DDM SKirmish has ended

[catsclaw227]

P1 is already out. So a figure for that set is coming out in how many months? Won't there be adventurers freshly coming out at about the same time?

WoTC's ability to cordinate the miniature releases with the adventurers released at a similiar time continues to be less than impressive.

Hopefully they will catch up in a set or two. I can't imagine that they wouldn't, it's a no-brainer if they are planning to use Minis to help drive the RPG and vice versa.

 

[The Little Raven]

# of figures going down.

# of rares going up.

Quality of each miniature going up.

Price going up.

Manufacturing, transportation, and storage costs going up.

Recessions are a bitch.

 

[MerricB]

Was Merric.

Was.

# of figures going down.

Price going up.

It's the opposite of your pick any two.

# of figures going down,
Price going up
Figures becoming non-random.

That last is important. Also, when the economic factors change massively, we're not actually comparing DDM-old to DDM-new.

Note also that the 5-pack contains two *large* figures, which also increases the price. The old DDM model just won't work in the new climate.

Cheers!

 

[justanobody]

Yeah, I see. I went and read the anouncement from the Rouse and the Q&A. It seems like they looked at every possible sales model, found that none was perfect, and decided to kind of run the middle with randomized monsters and non-random PC's.

Yeah but when taking that middle road they didn't notice that the conveyor was running in the opposite direction.

To help all parties they should have made monsters fixed, and PCs random.

This would allow DMs to get the buttloads of monsters they need and buy more boosters for them without having to worry about excess purchases, and players could get random minis for PCs and trade them off, causing the players to need to buy more.

I think it is high time DMs start charging for their services since they already had to buy more books, more minis, but now the players won't always have minis to spare/share with the DM if they only buy their own PCs.

Playing D&D just got real cheap, but DMing got even more expensive with the 5 for $15. DMs also have to buy all the PC minis in order to make sure they have something different than the players are using to represent their characters for NPCs.....

~I take one step forward an two steps back~

If you pick up a common figure, you'll find that it has relatively few colours and "paint steps" - the detailing on the figure is much less than you see in the uncommons and the rares.

There are basically three factors that go into how expensive a figure is:

* How big it is
* How many paint steps
* How many parts need to be assembled

The more materials in a figure, the more expensive. The more time that has to be spend on a figure, the more expensive.

Imagine that it takes $1 to make a common figure, $2 to make an uncommon figure, and $5 to make a rare figure. I'm making up those values, but they'll do for the demonstration.

If a pack contains 4 commons figures, 3 uncommon figures and 1 rare figure, the cost of the pack is $15. If the pack contains 8 rare figures, we're talking about $40. Hmm.

The point with these miniatures is they aren't high art; they're never going to be as good as professionally painted minis. However, they don't need to be. For the most part, these are game pieces made to be used, not to be admired (although some look pretty good).

For those who want really nice looking minis, there are other places to go. The DDM line found its niche as providing a cheap, plentiful source of D&D minis.

Cheers!

If you played it you know why Mage Knight folded...DDM 2.0, erm Mage Knight 2.0.

Now the quality of the plastic was not as sturdy, but the sculpt detail all came through in it, and all the minis no matter the rarity got the same amount of attention to detail in painting. WizKids has maintained this quality through all its Clix games that have prepainted minis that DDM was trying to compete with the concept. The least they could do was take a bit more care in attention to the painting and quality control.

No matter the number of paint steps required I find it funny that the smaller minis, even rares with lots of details. U. Lightbringer have poor quality paint scheme. Not just bad painting, but bad scheme as well.

As I have said and will continue to repeat (there is another thread about mini paint quality where this all belongs that was forked), the quality of the minis paint jobs should be consistant. Now more than ever since the minis will not all be random. Either it means the random "hidden" minis will all suck in paint wuality, and the "visible" minis will be exceptional to get you to buy them, or they will all be good or crap paint jobs. This will be learned when the first "boosters" are opened to find out how the minis look. The one troll king mini looks pretty poor to me. Will that be the quality of the visible or hidden minis?

As long as they are all the same quality, it is all good.

Also you cost schems are invalid for painting. That would all depend on level of painting, and you also noted the number of parts to assemble would figure into the per figure manufacturing costs for WotC, as well as content and molding cost for the materials.

So the cost of painting is not that much in the overall mini the way these things are made.

Anyway, I stand by the quality of paint jobs should be equal on all minis. If that means the poor looking rares have a little less work to make them just like the poor looking commons then so be it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

If you pick up a common figure, you'll find that it has relatively few colours and "paint steps" - the detailing on the figure is much less than you see in the uncommons and the rares.

There are basically three factors that go into how expensive a figure is:

* How big it is
* How many paint steps
* How many parts need to be assembled

The more materials in a figure, the more expensive. The more time that has to be spend on a figure, the more expensive.

Imagine that it takes $1 to make a common figure, $2 to make an uncommon figure, and $5 to make a rare figure. I'm making up those values, but they'll do for the demonstration.

If a pack contains 4 commons figures, 3 uncommon figures and 1 rare figure, the cost of the pack is $15. If the pack contains 8 rare figures, we're talking about $40. Hmm.

The point with these miniatures is they aren't high art; they're never going to be as good as professionally painted minis. However, they don't need to be. For the most part, these are game pieces made to be used, not to be admired (although some look pretty good).

For those who want really nice looking minis, there are other places to go. The DDM line found its niche as providing a cheap, plentiful source of D&D minis.

Cheers!

I'd add materials used into the factors you listed Merric. WotC have stated on a couple of occasions that minis with translucent plastic will always be at least Uncommon. So obviously that is a factor as well.

Olaf the Stout

 

[MerricB]

I'd add materials used into the factors you listed Merric. WotC have stated on a couple of occasions that minis with translucent plastic will always be at least Uncommon. So obviously that is a factor as well.

Olaf the Stout

Yeah, definitely.

The scary thing is how much DDM would cost if they didn't go to the new system...

The overall pricepoint of a booster pack must be part of the reason they've reduced the number of figures.

Cheers!

 

[justanobody]

Not quite on topic, but just thought you'd like to know that as of the most recent set, "unique" DO now exist in Magic, known as Mythic Rares. You get 1 in every 8 packs.

Later
Gruns

Its like I don't know anything about games anymore.

 

[Knight Otu]

Confirmation of nonrandom power cards is something, at least.
I guess the hero packs will have some combination of popular archetype/less popular archetype, or generic/less generic.

Since it has been so long since I knew this I will jsut make some things up for an uncut Magic card set sheet.

30 of Common X per sheet
10 of Uncommon Y per sheet
2 of Rare Z per sheet

[sblock]There are generally four 121-card sheets, one for each rarity except the new Mythic Rares. One for basic lands, one for commons, one for uncommons, and one for rares and mythic rares together. Most cards are printed once per sheet, except rares*. Those are printed twice, and mythics once (the 1/8 figure Gruns provided comes from the set proportions; 53 rares versus 15 mythics, or 35 rares versus 10 mythics).
[sblock]If anyone is really interested in that, this makes a mythic rare in a large set as rare as a Legends, Ice Age, or 10th Edition rare (among the largest sets) or a Time Spiral Bonus Card, and actual rares about as rare as Dissension, Future Sight, or Eventide rares (smallish sets).[/sblock]
Examples of what you consider "common uniques" would probably be tournament participation rewards, alternate-art cards of existing rares/mythic rares. Not part of the normal distribution, but relatively easily available for those who want one?

*Several older sets did print certain cards more than once per sheet, and sometimes with different art as well, in some cases to save a rare sheet. Alliances was I think the only set with differing rares before mythics were introduced, with R6 (effectively uncommon) and R2.[/sblock]

 

[Fifth Element]

As I have said and will continue to repeat (there is another thread about mini paint quality where this all belongs that was forked), the quality of the minis paint jobs should be consistant.

Le Rouse mentioned higher quality across the line in the release. It seems to indicate that all minis will be of the same "quality". Or I suppose it could just be referring to the fact there will be a greater proportion of "rare-quality" minis (all the heroes, and the rare and visible monsters), thereby increasing the average quality of the minis.

The one troll king mini looks pretty poor to me. Will that be the quality of the visible or hidden minis?

It will be a visible mini, since the visibles are all apparently Large minis. And if that mini looks poor to you (in terms of painting), I'm afraid your standards are probably too high for pre-painted minis.

 

[The_Gneech]

I wonder what this means for the star wars line, spaceships and skirmish. Hasn't it been a long time since a new spaceships set came out?

There was only the one spaceships set. My guess is it flopped and they decided not to bother with it.

FWIW, there is a die-cast line (available in toy stores) at roughly the same scale that has much better ships, which are suitable.

-The Gneech