Is The Expanse RPG becoming vaporware?

JacktheRabbit · Dec 23, 2018

The announcement was made in January 2018, it started with a release date of GenCon. Without any real explanation that date was quietly forgotten and a late 2018 date (I believe November correct me if I am wrong) was given.

Now I do some digging and we have this:

"We are pleased to find The Expanse RPG listed among ENWorld’s 10 Most Anticipated Tabletop RPGs of 2019. The game appears in some fine company on that list. The Expanse RPG core rulebook and Game Master’s Kit are on schedule for early 2019 release."

https://greenronin.com/blog/2018/12...ds-10-most-anticipated-tabletop-rpgs-of-2019/

Call me a stickler for details but I am not sure how the heck you can say "on schedule" when you have missed two release dates and cannot give us anything more definitive than early 2019 which technically up to June 30, 2019.

Makes me happy I decided against backing this games Kickstarter.

Does any one have any more news since Green Ronin has not given any real reason and just seems to be employing Newspeak when announcing the products release date.

Doc_Klueless · Dec 23, 2018

JacktheRabbit said:
Makes me happy I decided against backing this games Kickstarter.

Myself, i've been super happy that I did. He updates the Kickstarters more often than a couple of others I've backed.

JacktheRabbit said:
Does any one have any more news ....

He updates us regularly in the Kickstarter comments/etc. Basically, it's at this stage:

1) Game Master's Kit is printed
2) finishing the layout
3) working on the BackerKit.

Pramas reports that they will both be ready in January and PDFs of the core game will be distributed at that time.

JacktheRabbit · Dec 24, 2018

Did they give any explanation for missing their first two planned release dates?

practicalm · Dec 24, 2018

I hope it eventually comes out because I'd love to raid it for my GURPS Expanse game.

MNblockhead · Dec 24, 2018

I'm registered to play it at Con of the North in February.

Anyway, the Expanse is no where near as delayed as many of the Kickstarters I've backed. It is normal for even well organized Kickstarters to be off by several months. Only well-established publishers who already have networks and processes set up, and many publications under their belt, regularly meet their deadlines. Frog God Games and Kobold Press both come to mind as exceptionally reliable. But they are using Kickstarter more as a pre-order system. They are not new creators trying to start something new.

One would think Green Ronin should be in the same group, but most of the Kickstarters were over 6 months late and a couple have been over a year late. Even established companies run into delays. I would rather a company be focused on quality than slavishly adhere to an estimated delivery date.

Mutants & Masterminds 10 Year Anniversary Edition was about 11 months late.
Freeport: The City of Adventure for the Pathfinder RPG was about 14 months late.
Advanced Bestiary for the Pathfinder RPG was about 4 months late.
Love 2 Hate: A Party Game for Inappropriate People was about 9 months late.
Book of the Righteous for Fifth Edition was about 4 months late.
Sentinels of Earth-Prime looks like it will be 14-16 months late.

That said, they eventually delivered on all their Kickstarters and enough people seem to be happy with their products that they continue to fund new Kickstarters.

So, no, not vaporware.

Umbran · Dec 24, 2018

Here's the thing: Game designers are generally not, by training or inclination, project managers. And humans are very, very bad at estimating how long things take, or how many things might go wrong.

One kickstarter I backed recently you can see is plagued by standard project slowdown stuff. The kickstarter was successful beyond their wildest dreams. So, now they have to handle more orders than expected, by maybe an order of magnitude. So, they're moving to a new workshop. Then they are getting new equipment. Then, they are finding that the new equipment (which is like, industrial-grade printers that literally weigh a ton) cannot be safely put in the new workshop until some major work is done to make the workshop floor level. It is like a comedy of errors.

I can understand a desire to know *why* things are delayed - but do note that the reasons are usually highly embarrassing and make it look like they don't know what you're doing, so you are unlikely to get the reasons spelled out, especially if you are not a customer. If we, as consumers, weren't going to be so critical of failing to hit deadlines for our 100% luxury entertainment items, maybe they'd talk more. But, we aren't, so, they usually don't.

Morrus · Dec 24, 2018

I backed the Kickstarter. The estimated delivery date for my reward is listed as Jan 2019. I'm really not worried. It's still 2018, and any time in early 2019 will be "on time" in my book.

Stacy Forsythe · Dec 24, 2018

People are way too quick to cry “vaporware” (or worse, “fraud” if a KS or pre-order was involved).

Blue · Dec 24, 2018

This is the update I received this month from a kickstarter that was supposed to deliver December of 2013.

Dear Backers,

It’s been a long time since our last contact with you, but it wasn’t without a serious reason. In June, despite a quite positive feedback which we’ve received from game industry companies at Digital Dragons, we’ve lost our investor and a big part of our team. Since then, production of our game is halted, and we’ve been trying to keep project “M.O.R.E.” alive. Unfortunately, after many talks and meetings, we didn’t manage to find in Central Europe a new investor who would be interested to invest in such big and niche game as “M.O.R.E”. It turns out that unfortunately there aren’t many fans of 4x space strategies among investors…

We know that you have plenty of questions - what happened? why? what next? There are no simple answers for any of those, but someday we will try to answer them all. For now, the most important thing is that we need to find a new investor to keep this project alive. We still believe in it, we still want to finish this game, as we still don’t see any 4x space strategy game which would make us addicted to it. So far, we’ve created a solid professional background - game code with networking, most of 2D and 3D graphic assets, VFX, animations, etc., and we’ve gained much experience. Now we need to make last step to finish this project with success.

To do it, we still need you – support of people who still wait for a game like this. Despite total investment of over $1 000 000 in M.O.R.E., we still need $500 000 and at least a year of work. Yes, creating a game is long and expensive task (especially a 4x TBS game), but we still believe that our project can finish profitably for all of us. Maybe among our backers are people who know any investor, business angel or other way that we’ll be able to create what we’ve always dreamt of? If so – please let us know. We really want to lead this project to a happy ending.

Team.

Not even signed with a name.

Luckily, I've also had pretty much every other kickstarter come through. Even if some were a bit late.