Shipping Continued
almost 6 years ago – Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 01:38:19 AM

Hey founders of Gloomhaven!

Just wanted to give you all a quick update that shipping is running along as planned. After the blunder with the influence tokens, we got them manufactured and sent out to the fulfillment centers to be included as an extra item in the packing. All the fulfillment centers were made aware of the situation, and it looks like there shouldn't be any problems. Most of the influence tokens shipments have already arrived, though the one to Quartermaster in the US is still on its way.

As we can see from the links from a couple updates ago, the ships bound for Canada and Australia have already dropped off their cargo. I haven't heard word that the games have arrived at the fulfillment centers yet, but that should be happening very soon. The ship bound for Germany is currently unloading, and the ship bound for Florida is very close to its destination.

So fulfillment for Canada, Australia and New Zealand is almost upon us. Be sure that you have completed your BackerKit survey and there are no problems with you credit card info if you purchased extra stuff, otherwise your delivery may be delayed.

For the US, EU, and the rest of the world, we're still a week or so away from delivery, so I am going forward with locking down addresses and all that. If you want to change your address, please do so as soon as you can.

Also, please make sure that you've only added extra copies of the game to your order if you want extra copies. I've had a number of messages from people who were surprised when their card was charged for a second copy of the game. If you pledged at the "Build a City" level, your survey by default includes one copy of the game. If you added another copy to your pledge in BackerKit (labeled clearly in all caps as EXTRA COPY), that would be an extra copy that you will then be charged for. I'll be processing all additional purchases in the US and rest of the world tomorrow, so please double-check that you ordered the correct amount of copies before then.

Lastly, if you are in Asia and already have your game, but have missing or damaged parts, worry not. Price is working on a replacement form for Founders of Gloomhaven. We'll have it ready to go before too long and I'll let you know.

I think that's about it. I will be at Origins this weekend, but I'm not planning on running any Founders demos, since we are so close to you getting your own copies. I will be running demos of Forgotten Circles, though, if that is of any interest to you. I'll also be at the Blue Peg Pink Peg / Brawling Brothers, Secret Cabal, and Heavy Cardboard meet ups if you want to say hi and hang out.

Otherwise, I'll see you again in a couple weeks!

Important Update: Missing Influence Tokens
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 28, 2018 at 02:22:12 AM

Dear founders of Gloomhaven,

So first of all, if you live in Australia, New Zealand or Canada, you should have received a notification from BackerKit that addresses will be closing very soon, so follow the instructions in that email if you need to change your order or change your address. if you are not receiving BackerKit emails, and need to change your email address, just go to founders-of-gloomhaven.backerkit.com.

More importantly, however, fulfillment has hit a rather significant bump. Ultimately, I don't think it is going to delay anyone getting their games too much, but it is still definitely something that needs addressing.

I screwed up. When I was giving the factory a list of all the components to be produced and included in the game, I forgot the 40 influence gems (20 red and 20 clear). I really don't have an explanation for this other than simple neglect. Even when they sent me the advance copies from the factory, it somehow didn't raise a red flag to me when the influence cubes weren't included. I think it was because they sent me the components in two separate batches - the printed stuff and the wooden stuff. Because the influence tokens were the only plastic components, it didn't strike me as too odd that they didn't send them, and I didn't bring it up. No matter how you look at it, though, it was incredibly stupid.

What this means for you, though, is that, at the moment, none of the copies of the game include the influence tokens, which are necessary to play. Luckily, only copies in Asia have actually had their games fulfilled, so we can correct this problem near the source in most cases.

If you are part of Asian fulfillment

Your game has already arrived or it should be arriving soon. Either way, it won't include the influence tokens. But you don't need to panic. You don't need to do anything, really, because we already know you don't have the influence tokens. They are being manufactured as quickly as we can, and we will send a batch to VFI, who will then send a bag of tokens out to everyone who was sent a game.

At this point, I don't know the time frame on this, but ideally it will be a matter of weeks. We should know more in the next couple days about the manufacturing times, or, hopefully, if the factory just has a surplus of the tokens. I am headed to UK Games Expo tomorrow, though, so I decided it was best to just write the update now to let you know where we are at.

If you are NOT part of Asian fulfillment

Your game is still on a boat, so we can still ship you the game with a bag of influence tokens. We will just be air-freighting cartons of the influence tokens to the different fulfillment centers as soon as we can, so they can put a bag of tokens in each shipping box they pack up. You shouldn't really notice that anything went wrong, except that the bag of tokens won't actually arrive inside the game box - a technicality you can easily remedy on your own.

Again, the only hang-up here is the time it will take to get the cartons of tokens to the different fulfillment centers, since we won't be shipping anything out until they arrive. We're doing everything we can to get them to the centers as soon as possible, but at this point we don't have an exact timeline, so there is a chance deliveries could be delayed while we wait for them. It will also slow down the fulfillment process because the centers will have to do some extra picking and packing, but that should be minimal.

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So, yeah, that's where we're at. The mistake really was dumbfoundingly stupid, and I apologize for any delays that result from it. I'll let you know when we have more info on a timeline for producing the parts in the comments, and I'll send out another update some time after UK Games Expo.

Oh, one other thing - Paul Grogan released the Gaming Rules! instructional video for the game, so at least you can give that a watch while you wait for your copy to arrive.

Freight Shipping Info
almost 6 years ago – Tue, May 15, 2018 at 02:19:39 AM

Hey there founders of Gloomhaven!

I am sorry for the delay between updates. I was waiting for the ship info from the shipping company, and it finally just came in. So I have some concrete shipping dates for you that I will break down by region.

One very important thing to keep in mind, though. Is that I am giving you dates that the games will ultimately be delivered to the fulfillment company, which may still be a couple weeks off from when it is shipped to you, all things considered. Ideally it will ship sooner than that, but it can be a time-intensive process to break down the pallets, sort everything, and then pack up and label all the games.

East Asia (BN, CN, HK, ID, JP, KR, MO, MY, PH, SG, TW, TH, VN)

The games for this region have already been delivered to VFI Asia for fulfillment, and they tell me they should start getting sent out on Wednesday, so this is great news. Of course, your copy isn't guaranteed to get sent out on Wednesday, so please be patient if it isn't. Also you should have received some notifications from BackerKit that the surveys were being locked if you are in this region. If you haven't completed your survey yet, or you received an email that your card failed to charge, please go into BackerKit and take care of those things right away so you can get your game as quickly as possible!

Australia (and New Zealand)

The games bound for Aetherworks are on board the ITAL LIRICA, which is still in port in Shanghai. It should be launching tomorrow, and it's cargo will arrive at Aetherworks on June 7. In a week or so, I will begin locking down addresses for this region, so if you need to update your address, I recommend going into BackerKit and doing that as soon as you can.

Canada

So I'm not sure why, but we still don't have a ship designation for this shipment yet. It is scheduled to go out today, but I think we still may be waiting on an update on the freight shipper on this. My guess is that the ship will be designated and the games will go out in the next few days. From there, it will be about a month to get to Starlit Citadel. I will give an update in the comments when I get final word on this shipment later.

US

The shipment to Quartermaster Logistics will be boarding the YM ULTIMATE, scheduled to depart on Friday, and then scheduled to be delivered June 16. We have a bit of time before addresses get locked down, but if you need to update yours, it doesn't hurt to do it now!

Everywhere else

The final shipment to Happyshops for EU and rest-of-the-world fulfillment is on board the AL MASHRAB, which already departed today and is on its way to Germany. It is scheduled to arrive at Happyshops June 15, so, again, there's a bit of time before addresses get locked.

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Other than that, I should let you know that I'll be at a couple conventions over the next two weeks. First at Geekway to the West this weekend, then HeavyCon the following weekend. I still only have the one advanced copy of the game, but it will be with me at both.

I am trying to arrange it getting temporarily put in the game library at both conventions, so people can check it out at their leisure without having to deal with me, so look for it there. And if you can find me, I'll even teach you the game.

Oh, and speaking of teaching the game, filming is underway for the Gaming Rules! teaching video, which I'm pretty excited about. I'm not sure when Paul will get finished with it - there is a lot of stuff to go over - but it will definitely be available before the games start to arrive at your doorstep.

So I'll be back in the comments with Canada info, and I hope to see you at a convention sometime soon!

Freight Shipping Underway
about 6 years ago – Tue, May 01, 2018 at 02:10:42 AM

Hey there, founders of Gloomhaven!

I am sorry for leaving you in the lurch for 3 weeks! I was waiting to get some confirmation from the factory that shipping was beginning, and we finally have that. In fact, I thought they were going to stagger shipments leading up to the end of April, but it looks like production is fully complete on all copies, and they are going to get the shipments sent out all at once.

So we are now in the process of getting everything onto boats. I don't have that boat information quite yet, but they should have boat assignments by the end of the week. From there, it will be around 4-6 weeks to get the shipments to Happyshops for EU/rest of the world shipping, 4-6 weeks to get the shipment to Quartermaster Logistics for US shipping, 4 weeks to get the shipment to Starlit Citadel for Canada shipping, 3-4 weeks to Aetherworks for Australia and New Zealand, and very little time at all to get the shipment to VFI for the Asia orders. I was hoping to get the Happyshops and Quartermaster shipments out earlier than this to compensate for that extra freight time, and I'm sorry that didn't happen.

What this means right now is that I will be closing address changes for the following Asia countries in two days so that I can get data to VFI for them to start shipping:

Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam

If you live in one of these countries and need to change your address in BackerKit (because you moved recently or something like that), please do so as soon as you can (you can read the last update for details on how to do so).

So, yeah, for now I just wanted to keep you updated on where we are at. I will be back next week with details on boats so that you can watch them slowly make their way toward you. Until then!

The First Shipping Update
about 6 years ago – Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 01:30:06 AM

Hey founders of Gloomhaven!

I hope you all have had a great last couple weeks. We threw a big old party last weekend here in Indiana where Founders of Gloomhaven, in its final and complete form, was played by many people. They all seemed to have a good time, and I am happy with how everything looks on the table.

So those two copies played were the first two off the production line sent to me. I have since sent one of them off to Paul Grogan to make the rules video, and now we just need to get copies to all of you as well.

We're very close to starting the shipping process, and the first part of that is figuring out how many copies are going to each fulfillment center. So if you haven't filled out the pledge manager, please, please go and do that now. And if you need to change your address from when you did fill out the pledge manager, please, please go and do that too.

In either case, to access your pledge manager through BackerKit, you should be able to go directly to it through an email you received from BackerKit support back at the beginning of October. My name is also in the email if that helps with your searching.

If you can't find the email with the link, you can easily request that a new one be sent by going to https://founders-of-gloomhaven.backerkit.com/. Just remember that the email you need to use is the one you have registered on Kickstarter. And if you are really having trouble, you can email [email protected], and we should be able to get you sorted out.

I just want to emphasize that this is all being done through BackerKit, not the Kickstarter survey system, so you need to go to BackerKit if you want to change or update your address.

This doesn't mean that addresses on BackerKit will be locked down just yet - that will happen once your games arrive at the fulfillment centers - but I really do need the information as accurate as possible right now so I know how many to send to the fulfillment centers.

Regarding that shipping process, like I said above, it should be happening soon. The shipments to the various fulfillment centers will be staggered a bit, since the factory is still in the process of assembling everything. I know assembly caused some major delays during the second printing of Gloomhaven, but that is obviously a much bigger game with a significantly more time-intensive assembly, so I don't expect anything like that on this project.

The shipments should get sent out one right after the other, but still we'll be sending out the shipments with the longest journeys first, which means all the games going to Germany will go out first. The fulfillment center in Germany (Happyshops) will send out all copies going to the EU and everywhere else that isn't covered by another fulfillment center. Second will be the US shipment (Quartermaster Logistics), then Canada (Starlit Citadel), then Australia/New Zealand (Aetherworks), and finally a fulfillment center in China (VFI Asia) will handle all of Asia.

I'll have more details on the shipping process as we get closer, but that should be enough for now, so remember to please go fill out your pledge manager if you haven't yet, and please go change your address if you have moved since filling out your pledge manager. I can tell you from experience that if you wait until the last minute to change your address, it will cause delays in your shipment, so it is far better to do it now if you need to.

All right, talk to you later!