Another good example is having multiple playable races. This is something that solves a whole lot of design problems and inconsistencies, and it's actually a really super-cool marquee feature to focus on in the kickstarter pitch in general. But this does come at a certain cost in terms of us needing to actually design that (Cinth is pretty well single-handedly taking that on, though, which is a really big help to me). But then when we jerk around the core quadrangle, then that sets HIM back, and so on.
Just how much of this needs to be done for a kickstarter, though? You need a race theme of some kind and a good idea of how it will play, but you don't actually need a full ship list.
Overall there are simply more features and options and whatnot than I remembered (hahahaha -- and there were a bajillion that I had remembered), and getting all those things written up, organized, and evaluated for inclusion or revision is a big task. To some extent "can't those little things just wait until later?" is a valid question. However, in order to do a kickstarter with confidence, Keith and I and Blue all need to be able to properly estimate how long things will take us, with appropriate buffers. That then translates into a cost figure, again with buffer.
At some point, you need to set a cut off date and say "if it hasn't been brought up by tomorrow, it's not in 1.0. Period." and stick to it. Otherwise we'll keep bringing stuff up forever.
While that would be possible, there's still so freaking much to the design document that needs to be added (that thing is already 46 thousand words long, but it's going to practically double I think). And then there's the whole video and presentation and so forth, and the question of how much time I can spend on really making that amazing versus having to rush something less compelling out. That seems like a rush would be a Really Bad Idea.
You only get one shot to make a first impression, especially on Kickstarter. You want people to see the page the first time and go "yep, I want to follow that!"
A rush job is a poor option, because if people see it that way, they'll leave and you won't get them back.
If this sort of schedule slippage sounds familiar, it's basically what happens when you start without a design document and try to do a lot of experimental stuff. It's what happened to Raptor and SBR, and it's precisely what the giant design document for AI War II is intended to prevent. Originally I was going to be slightly more conservative with the AI War II design, but too many compelling things came up either from myself or others, and I think that those elements ultimately make a kickstarter more likely to succeed rather than less.
So as a calculated risk, I let the "design the kickstarter" phase of this increase in scope somewhat, and now that's biting me in the butt a bit. I'm more concerned about it biting certain staff than myself, though, to be honest. Ultimately if this kickstarter gains traction at all (which it already seems to have momentum to say the least), then I think that will have been a very good call.
That's why you may need to cut off discussion of new stuff at some point. All the discussion is leading to a better kickstarter, but it can go on forever as each feature from every expansion gets brought up, and that's just not realistic. Someone has to be the project manager, and the project manager has to be a jerk when necessary.
We all complain about the "suits" at big publishers giving arbitrary deadlines that cramp the creativity and quality of AAA games that are coming out, and in this case I'm the suit. And I hate that! I feel like one extra week is a pretty good compromise, but it can't go slip-sliding on from there.
Yep. It gives everyone a timeline to work with. Then it has to go. Because that's how real life goes.
(I've read theories from some game developers that the primary role of a publisher is actually to be hated. Everyone loves the "developer wants to do it but the evil overlords won't let us" story, even when it's not actually true. Having someone to direct the anger at frees the developer up from a lot of it.)
There's a line there somewhere between "this needs to get resolved to make things make sense and for the central design architecture to be correct" and "I think that this would be a bit better than that, for these detailed reasons." If the latter category is something data-driven anyway (like should MLRS be demolition class or siege), then for goodness sake please let's table that one for now. 
Can do.
From what I've read, a shorter kickstarter (say, 21 days) has a lot of benefits in terms of creating more urgency for people to back and tell others to back. The most common downside is the inability to reach enough press in time, but again I really don't think that one is a factor here when we're talking 21 versus 30 days. The other big downside I've read about is that if someone sees that a KS has 20 days left and is only 12% funded, they might think that it's destined for obvious failure; but actually it's just the first day of the KS, so it's doing fine. This is the part that worries me the most, honestly.
I've never pledged to a KS that was 21 days and succeeded. for what it's worth. 30 seems to be the standard. You do have the lull in the middle, but you don't have someone showing up on day 1 and thinking it's got no momentum when it really just started.
There might be a reason to do it in 21 days to avoid November, but in that case you really want to have a good first day so it looks strong. Probably want to get all of us lined up for that one.
Like I said, these are the things I'm trying to make decisions on right now. The TLDR:
1. When do you think we should launch and how long should it run?
2. What data do you have from the market that could help me make a decision to agree or disagree with that?
3. Does anyone have good data on the uncollected-pledge amounts?
4. Anything you can do to help in terms of resolving the design document's many open ends would be appreciated.
Thank you so much!
Chris
I'd suggest asking people who have done successful campaigns that stuff. I haven't, sorry. Some of them are pretty approachable, though. A guy named Jason Anarchy has done several board game ones successfully, including the recent and very successful
Drinking Quest: Journey into Draught. He's very approachable and might be willing to answer some questions about that stuff.
One really popular thing he did was had a tier where for $5 extra, he'd send you two extra cards: one with a hand written compliment, and one with a hand written insult. Those were limited to 100, and sold out almost immeditately. So he added another tier that was $1 more, with 100 more of those. Then he did it again, and again, and again, and again. He ended up having to do 1200 cards, but that was $500+600+700+800+900+1000 extra pledges just out of that silliness.
You're not shipping anything physical so something similar might be harder, but people love fun little things like that and you can earn significant extra pledges with them.
