Leveling Up
Heyo, Guildies. The third anniversary of Guilded Age is coming up, and we’re gonna do something a little different this year. We will still be having the current-year edition of Adventurer’s Illustrated Swimsuit Edition instead of a normal strip on Labor Day, for which there will be a mini-contest with a special prize giveaway! So keep your eyes peeled!
Anyway, today we want to get in a direct dialogue with you, the readers. We’re doing a Kickstarter for us and you within the next couple weeks, and we want to make abundantly certain that we’re getting you what will potentially the best bang for your buck. This Kickstarter will primarily be for two things: Volume 2 in print form, and a special multimedia expansion into Guilded Age‘s library. Hint: It rhymes with “Plan a May shun.” Anyway, here’s the basic idea of what will be done/made available through the Kickstarter:
– Volume 2 Production: We’re making the next volume, complete with its own bonus story.
– E-Books: Making e-book versions of both Volume 1 and Volume 2.
– SECRET MEDIA THING: We’re going to blast you guys with this in a week or two, not to worry. But for now let’s say we’ve got a secret Guilded Age project going, and the medium it exists in rhymes with “Span ’em, Haitian,” if you wheeze a little. Behold my indomitable coding skills. But yes, there will be HD digital downloads as part of the KS reward, an SD version will be made available to all for free viewing.
– Three Pieces of KS-exclusive Merch: Three different items will be made available as KS Exclusives, one of which will probably have a life afterwards. But for the other two, one is a large poster and one is a keychain, and we’re keeping mum on the contents of both until their dramatic reveals. We’ll order as many as requested during the KS, and whatever’s left will either be sold in person at cons, or given away as prizes. These items will NOT be added to the online store.
– New Merch Items: A new wave of buttons, stickers, and a postcard pack will soon be introduced to y’all and be made available on the online store. What joy!
– New Site Design: This ol’ site of ours, though it has served us well, is in dire need of an overhaul. If luck shines our way, it’ll be covered by the Kickstarter going over our post goal of $10,000.
All of the above are going to be made available during the KS, some of which will be on the store during and afterwards. Other things will be available in the KS, but mostly at the high tier reward levels:
– Custom Art from John Waltrip.
– A cameo in the comic.
– A bonus story starring characters based on the highest pledgers.
– A big fuckin’ party for the highest pledger of all.
The basic package, we can tell you right now, is as follows: For $25 (known widely as the standard pledging level), you’ll get a copy of Volume 2, both print and digital, an HD digital download of the SECRET MEDIA THING, and bonus goodie of choice (button pack, sticker pack, postcard pack, etc). We’re going for $10,000, which will cover the basic costs of the print run and the SECRET MEDIA THING. Obviously, we’re going to try to push past that initial 10k to get the other things done, but if we must cover that ourselves it’s something we’ll just have to do. At any rate, we’d like your opinion on these concepts, what you think certain items are worth, anything your little heart desires that we don’t have included already, and it’s not too late to take requests on anything new or different, so have at it in the comments!
Other things to discuss? Well, we’re planning on doing a new site design as soon as humanly possible, so if you have any ideas or requests for things that should change with the site, please let us know here in the comments.
Also, we’ll be ending the following on an official capacity due to non-use: The WoW Guild, The Wiki, and The Forum. So unless enough of you can make convincing arguments on why any of these should stay, please talk it out in the comments below.
Feel free to ask us absolutely anything about the upcoming “patch” to Guilded Age. We’d be happy to answer anything you’ve got for us (we reserve the right to keep secrets on some details, of course).
Just make sure there are nice reward tiers around the range of $100, $500, and $1000. Not sure how much I’ll have saved up on hand for donating, but I love Guilded Age to death, and I’d happily pay any of those prices if I have enough money saved, and the reward tiers in that range are worth it.
Wow, thanks! Here’s hopin’ we’ll be offering rewards that worthy of that level. We have some plans for those tier ranges, for sure. But I’m curious: What would YOU like to see/have for that kind of money?
Get a proper miniature company to make minis of all the main characters?
That or a Zeppelin. I’ve always wanted a Zeppelin.
We’ve got SOMETHING like that in the works in the short term. To do a production of a sweet item like that, I’d estimate we’d need to have twice as many people reading than we do right now.
If you’re looking to ride a Zeppelin, check out my dudes O & Dern’s Kickstarter for their new card game: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dernjg/3v3-the-commissioned-comic-card-game
There goes $85 :)
OOTS did quite well out of stuff like “I will draw your DnD party/character” and “I will draw you a single one-off unique picture” or “I will make a short story about a minor character of your choosing.” – but these are obviously quite a bit of work, especially on your artist.
Personally, these aren’t for me, as I like drawing my own characters.
I’ve been keeping an eye on your arts while you’ve been hanging around here, Ahdok. And I have seen significant improvement. Keep it up :D
The intention is to eventually start up and draw my own comic. I’ve got two in the works, and I have to pick which one to take seriously.
One of them is a generic fantasy comic in a DnD-style world. (working name “venture fourth”) – although there’s never an intention to actually admit that it’s a losoe DnD rules-world within the strip. I figure this has space for easy jokes, people will be familiar with the metaphysics etc. Also, I know that OoTS has about three years left, and there’ll be a massive fanbase of DnD style comics with a gaping void when it finishes. I’ve got story plotted out approximately, and some nice worldbuilding done, and some good characters, but I’m a little short on jokes. The story’s also a bit flat and uninteresting right now, although that’s not very important in the beginning.
The second is a slightly more gaslampy setting, with my own metaphysics and characters. Again, I have some very nice characters and worldbuilding done, but the story is still in infant stages. The style of the comic would likely be closer to Gunnerkrigg court than OoTS, with fewer jokes, but more of a story hook to keep people interested, so I need to build quite a lot more mysteries and intrigue to make it work…
Decisions decisions.
Keep us abreast of what you’re workin’ on, now.
Will do.
I keep getting sidelined by doing silly things like this 24H comic though :)
That was absolutely charming. Thanks for sharing it.
Hard to comment on reward tiers without knowing exactly what’s what and at what funding level but it looks fine as far as I can see. What about Volume 1, any chance of getting that re-printed?
Funny thing about the forum. I was one of the people whining for a forum back in the day but then I never used it. Just goes to show how people suck.
One of the things that put me off the forum is that it’s visual theme (if it’s even a theme) is suitable for Penny and Aggie but not for GA, not by a long shot. Seems like a stupid reason (and maybe it is) but atmosphere and feel of the place can be important and the forum made me feel like a red shirt at a Star Wars convention.
To be honest, even if the above was addressed, I doubt I’d use the forum simply because comments are where the party is and I feel no need to go beyond that.
But that’s just me. If the forum was redesigned and provided sub-sections for game/book/film/etc. discussions it might attract others and revitalize it.
One thing you could do is copy OOTS or PA in this regard. Basically eliminate the comments section and have update threads on the forum for each individual page so that people have to register if they want to comment/discuss the latest page. This might constitute as being slightly underhanded but it might just work. Of course this would increase forum activity in general as people spread around with comic updates being the proverbial hook.
It comes down to community building I suppose. The reason why OOTS/PA forums are so active is because those comics have formed their own sub-culture basically. If GA were to do this then Kickstarter would be the best time to do it due to all the increased attention.
Also I am going to take this opportunity to, once again, beg for an edit comment button. If people hiding their bullshit is an issue a 5 min time window for editing could be implemented as seen on moddb. Of course I’ve no idea what the technical obstacles are for this.
We have PLENTY of Volume 1’s left. A re-print will come when it’s needed, I figure.
The comments do, indeed, seem to be where the party at. This is the chiefest reason among all on why we just shouldn’t even bother with the forum as far as I can see.
We considered cutting off comments and forcing people to go to the forum, but that would more than likely cause a net loss of discussion overall. Do not want.
I’m wary of posting all the tier reward levels we have in place right now… I don’t want to upset anyone if we decide to change any of them because we’ve changed our minds about how much certain rewards are worth, etc.
So would it be possible to get paper-form Vol 1 as a KS “reward”?
Yeah, actually. The “Byron Special” is allowing you to dual-wield Guilded Age by getting a copy of both volumes.
That was the primary thing I wanted to make sure was happening. I’ve got my 0.5 (actually, my 0.5 is getting a bit tatty these days, as I’ve shown it to so many people…) – but I keep putting off vol 1 due to postage. Combining the two would be awesome.
Oh yeah, that bonus story about the rocket car or whatever it was. I haven’t got that, because I didn’t get around to buying my volume 1. I’d like to get hold of it when I pledge :)
Definitely. That ministory is in Vol 1, and you’ll be able to pick one up as part of the KS if you haven’t had a chance before.
Regarding the comments section – the current format is so delightfully straightforward to use that it encourgaes engagement. Also, because it’s comparatively small, it’s easier to get into. I know a number of people who have noted that things like OOTS can be somewhat intimidating to post into, because it’s so big. That’s a nice problem to have, I admit, but still something of a problem.
And I second the motion begging for an edit button.
I fourth that motion.
…damnit!
Edit buttons will be tricky, but I think we’re all in agreement that Comments > Forum.
Purely out of curiosity, and accepting it as truth, why is it that edit buttons are difficult? Is it just that the function was not built into the original site coding?
It’s not a standard option in wordpress or comicpress that I can see.
I suppose it’s possible to make everyone who wants edit permissions into a site contributor, but it’s such a pain, and I have no idea if any of the specialised user roles allow editing of comments without allowing posting, or editing of other people’s comments.
A few reasons:
1) As Ahdok said, comment editing isn’t a user feature because, by and large, you’re all posting without accounts. If you signed up and posted from an account in the site’s infrastructure, you’d have that level of control over your comments. We allowed and encourage user accounts for a time, but disabled it when it became riddled with spambots.
2) Requiring people to sign up for user accounts would cut off a lot of the discussion that we get, because it’s easier to just post at whim.
3) Users with accounts would not get to be privvy to randomized avatars, I don’t think. And we know how much you guys love ’em.
4) This is a personal reason: Not allowing editing of comments forces people to truly consider what they want to say on the Internet. It’s just a good policy, IMO, because one would be less likely to start shit because they can’t edit away their transgressions.
Hm. I don’t really use the OOTS forums much, because they’re slightly isolated from the main strip, the comments here are really immediate, and let me throwdown some puns and run away giggling.
I did like the forum here, but there weren’t many people contributing, so it kind of petered out.
That’s always the problem. The forum won’t work when everyone hangs in the comments, comments are just easier and the random avatars are too much fun. So the only way to ensure the life of the forums with our audience at our current size would be to cut off the comments, and that feels like shooting ourselves in the foot.
A forum is something we’d be happy to try again once the headcount gets where we need it to be.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG I want to be a featured character in Guilded Age SO BAD.
I mean SO BADLY.
Whatever. :)
You’ll get your chance!
I think that Guilded Age is definitely something that would be worth Backing. I haven’t backed something in a while and my Backaholism is giving me fits.
Then just hold out until 9/10/12!
oooh animation! so looking forward to it!
It’s actually the Guilded-Age Randy-Play-Mum.
Well, having never really done anything involving Kickstarter, I do know that I’d totally be down for that “Byron Special” there. My friends and I have all massively enjoyed the ride so far. Aiding and abetting this kind of awesome is definitely something I can get behind :)
Hawk, you’ve been a big booster of GA for a long time. Glad to have you with us.
I still owe you Byron beefcake… I hadn’t forgotten.
Basically, I drew it out, and saw that it was good, but I tested out some new photo blue pencils when I did it, and they were very faint – then I accidentally used the paper to print off a form for my dentist, because I didn’t notice the sketch. So I have to start over…
You guys… this is my first time commenting, although I’ve been reading for a long time now. I love this comic with all my heart. I love the strong female cast, I love the diversity, I love the baddies, I love the story….. AND YOU’RE ASKING ME IF I WOULD BACK YOU? You know what? HELL YEAH! Having a print edition sent across the big pond might be a bit pricy, but it’s about time I got this in print anyways. *huff*
Awesomesauce. You can expect to pay a little more for shipping on the Kickstarter, I’ll just put that out there. But whatever tier you’re pledging to, you’ll be getting more Stuff Value for the dollar than you would simply ordering from the store, so hopefully it’ll come close to evening out for you and the rest of our international friendos.
Our non-American audience always surprises me by its size. I shouldn’t be so surprised though, I know Fantasy Comics are a mainstay in European Countries/Countries of Euro Descent the same way that Super Heroes are an American mainstay and Japan with their giant robots.
Is Paypal a big obstacle for non-Americans? Jean-Luc, I know you have some difficulties using it for some reason or another (I’d like to hear why again).
It’s possible we could rig a separate store with different payment options. What works for people who can’t use paypal?
I think I’m probably also making some incorrect assumptions at some point in this comment, so please correct me where I’m wrong.
My trouble with PayPal is that I live in Serbia and due to it being a “developing country” it has no PayPal support. In any case it’s nothing you can help with and setting up an alternative payment solution just for cases like mine isn’t worth it imo since they’re very rare. Almost all of Europe, including the eastern parts and the Balkans, is covered by PayPal, my country’s a bit of an exception. Can’t speak for the Asian continent.
Amazon works perfectly though so Kickstarter shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve backed projects via KS before.
That’s what I’m looking for, I guess. We could, perhaps, set up a bare bones Amazon checkout store.
Paypal worked in China when I was there last year. Although, it wouldn’t accept domestic cards. Fairly sure it is covered in South Korea and Japan, same with Thailand and Vietnam.
I’d like to see more GA shoutouts to cool projects. I always check out the links you post, and I’ve got hold of quite a few awesome things as a result of following links on this site :)
Doesn’t really contribute towards redesign idea though… I would like to see a better way of searching through the archives to find a specific strip that I want… often I want to link to a random one for some reason or other, and I have to use my memory, and some poking around to find the right strip.
Duly noted. Part of our going-forward plan is implementing a “Spotlight Box” that’ll go under the comic (replacing the vol 1 permabanner). We’ll have rotating banners for things that we consider the most worthy of your attention (outside from our advertisers).
As far as better archive navigation: I can probably increase the number of pages shown for the results you get when navigating by chapter. We have character tags now, also. I think the only way one could go farther is if we used http://www.ohnorobot.com/ transcripts. That would, of course, rely on reader volunteers to propagate.
Is that something you’d be into?
Transcribing the comic wouldn’t take a lot of time. I could do that for you. There might be the odd delay of a strip or two when I run away larping or something.
Then we will strongly consider implementing Ohnorobot when we ever get to site redesign.
+1
On other Kickstarter projects, they’ve offered digital-only reward tier(s) for the overseas crowd (due to shipping costs), and those who don’t have any bookshelf space left. Say Vol 1 PDF at one level, Vol 1 & 2 PDFs at another, and Vol 1&2 PDFs plus secret media project download for the third. To mix things up, you could allow adding the secret media project to any pledge for a sum added to their pledge level.
That’s more or less the plan. We’re going to have a Digital Pack, which will be the lowest tier, and get you some digital goodness such as you mentioned.
O Dear Gods of all the various Planes of Existence…why do you tempt me so?
I’m not a collector, but I do like books. Having a cameo character based on myself would be awesome.
Having a bonus story with my cameo character? Oh. Oh man. I haven’t got the words. I’d kiss a Walmart greeter to see what you thundering geniuses could do with that. I’d even pledge money.
I thought of something else, if John is up for it – which would be for users who bid at a specific level to get a custom avatar that he’s drawn. Again, it’s not my own thing because I like to draw my own characters, but I reckon you’d get some takers.
dji are the fastest drones