. Our small test of 8 games was a success and should be able to get to the EU without additional fees upon receipt. (not a certainty or guarantee, just going off our small sample shipment). We are still providing services to US and Canadian backers as well. We will be continuing to accept donations for people who want to have their games included in this wave of shipping, we will require 6 shipping waves in total to get everything out so it might be a while, every little bit helps. Those that have added the hero pack, will be proritized in this 2nd wave but not guaranteed. The date for this shipment will probably be 3-4 weeks which will put us at the holiday mark, a difficult time for any shipping but I will try my best to get the financials arranged prior to hopefully get it sent on the earlier end of it, How great would it be to receive the game right before the holiday right?!. The hero packs have not arrived yet but should be soon! 

Those that wish to pay for early shipping please send an email to [email protected]

  Gratitude and determination

Also I wanted to give one more shout out to those that have responded positively in support of the efforts and those that have been answering  questions for others on forums and BGG, You've been a tremendous help. We have all been in this for a couple years now and I am determined to keep the games moving with whatever funds I can muster. I am not able to attend any other conventions this year unfortunately, once I have more games shipped, I should be able to get out more and meet more backers! Feel free to tweet out #dicebornheroes if you find a copy at a convention you attend! Until next time heroes! 

Update 61: A note on correspondance
about 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 12:45:57 AM

Greetings Heroes! I wanted to take a minute and send you all an update on my progress. As my promise to you, I've been working hard with my fulfillment team to ensure that we're putting the right systems in place so that we can ship your games to you. Please understand that this is a complex process with a lot of moving parts.

As an update from my last communication on the topic, the test shipment is underway and we worked out some of the kinks between my processes and our shipping partner. These shipments have left my garage and gone to our shipping partner yesterday, they should be leaving the city in the next day or so to a select number of backers around the world. Those who were placed in our test shipment will be getting an email with your tracking number soon and your games at your doorstep just a few days after that. I must say that I am really proud of the work my fulfillment partners have done, and honestly couldn't have done it without them.

Moving on, I will be planning the next shipment as soon as possible but I wanted to touch on a tough subject first. To put it lightly, I know that some of you are not pleased with the speed of my progress, and have sent threatening messages to me. Before I address this subject, I would like to reiterate the following to all of you...

...To say that I have made mistakes relating to my business and the first Diceborn Heroes campaign Kickstarter is an understatement. So far this experience has left me with many worrying days and sleepless nights while I try and figure out the best way to work through this. As an ambitious and budding self-published game designer, it is my goal to create fun games so that you and people like you can enjoy them! It's true, I have made mistakes and I am evaluating each decision carefully to make sure that I can not only continue to design and make fun games for people to enjoy, but also so that I make good on my promises to you to deliver the games that I make. This has been a trying process and I am doing my best to ensure that I deliver. You will all get your games and I am working every day to make sure that this happens. As part of my continued promise to you, I am also making sure to communicate with you as often and as consistent as I can, whenever I get new information.

Now, recently some of you have chosen to send personal messages and letters to me. While some of your messages have been great and encouraging, some of these letters have taken the form of violent threats. As I am doing my best to ensure that I am being fair to you, my fans, and doing my best to navigate the situation, as a designer, and a business person, I am not ok with this. Sending threatening letters are a serious action with even more serious consequences. Any further messages and emails like this will be treated as such and I will be reporting you to Kickstarter and the corresponding local authorities.

I will continue to answer your emails and messages if you have questions, ideas, or want to help in some way. I want to thank everyone for your support up to this point and will continue to do everything that I can to ensure that we complete delivery of your game to you in a timely manner.

Until next time Heroes!

Update 60: Boxes and Boxes
about 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 12:44:56 AM

 Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Greetings Heroes! Hope you had a fantastic weekend. I've been on the road for most of the previous weeks it was nice to have a weekend at home. It was fantastic to be able to attend SHUX and meet backers who came by to pick up their copies and show it off to gamers and fellow designers in the local community. That being said there is so much ahead of us to do. 

Early shipping

Thanks to everyone who jumped on board our early shipping incentive. We have finalized the list and will be sending out the early ship along with our test shipment Monday the 21st of October. You will receive a notification of your package delivery then, most shipments will arrive within the week if not early the following week for US backers. Apologies for the delays this shipping has took. The shipping is the top priority but timing, and work business has kept me away from getting things done and left me quite frankly exhausted. Unfortunately this leads us to the next bit of bad news.

Component shipments

With the shipping info calculated we have weighed our final shipping boxes and for the most part it lies just shy of the 5lbs shipping requirement which was what we hoped. However those that have the acrylic tokens, Dice towers, Canvas Prints, additional copies, it has drastically shifted alot of our price points. The shipping rates that were negotiated has been strained by those copies and I am already eating alot of costs. That brings me to you guys to look for solution. Shipping seperately is almost worth it for those that have multiple add-ons, we could also include those with the Hero card packs when they arrive which might help but would probably not work with the mailer bag I had plan to use for them. The options i have come up with is to either include it with the expansions when they ship and just have to wait longer until i can work to raise enough money, potentially pushing some shipments until 2020. Charge an additional $5 donation requirement for those people who wish to get the tokens and towers and offer a partial refund for those that do not wish to take part in receiving the add-ons. If anyone has any other options I am open to ideas, there's no good way to lighten the box without removing content now.

There are also shipments at locations that are clocking in at over $100 cost to ship that paid significantly less in the shipping fees, some locations just are troublesome to get to.

We may have a small bit of good news coming that I am working on but I cannot get into details of it just yet, we need to confirm the details after our test shipment but there might be some light at the tunnel after this first wave.

Bad news?

That's unfortunately it for this update, while it may seem disheartening, I'm still pushing forward with this will continue spending whatever time and money I have to get this to you. There are a ton of lessons that have been hard to swallow. The amount of additional add-ons and upgrades and stretch goals were just overwhelming the project it self. There's alot I have not received updates on at the moment but I'm pushing to find out and will let you know shortly. Until next time heroes!

Update 59: Information on shipping and Games
about 5 years ago – Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 04:20:46 PM

Test shipping status

Greetings heroes! Thanks to all those who have sent emails on interest in covering early shipping for this test ship. We will be sending out information to you this week and will require things to be cleared by the time we start we start sending them out October 1st. 

Card sizes and quantities

  For those looking to purchase sleeves for your game here is the card sizes and counts. For the both the base game and KS stretch goal cards you will require the following:

Standard size cards = 63 x 88mm        mini-sized cards= 44 x 67mm          tarot sized  cards= 70 x 120mm

Base Game

88 Standard size sleeves, 140 mini sized card sleeves, 32 Tarot sized card sleeves

KS add-ons

44 standard size sleeves, 44 mini sized card sleeves, 26 tarot cards, 

Hero expansion pack

8 standard size sleeves  18 Mini sized sleeves,  8 tarot sized card sleeves

Edmonton Local Pick-up

 Currently getting ready to make the drive up to Edmonton with a car load of copies for local pick up.
We will be at the Edmonton Comic Expo from 10am until 3pm. Then we are hosting our Edmonton Local Pick up event at the Gamer's Lodge from 4pm until 8pm. The address is 10459 124 St, Edmonton. Hope to see locals there today!
 

Enchanting hero arrives in the Hero expansion!

   Also I would like to introduce the final new hero class in our hero card expansion. We are introducing a new status condition called "confused". If a monster or hero is confused and try to target an enemy with their attack, they will target themselves first, afterwards the confused status is removed. Some of the new Monster cards and special enemies will be bringing out the confusion in full force, along with our new Hero class, The Shaman.

   On top of confusing enemies, the Shaman will be turning the enemies defenses against them,  changing enemy shields into wounds. or weakening enemy attacks. They are a strong addition to any team looking to keep enemy attacks under control. This class and the 3 other classes, along with 2 new quest lines and 10 new monsters are available in the Hero Expansion pack. 

Until next time heroes!

Update 58: Shipping Test Batch
about 5 years ago – Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 05:22:46 PM

Greetings Heroes!

t's been 2 weeks since I got the games stored and have been busy getting details and quotes on the next step, SHIPPING!. I am ready to start our shipping process now. Because of this I am finalizing all shipping address changes by Sept 20th. I will be doing a small test run at first to make sure I have everything in order, this shipping wave will consist of copies going to the US. We will be sending out e-mails to those backers as we send them out and would appreciate a response on when those packages arrive. Future shipping waves will focus on sending copies to locations with high backer counts and surrounding area first.

Also, a few people have inquired about getting their game delivery rushed. If you wish to rush your delivery you can email myself at [email protected] we might be able to accomodate based on the location. These people will have to have their addresses finalized by Sept 19th as well and payments received by Oct 1st.

Local pick up events are also still underway. These are the available dates so far:

Sept 15 - Dickens Calgary 12-4pm

Sept. 21 - Edmonton Comic Expo / TableTop Cafe  All Day

Sept 27-29 - FallCon Calgary

Oct 4-5 - SHUX Vancouver

Until Next time Heroes!