The Inevitable Delays we were all expecting... and let's talk about the Special Edition.
over 4 years ago – Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 01:56:37 AM

Hey Folks!

Soooo...

I have been talking with USPCC (the playing card printers).

They told me that any orders submitted at this time will not be shipped in 2021. So for now the estimate is looking like early 2022 for them to ship them to me.

Also with the way this campaign has blown up, the sheer volume of the decks and other items has affected the production timeline for my manufacturers.

For instance, USPCC told me this is the largest order of uncut sheets they have ever produced as a company. In fact it is currently 6 times more uncut sheets than they've ever produced before for a single order.

They had a meeting with their production team to figure out the logistics, they actually have to get refrigerated trucks and special skids to ship that many together. I guess they use a special coating, and when that many are shipped together, certain climates could effect the coating.

For me, when I heard that... I was like "Whoa, that is kinda epic!"

Also when I get the cards and other rewards I have to sign well over 10,000 items. That will be quite the gauntlet. I am gonna have to make a crazy YouTube video out of that experience or something. But it will absolutely be a labor of love! Each signature represents someone who supported this project and made this a record breaking playing card campaign.

***So I am letting you folks know this now, before the campaign is over, in case anyone needs to cancel their pledge.*** 

If some of you folks were really relying on this shipping by December 2021. That looks like it is not going to happen. :(

Kickstarter asks creators to enter in their estimated shipping dates before the campaign launches and I was going off the information I was provided by the manufacturers at that time, and I was also not anticipating the incredible support this project has received. 

I will keep you all updated as the timeline becomes more certain, or changes.

-----

Ok.

The Special Edition Black Deck.

Yeesh.

Here is what happened.

I created a new add-on on Kickstarter. I set the decks to a limit of 2500. 1 deck per backer, and for them to go live at 12:00pm EST.

Side note: During the launch I was on the road driving to Kansas City to go paint a 5 story mural. (it turned out epic :)

At 12:00pm I pulled over at a gas station to monitor the launch of the new deck.

I logged onto my Patreon Discord server to monitor the activity of the chat cause my patrons are always super active on there.

I started to see lots and lots of comments about how it was broken. I also saw these comments on all my social media platforms. Everyone was saying they were just getting an error message.

I was freaking out.

I logged into Kickstarter and saw about 300 had sold and no more were selling.

Gas station parking lot. More comments. More messages. More freaking out.

I emailed my contact at Kickstarter and then eventually got on the phone with him. He told me their team of engineers was working on the issue. He told me to sit tight and wait for his next call... more freaking out. 

For me, as an artist and creator, it was incredibly stressful. I knew my fans were sitting there trying their best to get their hands on the deck. I knew international backers had stayed up really late to try and get one. I knew people were getting more and more frustrated just hitting refresh and getting the same error message.

I ended up talking to my guy at Kickstarter many times throughout the outage. 

He explained that basically there were many many many thousands of people trying to buy the deck at once. A number that far exceeded the limit of 2500 decks, and the servers could not handle that many simultaneous requests.

Eventually, the solution of setting the item to unlimited, and then manually stopping it at 2500 decks was discovered. For some reason, just because of the way Kickstarter works. We had to switch if from 1 per backer to 2 per backer. I really don't know why. Just a bug in Kickstarter's design.

So, I sat in a gas station parking lot, on the phone with my Kickstarter guy as he manually read out the numbers of the deck sold. It was kind of surreal sitting on the phone with him as he ticked away the numbers. I said "I bet this wasn't how you were planning to spend your afternoon". 

He was super helpful and all the folks at Kickstarter were stressed out by this too.

He turned back on the limiter at 2498, then the final two decks sold. And they were gone.

I realize (especially in retrospect) I could have cancelled the drop and tried again. I was forced with the decision of upsetting the folks who were there right on time, or upsetting the folks who sat there for 4.5 hrs. hitting refresh. I also knew that if I did another launch, and it went perfectly smoothly, they would have sold out in 1 second anyway, so a huge chunk of people would have been disappointed anyway.

I am super sorry for the frustration this caused. I can honestly tell you, that day, driving to Kansas City, trying frantically to get the issue resolved, was one of the most stressful days I have had as a creator. It all felt so completely out of my hands. I kept asking "Can you just give me more servers?!"... They were like "It doesn't really work like that."

I know folks are disappointed, and frustrated at how broken the launch was.

I am super sorry about that.

Side Note: I have seen some absolute legends who got two decks, giving up their second one so others would have a chance at one. Those folks are freaking heroes. (actually a pretty small percentage actually got two)

So yeah. If you wanna cancel your pledge, or you are pissed at me, or frustrated... I get that.

I really wish it went smoother and I hate to disappoint anyone.

On the positive side. Thank you all so much for so much insane support that we broke Kickstarter. Holy cow. That is crazy!

Anyway...

Sorry if this is kind of a bummer update.

I just figure communication is key and I hope to be as transparent as possible through this process.

Thank you all so much for your support!

-Peter

[Ten Hundred]

P.S. Sorry it took me a bit to post this. That 5 story mural in KC was no joke and I am just getting back to the flow of things.

its working now!!!!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 05:09:27 AM

Special edition decks are working now! Me and team Kickstarter are gonna manually stop it at 2500

If you want one get one now!!!

We broke kickstarter :(
over 4 years ago – Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 03:26:30 AM

I know everyone is getting errors while trying to add the “Black Edition Collectors deck” to their pledge. I have been on the phone with Kickstarter this morning and they are working on a solution.

I am so sorry to everyone who is trying to get one. All the people trying to get one at the same time have overloaded the system.

According to my creator dashboard the decks are NOT sold out. It’s just the system is overloaded and orders can’t go through.

I’m not totally sure what advice to offer at this time. Still trying to figure things out with Kickstarter. I guess their servers are not prepared for this kind of activity.

This must be so annoying and frustrating for some folks who are sitting there refreshing trying to get one.

My dashboard says only 329 have sold so far.

Dang y’all. This is a bummer. I’ll keep y’all updated as info comes through.

Thanks Peter [ten hundred]

2 New Versions of the Deck are Coming!!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 05:18:40 AM

Hey Folks,

Got a really exciting update. :)

Let me just get straight into it.

Limited Black Edition Collectors Deck

These super limited decks will be available as an Add-On TOMORROW!

- These will go live to "add-on" on Tuesday 9/21/2021 at 12:00pm EST

- Only 2500 decks EVER! (Super rare & collectable!)

- Premium Gilded Gold Edges

- New Tuck Case and Special Sleeve

- Die Cut windows on the sleeve and tuck case to reveal the gold edges. (I did this because I know a lot of folks will never take these out of the plastic wrap and wanted people to still be able to appreciate the gilding without ever opening the deck)

- The cards inside feature the art from the original Vivid Kingdoms deck. So if you decide to pass on these, don't worry you are not missing out on any new art.

- $40

- If you are a new backer, choose your pledge level and the next screen will have "add-ons" where you can add this deck. 

- If you are already a backer, you can edit your pledge & add on the Black Edition Special Collectors Deck.

- Limit 1 per backer.

The "Golden Ticket" Deck

- Only 1000 decks EVER! (Ultra rare baby!)

- I will be slipping these into 1000 random orders.  Each backer has an equal chance to randomly have one of these packed in with their order.

- There is no additional charge for these super rare decks. I am putting these randomly into orders for free.

- New gold edition outer sleeve. 

- You do not need to edit your pledge or do anything special to have a chance at getting a deck.

New Apparel available to Add On!

- You all voted on the polls...  so I added the top 6 choices!

- Jack of Spades was the dominant winner on the polls so that card will be featured on a black shirt, white shirt, zip-up hoodie, pullover hoodie, and long sleeve. (Select color or zip up/ pullover on surveys.)

- Queen of Spades, Ace of Spades, Queen of Diamonds, King of Hearts and King of Spades available on black or white shirt! (you can select your color on the surveys I will be sending out at the end.)

- The original Vivid Kingdoms t shirts and hoodies now have alternate colors. The tee is in black OR maroon and the hoodie is in black OR peach! (select color on survey)

- New Vivid Kingdoms long sleeves now available!

- Available to add on to any existing pledge.

Thanks so much everyone!

-Peter

[Ten Hundred]

Cast your vote!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 11:19:55 PM

Hey Folks!

A couple updates on "Add-Ons"

I have a couple new ones coming at you that are 100% optional and based on requests I have been getting from this community.

1. Single Card Apparel:

I have been getting a ton of requests to do apparel with single card images on it.

But the question is; which cards to print?

While I would love to do every card printed on apparel, I need to narrow it down because I order my garments in bulk.

This project has been all about audience feedback and it looks like I need your feedback again!

Kickstarter doesn't have polls, so I made one here:

>>> POLL: https://linkto.run/p/BYFG15YA

Vote for your favorite card you would like to see on apparel!

Here is a quick example of what the garments might look like:

Let me know down in the comments if you would like to see these on Youth Sizes too!

2. Enamel Pins

I have been getting requests from the enamel pin collectors out there to do some for this campaign.

I love enamel pins myself and thought this would be a really cool optional add on for those that were interested.

Here are the two designs I made:

The pins are $10 each or $18 for both. They are in the Add-Ons section.

3. Sticker Packs

We are really close to hitting our stretch goal where everyone gets free stickers. I got a few requests from folks who were looking to grab a couple more sticker packs beyond the free stickers that will be thrown in to orders.

So I added sticker 12 packs as an add-on for those that were interested in picking up extra packs.

For those that are interested in these optional add-ons you can edit your pledge to add them on to your order if you are interested in these.

Thanks so much!

I'm still working on some things behind the scenes that I am really excited to share with you. I will let you know about that soon :)

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this project!

I am so freaking excited to get these decks and other rewards out into the world and into the hands of you amazing backers!

THANKS!

-Peter

[Ten Hundred]

P.S. There is a pretty cool Vivid Kingdoms fan fiction thing going on over on the Ten Hundred sub-reddit. You should check it out and maybe contribute some of your own lore :) https://www.reddit.com/r/TenHundred/