Granite Round 4 design update

[Muirium]

Granite is long overdue to be put out to pasture, who knows what could be coming around the corner anyway.

I can answer that as far as new people arriving at DT are concerned: nothing half as good as Granite. I get PMed for advice about caps quite a bit, and a lot of that is all about Granite. People see my pics and reckon I know where they can get it. My answer so far has been "wait for the next round". Once Matteo finally makes true his threat since the beginning that there will be no remakes, well, I'm not looking forward to explaining that they're hosed.

Everyone wants great caps. Right now, Granite's the best there is. Making it go away because of a sense that it's somehow losing its lustre is… yes… inescapably wrong to me. And I have all the Granite that I actually need! Have done since the very first round, in fact. Face the newcomers who wonder why they're denied the good stuff for a while and you might change your mind. What did they do wrong?

I never recommend anything else Massdrop ever does. Indeed, I seldom even get questions about it. But Granite's in my inbox every week.

[Matt_]

Right now, Granite's the best there is.

Arctic will be there soon, though!

I am curious to see whether Matt3o intends to expand it beyond what he did for the Whitefox.

[zslane]

I get that people like collecting things. I have collections of many things. The reasons I have for collecting guitars, Chess sets, keycaps, or whatever are varied, but they do not include the desire to feel like a member of some exclusive club of ownership. I don't need to deny others the opportunity to purchase the same guitars, Chess sets, or keycaps in order to enjoy my own. Collecting ought to be an inclusive activity, not an exclusive one. Those folks who want to feel special on the basis of the things they own will always be a mystery to me.

[SL89]

I don't think its just about collecting things, or artificial scarcity, it just seems that if it was good enough to keep in stock, one of the vendors would have stepped up and filled that niche in the market. Keeping it going and going and going just seems like a band playing that one song again and again. I've had granite since R2, and I've never even opened the plastic bags they came in. Im not on the limited edition hype train at all. Keeping it on life support in bursts again and again seems just as artificial as doing a singular run for le sekrit klub. Granite may be the best *right now* but who knows what the red robot has up his sleeve.

[Muirium]

Signature Plastics really doesn't want to keep an inventory sitting around. That's what Just In Time manufacture is all about. Massdrop, likewise, is a venture capital outfit, not a permanent store.

How can Granite be simultaneously too poor to be kept in stock by a serious vendor and too good to rerun in perpetuity?

What's lacking isn't Granite, or demand. It's these shitforbrains stores!

[SL89]

There are other vendors, Mechanicalkeyboards, TheKeyboardCo, Originitive, etc and onward who can and have bought stock in GB's and had their own custom gb's done and just kept them on shelves. PMK certainly can do batches and keep them in stock, they have the Midnight Set on permanent order and Symbiosis iirc. If it was feasible or profitable enough to do, someone could and would do it.

The oobly suggestion makes the most sense, make vanilla granite availible (if someone steps up) and keep the secret sauce from the kits unique to the 4 gb's.

[zslane]

I don't think its just about collecting things, or artificial scarcity, it just seems that if it was good enough to keep in stock, one of the vendors would have stepped up and filled that niche in the market.

Yet for many, it is about propping up artificial scarcity, as evidenced by sentiments strongly expressed on GH.

Fulfilling demand for a design involves two things: 1. coming up with the design (i.e., obtaining the digital files), and 2. pushing them through manufacturing. Accomplishing the first means either making those design files yourself or getting them from someone who has already done the design work. Accomplishing the second means sending those files to SP (they are, after all, the only game in town when it comes to spherical keycaps). So what you're really talking about is someone copying a design to get around another designer's unwillingness to meet demand. You then run into murky issues of IP ownership and the policies SP has elected to enforce in that area.

So I don't think it is simply a matter of interested vendors (i.e., alternate designers) stepping up and fulfilling demand. Someone could do all the work to duplicate SA Retro, for instance, and still be stopped dead in their tracks by SP, for reasons having nothing whatever to do with (a lack of) demand.

Keeping it going and going and going just seems like a band playing that one song again and again.

Who exactly is the band in this metaphor? Matt3o? You? Neither of you have to physically make the keycaps, SP does. If they have a slot in their schedule, they would gladly fill it with whatever keycap set will earn them money, regardless of how many times they've run it in the past. How could future runs of any keycap set possibly affect you (or Matt3o)?

I've had granite since R2, and I've never even opened the plastic bags they came in. Im not on the limited edition hype train at all. Keeping it on life support in bursts again and again seems just as artificial as doing a singular run for le sekrit klub. Granite may be the best *right now* but who knows what the red robot has up his sleeve.

But how you feel about Granite has no bearing at all on what a new customer feels about it. You may be quite indifferent towards the set, but how do you imagine future admirers of the set will feel about your indifference? I doubt they will find it relevent or helpful to them.

[obfuscated]

@Matto: There were talks/surveys about an Alps version. Would you mind telling us why these plans failed? Probably too little demand for too different layouts (as always). Excuse me if you've done so and I've missed it.

[cswanic]

I think we could all take a second and look at where this all gets us. We all were "that guy". You know, the guy who heard something about or most likely saw "that ONE". The keyboard that had this totally cool set that you could never find ANYWHERE. So you started saying, hey, I'm a smart guy, I've been to college, I have the disposable capital, I should EASILY be able to find that keycap set on the internet. So you go looking... and nothing. You simply CAN'T find a store that even sells that set. So you went looking further because... well it was interesting, almost like something cool. Ah Ha! You found a company, their name is Signature Plastics, apparently they sell all sorts of keycaps and on top of that they can even make you a set in whatever color you want. Score, right? No, the tooling, setup, and one time out of pocket costs are like $500 or whatever and you say what the heck man.

TLDR; that's the cool part about this site and GH for that matter. You guys are. The beauty of Granite, Dasher, 7Bit, Oobly, and countless others (Mu you too) is that these sets are cool and if you want in on one, you gotta be more than just a one time shopper. You have to watch for and be a part of this community. you need to see the GBs, talk with the designers, make choices, and take ownership. If these keysets were just available on SP or Ebay or Amazon lets be honest guys, no one would be THAT interested in them. The price would fall sure, which would make us all a lot happier, but what would motivate guys like 7Bit, Mu, ZSlane (welcome by the way), and countless others work hours and spend WEEKS at a time to design it when it won't be made custom the way they want it to be? The compensation system somewhat helps, but lets face it, we do this because we support the community and that's what makes Granite (and sets like it) unique.

[zslane]

The beauty of Granite, Dasher, 7Bit, Oobly, and countless others (Mu you too) is that these sets are cool and if you want in on one, you gotta be more than just a one time shopper. You have to watch for and be a part of this community. you need to see the GBs, talk with the designers, make choices, and take ownership.

I don't think that makes the keycaps beautiful or cool or special. It just makes them obscure and needlessly difficult to obtain.

If these keysets were just available on SP or Ebay or Amazon lets be honest guys, no one would be THAT interested in them.

I would be interested in them no matter what the purchasing mechanism was. Just make them easy to purchase for cryin' out loud. I don't even care that a pre-order might take months to be fulfilled (e.g., until demand meets an MOQ threshold set by the manufacturer), at least I would know I have an order in place and that the keycaps would one day arrive at my doorstep.

MassDrop is a nice step in the right direction, at least from a (American) customer point of view. They even tell me when things I'm interested in come up for sale so I don't have to guess/lurk. And they have a mechanism for putting things back up for sale when demand gets high enough. I have no objections to such a system. Unfortunately, MassDrop has a critical point of failure built into it, which is the control the keycap designer has over production.

...what would motivate guys like 7Bit, Mu, ZSlane (welcome by the way), and countless others work hours and spend WEEKS at a time to design it when it won't be made custom the way they want it to be?

I'm not sure I follow this one. I'd be thrilled if I could submit the digital files for SA Dasher/Dancer to Amazon and then have it available, forever, for purchase/pre-order through them and let them negotiate production runs with SP so I don't have to. As long as SP manufactures the keycaps specified by my digital files, then everyone would get them made "the way we want". To my mind, the greatest reward for all the time spent working on these sets would be seeing them on every keyboard in the world. There would be no greater form of validation. Why in the world would I actively seek to limit the number of people who could enjoy Dasher/Dancer?

[Muirium]

Exactly.

Note that no one is changing their minds, though, on this thread. Some of us see value in scarcity and some of us don't (hi Zslane!) and that, alas, is that. It's a fun argument but no one is winning.

To use Sleighty's music metaphor: where he thinks running Granite again and again is like some old baby boomer band still performing their old hits at live shows today, I suspect Zslane sees it the way I do: stopping Granite is like pulling their albums for sale from the world. How does that make the band better? All it does is deny new fans the chance to be fans.

And dare I point out that Granite isn't even two years old?

[zslane]

Some of us see value in artifically created/controlled scarcity and some of us don't (hi Zslane!) and that, alas, is that. It's a fun argument but no one is winning.

There, fixed it for you.

And you're right; no one is winning, except maybe SP who can't keep up with demand in any case, and remains busy even when designers withhold their designs from subsequent production runs.

[matt3o]

I hate when the discussion becomes completely abstract and metaphorical.

I am okay at offering the Granite indefinitely, there are simply no viable ways! I do not like Massdrop model and TMK is even a worse option.

7bit offered his help once, but with all the love I have for the guy, I don't want Granite to sink into the temporal vacuum of his group buys.

So, as of now, it's not that I don't want to run Granite again, it's just that I can't.

Apart from that. Organizing the GB, designing new kits (do you think the Elven kit was easy to design?!), synching with SP, replying to questions on 3 forums takes out a lot of time. And if I do that for Granite, I cannot do that for new projects. So yes, of course I think we should move on.

[Muirium]

Yeah. The demand is there, over the long run, but the vendors aren't. SP operates as a batch producer so someone has to cover that bill up front. A very sizable sum of money. It's doable when we all charge at it at once. But it's a hell of a risk without that surge of a deadline.

No one's running down Sindarin, by the way. If they dare, I'm giving them a seeing to! That kit's gold.

[SL89]

So between non viable ways of running Granite, and lack of time from matt3o, our whole debate has been much ado about nothing lol.

Fwiw, I don't think scarcity (artifical or otherwise) is any sort of asset, I just feel like people need to let things go and not be demanding more of anything. If it happens great, if not, there are other sets and other projects!

[matt3o]

The rationale behind the Elven kit http://matt3o.com/granite-elven-kit-explained/

[Muirium]

Nice read. That Tolkien could never keep things simple. He liked his linguistic worlds to feel lived in (like the dents and dirt in Star Wars) which does make things endlessly complicated! Good to see you've done your homework.


@Sleighty: That would be much ado about Granite. There's nothing hypothetical about discontinuing it forever. The stakes here are real as they ever get… in keycaps, admittedly!

[SL89]

@Matt3o, good read!

@Mu even if they go away forever, who knows what the future has in store. Something will crop up that is as good or better. I have faith in matt3o and the community. There are even new manufacturers and people making new profiles. (whatever happened to rbseb?!)

[matt3o]

next I want to give alps some love and then there's the hi-profile project. I could even run granite in cherry profile if we really wanted...

so time will pass before we'll talk about standard Granite again.

[zslane]

I presume, then, that the only reason the Cyrllic kit has never been rerun is because it is assumed it would never reach MOQ again?

Would Sindarin ever get run again if there was sufficient interest?

@SL89 I'm sure that will be cold comfort to newcomers who fall in love with older sets, particularly those which the designer refuses to allow new runs (PuLSE is a good example).

[matt3o]

novelties and additional funky languages always changed between rounds. of course we don't want to thin orders between too many kits, but also to give who participated into round 1 something special.

sindarin will be probably the accent of round 4 and will hardly be repeated.

[SL89]

@matt3o daily reminder for SA Skull Squad XD

@zslane, idk what comfort they would need if they have other stuff going on. when i came in i wanted nothing more then Penumbra, and who knows if that will ever happen. But i ended up with Hack'd By Geeks which i really enjoy and penumbra is but a memory. That's wholly anecdotal, but time marches on, new stuff will happen. Granite isnt the one true set, and im sure there will be other amazing stuff that comes out. We clearly don't agree so lets just agree to disagree.

[zslane]

Yes, we will have to agree to disagree. But just to be clear, your point of view is warm comfort only to those future buyers who happen to share it. To all the others, the whole "amazing stuff will come out" argument rings rather hollow. Maybe Granite isn't the one true set to you, but it might be to someone else. For me, it is Space Cadet that is the "one true set," and it doesn't matter to me if no one else feels the same way. An unrestricted willingness to rerun sets is the only way to (potentially) serve everyone's interests. After all, you can just ignore all the future Granite runs; their existance has no effect on you. But they have a profound effect on those buyers who don't have it yet and who have decided it is their one true set. And I think that is what is getting lost in all the counter-arguments: I am only lobbying for a willingness to rerun sets, not demanding that all the practical concerns just be somehow magically swept away.

[zslane]

BTW, Matt3o, your rationale for the Sindarin layout is quite sensible. Since there is no direct linguistic mapping between Latin-1 and Tengwar, it almost doesn't matter what mapping you decide to go with. Mapping to Dan's font makes as much sense as anything else, and actually makes the most sense if one is going to use those fonts to write stuff.

Are there enough characters in Cirth to make Dwarvish the next language kit for Granite? (No, I have no interest in Klingon...though maybe Vorlon).

[matt3o]

don't think dwarvish has much appeal... aurebesh would be nice (despite being an incredibly lame system), but they won't let us do it.

[SL89]

Isn't dwarven just irl nordic runes or old english runes or something like that?

How did Ivan run aurebesh then?

Maybe something could be done with the [urlhttp://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Daedric_Alphabet]Daedric Alphabet[/url]?

@zslane, i thought we were moving forward? And matt3o has said he is *willing* like a million times, but its just not plausible.

[matt3o]

How did Ivan run aurebesh then?

SP won't run anything SW related.

I asked Lucasfilm for permission and they declined.

[SL89]

Gotcha, too bad SP is the single provider of spherical caps for the time being. The chinese companies clearly have no qualms about IP.

I could have sworn aurebesh was actually the IP of the creator, but I guess thats not the case anymore.

[matt3o]

The chinese companies clearly have no qualms about IP.

yeah, I'm pretty sure about that...

[zslane]

@zslane, i thought we were moving forward?

Yeah, sorry 'bout that. Moving on...