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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 30, 2014 9:20:04 GMT -9
I think I'm done doing market research for you. I actually have no idea what you were doing. I know about (and actually own) all of the sets you were referring to and have taken some of them into account when picking my price points. Especially the FDG set you posted at the end.
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Post by bravesirkevin on Apr 30, 2014 11:19:33 GMT -9
This is your first outing, so you don't really know what it's like out there yet.
First thing you need to know is that you sell the most the moment you put your set up and then you get forgotten about. If you manage to sell 100 sets in a life time of sales, you'll have sold 60 of those sets in the first 3 days, and the remaining 40 at a rate of 1 a month of the next 40 months. The only cure for this is to put up new stuff all the time so that people are constantly reminded that you exist.
The second thing you need to know is that people are very quick to spend money on people they trust and very slow to trust a newcomer. This is mitigated somewhat by the cost. It's a neglible risk to spend $1, it's a bit more of a risk to spend $10. The dividing line seems to be roughly in the $5 region. Less than that, and they make take a chance out of curiosity, more than that and they'll probably skip it. Once they trust you and know that your stuff is good and that they're getting their money's worth, then it gets easier to sell more expensive stuff.
The third thing you need to know is that there is a lot of competition and some of that competition has been around for a very long time and has a well established fanbase. This means that most people probably already have every prop that will show up in your sets already, and they're not really looking to replace them. A lower price tag may convince them to take the plunge. A higher price tag will make them wonder if it's worth it and the answer is likely to be "no".
With all of this in mind, this is my advice to you: Break the big set up into 3 or 4 smaller sets grouped according to theme. Do a set of props related to the road, a set related to a campsite, a set related to a dungeon, etc. Sell each of those sets for about $5 (or even less perhaps) and then sell a bundle for $12 or so. As I said, people are willing to spend a couple bucks on a newcomer they don't know yet, and you'll quickly see that most people will just by 1 or 2 of the smaller sets and a few of those will come back and buy the others later. I know it's tempting to force everyone to spend 12 bucks, but honestly most people will just skip that all together. Giving them a nice 5 buck option will dramatically increase your sales and your revenue from it.
Also, staggering the release of the smaller sets means that you'll spend more time on the front page and will generate high sales for a much longer period of time, and by the time the 4th set's out it will be clear to people that you're a little more established so they'll take you seriously. You'll also probably have a few sets that have good looking reviews and that will go a long way towards encouraging someone who is seeing you for the first time to spend that money. They may even feel safe enough to just go ahead and buy the bundle in one go and they will keep an eye out for anything you release in the future.
Just my two cents worth. Use it, don't use it. Up to you.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Apr 30, 2014 11:26:00 GMT -9
Break the big set up into 3 or 4 smaller sets grouped according to theme. Do a set of props related to the road, a set related to a campsite, a set related to a dungeon, etc. I'm doing this for the furniture set. Right now I was musing on the village building set, which I thought would be better to sell as a full feature complete set. But after some consideration and voices from the people here I decided to split up into two self contained sets.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 6, 2014 6:00:43 GMT -9
Did a test print today to see how it assembles and looks assembled. Total of 11 pages were printed, here's some photos: Two joined houses, one of them with a bit of a bend to it. A small almost basic hut and a larger cross shaped building. The smallest complete building is just 2 pages of printing, even if you use the larger 4x6 footprint. Same buildings from behind, as you see both end with a rounded cap. Two different joined buildings... perhaps overlooking a curving road though the village? Maybe a temple to the local fertility gods? Two different smaller buildings. All the parts folded up and ready for storage. Things will get more interesting in the geometry department when I finish some more elements. I also really should build the chickencoop finally and see if it behaves like I expect it to...
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Post by dungeonmistress on May 6, 2014 6:31:01 GMT -9
Very clever design, hasturhasturhastur. I see a lot of possibilities with these... And folds flat, too? Bonus!!!
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 6, 2014 6:53:15 GMT -9
Very clever design, hasturhasturhastur. I see a lot of possibilities with these... And folds flat, too? Bonus!!! I think the method these use to connect will shine the most with city buildings though. Basically letting one build complex rows of tenements that lock together in different ways.
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Post by cowboyleland on May 6, 2014 13:14:01 GMT -9
These look really good.
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Post by wildagreenbough on May 6, 2014 13:21:11 GMT -9
What wonderful buildings! Oh I love those, I'd definitely buy them.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 7, 2014 6:41:22 GMT -9
Eh. Had a bad day dealing with students... But. I did a test build of the chicken coop. The test confirms that one of the elements is off by 0.635 mm. This will be corrected for the final version. Let's go on to the presentation then: BWAK BWAK BWAK* [BWAKING INTENSIFIES]** *) As we can see the model looks good with these Pegasus Hobbies chicken (and goose) miniatures. **) It also folds flat for storage (surprised?), it's not that big of a model anyway but even this saves a fair bit of space. Going to be doing more things with this general "style" of flat folding. Right now considering what can be done with it and I have a few ideas already
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on May 7, 2014 9:47:07 GMT -9
One of the reasons I'm doing little crafting these days is because I have to cobble together a real chicken coop in my backyard. It's not going to look like that, and it's not going to fold flat either! But, I like it! How big is it, approximately?
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 7, 2014 9:58:09 GMT -9
But, I like it! How big is it, approximately? 1.5 inches on the side. Almost 2 inches high.
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on May 7, 2014 10:13:17 GMT -9
It sounds HUGE if I treat 1" ~= 5' Or, maybe just... very luxurious, for the chickens? I checked Dave Graffam's chicken coop model, and according to his site, it is '1.5" x 1.1" at the base, standing 1.2" tall.' I'm not saying it's a wrong size, but it seems very big, being 2" tall. It'll be good to see it amongst other models to get an idea of how the scale really feels. It might be just right, and I'm just imagining it wrong.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 7, 2014 10:24:49 GMT -9
It sounds HUGE if I treat 1" ~= 5' Or, maybe just... very luxurious, for the chickens? :) I checked Dave Graffam's chicken coop model, and according to his site, it is '1.5" x 1.1" at the base, standing 1.2" tall.' I'm not saying it's a wrong size, but it seems very big, being 2" tall. It'll be good to see it amongst other models to get an idea of how the scale really feels. It might be just right, and I'm just imagining it wrong. It's significantly smaller than the houses (over 2.6 inches tall counting only the roof). I'll show it off next to other things tomorrow or on Friday when I finish cutting out some other bits I want to testrun. The size of this particular model was decided based on the fact that a human needs to be able to crawl into a chicken coop and freely move around inside. (I.e. to collect eggs) And from there made a bit bigger to cut/fold/assemble more comfortably. Additionally, unlike Dave's model this particular one is also elevated, if you discount the poles the coop is only 1.5 inches tall in the front and 1.25 inches tall in the back. So the size difference isn't actually that big.
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on May 7, 2014 10:38:42 GMT -9
There ya go - forgot about the legs. Can't wait to see you show off more stuff!
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 8, 2014 4:06:26 GMT -9
Sorry for the bad photo quality. In general I'm not good with the whole photo thing, but today especially my hands are too shaky to keep my phone focused. This uses elements that require a total of 17 pages printed. Though you have a fair few elements left over to use in another farm. Unfortunately found that I must have bumped a few elements about in the fence template and two of the models don't line up when folded over. Oh well, this is why I do test builds! Matters that might interest people: • I happen to hate aligning everything to grids, but if you want to there's nothing stopping you from doing so with these models. • I believe I accidentally made the posts sort of compatible with TLX posts but I'm not sure as I couldn't really care less for TLX - they are in fact 0.5 inches by 0.5 inches, which I think might be the size of the big posts that clip into 4 of those... thingies. • Fences come in lengths of 1.5 inches, 2.5 inches, 3.5 inches and 5.5 inches, however if you take into account the 0.5 inch posts that add +0.25 inch at every side the fencing is indeed 2/3/4/6 inches long per segment. • The minis are from Pegasus Hobbies (animals) and from an assortment of other manufacturers (kitbashed), mainly Wargames Factory. • The fence connector posts are the only element seen here that does not fold flat, and while I could make them do that I prefer to make them more structurally sound. • This is still not even close to the full capabilities of this set, just the elements I test built so far.
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Post by dungeonmistress on May 8, 2014 7:49:59 GMT -9
Really nice looking set, hasturhasturhastur. I see a lot of possibility there. Do you have any idea of when you might be ready to release at least some of it?
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 8, 2014 7:59:28 GMT -9
Really nice looking set, hasturhasturhastur. I see a lot of possibility there. Do you have any idea of when you might be ready to release at least some of it? It depends how long my partner will be enhancing the textures. And how long it takes to do the stuff needed to put a store up.
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Post by dungeonmistress on May 8, 2014 12:43:04 GMT -9
Are you going to try an independant store or are you going to look into RPGnow/DriveThruRPG? I would thing, just starting out, RPGnow/DriveThruRPG would give you the most exposure for the least amount of fuss, at least until you've built up a reputation and a following. But some of the others on here who sell thruough them for their opinions, they would know better than I.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 8, 2014 23:02:39 GMT -9
Are you going to try an independant store or are you going to look into RPGnow/DriveThruRPG? I would thing, just starting out, RPGnow/DriveThruRPG would give you the most exposure for the least amount of fuss, at least until you've built up a reputation and a following. But some of the others on here who sell thruough them for their opinions, they would know better than I. :) I'm going for RPGNow, but that's not what's being an issue. Since I'll be having income from this I need to register this with my government.
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Post by dungeonmistress on May 9, 2014 6:52:45 GMT -9
Really? In what country do you live? (If you don't mind my asking, that is)
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 9, 2014 8:45:49 GMT -9
Really? In what country do you live? (If you don't mind my asking, that is) Poland, turns out I don't need to register though, when I looked deeper into the issue. So that'll be done soon. Additional texture work will go down as soon as possible I hope. I'm still adjusting certain parts to fold/look/work better too. Gonna be honest, the way the connectors work is a bit fiddly until you get used to it. I'm considering if it's possible to simplify the geometry to make it more user friendly at the cost of some stability. I.e. currently it locks together so hard you have to fiddle with it to lock/unlock the two parts. I'm thinking of a less stable mechanism that would make it easier to attach them even if they don't stay together as well... Now, what I mean by this is that in the current state once the roof is locked into the connectors you can turn the whole building upside-down and shake it and it doesn't come apart. If I simplify it this will likely no longer be possible. But then again does tabletop terrain need to be resistant to being picked up and shook around? And I think the answer is no, it doesn't.
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Post by oldschooldm on May 9, 2014 8:51:27 GMT -9
... in the current state once the roof is locked into the connectors you can turn the whole building upside-down and shake it and it doesn't come apart. If I simplify it this will likely no longer be possible. But then again does tabletop terrain need to be resistant to being picked up and shook around? And I think the answer is no, it doesn't. Agreed. Though my wanting to kitbash an interior into all my buildings shouldn't influence your design sensibilities, I'd be happier with a slightly less "tight" folding system.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 12, 2014 10:38:43 GMT -9
So I was musing upon the nature of flat foldability, organic builds (might or might not be doing caves or overland in my own style) and came to these conclusions... Now, firstly lets start off with a question: when does a prism fold flat? Answer: when there are two sequences of edges, encompassing all edges, of equal length. So with a rectangle the whole sequence of edges is a -> b -> a -> b, that's two pairs equal to a+b in length. Next question: what is a good geometric shape that we could stick on the sides of cubes that also happens to be fairly organic and meets our folding criterion? Answer: hex... dunno... maybe? It goes a -> a -> a -> a -> a -> a giving two sequences of length 3a as it folds. However is it good to stick on cubes? Eh... Maaaaaybe not... Maybe. So we don't actually want a hex, we want something flatter. Let's consider a half-hex... that doesn't however fold flat... So let's consider adding some material to it... now we've made a more complex object. The sequence of its edges is 5a -> a -> a -> a -> a -> a -> a -> a, giving us two subcycles of length 6a... That works. 5a along the longest side isn't all that bad either! Working from this we can notice that: we can attach another hex to this structure... and here he see something interesting in the second example... the object we see there... has a length of 6a as the base... Ok... how about we apply this to the side of a 3 inch by 3 inch cube and build out from there? Pretty possible. Let's get back to the blue bits for a moment, as we can see the criterion can also be met when using different shapes, in this case we've added some diamonds and a square, note however that filling something with a half-hex is a no-no. >:C The half hex is bad unless we compensate! Let's get to the last schematic though... what is this? Well, just a little musing about building out a staircase next to a 5a by 5a cube, the folding "organic" elements would fit into it just fine. Will I do anything with this? Dunno yet, maybe. Maybe I'll make this part of an overland system since I'm very unsatisfied with what's out there in terms of 3D builds. Maybe I'll use it for some caves. Really I have no idea at this time.
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Post by dungeonmistress on May 12, 2014 14:04:47 GMT -9
Don't know if this would be of any help, but have you thought about incorporating what is (in some circles) called sacred geometry? 3.14... Pi; 1.1618...Phi or the Golden Mean; the Fibonacci sequence; or DOR? If you don't know DOR - Google it, it's really fascinating and may give you ideas.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 12, 2014 20:56:56 GMT -9
Don't know if this would be of any help, but have you thought about incorporating what is (in some circles) called sacred geometry? 3.14... Pi; 1.1618...Phi or the Golden Mean; the Fibonacci sequence; or DOR? If you don't know DOR - Google it, it's really fascinating and may give you ideas. Google doesn't seem to know what "DOR sacred geometry" might refer to.
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 12, 2014 23:27:23 GMT -9
Found it. To be frank, I'm a bit... displeased... with what I found. >Picture the classic solids of geometry, each sitting inside a cube that encloses it on all sides. What is the ratio of surface area of this tangent cube to the surface area of the solid, and which solid results in a ratio that is within 1% of phi? So it's not actually Phi? Meaningless then. >Which solid has a silhouette projection from the x, y and z axes of a cube, a sphere and a convex parallelogram? I can pick any 3 arbitrary convex 2D shapes and construct a 3D object that meets this for those 3 shapes. Furthermore this object seems to completely lack any (much less elegant) mathematical representation. They make a claim about how close their, once more completely arbitrary, ratio is to Phi but give no formula for the relevant calculation for the DOR? Where did this value come from then? In short: what's the big deal?
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Post by nj on May 24, 2014 13:22:11 GMT -9
so were can one pick these up
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on May 24, 2014 22:26:49 GMT -9
so were can one pick these up Nowhere yet. I'd have probably finished this already, but something came up at work and we're all working on a deadline. Can't afford to spend time on pleasures like papercraft designing.
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Post by colonelshofer on Jun 8, 2014 5:47:47 GMT -9
Very interesting - TY
CS
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Post by hasturhasturhastur on Jun 19, 2014 3:20:23 GMT -9
Well, that was one hell of a crunch time. *dusts self and thread* Now, back on track with papercraft. This is a sample testbuild of the house side-attachment. It comes in two pieces - the walls and the roof. Roofs comes in all 4 texture variants for this set and are designed to sort of blend together with the main roof it attaches to. Also overhangs because I thought that looks neat. These things overall come in 4 variants: • 2 inch, attaches to straight roof. • 4 inch, attaches to straight roof. • 2 inch, attaches to angled roof. • 4 inch, attaches to angled roof. The fronts are shared among the respective length categories and come in a total of 12 styles (long/short + wood/stone + blank/door/window). The long segments have two slots to accommodate fences, if you wish to hook them up directly. The slots are 3 inches apart along the 4 inch wall segment. The sides of the wall are shared among roof style (straight or angled) and come in a total of 2 styles for angled roofs (wood/stone) and 4 styles for straight roofs (wood/stone + blank/window). Both the roof and wall sections fold flat, of course. I'll be back in a few days with more of these... guess I'll do anther large test build to show off what can be done with it. The goal of this addition was to create more variety in the possible shapes the houses can take.
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