Curt Voiles' Grindball lava pit arena http://www.worldworksgames.com/forum/vi ... php?t=8250 was there, as was a box of my Wormhole stuff, but there just wasn't table space for everything (though the lava pit even looked great just leaning up against the table!).

This Gen Con was the best. WorldWorksGames has arrived in Indy. Met Denny, Aubrey and Tasha. Photo in gallery. It was so great to meet with them and the other forum members.

Uncre8d1, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to explain the Wormhole game and your upcoming kitbashes for the game.

No one could miss the massive build of Terraclips sets at the Wyrd booth. Very impressive. I think that Denny, Aubrey and Tasha could build those sets blind folded by the end of the convention. They had to be hoarse by the end of the con. I was happy for the Denny and crew to see many inquisitive attendees stopping at the booth to check out the product line. As big as the dealer room was Fat Dragon was on the same isle. What was up with that?

You guys are all incredible! It was so cool to meet everyone face to face, and talk to the fans that have supported us for so long.

GenCon was stellar!

A huge thank you to Curt Voiles, Ken Falkson, and Tomas Mennes, who all graciously loaned their own builds for the show!

And special props to Ben and Jamie, who took the time to create a ticket box (with attached pens) and gave us a roll of tickets, so we could give away Denny's original CastleWorks Ultimate build! We had the entire intersection at our corner booth jam-packed on Sunday; it was such a huge turn-out for the drawing that we gave away 3 pdf downloads, too! Thank you, Ben and Jamie - you two are awesome human beings!

Pics to come soon (and yes, even some cosplayers)!

Really that's something I've noticed about EVERY WWG release... the teaser and product photos look awesome. You buy the product, build it, and it just isn't the same.; there is a lot of work put into making the photos of products be as good as possible and minimize any short comings.

Don't get me wrong; why would they show anything less? What you really have to do to judge a WWG product is look at other peoples builds. How does it really look, in real life, on a game table, in raw photos? That's when you get a real glimpze at how a product will turn out.

These clips are a perfect example. Just looking at all of the officiall product images and descriptions I thought "wow these are super sweet, can't wait to get some!" Then I see that photo of how they look IRL.... I'd never buy them.

Except that if you were at our booth you would have seen builds that look exactly like the promo shots for our model sets. We take a lot of time and care in our builds and it tends to show. In terms of TerraClips, again its one of those things that look completely different in real life. We'll get some pics up for you here soon.

On the normal WW sets the results can look different from the promos based on the printers used. Laser printers and inkjets can print the same image in widely different colors and tones. Over the years I've had 4 printers I used for WW stuff and none of them printed the same page the same way.

Honestly I've noticed quite the opposite effect: almost always my builds on the table look much better than any of the promo shots. I think part of it is how closely WWG takes it's photos... When I look at my build from tables distance I'm always blown away at how cool it looks. Maybe there is something wrong with your printer?

Sacretis

I've never regretted any of the WWG sets I've purchased. They are quality work and endlessly usable. And just when you think it can't get 'better than this', WWG pushes it up another level. You really can't lose with a company and designers who are always pushing the standards higher.

They do their part. Once you buy the set its up to you what you make of it.

This is true. Between my laser, my Canon Pixma iP90v, and my Canon Pixma iP6600D, no print looks the same. The laser does beautifully for text and simple graphics, and does an acceptable job with paper models. The iP90v is mediocre for text documents, but does photos very well. The iP6600D is slightly worse than the laser on text, but completely blows the other printers away on papermodels and photos. The old cheap HP printers we had before don't even come anywhere close to the iP6600D.

However, printing the same document on all of the printers does not yield identical results at all. This is normal--every printer is different.



This is also true. This is one of those things where what you get is often directly proportional to what you put into it. I don't skimp on anything--I use the best paper I can buy, I use genuine OEM inks, I don't use the low quality settings, and when I build something, I take my time and try to do the best job I can. I'm not the most skilled papercrafter on the planet, but taking your time pays a lot of dividends once the builds hit the table. So, the stuff I buy and build usually looks way better than the photos.

-Mel

While I agree that WorldWorks products have always looked great in real life, you have to admit that it's misleading to leave the clips out of the main TerraClips promotional material. Furthermore, a set with visible clips is necessarily going to look somewhat worse than one without. I suspect that it will still be worth the trade-off in build time, but I feel the consumer should know that ahead of time.

Misleading? No, I don't agree in the least.

1. WWG didn't have any product on hand to do the promotional material with. Not even prototypes. The promotional material had to be done before they got any product at all to work with, because you need something on the front of the box/bag/whatever at the time of manufacturing.

2. The earliest WWG could get their hands on the product itself was at GenCon.

3. The tentative decision was made to use the virtual promo images as an interim measure for the first run. Once there was product in hand, we'd be able to use the actual product itself to create the later-run promotional imagery. I don't know what the official decision on that is yet, but it was brought up and discussed at one of the staff meets.

4. This is by no means unusual or deliberately misleading. In nearly every industry, packaging is a chicken-or-egg thing. You need imagery for the box, but you can't get that imagery until the things have been manufactured, so you have to get around that somehow. The most common way is to use virtual imagery for at least the first production run.

5. Denny has stated publicly that the promotional images are virtual, and he has explained why.

6. When Denny did the promotional images, he and Matt were also working at breakneck speed and with great effort to get all of the die masters finished against a frightening deadline. He did NOT have the time to screw around painting in hundreds of transparent clips that you wouldn't even see unless you took a loupe to the packaging anyway. It wasn't a profitable use of extremely limited time that was better spent working on, like, the actual product itself.

7. In order to be misleading, WWG would need to have actually lied about it. Nobody told any fibs or porkies, and nobody went around trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

So, no. Not misleading at all. Misleading implies some sort of dishonest intent, and there was none.

-Mel

This is the printer I use (modified with a set of continuous ink reservoirs), and I've also been very very happy with it. Picked up a second used one on eBay for $20 when the print head on the first one went.

Obviously your milage varries from mine but I've found in several instances that I simply wasn't satisfied with what I saw on the website vs what it actually looks like printed, folded, and on the table. This has made me more skeptical and I wait before buying WWG products to see some actual builds by other people now.

I agree; production quality is huge. Obviously they took great care in constructing sets that were photographed for promotional material. Again I'm not saying anything is wrong with this and I would expect nothing less. What I'm pointing out is that if you want a REAL look at the product then you should wait for photos of other customers builds. Thats when you see it on the table, built buy a fellow gamer, under normal lighting. If you only look at the promotional images, build them yourself, and see they look very different from one another you can be left dissapointed.

Cases in point:
Interior Works - Pubs and Inns / Castles & Keeps Small square tables, rectangular tables, and chairs.... Looking at the sales photos they are all nice and straight, sitting perfectly, table legs cut out nicely, and lots of lighting effects (the warm glow and dark shadows of the Pubs and Inns photos for example). Actually building the the chairs and tables it's very hard to get any of them where the legs go straight down; they tend to flare out (much how the stools look/work). You can fiddle with them and get them just right but the next time you pick them up, move them around, or manipulate them they start to flare out again. If you do cut out the black space around the legs and use the skinny little legs they are way too flimsy for use on real gaming table; no strength in the legs and they crumple under the slightest pressure. Sure they look totally sweet in a photo but simply are not practical on a game board that gets handled by gamers. There are many posts of people talking about dealing with these very issues; I'm not the only one who experienced this by any means.

The fire place. Again you see it in the photos; it looks totally sweet. In reality I found it very challenging to get the fire in the fire place to stay up properly. As with the chairs and tables it tends to want to flare in / out one way.

Doors.... They look great in the Castles & Keeps photos. In the instructions they are described as easy to build and so great because you can easily move them to wherever you want... which is quite true. However I could never get them to look good. Once again; they don't stay straight; they flare out. They look nothing like the ones I see in the promo photos.

Now I know there are a bunch of people that will say "duh; you just have to adapt to make them look better". For example modifying the building of those tables to use 4 sides instead of two or using gussets on the inside to hold it all in place so it's sturdy, striaght, and looks good. Agreed; but that's not what it shows in the photos, that's not what the instructions provided tell you to do, and my point is that if you just look at promo photos, read the instructions, and build them as you are instructed to build them.... they don't turn out like the promo photos.

This is all relevant to the new clips. You look at the demo promotional images and get a great impression of how awesome they will be. Then you read the fine print that the actual clips are not being shown here. Now you see actual photos of them on the game table under normal lighting and get a sense of what they truly look like. I garuntee the final promo photos will take ever care to minimize the visibility of the clips. Once again; I'm not saying this is wrong, not saying it's missleading, and I don't expect them to do otherwise.... all I'm saying is that customers should really look at more than just promo material before buying a product to get a more broad sense of what exactly they are getting and how it will turn out. I know; it would have been great to see them in person and maybe I'd have a different opinion of them if I did.... but all I have to go on right now are the promo images and the gencon photos. Thats all most of can base our opinons on currently.

I hope I'm not coming accross as a hater or a Debby Downer. I really do love WWG products and truly belive WWG has, and continues to, prove that card stock modeling is a less epxensive yet equally appealing alternative to other more expensive gaming terrain products. I've obviously bought and built quite a bit more than those two sets I pointed out issues with... and if that's all I have to complain about that says a lot right there.

You make a fair point. There are definitely issues with some of the older sets like pubs and inns. Thats why those designs are no longer used on the current sets. Like the tables and chairs from shellendrak, I think you should even be able put figures on them with no trouble. And they do stay straight up on their own.


As for average builds, the WW user gallery gives plenty of examples of normal results.
http://wormholegamer.com/photos/index.php

I have been really pleased with the quality of my builds, and if you look closely at my pictures you can see the mistakes on some of the pieces. So my stuff is by no means unrealistic results. Castleworks Ultimate was my very first build ever. And I still use the pieces in current layouts. I show my builds to just about everyone who stops by my house and everyone has always been impressed.

I envy you if you have ever been able to game with terrian that leaves you disappointed in WW stuff. I've never even gotten to see in person that resin terrain since its so expensive. The best nonWW I've seen is that mage knight castle stuff, which is very nice. BUt still expensive enough that few have more than a couple pieces. No building layout like castleworks with that.

I've collected a fairly substantial amount of terrain in the last year. I have FDG stuff, I have a few of the Pegasus Gothic Models and i have several of the WW stuff. Recently I finished my cave build using Hirst arts (this is a mixed medium set with tile on Foamcore Floors and hydro-stone walls. )

With all of that I still love WW stuff. My feelings are that some things work better in Paper while other things are better geared to plastic or Resin/plaster. of the paper products I feel that WW sets the benchmark.

I am waiting impatiently for Tclips to arrive and my current plan is to purchase 1 streets, 2 sewers and 1-2 Houses sets.

as to build quality in the photos, part of that is just variability in production. after I saw my first laser jet print I decided that was the only medium I wanted to use.

Yeah; the picture gallery here on the forums is the first place I look to for great examples of builds done using a product I'm interested in.

For the most part I'm happy with my purchases from World Works, but I can see what Morganm is saying about somethings looking much better in the previews.

The bay window is a good example in Thumont's. on the promos this looks really sweet and a nice touch to the buildings, but putting it together it looks flimsy and doesn't hold it's shape very well. I'll likely use a skewer along the straight edge to keep its shape better, and probably be happy with it then, but I have to say that disappointed me at first.

Comparing it though to other companies products I've downloaded I've got to say even the older stuff blows away stuff from most. And their promo shots actually are more believable to me than quite a few smaller companies as well...

Well, I'm the person who made the promoshots for Thoumont's, so I guess I am the best person to answer this one for you.

First, I'm not a cardbuilding wizard. If you look closely at the promoshots for Thoumont's, you'll probably see glue residue staines all over the place. I am a long time fan of WWG, just like you, who has the luck to be working for them at the moment, so I guess I have both an inside and an outside perspective.

Second, I don't build my models differently now than I did before I started to work for WWG. There isn't some kind of secret "how to build models for promoshots" manual. Denny does some photoshopping on promo shots, but that's mostly adding banners and improving atmosphere (playing with the color balance a bit). Trust me, it is too much work to make bendy legs straight on a computer. It's far easier to build the chair again.

Third, my models look exactly the same in person as they do on pictures. I have posted enough pictures of work in progress, or pictures of terrain being used in a game, that you can check this.

Fourth, paper isn't plastic. There are things you don't have to expect from paper. It won't survive a rainstorm. and a paper chair won't hold the weight of a metal ogre. Paper furniture looks great, but yo know you have to be more careful with it than with its plastic alternative.

Fifth, glue. From the descriptions I read here, the biggest problem you experience is that things that are straight on the pictures look bendy when you build it. This is purely due to the choice of glue. Most glues are water-based. If you don't apply it very thinly, the waterpart of the glue soaks the paper, which has the same effect as the forementioned rainstorm. Either apply the glue very thinly, or use different glue. As I told you, I am not a good modeler, so I use glue that doesn't contain water. It is a bit harder to get, but it makes all the difference in the world.

If using other glue isn't an option, apply your glue very thinly (scrape it off with a bit of paper) an put pressure on it afterwards. When I want something to be perfectly flat, I let it dry underneath some heavy books for 24 hours. No matter what kind of glue you used, it will be flat.

You're absolutely right, Tomas. You need to know the characteristics of the material you are using, get a good set of tools, and develop your techniques over time. Same thing applies to cooking and other pursuits. Oh ... also, don't be afraid to experiment. Its a lot of fun.

I am also of the opinion that the actual builds look much better in real life.

A portion of this is scale - until you see it up close you really can't see how even a smallish dungeon or castle dwarfs a miniature. A larger build, like the promotional Castle Works Deluxe (Bald Guy Not Included) or The Maiden really dominates the table, and becomes a focal point.

Take your time and make sure that you edge - any time that I have been unhappy with a build it has been because I hurried things. Either I skipped some edging, let the straightedge slip while scoring a fold, or I decided that transparencies were too much of a bother (that one still annoys me).

Even the Platform Command build that I constructed while in the throes of a fever ended up looking really, really good. Edging and clean folds really matter.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* In regards to bendy walls - I cheat whenever possible. I use double sided tape a lot more than I did a couple of years ago, and I have some slabs of thick particle board plus some sheets from the back of peel off decals. After gluing I sandwich the walls or tiles between the slabs of particle board, using the plastic coated sheets to keep the glue from sticking to the particle board. Leave 'em under the particle board to dry for a couple of days - no fuss, no muss, no bendies, even if you were a trifle enthusiastic with the glue.

I have not found the sample builds to be misleading, unless by misleading you mean awesome.
This is a "you build it" craft and the first few will wildly vary in quality. It's really up to you to see how good it will look. Edging really helps and this forum is full of fantastic ideas and photos to make wonderful sets into awesome builds.
Excuse my enthusiasm, but recently I invested 60 hours into a TLX Platform Command bash and I'm really happy with the results. I could never build these things in any other material because, they just don't exist except in my imagination until I build them in TLX.

If you adhere to the following, your builds will come out like the promos;

* Glue: Low water content or scrap booking glue to eliminate warping. Go to your favourite craft store and ask for something which will not warp paper. Always apply a thin layer of glue and ensure good coverage.

* Paper: 110lb minimum or a thicker recommended stock of 80lb. The thicker your stock the cleaner your lines will be and the less prone to warping.

* Printing: I personally use laser for everything now which gives a photogloss look on a standard cardstock. That said, builds done pre-2007 were all done with inkjet. The trick with inkjet quality is experimentation. EVERY inkjet requires some tweaking to properties in order to deliver quality prints. Clean your heads often.

* Patience: The more patient you are, the better your builds will come out. Don't expect to create completely clean builds the first time out of the gate. Like any hobby, it takes time to get your head around the finer points. If you're rushing to get something done, you'll start making cutting mistakes and builds will generally come out looking sloppy. If you're using scissors to speed things up...well...you've already lost the battle. ALWAYS use a ruler and hobby knife.

* EDGING! EDGING! EDGING!!! The importance of edging cannot be understated. Edging can turn a mediocre build into something which is hard to identify as a paper model. Advanced edging employs the use of a rainbow of colours which match neighbouring hues.

* Photography: This would take pages to explain but getting photos to match what you see with your eyes is challenging. The #1 rule however is to use reflected light only. NO CAMERA FLASHES!

The bottom line is that the look of your builds will vary depending upon your ability to realize any of the above points. Do we spend a lot of time on our builds and the photography of those builds to give the best possible impression? Absolutely. Is it possible for the end user to create builds of the same calibre? Absolutely. A tour through the user build gallery illustrates all ranges of ability http://wormholegamer.com/photos/index.php?cat=1 . Some are right on the money, some vary wildly.

For more tips & tricks: http://www.worldworksgames.com/forum/vi ... php?t=5826

For video tutorials: http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/in ... ages_id=23

For a free beginners guide: http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/in ... ucts_id=13