SOV/C3V Feedback Thread

[IAmBatman]

Is there some significant group of people who want a position in one of these projects that doesn't have one?

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

I will add however, that there are still things that each project can do to turn things around and get more people engaged. Today if someone was interested in joining a team, how would they go about doing that? Is there an email list to email, phone number to call, or a point of contact to submit a resume to? Or is it currently setup so that "we'll call you, don't call us."

I won't speak for C3V, but in SoV we call out for new people to join when someone steps down. Sometimes aggressively. We do not guarantee admission, though; it's a contest to see who is most qualified and able, and just submitting takes a fair amount of work.

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

I've also noticed that, while those in VC keep saying they want to see more people designing not necessarily with VC in mind, as far as I can tell, that's basically lipservice - I barely ever see a VC member comment in a customs thread unless the design is being workshopped as SoV material.

I admit to not commenting on customs threads much anymore. That's not a statement of VC preference, though. I used to do a lot with customs, making my own, listening to comments, and giving comments. But my interest in Heroscape customs has waned; I almost never make new ones and I don't have much excitement for looking at others. My roles in VC are a separate thing. I didn't accept roles in SoV or C3V to have fun (and, for the most part, they are work, not play), I did so to do provide my skills and time to help with quality control for the continuation of the game. As I am in and run Heroscape tournaments, a growing, changing game is of great value, and tournament-level quality is paramount.

Originally Posted by Lazy Orang

I remember reading that 'being different is a weakness, not a strength', to paraphrase. You do seem to be actively hostile to new ideas.

The fact that you read that quote as hostile to new ideas is exactly the problem I was trying to point out. A lot of custom creators mistake new or changed powers for "creativity." While it does take a certain amount of creativity to create or change a power, defining creativity by that is mistaking the process for the goal. All the wild ideas and complex text that can be written into a power doesn't by itself mean a thing when the plastic hits the board. What's important is how the unit plays. If it plays differently than what has come before, and feels thematic and (most importantly!) fun, that's demonstrating true creativity. That's independent of how new or exciting the powers are.

The more I worked on customs the more I came to realize that achieving that creativity with simple and/or reused powers was much more difficult than creating something new. When I did achieve that, when I would have people come over to play a round of Heroscape they were much more excited about those units than the more "creative" ones. And really, that's totally natural. For players that don't play the game a ton, every new power, every new mechanic, was something they would have to learn and process and potentially misunderstand (sometimes to ill effect). A new unit with a couple powers they recognize and/or could easily understand, yet played differently? Of course they liked it!

So I'm firm in my belief that changing things up "just to be different" is missing the boat. If the unit really does play differently and feels thematic with a reused power, changing that power to be something slightly different is only creating a barrier to people liking that unit. Of course new powers and new mechanics are great and important, and we all love to see things that are truly new and exciting, but don't shy away from something just because it's been done before. Embrace it, if that's what's best for the unit.

Originally Posted by robbdaman

I hear this and agree that there are some figures announced to be used from years ago that are still in the process. Any thoughts on how to fix these issues?

I was surprised when I first entered the Inner Sanctum and saw how it was built. The process is designer-focused, not output-focused. The whole concept is for people to find miniatures, come up with a design, and rework that design as they move it through the process. One side effect of that is that if a designer loses interest in a design, or leaves the project, that design will stall. That can and has happened to figures that were announced. When a design starts the process, there is no plan for when it will be released or what other units it will be "packaged" with. We build Waves once enough stuff has gotten far enough through the process and package together what we have. There are no deadlines or any checks and balances to ensure that units keep moving along once announced.

[robbdaman]

Yeah, there's at least a couple figures that were announced over 5 years ago and there's still nothing available to the public. A couple years of turn around I understand, six definitely shows ball dropping. Makes sense given people come and go and there are only certain core people still there. Life happens and passionate about it all or not this is a volunteer project that we do in our spare time.

[quozl]

There's a thread just started about using alternate sculpts here.

[Scytale]

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

I would love it if once a figure is announced, the C3V team commits to have it launch within 6 months or sooner. That so be a great customer service gesture.

We would have to hire people to get that kind of throughput. The 10-20 hours a week we put into it won't be nearly enough.

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

Something to consider is to simply bolster the ranks of the C3V to take on the backlog.

Adding more people would make the process take longer, not make it go quicker.

Most of the time a unit spends in the process is during periods of arguing or waiting. A lot, lot of time is spent discussing (often arguing) about a unit. Since none of us do this as our job, we aren't sitting on the forums waiting to respond. It's a back-and-forth that takes days to play out as we each get on and respond when we have time to dedicate. Most of us do that daily or multiple times a day, but we don't all go through all of the discussions we're on each time. We're on dozens at any one time, and each one could take a fair amount of time and effort to read through the recent posts and develop a response. And that's just simply responding, not the long processes like running checklists. Because we are on numerous threads at any one time, some stall while others heat up. It's just part of how things go. We're currently working through 9 units in Editing, each which takes days to weeks of back-and-forths to get through.

So much of a unit's time is spent in discussions. Adding another person to that discussion exponentially increases the time it takes to get everyone to agree. While in theory we could divide up the work between multiple teams in each department, we'd need a lot more people, particularly in departments that have high skill requirements and little recognition/fun. Even then, Sanctum-wide operations such as Inner Sanctum Review would become much longer.

[Dad_Scaper]

As for announced minis "stalling," it's been a problem in the past. I am aware that there are some long-announced minis that have not been released yet, and that's distressing. To our fans, of course, but also to us.

But (off the top of my head) I don't think we have any announced mini currently in the Sanctum that is, as of this moment, actually stalled. Our internal gears are functioning right now more cleanly than I ever remember them turning before.

I am aware that, from the outside, it may look like we have stalling units and/or people on the voting rolls who no longer belong there. To the best of my knowledge, neither of those is actually true, to the extent that my opinion as an insider might have value. I would, however, say that both have been true at times in the past, and I certainly acknowledge that both present serious challenges to the continued vitality of the project.

But we've somehow kept the train moving, this whole time, and I feel like we're in a pretty good place right now. Others are free to disagree, of course. Just my 2c.

edit:

Originally Posted by Scytale

Adding more people would make the process take longer, not make it go quicker.

QFT. All the cats have different ideas, and it is the herding process that takes time.

[SuperSamyon]

Originally Posted by Scytale

I was surprised when I first entered the Inner Sanctum and saw how it was built. The process is designer-focused, not output-focused. The whole concept is for people to find miniatures, come up with a design, and rework that design as they move it through the process. One side effect of that is that if a designer loses interest in a design, or leaves the project, that design will stall. That can and has happened to figures that were announced. When a design starts the process, there is no plan for when it will be released or what other units it will be "packaged" with. We build Waves once enough stuff has gotten far enough through the process and package together what we have. There are no deadlines or any checks and balances to ensure that units keep moving along once announced.

This right here may be what needs to be addressed. It sounds like we need a project manager.

It's interesting to see, Scytale, that you prefer to participate in this for the skills. I think that is very smart of you. I would imagine others felt the same so perhaps the solution for some of the woes is to simply start running it more like a business and once a figure is announced to the public its "on the clock" and given sole focus by the team to get it launched. If the mini isn't announced, then folks can take as much time as they need to "get it right."

This might be the corporate America in me speaking, but I find that emails and forum posts too slow and not conducive to fast production. Perhaps setting up a weekly conference call would be better so you guys can quickly talk through the design? A few words spoken saves minutes from typing lol.

@Kinseth thank you for your response. What do you think about my above suggestion? Figures not announced to the public can take all the time needed to get it right and once the figured is announced its just about complete?

[Kinseth]

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

This right here may be what needs to be addressed. It sounds like we need a project manager.

It's interesting to see, Scytale, that you prefer to participate in this for the skills. I think that is very smart of you. I would imagine others felt the same so perhaps the solution for some of the woes is to simply start running it more like a business and once a figure is announced to the public its "on the clock" and given sole focus by the team to get it launched. If the mini isn't announced, then folks can take as much time as they need to "get it right."

This might be the corporate America in me speaking, but I find that emails and forum posts too slow and not conducive to fast production. Perhaps setting up a weekly conference call would be better so you guys can quickly talk through the design? A few words spoken saves minutes from typing lol.

Let me know who is signing the paychecks...

[Lazy Orang]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

As for announced minis "stalling," it's been a problem in the past. I am aware that there are some long-announced minis that have not been released yet, and that's distressing. To our fans, of course, but also to us.

But (off the top of my head) I don't think we have any announced mini currently in the Sanctum that is, as of this moment, actually stalled. Our internal gears are functioning right now more cleanly than I ever remember them turning before.

I am aware that, from the outside, it may look like we have stalling units and/or people on the voting rolls who no longer belong there. To the best of my knowledge, neither of those is actually true, to the extent that my opinion as an insider might have value. I would, however, say that both have been true at times in the past, and I certainly acknowledge that both present serious challenges to the continued vitality of the project.

But we've somehow kept the train moving, this whole time, and I feel like we're in a pretty good place right now. Others are free to disagree, of course. Just my 2c.

But perception matters as much as reality. The project looks dead, it feels dead, and the people who can't see the internal gears only have words.

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

This right here may be what needs to be addressed. It sounds like we need a project manager.

It's interesting to see, Scytale, that you prefer to participate in this for the skills. I think that is very smart of you. I would imagine others felt the same so perhaps the solution for some of the woes is to simply start running it more like a business and once a figure is announced to the public its "on the clock" and given sole focus by the team to get it launched. If the mini isn't announced, then folks can take as much time as they need to "get it right."

This might be the corporate America in me speaking, but I find that emails and forum posts too slow and not conducive to fast production. Perhaps setting up a weekly conference call would be better so you guys can quickly talk through the design? A few words spoken saves minutes from typing lol.

@Kinseth thank you for your response. What do you think about my above suggestion? Figures not announced to the public can take all the time needed to get it right and once the figured is announced its just about complete?

At C3G it generally takes no more than a month or two (maybe three) between a design thread being posted and it being finalised for release. There are exceptions (we've had some lasting several years if an LD goes AWOL), but those are exceptionally rare. Loads of the units we've been releasing recently (though certainly not all of them) weren't in production when the year started. It doesn't need to to take this long. It feels as though the standard time frame for a C3V design is about equal to the ones that become in-jokes in C3G for how bloody long they took, and those designs only did so because of the amount of time there was no one working on them. That's... kind of ludicrous.

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Your entire complaint is based on their wanting to take more and not being able to. There's very little give from personal customs and if there's very little take it's not because personal customs don't want to take, it's because people aren't interested. Personal customs, by their nature, are a self-centered pursuit, so it shouldn't be shocking when you don't always inspire participation from others.

Commenting and a degree of recognition =/= actual concerted effort playtesting. All I'm saying is that it feels as though designs posted without a SoV nomination in consideration are shouting into the void these days, whereas if you mention its intention to go to the big leagues and actually 'do something important', only then do people care. Of course that's disparaging, and it wasn't the case before SoV planted its flag and came to dominate the customs landscape.

[Kinseth]

Originally Posted by SuperSamyon

@Kinseth thank you for your response. What do you think about my above suggestion? Figures not announced to the public can take all the time needed to get it right and once the figured is announced its just about complete?

If we made our own sculpts, sure. Sadly, supply can dry out. I've seen issues from C3V where they failed to announce the Mini soon enough, a design was moved along and then got caught realize they didn't have enough supply on websites and had to stall the unit.

That will happen waaaay to often, announcing the mini has to come while the beginning phases start.

We work with what we have, and this is really the best compromise.

[IAmBatman]

Guess it depends on your definition of "dead." C3V has a wave release on the front page of the site with more comments on it than C3G's last front page release.

[SuperSamyon]

Originally Posted by Kinseth

Let me know who is signing the paychecks...

Haha right? Even though the word business sounds like work, it may actually make it easier. For instance, if a designer wants to take more time to create a character, wouldn't it be a better experience for both the designer and public if they don't feel rushed?

Once a figure is announced to the public, wouldn't it be a better experience to the public if they have a card to match it soon? And it's probably better to not announce anything until it's ready to be released.

I respect the hard work of the team, all I'm suggesting are ways to improve the optics and to make the project appear more alive. That's how you grow the community.

Edit: just saw your above response. A fair point for sure.