New Printing Company + Other Nord Updates!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Mar 09, 2020 at 11:30:15 PM

Hello everyone!

Megan here again, feeling especially thankful for y'all this week as I get to this update (some medical issues left me out of commission during recovery, so thank you all so much for your patience!) Now, moving right along to the update:

New Hardcover Printer Selected 

After our last update, we communicated nonstop with our printers in China to determine how the printing delays would affect both us and their company financially. As many of you kindly mentioned in the comments, staying with our printer in China would result in delays, but would both maintain quality and help sustain them during this rough period of rampant cancellations.

Unfortunately, as talks progressed, we were informed that printing with them would simply not be possible. Estimate delay times continued to be pushed back, and even they are unsure when they will be able to return to regular workflow again. While we are saddened to move away from this company, we wish them all the best as they continue to heal and move forward.

After many interviews and sample viewings for multiple other printing companies, we have decided upon a printing facility in The Netherlands to handle the hardcover prints for this book. After seeing their example books, we were extremely impressed by their quality: sturdy binding, wonderful page feel, bright colors, and high printing capacity. They were the best samples we saw, and we are thrilled to be moving forward with them on this project!

Now that the printer has accepted and successfully tested samples from our book, we are ready to get them the completed files and give the okay on printing this week!

Thus, as of now, we are looking to receive the books in our warehouse around late May. After packing and shipping, this means we anticipate that hardcovers will arrive on your doorstep in the first weeks of June. Treacherous Traps deck recipients will also be receiving their decks at this time.

While it is unfortunate that we will have to wait this long for delivery, we think you'll be just as pleased with the quality as we are, and can't wait to get these books in your hands! Thank you once again for your patience and understanding as we move forward during this strange time.

General Company Updates

As many of you know, Nord Games has also been planning our usual March madness of attending both GAMA Expo in Reno, NV and GaryCon in Lake Geneva, WI.

Unfortunately, as the coronavirus continues to unpredictably spread throughout the States and more companies and conventions continue to take pause amidst the news, Nord Games has made the very difficult decision to cancel our attendance to these conventions. Although we have been looking forward to these events since their close in March last year, we would much rather be safe than sorry.

We apologize to any fans and friends that have been planning on visiting our booths at these conventions. Please believe us when we say that we are equally disappointed that we won’t be able to see your faces; con season is our favorite time of the year, in no small part because we get to see you. You will all be sorely missed.

Overall, thank you for your understanding as we prioritize the health of ourselves and our families during this strange time. Please stay happy, healthy, and safe, and we look forward to seeing you all later in the year at our other favorite convention stops in the US!

As usual, I'll be back in two weeks' time (or sooner, if necessary) to keep y'all posted on the progress of this Kickstarter fulfillment. Thank you all for your time, and have a lovely & cozy end-of-winter week! :)

Happy Gaming,

Megan

Updates on Hardcover Traps Printing!
about 4 years ago – Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 02:30:42 AM

Hello everyone!

Megan here again for our regular biweekly update! For those of you with Traps PDFs, we sincerely hope you're enjoying crafting diabolical new encounters for your players! So far the feedback has been phenomenal, and we are ecstatic to hear it. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts -- we hear them all! :)

Hardcover Printing

As you all know, we've been restless waiting to hear back from our printers in China after the outbreak of the coronavirus. Unfortunately, many other Kickstarter projects and book printers have also been facing similar difficulties with their printers in China. There is not much to be done in scenarios like these, except to have patience and hope that our lovely printing friends (who have produced our books for many years) will be alright.

When we finally heard back from them this morning, they were extremely apologetic for the situation and gave us their best estimated timelines. As of now, if we were to go forward with printing at their facility, we would not receive Treacherous Traps hardback books until (estimated) sometime in May. While we understand this delay is out of their control as well, we care most about getting you all your books as soon as possible -- and thus, we are looking into other potential companies that may be able to print Treacherous Traps instead.

So far, we have found a few potential printers in Europe that may be able to take on this project. We are taking utmost caution to first ensure that these facilities meet our high printing standards and would be able to deliver reliably before we start having serious discussions. If we aren't positive that one of these other companies could produce a high-quality product in a more timely manner, then we will continue moving forward with our printer in China and accept this delay.

However, please know that we are working as hard as we can to examine our options and get you your books as soon as possible without sacrificing quality. 

We apologize that this update does not have more concrete answers for you. Our stomachs have been flip-flopping for days trying to determine the best course of action. However, as always, we appreciate your continued understanding as we do our best to solve these issues! 

We will post another update as soon as we have more information here. Please stay tuned, and thank you as always for your support and patience! :)

Happy Gaming,

Megan

PDFs Available NOW!!!
about 4 years ago – Tue, Feb 04, 2020 at 01:30:03 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Treacherous Traps PDFs are here!!
about 4 years ago – Tue, Feb 04, 2020 at 12:44:00 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

PDFs Available on Monday, Feb. 3rd + other Kickstarter updates!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 12:57:25 AM

Hello, everyone!

This is Marketing Manager Megan again, back with some exciting updates, and some necessary clarifications on points very in need of addressing. Let’s jump right into it:

As some have already seen, Nord will be launching our new Kickstarter for The Ultimate Guide to Alchemy, Crafting & Enchanting next week on February 4th. While we are very excited about this Kickstarter, there are some understandably needed explanations to you, our current backers, as to why we are launching another Kickstarter at this time.

Why Another Kickstarter?

As you know, in our Traps update last July, Nord Games went in depth as to the mistakes we made in 2019 which resulted in such a long delay on this project. In this update, we made a promise to not start another Kickstarter until all of our other Kickstarters were successfully fulfilled or in production. Here is the status of those other projects:

• Objects of Intrigue: Completely fulfilled; decks in hands.
• Spectacular Settlements: Hardcovers in production & PDFs delivered.
• Treacherous Traps: Hardcovers in production on Monday, February 3rd, and PDFs to be delivered on Monday, February 3rd. PDFs available on this date for immediate purchase to backers who did not initially pledge for a level including PDFs.
• Ultimate Bestiary: The Dreaded Accursed: Delayed due to bereavement leave from lead artist; ready to go into production as soon as art is in.

As you can see here, this list contains some hopefully very exciting news...

PDFs on Monday, February 3rd!

We are very excited to announce that Treacherous Traps backers will be receiving their PDFs this coming Monday, February 3rd! Now that Traps will be at production that day (was slightly delayed due to Lunar New Year) and the PDFs are just about ready to send to you, all projects (aside from The Dreaded Accursed, which was delayed due to extenuating circumstances) will be in production before our next Kickstarter launch.

Unfortunately, it was my (Megan’s) idea to wait until today for our regular biweekly Traps update to inform everyone about this Traps PDF delivery date. In hindsight, this was a mistake, especially when our other Kickstarter announcement was launched yesterday. I apologize for this, and thank you for your patience as I release this official PDF delivery announcement today!

Most importantly, please do rest assured that Traps is in production as of February 3rd, and that the book is on its way! We will come back to you with a hardcover delivery date as soon as we receive it from the printers.

PDFs Available for Purchase Starting Monday!

For those of you who did not initially back Treacherous Traps to receive a PDF copy, we will be releasing a coupon code to you this Monday allowing you to purchase the PDF from our site for $10. This is the same price that you would have paid had you initially backed for the PDF, so there is no penalty whatsoever for getting it now.

Production vs. Fulfillment

We have also received quite a few messages asking why we’ve chosen to start a new Kickstarter when books aren’t in hands yet. This is the reason why Nord aimed for getting all projects to production vs. in fulfillment. Here’s some behind-the-scenes insight as to why small companies like us have to make these kinds of decisions:

When a product like a book PDF is sent overseas for production and printing, the process completely leaves our hands. We are still involved in occasionally proofing prints and colors to make sure the books look right, but overall, there is nothing we can do in these few months that those books are in production. All of our previous Kickstarters before 2019 were run on this same schedule: products getting fulfilled, products in production, and projects getting created for Kickstarter or for release simultaneously.

If we did not run on this schedule of creating, producing, and fulfilling simultaneously, Nord Games wouldn’t be able to exist as it does. We would at most produce one new product a year, and though this may be a viable business model for some larger companies with huge catalogs that get regular hefty sales, it’s simply not viable for a small, creative-intensive tabletop company. We definitely wish this wasn’t the case, and hope to continue growing and eventually get to a place where there is more wiggle room in these tight schedules. But for now, in order for our creators, artists, and managers to pay their bills, we need to keep ourselves on a consistent creation schedule, which is why this new Kickstarter is beginning next week.

How Ready is the Next Book?

As many of you also know from the July update, Nord promised that our next project would be 80% complete by the time we began a new Kickstarter. Our lead writers on this book (myself, Andrew Geertsen of Spectacular Settlements & Treacherous Traps fame, and JVC Parry of DM’s Guild fame) have been hard at work on this book since December. In all honesty, while we’ve been working extremely hard on its creation and there are loads of things already done (magic items, base crafting systems, recipes, art, and more) we are ultimately shy of this 80% completion mark.

Starting the Kickstarter next week in spite of this was a very difficult decision to make, but it was again done to get our company back on a stable schedule. Here are the changes we have set in place in order to ensure that the book still delivers on-time:

• We have employed three full-time writers to work on this project. While Spectacular Settlements was mainly written by one person and Treacherous Traps was primarily written by two, The Ultimate Guide to Alchemy, Crafting & Enchanting will be written regularly by all three of us. With 4x/week meetings and some very bright and excited brains in constant progress on this project, we are confident that this will be a well-refined book bursting with useful stuff that will also be completed comfortably on time.
• We have set our delivery date for this project for April 2021. While this may feel like a very far ways out, we are taking no chances with assuming what will and won’t go wrong during this creation process. Especially with events like the recent coronavirus outbreak in China halting printing across the country, we are all too aware of the unpredictability of both life and the creative process. Thus, we have given ourselves very ample time to work on this project, and hope very much to deliver early on this project to further demonstrate our dedication to change with all upcoming projects.

Though I know this news will be concerning to some of you (justifiably so), I do hope that you understand our reasoning behind these decisions, and that you can continue to support our company, products, and passion for this community. I will be here to respond to any questions and concerns you may have, so please know that I am here to listen, and that we will help however we can. 

We do it all for you — our fans, customers & backers — so I hope that these coming months will be evidence of this commitment to communication, delivery, quality, and love for this community :)

Thank you very much for your patience and understanding, and please look forward to Monday’s email featuring your Traps PDFs and coupon codes for PDF purchase!

Happy Gaming,

Megan