Heroquest returns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Elbows]

This is still positive news...as best as can be hoped for I suppose.

[Cherno]

In the meantime, there is a kickstarter for a videogame inspired by HeroQuest:

Dark Quest Dark Quest 2

[pixelgeek]

In the meantime, there is a kickstarter for a videogame inspired by HeroQuest:

Dark Quest

Dark Quest 2 actually. There is a version of it available for purchase now but it uses 2d graphics instead of the 3d in the upcoming version.

[majorsmith]

That looks cool

[Cherno]

Dark Quest 2 actually. There is a version of it available for purchase now but it uses 2d graphics instead of the 3d in the upcoming version.

Right. Dark Quest 1 was a mobile game as far as I understand.

[beefcake]

Hmmm interesting.

(A few more updates on the heroquest classic site too I see)

[Elbows]

Yeah, there seem to be some minor updates every couple of weeks now.  The sad part is, the updates very much appear to be "a few months after a KS is funded" style.  Introducing characters and such.  It's a bit late in the game for that nonsense.

At this point, it's safe to say all backers would be far more interested in production timelines, factory pictures, planned release schedules, etc.

[beefcake]

Yes. At least though it shows they aren't giving up on it. Although it may be a lost cause.

[Arthadan]

Lanzanos has finally opened a channel of communication between backers and Gamezone. If you are a backer, you have to log on in the project page and in the upper part you'll find a new menu called "Privado".
Please leave a message for Gamezone there asking them to allow the audit and give us a delivery date.

Login into Lanzanos, go to your profile and from here to your supported projects. Here you will see the HQ25th. Click on it and you'll be in the project page, the go to updates and there you'll see something called "private". Here it is.

The audit would be made by backers going to Gamezone workshop with the aim of checking the current developping status of every single game item. If Gamezone declines, Lanzanos will support us in taking legal actions against Gamezone.

[beefcake]

Just put my message in.
I don't want this to fail, I want my boardgame.

[Elbows]

Yep, I'll be hopping on that.  They're posting little videos every couple of days/weeks now on their page, but this is all stuff that should have been posted...(at this point) years ago.  They're way behind the damn power curve on this.

[beefcake]

Well if anyone here speaks Spanish and would like to see an interview with Dionisio, here's the link.
Better yet, if you could put a brief summary here that would be great, but can fully understand if you don't as the interview is over an hour long.
http://www.heroquestclassic.com/interview-with-dionisio/

[Elbows]

While it ended up in the spam folder for a lot of U.S. emails, the president of Lanzanos (the Spanish crowd-funding site) was a nice touch a week or so ago.  He basically apologized and said they'd been in contact with GameZone and that it was the most delayed/worst experience any of their customers have claimed since the site opened.  He provided his own email address and set up a direct line to GameZone etc.

Sounds like GameZone won't be running any more crowd-funding projects on their site.  It's nice to know that we're not alone in our frustration.

[Elbows]

So what is everyone's take at the moment?  I got the 4th communication email from the president of Lazanos the crowd-funding site and it looks like some legal action may begin if the folks at Gamezone don't start getting their act together.

I read the whole email but it was poorly translated (and my Spanish isn't "that" good).  Anyone?

[ced1106]

Did you read this post on BGG or Dakka?

One of the spanish backers took the initiative to visit Dionysio in Seville and this is the result of his visit (in short, Dionysio lives in a state of denial and keeps working at his own stuggeringly slow pace).

'This is a translation of Juan Jose Gutierrez Gonzalez visit to GAMEZONE. 02 JUN 2016 I'll try to keep it as close to the original, sorry for any grammar error my english is a bit rusty.

THE TRANSLATION:
Hello everyone. I said I was not going to say anymore news about HQ25 matter, since the last news from lanzanos about the more than possible plaint to gamezone, in wich they will send us (backers) an email telling us hows, times, and possibilities for civil or penal way, I decided to go to gamezone with my friend Joaquin Lopez, in order to fire, as you would say the last bullet.

The intention of our visit was to make clear, cristal clear, the actual situation of many backers by playing as the spokesman of "quiero mi HQ25 (I want my HQ25) facebook group, and to make clear that the situation that we are into, it's not just black, is just that the deep empty space void is clearer than the situation we face, I hope I made my self understand.
Well, let me explain. We arrived to gamezone's workshop quite early this morning. After going around like seven times with the car we miraculously found the paking and got to the workshop door about 11:15. Dionisio wasn't there. Isabel wellcome us (I must insist, she does exist in flesh and bone), and tell us that she will call Dionisio in order to know if he was going to came to he workshop or not. After a while she said that he didn't pretend to go that day to the workshop, but since we were already there he will come by to talk to us.
At 12:20 Dionisio apearer. He told us that he was preciselly working on the adventures, but he came to see us. We enter the workshop and started talking about the game.
At first the conversation was about the lack of info and the plaint that is about to be real, since he doesn't accept a production audit. Well I'll try to give you a summary of the important things of the conversation.

We told him that the last updates are not enough, and the lack of showing real stuff that the backers want. What backers want is info of the actual ongoing of the proyect, not the minis they are showing. That lanzanos asked for an audit and GZ refused and that's what has triggered the plaint.
I told him that he is not answering the phone of lanzanos's CEO, and that Goro himself has told me that he wants to talk to him many times. He insisted that is not like that, he had a big huge argumet with lanzanos personal about the audit. since that day the communication with lanzanos has been practically none, but he insist that it's not his fault.
Hearing this, I told him that I had Goro's number (lanzanos) in my phone, and had the permission to put him through right away. He told me that Goro has his number and that if he doesn't call it's because he doesn't want, I insisted again to call Goro from my phone (actually many times), but he considered it not necessary. If Goro wants to call me, he can do it, he said.

We started talking about the amount of people that voted, info or sueing, and that from lanzanos mail there was more than 1800 people, others 274 wanted to sue no matter the info, and that only a little percentage about 14, were willing to wait.
He asked me where I got those numbers, I told him, from lanzanos, their mail with the results of the voting. At this point he insisted again and again that those numbers were nor real, and that only a small amount of people were thinking in sueing.

I told him that I WAS one of the ones willing to sue, that there are many more than 40 people. He kept saing that there were not that many, that those numbers were not real or were manipulated. I kept telling him that the feeling on the internet is that there is many people angry and that they DO want to sue.
He told me that he thinks it's a smoke curtain from lanzanos and he didn't belive lanzanos would pay for the sueing. I told him that lanzanos was indeed going to pay for the sueing, he incredulous asked me were I heard that from, I told him that lanzanos wrote that on the mail sent to the backers.
At this point Dionisio's anger went up another level. We started to repeat things to each other again and again until I realized I was nearly shouting, so I stoped a bit in order to solve anything.

What I could make clear so far, is that Dionision is living in a denial state about the outside news, and he is only aware of what he thinks is happeing. He sees what he wants to see.
Then he introduced us to Rockor, he was on the workshop (he wasn't there for the minis) he had personals issues in Sevilla and came to the workshop just to say hi, pure coincidence.
We four started talking about the game, and the delay. He told me that he didn't say an official release date, I told him that they did say Nov 2014, and that when we talked to him (august), he told me personally (and those with me) that he hoped to release the game before christmas 2015, and after that, when I came back that february was to close, but maybe march or april 2016, and after the last interview he said that on christmas 2016 we will be more that bored of playing with the game.
I told him that was totally oposite from what he is saying right now, ahe said that dates were estimate and that there can allways be problems in production that can delay the date. I insisted again, we have been waiting for two years, and it seems that is going to be three, it's more than enough time for the backers to get angry since there is no official info. Again I needed to stop because I was getting angry.

We insisted again that he has to give proper info of the actual situation of the proyect or he is going to have a very big problem.
He kept insinting that the updates are those they planned, we told him that the updates are insufficient. We need to know how is the proyect and if there is something missing, that many backers are asking for that info and a audit to prove it. The same old thing over and over.
We decided to stop for a moment I need to smoke to relax a bit. We went outside and keep talking in a more distended way.
I talked with Rockor of others proyects, like skull tale, AvP, or zombicide black plague, and what happened with those proyects in order to compare them to HQ25, what was done well and bad with them and how to avoid the same mistakes with HQ25.
We went inside to the workshop again, because Dionisio wanted to show us the actual state of the proyect, that it's not stuck and that theres is people working on it.

WHAT WE SAW:
People are still working on it. They have a huge ammount of minis ready in plastics bags. Those minis are ready to be put inside the HQ25 box for the delivery. I could see at least two persons working on takeing away the burrs. There were more people but I did not see what the others were doing).
As we could see the proyect is going forward. I can't explain the amount of boxes full of stuff but they were a great deal. That was a really good thing to see.

WHAT DIONISIO TOLD US:
He insisted again that they have a second garage, and he offered to let us see it, but my friend had personal things to do, and we could not accept the offer.
He told us that they are focused on logistics, in order to coordinate everything when the box arrive, and the prints, and making a chain production with the transport of minis a real headache.

IMPORTANT:
The rules are finnish. there are not going to be any changes. I asked about the adventures books and he told me that they are finnishing both at the same time, that there are about 150 missions, and that he was working on them when we arriven to the workshop.
MY friend asked for the miniatures, if there was any not finished. He say yes, there are some, the hard ones, that are giving problems with the proper gamming, because they are very big, that they are finishing those problems and that they will be ready to mass production soon.
He said that he had complete done, tested and aproved mor than 3.000.000 of minis, most of them already bagged.
About the print. nothing has been sent yet. He insisted that this is for logistic, they expect that the total of print will be 10 trailers, so they have to coordinate everything at the same time.
He says that he could have released the game in december 2015 but only the shop version before the backers version, and that didn't seem right for the backers.
We talked again about this, and how zombicide black plague did that, so he decided not to send the shop version before the backer version.

ENDING:
We kept talking and he even acompany us to our car in order to talk some more in a much calm way. We talk about the need of telling the backers how is the proyect, but he is convinced that there will allways be a sector of people that will still be angry with gamezone no matter what he does.
He told him that's inevitable, but most of the backers don't have any blame neither the responsability and still want that info.
As an example we told him about the mini list that Joaquin Lopez made, the ones that have been shown and the ones that not and how the people liked it, even that a fellow of the group made a web page where you could see the minis done and the picture on the side.
Last, I gave him my mail and he told me he'll send his personal mail in order to be in touch. for what? well for keeping him updated about the reunions with lanzanos and the backers, so he could be there on skype since he says that lanzanos doesn't tell him anything. I insisted in asking for his phone number, but he only agreed with the mail.

CONCLUSION:
The project is going forward, slowly, maddening but going forward. They don't seem to be worried at all about the rumor of lack of money, they actually seem pretty calm.
The news on the demand and the amount of people behind has been the biggest issue, seems like he doesn't believe it. You can almost feel the displease with lanzanos. And I hope that this touch of attention will open his eyes for the big problem he is going to face. I hope.
Well that all the summary of the visit. I'm sure I leave things behind, but been totally honest I'm almost blind for all the writing.
As I'm sure many of you will have doubts and questions about the visit, as allways I'll try to answer all of you the best I can.'