Quick update: The final design was expected last week for my review, but apparently the artwork judge wasn't satisfied with the initial design. Don't worry, that's a good thing. NWTM apparently won't ship out what they consider to be inferior designs that are untrue to the original intention. According to Darrell, hopefully a design will be ready for my review tomorrow. If I approve it then, an optimistic estimate places the die completion at the end of this week.
Shipping:
Not yet determined. I reminded Darrell of our agreed-upon shipping situation, and he said he'd try to get something worked out. So no go yet on the prices.
Remember: Once a shipping price is agreed upon, only then will I ask that you place money in the ChipIn and send me a message stating who you are, what your paypal account and paypal email are and what you threw in. The paypal information will be useful in helping me to identify precisely who you are and who the coin should be shipped to. Failure to sufficiently identify yourself and the Paypal identity you used to deposit into the ChipIn WILL result in a shipping delay, which we can not afford this close to Prime. Consider this forewarning: If you do not go to great lengths to identify yourself through an email to me after putting money into the ChipIn, I will not be responsible if you do not receive your coin in time for Prime.
Edit: I am going to withdraw $300 from the ChipIn into a new bank account that I have set up specifically for the purpose of this endeavor, so that I may pay NWTM once the design is finalized. If this is reflected in the ChipIn total, now you will know why.
Quick update: The final design was expected last week for my review, but apparently the artwork judge wasn't satisfied with the initial design. Don't worry, that's a good thing. NWTM apparently won't ship out what they consider to be inferior designs that are untrue to the original intention. According to Darrell, hopefully a design will be ready for my review tomorrow. If I approve it then, an optimistic estimate places the die completion at the end of this week.
Shipping:
Not yet determined. I reminded Darrell of our agreed-upon shipping situation, and he said he'd try to get something worked out. So no go yet on the prices.
Remember: Once a shipping price is agreed upon, only then will I ask that you place money in the ChipIn and send me a message stating who you are, what your paypal account and paypal email are and what you threw in. The paypal information will be useful in helping me to identify precisely who you are and who the coin should be shipped to. Failure to sufficiently identify yourself and the Paypal identity you used to deposit into the ChipIn WILL result in a shipping delay, which we can not afford this close to Prime. Consider this forewarning: If you do not go to great lengths to identify yourself through an email to me after putting money into the ChipIn, I will not be responsible if you do not receive your coin in time for Prime.
Edit: I am going to withdraw $300 from the ChipIn into a new bank account that I have set up specifically for the purpose of this endeavor, so that I may pay NWTM once the design is finalized. If this is reflected in the ChipIn total, now you will know why.
Will the coins be shipped to you and then you ship them to all of us, or will we all get our coins shipped directly from NWTM?
So, weirdest thing ever just happened. I was at work browsing this thread looking at the designs and such, and I got a call from a customer about challenge coins.
Apparently we're the webhosting provider for deltachallengecoins.com. I mentioned that I was involved (vaguely) in getting some coins made, and he asked us who we were going through. I mentioned it was something like "Northwest Mint or something" and he was like "Northwest Territorial Mint?" Apparently they're very well known and they make a great product, but they're very expensive.
I'm not trying to shake things up or anything, just letting you guys know what his opinion was. Their website is deltachallengecoins.com. I told him I'd take a look and keep them in mind for anything we did in the future, so I thought I'd share.
Crazy coincidence!
Arco on
Like this, not like the gas station.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
So here's the situation: Northwest Territorial Mint is too good for their own good. Apparently their artists have submitted designs that have been rejected by a judge at least once, possibly a second time. They do this to maintain quality standards, but in our case this is not a good thing. I told Kimberly, the manager, that the next time a design is ready to run it straight by me rather than their judges, and in a timely manner, otherwise the whole deal would need to be dropped.
At this moment, that's where we are. Hopefully I will know more by the end of the afternoon.
Yeah, that's kind of crazy that they won't just let us do what the heck we want to do. What was the company that Triwizard went through? They seemed less picky... maybe we could switch over to them next time?
It's very odd of them, why should they care about the quality of what we put out? It's not like we're going to tell people "hey, we got it from this place, and our crappy design is their fault".
Well, no worries papaprinny: we would never have known which company was better to use until we tried. In the worst case, we can consider this year a "trial period"... and next year, we can use that other company that seemed to have no problem letting us do whatever we wanted.
I know the situations aren't identical, but I can see things from their point of view. As a game developer, who makes games that publishers pay us to make, we would LOVE to have full control over what we make, to guarantee a quality product. All the time publishers (ie, the paying customers) are making stupid decisions which results in a low quality product, which our name is on as the developer. And even though the coin company's name may not be on each coin, these challenge coins are the kind of thing where someone considering something similar will ask where you got the coin, who made it. And they won't know if horrid artwork was the result of your decisions or the coin company's.
Having said that, in this case we really need the coins done very quickly, as everything was done last minute, and not getting them on time could ruin a lot of the fun. And yes, sometimes that happens in game development as well - the customer (publisher) sometimes has a definite need behind some of their demands.
I imagine that it is too late to modify the design, but for the reference of future challenge coins, I took the liberty of asking about the motto on a multi-lingual translation community, and they said that "mentula ne es", "mentula ne esto", or "mentula ne este" would be the way to go.
Additionally they also suggested "irrumator" instead of "mentula" to preserve the spirit of the original decree more accurately. "Irrumator ne es" roughly translates back as "don't be a facefucker" or "don't be an asshole", where "mentula ne es" would be "don't be a regal penis". But this is less of a "right or wrong" type issue and more of a "which would the community prefer?"
I think Regal Penis is pretty funny actually: it does imply a certain "haughtier than thou" attitude often associated with people who are violating Wheaton's Law. Though I can definitely see the pull for Irrumator as well... hmm...
A quick update:
I rejected the following obverse design, asking only that a font close to Adobe Garamond Pro be used, otherwise I'm fine with this design. I'm guessing the artist already had a Seattle image that he has used at least once on other coins.
The circumscribing circle within the text was omitted. I honestly like it, as it sets apart the design from the reverse side.
However, I completely rejected the reverse side: There was color added. The circumscribing circle was gone. The font was not Adobe Garamond Pro or something similar. The hand was cradling the DS in its palm, as though being offered, not held up triumphantly.
Even though they have my mockups, I very specifically responded by saying that the design of the reverse was meant to be followed perfectly. Hopefully the next damn design will be more in-line with what was actually requested.
Whatever happens with this coin design, we will not be using NWTM in the future if we are able to find a firm that actually follows its customers directions.
Yes, I am angry. I hope it wasn't too obvious.
Edit: And yes, I told them to add some quick sauce to it, as we are getting down to the wire. :evil:
So we get stiff once in a while. So we have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? This is a free country, isn’t it? I can take my panda any place I want to. And if I wanna buy it a drink, that’s my business.
Ooh, I have to admit I do like what they did with the side you just showed... they obviously do good work, they just have to realize that to us speed is far, far more important than quality. Important enough that we really just can't use them unless we are planning this extremely far in advance for next year. =(
I got no issues with the font myself either, yet I am not a font-finicky guy. Yer basic webfonts have served me fine for years.
This said, I prefer the design comes in line with papaprinny's specs - I prefer people with an eye for details bein' in charge of what's gonna basically be a permanent conversation piece.
I'm a font specific guy. I like the earlier font, and I really dislike the idea that they'd change fonts without asking. Anyone who makes their living doing graphic design should know that changing a font around is a big deal, not just some small detail that would go unnoticed.
Definitely a disappointing turn with NWTM. I have a customer (I work for an ISP) who does Challenge Coins. I'll shoot him an e-mail and let him know that our experience has been less-than-stellar, and see what he has to say for the future.
Arco on
Like this, not like the gas station.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
Aye, Arco brings up very good points: regardless of whether the new font is fine or not, it is a very unfortunate decision on their part to change it without asking whether it was flexible.
So is it too late to move this train over to someone who'll do it up quick the way we want it? Or are we riding this train into the station? I guess with 20 days left to go, we've probably got little choice other than to keep going with this company... can they even promise that they'll have the coins to us before PAX at this point though? Because if they can't deliver it on time right now, maybe it would be best to back out the money and start planning for next year? Just bringing up that possibility.
I wouldn't go that far, VThornheart. I just got a redesign of the problematic reverse side. It looks great, and is designed to our specification, except that the hand and DS Lite are somewhat disproportionate in size. Trust me, it looks odd. I asked them to make the hand smaller. They said this shouldn't be a problem. Once that is done, I am confident we'll have an acceptable design. Once that design is finalized, we can start placing orders. Once the die is complete, I imagine they'll be able to start minting coins right away. With 3-day shipping, it is currently feasible that all coins ordered up to the die casting could arrive at the doorstep of their recipients before or by the end of the final, full calendar week of this month. So sit tight for now.
Edit: And yeah, after my carefully- and precisely- worded admonition following the receipt of their redesign, they predictably fed me a line about how they often attempt to revise the designs given to them in order that they may look good, blah blah blah. In essence, they told me that I don't know what I want. This was of course a bs line because the latest redesign does in fact look like my original mockup, and it looks great, aside from the proportion issue. Additionally, now that I think about it, and from the work that I've seen them do, I am not yet put off by dealing with these people in the future. Sure, they have wasted enough of our time, but this was all done under great time constraints, and honestly, my post above about switching to another minter was written out of spite for having dragged us through the dirt as long as they have. But the fact is that the final design so far looks like it will be quite good, so I'm not ready to discard them for future mintings, especially since we will have much more time to get a design right in the future.
Well, if we keep up with them, we just have to get a design to them so far in advance that their lengthy process won't harm us. It sounds like we're almost down the home stretch though, that's good.
Another update: I got back the redesign of the obverse side (the Seattle side). They changed the font to Adobe Garamond Pro, but they did not compensate for the size of the font / spacing of the lettering of the font. Thus the words became more crowded, which honestly didn't look as good. I could have asked them to make the above changes to the Adobe Garamond Pro font, but this is a road we can no longer afford to go down due to time constraints. Thus the above-posted obverse design shall be our final. And honestly, it looks good enough.
I know there was talk about folks buying coins for Jerry, Mike, and Robert, but what about for some of the other PA folks? WW? Kiko? The rest of the PA staff? I was certainly willing to pitch in for coins for the falks who donated and the like...just spit balling.
Hey, it's looking good pappaprinny! Glad to see that they came through, woot!
And indeed, I second a job well done to you. I don't know if I could've kept my cool as well as you did in the situation: but you did, and to the benefit of us all as we'll actually have a coin now! Awesome stuff!
Posts
Final shipping cost.
Shipping:
Not yet determined. I reminded Darrell of our agreed-upon shipping situation, and he said he'd try to get something worked out. So no go yet on the prices.
Remember: Once a shipping price is agreed upon, only then will I ask that you place money in the ChipIn and send me a message stating who you are, what your paypal account and paypal email are and what you threw in. The paypal information will be useful in helping me to identify precisely who you are and who the coin should be shipped to. Failure to sufficiently identify yourself and the Paypal identity you used to deposit into the ChipIn WILL result in a shipping delay, which we can not afford this close to Prime. Consider this forewarning: If you do not go to great lengths to identify yourself through an email to me after putting money into the ChipIn, I will not be responsible if you do not receive your coin in time for Prime.
Edit: I am going to withdraw $300 from the ChipIn into a new bank account that I have set up specifically for the purpose of this endeavor, so that I may pay NWTM once the design is finalized. If this is reflected in the ChipIn total, now you will know why.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
Will the coins be shipped to you and then you ship them to all of us, or will we all get our coins shipped directly from NWTM?
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Apparently we're the webhosting provider for deltachallengecoins.com. I mentioned that I was involved (vaguely) in getting some coins made, and he asked us who we were going through. I mentioned it was something like "Northwest Mint or something" and he was like "Northwest Territorial Mint?" Apparently they're very well known and they make a great product, but they're very expensive.
I'm not trying to shake things up or anything, just letting you guys know what his opinion was. Their website is deltachallengecoins.com. I told him I'd take a look and keep them in mind for anything we did in the future, so I thought I'd share.
Crazy coincidence!
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
Sweet! So close...
At this moment, that's where we are. Hopefully I will know more by the end of the afternoon.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
I am. That's why I told the manager, in no uncertain terms, that the next design comes straight to me.
Well, no worries papaprinny: we would never have known which company was better to use until we tried. In the worst case, we can consider this year a "trial period"... and next year, we can use that other company that seemed to have no problem letting us do whatever we wanted.
Good call. As soon as they realise that their "quality control" is about to cost them a customer, they'll sort it out.
Having said that, in this case we really need the coins done very quickly, as everything was done last minute, and not getting them on time could ruin a lot of the fun. And yes, sometimes that happens in game development as well - the customer (publisher) sometimes has a definite need behind some of their demands.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
Additionally they also suggested "irrumator" instead of "mentula" to preserve the spirit of the original decree more accurately. "Irrumator ne es" roughly translates back as "don't be a facefucker" or "don't be an asshole", where "mentula ne es" would be "don't be a regal penis". But this is less of a "right or wrong" type issue and more of a "which would the community prefer?"
I rejected the following obverse design, asking only that a font close to Adobe Garamond Pro be used, otherwise I'm fine with this design. I'm guessing the artist already had a Seattle image that he has used at least once on other coins.
The circumscribing circle within the text was omitted. I honestly like it, as it sets apart the design from the reverse side.
However, I completely rejected the reverse side: There was color added. The circumscribing circle was gone. The font was not Adobe Garamond Pro or something similar. The hand was cradling the DS in its palm, as though being offered, not held up triumphantly.
Even though they have my mockups, I very specifically responded by saying that the design of the reverse was meant to be followed perfectly. Hopefully the next damn design will be more in-line with what was actually requested.
Whatever happens with this coin design, we will not be using NWTM in the future if we are able to find a firm that actually follows its customers directions.
Yes, I am angry. I hope it wasn't too obvious.
Edit: And yes, I told them to add some quick sauce to it, as we are getting down to the wire. :evil:
RAWR!
Anyway, hopefully they get it right and soon judging by the date and all.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
This said, I prefer the design comes in line with papaprinny's specs - I prefer people with an eye for details bein' in charge of what's gonna basically be a permanent conversation piece.
Definitely a disappointing turn with NWTM. I have a customer (I work for an ISP) who does Challenge Coins. I'll shoot him an e-mail and let him know that our experience has been less-than-stellar, and see what he has to say for the future.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
So is it too late to move this train over to someone who'll do it up quick the way we want it? Or are we riding this train into the station? I guess with 20 days left to go, we've probably got little choice other than to keep going with this company... can they even promise that they'll have the coins to us before PAX at this point though? Because if they can't deliver it on time right now, maybe it would be best to back out the money and start planning for next year? Just bringing up that possibility.
Edit: And yeah, after my carefully- and precisely- worded admonition following the receipt of their redesign, they predictably fed me a line about how they often attempt to revise the designs given to them in order that they may look good, blah blah blah. In essence, they told me that I don't know what I want. This was of course a bs line because the latest redesign does in fact look like my original mockup, and it looks great, aside from the proportion issue. Additionally, now that I think about it, and from the work that I've seen them do, I am not yet put off by dealing with these people in the future. Sure, they have wasted enough of our time, but this was all done under great time constraints, and honestly, my post above about switching to another minter was written out of spite for having dragged us through the dirt as long as they have. But the fact is that the final design so far looks like it will be quite good, so I'm not ready to discard them for future mintings, especially since we will have much more time to get a design right in the future.
No worries!
So. Final obverse design:
Both sides have been approved. Have asked for additional info about possible die completion dates.
I know there was talk about folks buying coins for Jerry, Mike, and Robert, but what about for some of the other PA folks? WW? Kiko? The rest of the PA staff? I was certainly willing to pitch in for coins for the falks who donated and the like...just spit balling.
And indeed, I second a job well done to you. I don't know if I could've kept my cool as well as you did in the situation: but you did, and to the benefit of us all as we'll actually have a coin now! Awesome stuff!