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I am another on the “more or less untouched” side for now, but my dad’s work is cutting hours to run a skeleton crew to minimize exposure risks. I also read a headline (NPR, so pretty reliable) that almost 20% of households have someone who is out of a job or on reduced hours because of the pandemic.
There might be some in-between options for the Kickstarter? I don’t know how flexible Kickstarter is as a platform, but I know some projects run for 60 days. Extending the KS would be the simplest way to add flexibility for a rough financial period.
You could also split the KS up – run a smaller KS now, and the big grand celebration later. Ex. smaller = “Bantam Dragons: Pre-Production Run” of non-exclusive colors. Basically allow pre-orders of the planned store colors: Stone, blue-eyed Albino, Violet Flame, Emerald Peacock…? That would give people a lower price-point commitment, with the flexibility of knowing they won’t miss out forever if they just can’t join in now, and still get Windstone the funds up front to start production.
Then later this year, after things are “back to normal”, launch the grand celebration – “Bantam Dragons: Specialty Exclusives Run” – with the now-or-never specials: pink-eyed Albino, Sand, CYO / GB. I think everyone would understand the delay, and by then those impacted by the shut-downs might be able to participate again.
Personally, I’ll still be sending Windstone money in the next couple months, whatever happens – a couple colors & sculpts that I had waitlisted just got re-stocked, but I held off because the Kickstarter took precedence!
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
There’s more dragon pins on Kickstarter – including one that made me think of Windstones with its level of detail. I backed that one before I even checked the price!
There’s a set of Seasons dragons that I really like, and the project expanded with stretch goals for Space and Crystal dragons. They’re more stylized, but I love the artist’s color choices. I wound up liking the Sun & Solar Eclipse dragons even better than the original Seasons dragons that drew me to that project.
And as if to prove that dragons are not my only weak spot – though the dragon pin in this set is *so* cute – there’s another pin set called Ethereal Familiars that caught me with the color-blends and paired poses for the cats and wolves. It’s also a good set to show how one design can play with color options, like Setsunawolf said.
And I shall run off again… and remind myself a thousand times that I’m saving up for a certain dragon Kickstarter… XP
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Melody,
With all the interest in whether or not the Bantam will be released in the “old” colors, what about adding a brief explanation clarifying the Kickstarter Specials Now vs. Production Soon? Something like:To celebrate the release of the Bantam Dragon sculpt, we are starting with a couple new limited edition colors (Stone and Blue-Eyed Albino), Kickstarter-only limited edition colors (Pink-Eyed Albino and Sand), and Kickstarter-only one-of-a-kind special paints. After the Kickstarter is fulfilled, we will be releasing the Bantam Dragon sculpt in several classic Windstone Dragon colors – Brown, Peacock, and Rainbow – as well as the current Windstone Dragon line colors – Emerald Peacock and Violet Flame.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Very nice, Landipan! Skydancers are probably my favorite of the breeds, but Coatls have the cutest faces.
I don’t spend much time in the Coliseum, I like the puzzle games for more general relaxing, but my main strategies are “over-level at least one dragon to act as a guardian, and make up teams of all-different element dragons”. I think the second one is a “standard” recommendation, but the first is just me squeaking in dismay whenever one of my precious babies takes a CRIT hit. There are some good guides in the forums -> “Guides” section on setting up teams and strategies for making the most of the Coliseum. Try the pinned post “[New] Masterpost of Guides, Tools & Etc.” -> 5. “Dominance, Flight/Event Festivals & Coliseum” for starters, if you’re still looking for tips.
Oh, and don’t forget to hit Pinkerton’s Pile every day for your freebie! It’s usually so random, but over time I’ve gotten a bunch of battle stones and useful stuff from him.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
And here’s Copperbright – my Wind element Fey dragon, with a full set of genes, Skin, and apparel.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Eee hee hee, Flight Rising, you say? =D
How to earn gems:
(1) Keep your dragons fed, each day = +1 gem, +200 treasure
(2) Acquire chests. Gold chests will give you up to 10 gems, iron chests usually give you a few, and the various battle chests (earned in the coliseum) sometimes drop gems too.
(3) If you have stuff you want to sell on the Auction House, you can list it for Gems only
(4) Make rich friends and con them into joining FR and pointing to you as their referral. When they buy gems, you’ll get a small bonus.If you’re looking for Gem genes, you can also try the Auction House and see if anyone is selling for Treasure.
FYI, for anyone looking it up – Flight Rising is a free-to-play browser game. They had a bit of a rough start the first couple years with laggy servers that couldn’t keep up with the number of players, but things have really smoothed out in the last couple years and they now have full-open registration. Their main revenue, used to pay their staff and rent their server, is from hosting ads in the sidebars. They also sell Gems for real-world $, which you can use to buy certain exclusive things that are generally meant to be The Shiniest, because they try to make it worth real-world $. Most everything else is bought with Treasure, which is earned by playing games, interacting with Familiars, y’know, just goofing around on the site. The final currency is the Elemental Festival currency, which drops only during the Festivals and is usable only to buy the Festival gear.
When you sign up, you can design your “Progenitor” dragon – choose their main body color, their main wing color, make them 1 of 4 common breeds, and choose their element, which drives eye color and available battle skills. When you finalize your account / found your lair, you are assigned a random 2nd progenitor dragon – and yes, it can be really, REALLY random! To grow your clan, you can breed your progenitors, go shopping for dragons in the auction house, or hope luck hands you eggs, which are rare drops from a couple activities. In addition to breeding, you can assign familiars to your dragons, deck them out in apparel or “skins” (kinda like super-fancy tattoos), and battle monsters with them in the Coliseum. Oh, yeah, and load them up with Genes that will give them patterns, bring out accent colors, and otherwise make them unique. There are also activities you can do without your dragons, like the puzzle games in the Fairgrounds. And there’s forums there, too.
There’s a whole set of Lore behind the FR world and dragons, but it’s the sort of game where you can play by the lore or just go off and do your own thing, it’s open-ended enough where everybody gets to choose their own path. And if you like playing with colors and patterns but don’t have the best art skills – you will spend hours in the Scrying Workshop playing with different breed / color / gene mixes. I know I certainly have!
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
This thread got me addicted to watching for pins on Kickstarter. =P
There’s a new dragon pin project that launched, called “Ancient Asian Dragons- Enamels and Stickers”, that I thought people here might like. They’re oriental style dragons in five different colors and patterns – including koi!
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
What about having three dragon statuses?
FREE = No one has yet made a claim
RESERVED = someone made a claim, but may still release it == “in basket, not yet checked out”
CLAIMED = Dragon no longer available = “checked out”This should solve most of the problems, as long as the (clearly stated) rule is that once you request “I CLAIM THAT ONE”, your choice is FINAL and you’re done. This way, if you are CERTAIN that you want THAT piece (ex. Setsunawolf & “Train Wreck”), then you can just submit a Claim. And hope you’re first. If you think you want that piece, but you want to see if something you like better comes out later, then you submit a Reserve. (And hope you’re first.)
If someone else got there first with a Claim, then: Please select another piece.
If someone else got there first with a Reserve, then: You are #[n] in the queue for claiming Dragon #X.This would let people choose their “risk” levels. The earliest backers could wait for later dragons without the risk of losing their current-favorite. The later backers could decide to risk waiting for an already-reserved favorite to come open, or choose from their favorite of the free dragons.
what would keep someone from reserving all of them?
Oh, I guess the simplest (Scheme A) would be for each person to get [n] tickets, where [n] = # of CYO dragons they have pledged for. Then they can make 1 Claim OR Reservation per ticket.
A trickier way (Scheme B) that makes more use of the Reservation system would be for each ticket = [1 Claim] OR [1 Reservation + 1 Waitlist]. The idea there would be that you could put 1 Reservation in a wait-list queue, but still reserve your back-up choice in case the wait-list dragon turns to Claimed.
For Scheme A, you might see popular dragon “Trash Fire” getting [X] requests, with response 1 = “Reserve” and 2 thru [X] = “Waitlist”. Then there are [X-1] dragons that are open with no claims / reservations on them, until Response 1 chooses to Claim or release.
For Scheme B, the numbers start similar: “Trash Fire” with [X] requests, response 1 = “Reserve”, 2 thru [X] = “Waitlist”. But there are [X-1] other dragons Reserved, preferably with each response (2 – [X]) as their own Response 1 on those dragons. Then if Response 1 (“Trash Fire”) chooses to Claim, everyone already has their back-ups, and can decide immediately to Claim their back-ups or take a shot at another Reservation.
(“Trash Fire” = dark-oily lower / flame wings / black crest? I dunno – but I bet a Windstone trash fire is still gorgeous!)
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
What about having three dragon statuses?
FREE = No one has yet made a claim
RESERVED = someone made a claim, but may still release it == “in basket, not yet checked out”
CLAIMED = Dragon no longer available = “checked out”This should solve most of the problems, as long as the (clearly stated) rule is that once you request “I CLAIM THAT ONE”, your choice is FINAL and you’re done. This way, if you are CERTAIN that you want THAT piece (ex. Setsunawolf & “Train Wreck”), then you can just submit a Claim. And hope you’re first. If you think you want that piece, but you want to see if something you like better comes out later, then you submit a Reserve. (And hope you’re first.)
If someone else got there first with a Claim, then: Please select another piece.
If someone else got there first with a Reserve, then: You are #[n] in the queue for claiming Dragon #X.This would let people choose their “risk” levels. The earliest backers could wait for later dragons without the risk of losing their current-favorite. The later backers could decide to risk waiting for an already-reserved favorite to come open, or choose from their favorite of the free dragons.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
I remembered something I wanted to ask! Can we get the Bantam sketch?
Would it be possible to include a small print of the Bantam dragon sketch as an add-on? It’s so cute, and I’d love to have a copy.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Ela_Hara has a very good point – if you only have enough materials to make [n] dragons in the Pink-eyed Albino coloring, and it is a hard cut-off, then the Pink Albino tier should be limited to [n] pledges. Or [n – (usual shipping damage buffer)] pledges. Then the instructions for anyone wanting the Pink Albino are to pledge that tier and add-on any non-limited colors on top of that.
It sounded to me like the Sand was not a supply-limited color, just a planned exclusive special color? Unless Windstone wants to make the Sand a limited number run, like the Wind Wizards were. If there’s only one limited tier, then there should be no conflict for stacking add-ons.
You might just add a “Special Instructions” line to the Pink Albino description – something like “Because this coloration is limited due to the availability of certain supplies, please choose this tier and add on any other dragons on top of it.” And then include it in the FAQ. (Have I mentioned I recommend loading up the FAQ with all the detail? >.> )
FYI, if Windstone is trying to get a sense for interest – my plan is to get 2 dragons: Sand and one Choose Your Own.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Whichever message option(s) you choose for claiming choices, I think as long as you explain it clearly, people can figure it out.
Have it ready to put into the FAQ. Put a note in the “Choose Your Dragon Adventure” tier description a la “See the FAQ for how to submit your claim”. Re-iterate the “See the FAQ” in the Add-ons section. (You might encourage them to contact you to say which of the “normal” tiers they wanted too, so you have a clear count of how many Stone / Sand / Albino dragons are going to be needed.) Whenever anyone makes a public comment “How do I claim a specific dragon?”, you have a ready answer – “Please see the FAQ for the instructions, the full details are written up there.”
As for colors – I’ve already got a short list of favorites from the preview batch: #14, #28, and #22, though I’d like to know exactly what eye color they have (hoping it’s the light blue of BVP & EmPea). And #25 is as an honorable mention, though he looks a little more “autumn russet” than the “warm pink” that would blend with my Rainbow dragons. So Melody, I think you already have me covered! =D
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Kittens!!!!!!!
Ahem.
Pegasi1978, my main tactic for getting my cats (somewhat) comfortable with the carrier is to leave it out & open all the time as an available hideaway. When we’re playing I throw toys in there, and I leave a few treats in there all the time for them to scavenge.
You might want to look into a product called Feliway. It’s a cat pheromone thing that’s supposed to help them feel safe, like momma’s milk or something? It seemed to help when I took mine on a plane flight. Feliway’s impact varies per cat, sort of like catnip. Anyways, the idea is you spritz the carrier a couple hours ahead of the appointment, and then it has a calm-booster for the actual trip.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
I am looking forward to this so much!!!
Melody, I would recommend including a section on the page, between “Rewards” and the bagel chart section, that covers Add-Ons and buying multiple dragons. Something like “Add-Ons & Customizing Your Pledge”. That section would include:
– instructions on which tier to pick if you want to add more stuff – ex. “Choose the highest reward tier that contains your dragon choice.”)
– how to add another dragon – ex. “For each dragon you want to add, increase your pledge by the amount of that dragon’s tier.”
– how to calculate shipping for more dragons – ex. “Add $X.XX per dragon for shipping within the United States. Contact us at Service@windstoneeditions.com for international orders.”
– any special instructions for non-dragon add-ons – how much to add for a pin, any other options that come upI would also recommend putting those same questions in the FAQ section. I suspect you will be getting asked those questions a LOT, and the more places you re-iterate the answers, the more people might actually figure it out. It looks like you have all of those instructions on the page already, just scattered about in different places.
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
Thanks in part to this thread, I wound up on Kickstarter looking at projects with pins. Several hooked me, but at least they aren’t quite as hard on the budget as Windstones! I can’t remember if posting links is allowed, but I’ll put the keywords for an easy search if anyone else is curious to look them up. And pictures for eye candy – it’s fun to see how artists’ styles differ.
For those who liked the Pin & Tonic pins, they have a KS going right now with “rainbow” dragon pins, but it ends TOMORROW (February 2). It looks like you’ll also be able to buy most of those pins off the usual Pin & Tonic site later, though. Keyword search = “Here There Be Dragons”
Another artist has more “traditional” dragons and intricate details and a strong nature focus, with a few “series” of styles like bottled mini-dragons. Also, the most adorable “I has a fish!” dragon pin. Keyword search = “day-night dragon enamel pins”
Then I found a fun Eastern-style artist that made hybrid fantasy pins – flower phoenix, scaley tiger, and what to *me* looks like a kirin. They looked to me like they’d fit into the Veligent’s world pretty well, plus they’re highly detailed and colorful. Keyword search = “hybrid enamel pins”
Continuing the family tradition of being obsessed with shiny things.
