We have received notifications from backers that the shipping charges for orders, primarily internationally, have been above what was expected for this project. This is to say, we absolutely agree.
For some context, these are not charges that have been generated by BackerKit or Catalyst ourselves. Our fulfillment house has generated these shipping charges based on the current price of shipping as they see it and how it is to be shipped (PO boxes, sizes and amount of boxes to effectively ship, etc.) These charges are not meant to make profit on any backer's order as they are being paid separately by us.
While we knew going with a higher quality shipper would be pricier, we did not know it would be to this level for some of you. There could be packing inefficiencies with especially small and large orders that could be leading to higher shipping charges to the best of our knowledge. We've spent last night spot-checking and pulling some of the more pricey charges to bring to our fulfillment house to see exactly how these charges are being calculated. If there is any part of these charges that does not seem correct to us, we will let you know and have these charges re-evaluated, likely pushing back our lock date.
There is a chance that these charges are correct and this is just the state of mass distribution. If that is the case, Loren and the distribution team plan to come up with a solution to help us stand with our backers.
We can assume that they will not be able to get back to us until after Easter weekend, where we should have a statement that I will post here updating all of you about the re-evaluation.
-----------
Address Changes
We've been notified by a wonderful member of our Discord that backers may be able to change their state in BackerKit. While we do not currently have a way to open the state field for backers within the project, you may be able to solve it independently.
If you are having issues changing your state, please try going to your account information in BackerKit by going to "My BackerKit" and changing your address information in your profile. If this worked, you should be able to see the change reflected in your Mercenaries order page. If this works please let us know down here in the comments!“
$210 shipping on a $750 pledge (including $225 in complimentary credit from the dice snafu in the last kickstarter). To California. Absolutely ridiculous.
I hope that the numbers are just a mistake because somebody calculated shipping using the US for everybody instead of the local hubs promised in the KS.
Another option being discussed around on my Discord is that precisely the arrangements with the EU hub broke, and that's why the sudden increase in shipping, but that doesn't explain why folks in Canada, and the US are hit also by the same huge crisis.
This SNAFU must be the KS curse, everything was going too smoothly.
I would have backed anyways, but on hindsight seems weird that Catalyst waited until almost the last moment to tie down the contracts to ship the KS. For Example Archon's KS has some estimates that puts the heaviest pledge (28kg) at 84$ from the EU to the US. As I understand it that means they wents and asked someone for estimated
prices.
What happened here for Catalyst not to do the same?
Holy smokes, just checked my US shipping on a $275 pledge with a few add ons is $98.75 (including 'shipping tax'). Can genuinely say I would NOT have pledged had I known that.
Sounds like they did ask, and were given the numbers they presented in the KS, but no formal contracts were made as no money changed hands,
now its come time to actually pay the shipping company is providing totally different numbers
which could be them having given an underestimate in the first place (to get the business ? or from incompetenace)
or the local shipping hubs costing a lot more than expected (often eack SKU in your project increases the costs if your paying a 3rd party to deal with it, one reason why Reaper packs their KS themselves too many SKUs for deal with at a price that makes sense)
or the shipping is more expensive than expected (not sure when the KS fell in terms of the covid related shipping container crisis and the post covid, OMG the final cost of warehouse to customer door has skyrocketed)
we'll have to wait and see (and cross fingers that at least some of it is wrong)
I wonder if the high price is including picking and packing not just the shipping and the firm is either super expensive on that or not geared up for it normally and thus are charging through the roof because its a new thing for them and costing them more.
It would explain why some of the charges are insanely high if everyone is being charged a big percentage to cover the PP
Whatever happens this is something they really should fix (and honestly shoudl have fixed before people got to see those numbers). It's the kind of thing that makes everyone run to their banks to cancel!
Thankfully with my pledge, even with tax and expensive postage it’s still a slightly better deal on a per-forcepack basis than retail of the current forcepacks, and then There is a bunch of things like dice and map sheets making it bit better again. However there are some truly ridiculous numbers coming out here.
As far as I know they are using the same logistics company than the Clan KS. Did they wait until last posible moment to lock prices thinking they would go down instead of sign a contract at higher rates last year?
I could see $100-$150 given how big my pledge is, but holy gak that’s 40% of my total pledge to ship CONUS. You can get actual freight shipped for less.
Well I run a business out of Nebraska. I ship, and have stuff shipped to customers, all the time and have *never* seen, paid, been charged, or heard of Shipping Tax.
[Edit] Although I'll pay this "Shipping Tax" over the S&H in exchange. Over $500 for S&H... get fethed.
I'm in a state where shipping is not taxable, and I see it's been added to my order. Like others I've never heard or read about this before. Strikes me as fishy.
Same here, almost $3 shipping tax...to California. Sales tax, sure, I have to pay sales tax on any online order. Amazon, Ebay, Miniature Market, even international orders. But a $2.96 shipping tax is a first
**Edit** On 2nd thought, I can't really be mad as they gave me $50 free credit from the 1st KS even though I was completely satisfied with what I received from Clan Invasion. If I hadn't spent it on an Alpha Strike hardcover then I would have had free shipping, as it is I still have a bit of credit towards shipping. I'll wait a few days to see if they get rid of the shipping tax, but generally I think I lucked out. Really sucks for many of the other backers though, people are reporting owing hundreds of dollars in shipping even for continental US orders. Zend is correct upthread where he said ACTUAL freight shipping would be cheaper
Do you guys see your VAT and shipping cost on the KS page? Also, wasn't Catalyst supposed to use some EU hubs for EU shipments? On my information page I still have nothing on the shipping cost.
You need to go into your backerkit page. They sent a link recently (mine was lest Tuesday) for confirming your address. If you click through then it takes you to the taxes and postage page.
My shipping is 84 on a 400 dollar total, shipping to the upper north center of the US. There are 13 force packs, the box set, and a fair number of salvage packs…..so it is a fairly big box. I just shipped a box of about half the size from Minnesota to Florida using the cheapest USPS option and it was 40 bucks, so the shipping in my case isn’t too far from what I was expecting.
That said, when you use large scale distribution you usually receive a price break as opposed to an individual walking into the local post and shipping a single package. Also there are some people I have seen posting truly obscene numbers that on pledges smaller than mine.
Sabotage! wrote: My shipping is 84 on a 400 dollar total, shipping to the upper north center of the US. There are 13 force packs, the box set, and a fair number of salvage packs…..so it is a fairly big box. I just shipped a box of about half the size from Minnesota to Florida using the cheapest USPS option and it was 40 bucks, so the shipping in my case isn’t too far from what I was expecting.
That said, when you use large scale distribution you usually receive a price break as opposed to an individual walking into the local post and shipping a single package. Also there are some people I have seen posting truly obscene numbers that on pledges smaller than mine.
This just goes to show that their shipping calculation method is all kinds of screwed up. My 275 pledge, with no add ons, should be smaller than yours, but they want 99.41 for shipping to Seattle. That's at least twice what it should be, if not near three times.
400 dollars shipping on 1000 worth of product. I can no believe how incompetently they are handling this. I hope you all payed with a credit card so you can dispute the charges. I know I will.
QML is literally located in the next county over and they want 90$ shipping on less than $275 of product (since part of that product is digital anyways).
BTW on tax on shipping for Floridians.
However, delivery charges are generally exempt from Florida sales tax when the charge is separately stated and the purchaser has the option to pick up the item or arrange their own third-party transportation services.
Every other delivery I have ever had falls under this but thanks to Catalysts incompetence....
There's a reason Catalyst hasn't sent out an update telling people they have their shipping charges calculated. Or asked people to pay them. Or even encouraged anyone to click around BackerKit to go see the current estimate.
Tinfoil hat theory: It's not the shipping what has going up dramatically but the handling.
I've read that Liya didn't ship in bulk but in boxes increasing the workload of Quartermaster Logistics that now have to open the boxes, inventory everything, fulfill the pledges, and then shipping.
So they slapped the estimated extra handling costs to the amount they sent to Backerkit before they informed Catalyst, and called a day.
It could be an explanation, but pending an official statement from the powers that be it's just a theory.
I've read that Liya didn't ship in bulk but in boxes
What does that even mean? What would "shipping in bulk, not boxes" consist of, in this scenario?
We've seen plenty of videos of Liya packing boxes. There appears to be ~12 Force Packs per box, with around 1000-1200 boxes produced per Force Pack. The contents of each box is clearly labeled.
That's obviously still a gakload of product to organize and pick through, but I can't really imagine what a "bulk" alternative would be. A shipping container jammed with loose, soggy Force Packs that are crushing everything below the fourth layer from the top?
First as I said grain of salt.
As bulk I meant exactly what you say, pallet with 20 boxes, x number of force packs per box. All ships together, later on it's shorted.
But what happened according to this rumour is that Liya got told to put x number of force pack Y, x number of force pack Z for pledge 1, same for pledge 2... under the idea that Quartermaster would complete the pledges with the extra stuff before shipment.
Is it wasteful, and ilogical? Very much, but maybe someone along the way thought it was a great idea having the Chinese side shorting the Forcepacks beforehand, and conflicting messages got sent in the need to meet the June date.
I see what you're saying now, but it doesn't sound credible. It would have to mean that Liya boxed and palleted all of the product and then unpacked everything and re-sorted it. Even the Imperium of Man would stop in the midst of that and say, "this seems inefficient."
Altruizine wrote: I see what you're saying now, but it doesn't sound credible. It would have to mean that Liya boxed and palleted all of the product and then unpacked everything and re-sorted it. Even the Imperium of Man would stop in the midst of that and say, "this seems inefficient."
Spoiler:
You would be totally right, but then I've been ordered to to stuff in very inefficient ways at my old job, only to get chewed later on for being inefficient by those same incompetent bosses.
Am I to pay that amount for the shipping?!?! That's 54% of the value of the pledge I did!!!
Also, wasn't this project supposed to have local hubs, with at least one being inside the EU? If Catalyst forces me to pay 260$ for the shipping then they can say good-fething-bye to any future money from me as I'll just print the mechs instead.
Am I to pay that amount for the shipping?!?! That's 54% of the value of the pledge I did!!!
Also, wasn't this project supposed to have local hubs, with at least one being inside the EU? If Catalyst forces me to pay 260$ for the shipping then they can say good-fething-bye to any future money from me as I'll just print the mechs instead.
This should absolutely being highlighted and brought forward to the people in power at CGL/Topps/IndyMedia/whatever. They will absolutely loose their consumer base and never win them back. Me myself was too thinking about a 3D-Printer. And until now i thought CGL had done a lot of things right and revitalised the dormant BT-Franchise.
Am I to pay that amount for the shipping?!?! That's 54% of the value of the pledge I did!!!
Also, wasn't this project supposed to have local hubs, with at least one being inside the EU? If Catalyst forces me to pay 260$ for the shipping then they can say good-fething-bye to any future money from me as I'll just print the mechs instead.
This should absolutely being highlighted and brought forward to the people in power at CGL/Topps/IndyMedia/whatever. They will absolutely loose their consumer base and never win them back. Me myself was too thinking about a 3D-Printer. And until now i thought CGL had done a lot of things right and revitalised the dormant BT-Franchise.
I actually own 2 3d-printers but don't use them to print minis (I print terrain, custom bits and such) for the games that I play since I want to support the companies making them. But everything has limits and a shipping cost which is 54% of the pledged value is just too much. Lord knows there are plenty of great mech STLs out there and they don't cost much either.
I was short on cash at the time of KS and Backerkit, so I only got the Security Lance, the Battlefield Objectives, the Blood Asp and the Visigoth. Shipping to Ireland is $16.91 and Vat on shipping alone is $3.89. if that's shipping from Europe it's reasonable for me.
A local shipping hub does not mean your not going to pay VAT if your in the EU or UK
(the days when a compnay could import in bulk, paying VAT of the production value of the pledges rather than the retail value have ended)
all a local hub should be good for now is reducing the cost of the shipping (the 'on the water' bit is the cheapest part, the 'warehouse to doorstep' but is the expensive part)
well that and cutting out the need for the shipping company to collect the VAT, which some companies charged excessivly for (hello Fedex)
well that and cutting out the need for the shipping company to collect the VAT, which some companies charged excessivly for (hello Fedex)
After the Clan KS I got an invoice from DHL or Fedex, don't remember which, saying that I owed them money for collecting the import fees that I had already paid. Since then I've been wondering if they were double dipping, charging Catalyst their brokerage fee, and then charging me again.
Sabotage! wrote: My shipping is 84 on a 400 dollar total, shipping to the upper north center of the US. There are 13 force packs, the box set, and a fair number of salvage packs…..so it is a fairly big box. I just shipped a box of about half the size from Minnesota to Florida using the cheapest USPS option and it was 40 bucks, so the shipping in my case isn’t too far from what I was expecting.
That said, when you use large scale distribution you usually receive a price break as opposed to an individual walking into the local post and shipping a single package. Also there are some people I have seen posting truly obscene numbers that on pledges smaller than mine.
This just goes to show that their shipping calculation method is all kinds of screwed up. My 275 pledge, with no add ons, should be smaller than yours, but they want 99.41 for shipping to Seattle. That's at least twice what it should be, if not near three times.
Yeah, it is quite strange. I have a buddy outside in Illinois who is considerably closer to the shipping hub, and had a smaller order, and yet his price was 20 dollars higher than mine. I also saw some guy (also in Washington State) with 700 dollars of product was being charged 322 for shipping. Hopefully Catalyst will get this sorted, because some of these estimates are bonkers. I also see the company is charging sales tax on shipping, which is legal in most states, but virtually no one does it. I'm guessing the company they are working with is doing "long math" to inflate every charge as high as they legally can.
Sabotage! wrote: I also see the company is charging sales tax on shipping, which is legal in most states, but virtually no one does it.
Every purchase I've ever made on Amazon or eBay has charged sales taxes on shipping. It's up to each state to decide if they charge sales taxes or not and what is exempt from those taxes but I've never heard of a state not collecting taxes 'just because' when there is a law in that state that taxes shipping.
In regards to the shipping stuff, CGl has recognized something odd is going on with the shipping charges, and is going to look into it as soon as they get back from the holiday break (because it got found right as it started. bad timing that.)
I suspect that we'll have word by Wednesday. i get the feeling that somebody input the calculations wrong myself. which given the 24,000 some people who backed, could take some time so inspect and sort out.
I do wonder if they knew the S&H charges had been loaded into BackerKit by their third party, given all we were being asked to do was confirm our shipping addresses at the time, not pay for S&H.
Sabotage! wrote: I also see the company is charging sales tax on shipping, which is legal in most states, but virtually no one does it.
Every purchase I've ever made on Amazon or eBay has charged sales taxes on shipping. It's up to each state to decide if they charge sales taxes or not and what is exempt from those taxes but I've never heard of a state not collecting taxes 'just because' when there is a law in that state that taxes shipping.
I’m not sure what state you live in, but maybe there is a law requiring that it be collected there? Most places don’t collect any tax at all on out of state purchases. And aside from eBay I don’t think I have ever bought anything in state that has. Definitely does not seem to be the norm where I live, at least at places I buy product from.
Sabotage! wrote: I also see the company is charging sales tax on shipping, which is legal in most states, but virtually no one does it.
Every purchase I've ever made on Amazon or eBay has charged sales taxes on shipping. It's up to each state to decide if they charge sales taxes or not and what is exempt from those taxes but I've never heard of a state not collecting taxes 'just because' when there is a law in that state that taxes shipping.
I’m not sure what state you live in, but maybe there is a law requiring that it be collected there? Some States are taxable (but not required), some are required, some it is illegal, and others are very circumstantial. Most places don’t collect any tax at all on out of state purchases. And aside from eBay I don’t think I have ever bought anything in state that has. Definitely does not seem to be the norm where I live, at least at places I buy product from.
Sabotage! wrote: I’m not sure what state you live in, but maybe there is a law requiring that it be collected there? Most places don’t collect any tax at all on out of state purchases. And aside from eBay I don’t think I have ever bought anything in state that has. Definitely does not seem to be the norm where I live, at least at places I buy product from.
There are currently 46 jurisdictions where eBay is obligated to collect and remit to the respective authorities for marketplace transactions.
The only US states not listed are Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. So if I make an online sale via eBay or Amazon, I'm paying my state's sales tax (not the sales tax of the seller's state).
Sabotage! wrote: I’m not sure what state you live in, but maybe there is a law requiring that it be collected there? Most places don’t collect any tax at all on out of state purchases. And aside from eBay I don’t think I have ever bought anything in state that has. Definitely does not seem to be the norm where I live, at least at places I buy product from.
There are currently 46 jurisdictions where eBay is obligated to collect and remit to the respective authorities for marketplace transactions.
The only US states not listed are Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. So if I make an online sale via eBay or Amazon, I'm paying my state's sales tax (not the sales tax of the seller's state).
Yes, eBay does do this - I already mentioned this. I guess if you only ever shop on eBay and Amazon this might be your experience. Most places I shop at just charge a flat rate, or have USPS options (which has been far more reliable than UPS in my experience), which cannot be taxed. The only way eBay gets around that is because they say they are taxing "the service provided by the seller," rather than actually taxing USPS options. I've only shopped on Amazon a couple times in the last five years, and the shipping was always free (I'm actually wondering why you would shop on Amazon if you didn't get free shipping.).
Sabotage! wrote: Most places I shop at just charge a flat rate, or have USPS options (which has been far more reliable than UPS in my experience), which cannot be taxed.
USPS shipments can be taxed, as that's how the bulk of what I purchase online is delivered. One thing to take into account is that smaller sellers may not meet the sales threshold to require taxes to be collected.
Sabotage! wrote: Most places I shop at just charge a flat rate, or have USPS options (which has been far more reliable than UPS in my experience), which cannot be taxed.
USPS shipments can be taxed, as that's how the bulk of what I purchase online is delivered. One thing to take into account is that smaller sellers may not meet the sales threshold to require taxes to be collected.
You might want to look into that. If your seller is buying postage from the USPS directly it is illegal for them to charge local sales tax on the postage.
Mykaelya Stakepoole grew up reading both Harlequin romances and BattleTech novels. When she saw the breathtaking portrait of Ilkhan Alaric Ward, she knew she had to blend both genres into a scintillating fusion of a story that demanded to be told.
Now, for the first time, comes the story of Alaric’s breathtaking passion for conquering Terra….but what woman would issue the Trial of Possession for his heart?
Dysartes wrote: I do wonder if they knew the S&H charges had been loaded into BackerKit by their third party, given all we were being asked to do was confirm our shipping addresses at the time, not pay for S&H.
honestly, i suspect similar. i also suspect that the high charges for the international ones are probably said company calculating them to include the shipping from the main warehouse to the hub's. which is a cost that CGL was going to cover, so that they could give lower more local shipping costs to the backers.
$101 in shipping for the Battalion ($275) to Arkansas. If that doesn't get corrected, I doubt I will ever do another KS. I do want to know the Shipper so I can check with my other outstanding KS and prepare to cancel them if they are using the same one. At these mark-ups, I'd rather wait on msrp.
Mykaelya Stakepoole grew up reading both Harlequin romances and BattleTech novels. When she saw the breathtaking portrait of Ilkhan Alaric Ward, she knew she had to blend both genres into a scintillating fusion of a story that demanded to be told.
Now, for the first time, comes the story of Alaric’s breathtaking passion for conquering Terra….but what woman would issue the Trial of Possession for his heart?
I mean I'm sure i've read worse sci-fi novels. Maybe a good way to get the misses into battletech lore as well.
Project Update #84 wrote:Posted by Catalyst Games Apr 2, 2024
View on Kickstarter Dear backers,
Quick update, as we know you are waiting to hear from us today. We have a meeting set with QML at 4-5pm ET today to go through all of our questions and anomalies we've found. We'll then make an action plan, and get a backer update out this evening.
The QML meeting is also the same time as Tuesday Newsday, so we'll be pushing the stream back two hours, and Rem will talk about the plan of action.
Stay tuned, and we'll have more for you later today.
The fun is about to start. If Catalyst locks comments on the stream there will be torches, and pitchforks in other channels decrying Loren's blackheart, if comments are left up it will be open season between the Catalyst is the SL reborn, and they are the worst thing since Amaris crowd as feelings are running high. I've been critical of them but I wish them luck, I do think the blame lies on them for not negotiating a futures contract on shipping the moment the KS ended, but that's an error, not the desire to skim extra millions of dollars from the fans.
Blame absolutely rests with CGL. I agree it may not have been malicious, but if the end result is that Kickstarter backers end up paying above retail for their stuff, then it still wrecks their reputation. They hardly covered themselves in glory with the Clans campaign, after all, and this time around they can't hide behind the excuse that they didn't really know what they were doing. It would also throw their promise to be looking after the brick and mortar shops into sharp relief.
In fact it would be the worst position possible, as CGL themselves don't get any additional cash that they could use to develop new stuff.
And being even more hyperbolic, there would be 24,000 backers who every time they look at their little bits of plastic on the game board, they would remember the disappointment of how they obtained them.
Considering KS like this spend all the money on production once they get it; it could get even worse. Many might well pull out of backing and mass-demand refunds.
This could not only destroy their reputation, but also their finances, cash flow and even relationship with bank/KS/after KS services.
So if they can't find a way to mediate/cover the costs or otherwise lower the cost to the consumer (or find there's an insane glitch in the system that gave inflated shipping costs); then it could sink them or cripple their growth for years.
You see, i really liked them bringing back the game from oblivion after the collapse of FASA and FanPro but if they loose my trust, they may collapse too without shedding a tear from me.
After researching these shipping charges, we have discovered a couple of errors. First, there was an error in the upload of the shipping charges form that included the total amount of shipping, handling, and fees, instead of JUST shipping. Additionally, we identified that the Savannahs Battlemat listed the wrong dimensions (instead, with the dimensions of a BFM). Most backers receive the free Battlemat with their order, so this erroneously upped the shipping fees due to large box dimensions. Because this affects all Veteran and above backers, QML needs to re-work the entire shipping upload, which will take some time.
Once both fixes are made, 95% of all orders are going to be under $150 for your total amount of shipping. Those remaining we believe are non-continental US, the rest of the world (outside of hub centers) stores, and similar extremely large orders.
Backers that had zero shipping listed were finalized after QML received their last data pull in December, so we'll be sending the updated list to them, as well. There were also some odd $1 shipping amounts that did not import correctly through the upload, and this will be updated.
Finally, the April 12th deadline is removed. We will take as long as it needs to fix all issues.
We had genuinely hoped that this would be an easy process, and are deeply apologetic for the undue stress this has caused all of you. But rest assured that we are committed to getting shipping issues fixed. This is a monster project, and we are so grateful to all of you for your support.
Thank you dearly to all backers that reached out about these charges to bring them to our attention.
$2.6 million dollars in total handling, shipping fees for campaign
$1.2 million is the handling & fees, catalyst covers that
$1.4 million is shipping that were to be paid by backers
error 1 spreadsheet calculated as if all 2.6 was going be paid by backers
error 2 the savannah map pack (free for veteran backers & up and an add on for others) was coded as the much bigger and heavier BFM so boosting costs for loads of people
so QML needs to redo the whole spreadsheet & then backerkit needs add it in, then lots of testing and spot checking
95% of orders will have shipping under $150
the locking/card charging deadline (12th) is canceled, more info when they have it,
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: error 2 the savannah map pack (free for veteran backers & up and an add on for others) was coded as the much bigger and heavier BFM so boosting costs for loads of people
Correction on this from Catalyst:
Small amendment to the update: "Because this affects all Veteran and above backers, QML needs to re-work the entire shipping upload, which will take some time." This is meant to be Battalion Tier.
So I guess I should clarify - I assume that it's a 50% reduction based on the above mentioned cost breakdown:
$1.2 million is the handling & fees, catalyst covers that
$1.4 million is shipping that were to be paid by backers
But that assumes that that split is proportional to the cost burden of each backer, it's entirely possible some backers have a larger share of handling fees than others, in which case it may not be a 50% reduction on average, etc. But it seems like a reasonable rule of thumb for right now.
Flinty wrote: Muppets. I guess Adepticon was deemed more important than QA checks.
Why would the shipping company deem Adepticon more important than QA checks?
I was suggesting that CGL might have thought checking on the progress and quality of their appointed subcontractors might be an important part of their management system. CGL are being held accountable for the performance of their appointed distribution partner, and rightly so in my view. A brief set of spot checks of the numbers before allowing them to hit the public through Backerkit would have saved 25,000 people a lot of stress and annoyance.
There are enough people who had reasonable shipping that is still too high if you know what is expected
Having only the total sum checked including taxes and it would look fine for a lot
Level of checking is on the 100s out of 25k and if none of those looks way off you don't notice them, specially with a systematic error of a wrong sized item
They check by having done a bit of modelling of what they expect to be getting charged to their customers.
The different components are really clear, as CGL was making clear distinctions in their original campaign materials: shipping; handling; VAT/tax (under multiple classes)
Just checking the final number is not a QA check.
I totally agree that the error on map item size would be hard to spot, but I would expect a relatively small amount of effort on CGL's part to have flagged up the other systemic issues.
I find it really odd the number of people who want to see catalyst go bust, do people really think battletech would have seen its recent resurgence without them? I'm sure if the current plastics go away it will sink back into relative obscurity.
Hopefully people will be much happier once the current shipping issues are sorted and we can look forward to the game continuing to grow. There seems to be a good amount of hype around the upcoming mechwarrior game so that may attract more attention to the game as well.
There are about ~20 people in the local forum who backed the KS and none of them found the cost unreasonable until it was pointed out
One now even pays more shipping
they cannot control all 25k and they won't have people who know the regular costs on all different regions
Not saying that it cannot be spotted but regular QM controlling the 3rd party shipping costs hardly spots something like this
If you even control it because this is not something QM is doing in general (not their job to control 3rd party services)
Tamereth wrote: I find it really odd the number of people who want to see catalyst go bust, do people really think battletech would have seen its recent resurgence without them?
It's my observation that there's a subset of people who whenever a company wrongs them, the only response they want is to see the whole company burn to the ashes.
Any failure is met with the ultimate desire to see the firm obliterated.
It's the same kind of attitude some have to customer service and the whole "Do what I say or I'll get you fired".
It's a whole extreme "body for an eye" angle. Often its not really thought through much at all. In the case of a game yes you could see GW or Catalyst burn to the ground and then what. As you say if the firm burns to the ground chances are there goes the game, the product, any new products and all. A great example is Spartan Games - they folded and it took 5 years for model ranges to start coming back on sale and evne then there's a very good chance several of their games will never see the light of day again and even those that do are going to take years to come back.
By all means being angry at inflated costs and a failure on shipping is understandable; but some just go to another level. I think also some feel that the more they threaten a firm the more likely the heartless, soulless firm is going to respond and do what they want.
By all means being angry at inflated costs and a failure on shipping is understandable; but some just go to another level. I think also some feel that the more they threaten a firm the more likely the heartless, soulless firm is going to respond and do what they want.
In my experience at both sides of the service counter I've come to realize that with some companies trying to work to solve an issue doesn't work, and only when you raise hell the company does respond. I've been threatened by customers for following the instructions laid down by the higher ups only to have those same managers overule me, and incidentally showing all other clients that only if you scream loud enough the company will start moving.
By all means being angry at inflated costs and a failure on shipping is understandable; but some just go to another level. I think also some feel that the more they threaten a firm the more likely the heartless, soulless firm is going to respond and do what they want.
In my experience at both sides of the service counter I've come to realize that with some companies trying to work to solve an issue doesn't work, and only when you raise hell the company does respond. I've been threatened by customers for following the instructions laid down by the higher ups only to have those same managers overule me, and incidentally showing all other clients that only if you scream loud enough the company will start moving.
M.
This. I used to work for West Marine many years ago, and the price was the price.
Period.
Until the customer called the DM or corporate and complained, then the price was 10-50% less than the price...
See my fear wasn't that Catalyst was the problem, but that international shippers were getting in on the same price gouging racket that we are seeing with groceries and housing.
I think Catalyst is aware that we are the goose that lays the golden egg.
This isn't to say that I won't mind if GW got burned badly. They are definitely in price gouging territory with their msrp.
My main fear was that Catalyst had just screwed up massively through incompetence, and that their fulfilment partner had taken them for a massive ride. Their business model appears to be held together with spit, string and good fortune…
Flinty wrote: My main fear was that Catalyst had just screwed up massively through incompetence, and that their fulfilment partner had taken them for a massive ride. Their business model appears to be held together with spit, string and good fortune…
They used QML for the Clan Invasion Kickstarter as well, so they were familiar with the company.
Flinty wrote: My main fear was that Catalyst had just screwed up massively through incompetence, and that their fulfilment partner had taken them for a massive ride. Their business model appears to be held together with spit, string and good fortune…
Yup, the name of the KS is mercenaries so you just need to add duct tape to be correct. Plus they are in the Periphery too boot.
They should have zeroed everybody's shipping costs for now, while they sort out the correct ones. this is just temporary, it does not mean that all shipping costs have been waived. they just don;t want the inaccurate stuff staying there while they sort out the correct info.
anyone who has already paid the inaccurate amount should submit for refund of the shipping costs through backerkit
they have also extended the deadline for confirming addresses
Agree on zeroing. There are people who don't pay attention to communicate and will pay the high cost by mistake. They will then need to process refunds for them later. It's going to make it more complicated for them.
On April 11th, we will be doing a series of AMAs on Reddit!
At 2pm to 4pm Eastern, the RPG Division Creative Director Jason Hardy and the Shadowrun Line Developer RJ Thomas will be hosting an AMA on r/Shadowrun!
Later at 8pm tp 10pm, the BattleTech Line Developer Ray Arrastia and the BattleTech Assistant Line Developer Aaron Cahall will be hosting another AMA on r/battletech!
It is going to be a great time! While waiting, why not check out those subreddits? They are great communities!
To follow-up on last week’s update, QML is currently working their way through our list and making adjustments to shipping prices that will correct both the error with the Savannah BattleMat and the packing fees. This recalculation could take a couple of weeks, and we will be doing everything in our power to help expedite this process on our end.
For any backers who have already charged their cards based on what they saw in BackerKit, please rest assured that we will be refunding the remaining amount after we have posted the correct shipping charges. We are also looking further into the complexity of taxes and VATs to certain areas to double check that everything is correct, thank you backers for pointing us in that direction.
Thank you backers for any and all feedback, it truly does help us do right by you.
QML is giving them a new list on Friday. Depending on the time we may not hear any news until Monday. Rem says that's a lot sooner than she thought it would be.
That's actually pretty impressive with how many backers and items there are. Sounds like we will know the actual shipping costs pretty soon. Glad to hear it.
I don’t want BattleTech to burn. I don’t even want CGL to fail. I’m disappointed they apparently did not learn much from Clan Invasion, and are still a clown show that happens to be the current license holder for one of my favorite games. I’ve been playing off and on since the 80s, and will probably still do so. Despite all the hot air online about a BattleTech renaissance, the local scene is still mostly dead.
That said, I am glad I made an oath to the Dark Gods I would never directly support CGL again after Clan Invasion, and I’ve stuck with it. Sure, I will pay more at retail, miss some exclusives, or get things later than others. That said, CGL will still likely get far less out of me over time, as I simply won’t be buying as much, and never from them.
Being honest, I bet there are a lot of you out there like me - I way overspent on Clan Invasion, and have still never even used most of the stuff. So I think I’ll be just fine with the occasional pickup from the local or online game store. And I’m okay with not being a direct investor in BattleTech’s future. That’s the fallout from Clan Invasion for me. I hope they get this sorted, and everyone gets their stuff soon.
I don't see the $50,000 goal they set for the Mercenaries Kickstarter as being 'overly ambitious'. They were prepared for the Kickstarter to do at least the $2.5 million of the Clan Invasion Kickstarter but they weren't expecting the $7.5 million ($12 million after the pledge manager) and that led them to add a few ForcePacks which weren't quite ready to go.
Ghaz wrote: I don't see the $50,000 goal they set for the Mercenaries Kickstarter as being 'overly ambitious'. They were prepared for the Kickstarter to do at least the $2.5 million of the Clan Invasion Kickstarter but they weren't expecting the $7.5 million ($12 million after the pledge manager) and that led them to add a few ForcePacks which weren't quite ready to go.
Let’s be realistic here - in no way, shape or form was 50K going to get this rolling. Surely you realize a lot of companies seriously lowball funding things on kickstarter, so they can blather ‘funded in x minutes, hour, one day’ etc.! on the campaign page. That was an utterly meaningless ‘goal’, and has zip to do with their expectations for a total. It’s just more propaganda.
Hmmm... Resurgent Empires is the big space map board game, while it appears to still be in prototype, I'm not sure that game will come with full size 'Mech models to represent the armies. And a purple Locust wouldn't really make a lot of sense over the Phoenix Hawk they're currently using. I think this might be something else.
frankelee wrote: Hmmm... Resurgent Empires is the big space map board game, while it appears to still be in prototype, I'm not sure that game will come with full size 'Mech models to represent the armies. And a purple Locust wouldn't really make a lot of sense over the Phoenix Hawk they're currently using. I think this might be something else.
They could be using the Locust as a Light unit and have different colors to designate each House (e.g., a blue Locust for a Light unit from House Steiner). However I agree that the minis look too large for Resurgent Empires, especially with the size of the map (seen HERE)
There were no Lights of any sort in the pictures, iirc. And the Locust would be a good selection for 'generic light mech token' for obvious reasons.
Using full-sized models would offer some nice cross-compatibility and the opportunity to lure people who buy the board game into the other games.
The board would definitely get crowded that way, though (even with chits under the tokens). It also just feels like a ton of models to ship in one box, if every faction was getting multiple Light/Medium/Heavy/Assault tokens.
A Risk style Battletech game with like a 100 full-scale 'Mechs would be awesome, but it is doubtful. Light units would make sense for their Command and Colors style game, but Resurgent Empires is a nation-state scale game, the prototype just features one model for each faction because you just need something to represent an a full army.
I'm a little puzzled myself on the colored PVC. I could maybe see the red ones for the Kurita force packs coming with the combat manual, but the Steiner ones are due out until late next year and the Marik ones aren't even on the schedule.
QML has been busy recalculating shipping charges with correct weights, and for backers that previously did not have shipping charges, your shipping will be estimated in a second wave. We will continue to keep you updated on the progress as we move forward!
For any backers concerned with taxes, we're currently exploring how state/regional taxes affect our campaign bundles and how to better optimize this.
Especially shipping taxes, and 3rd party "services" charges.
After I got my Clan KS FedEx (I think) sent me an invoice for custom fees that supposedly I had already paid to backerkit. Was FedEx double dipping?
Fair enough on the changes, but they probably should have done this research before releasing the first draft and expecting the backers to point out the finer points of VAT law.
Join our Community & Marketing Director Rem Alternis as she chats with BattleTech Line Developer, Ray Arrastia!
Agenda:
Mercenaries shipping update
Upcoming Events:
Announcing Catalyst at Chupacabracon, May 17 - 19 in Austin, Texas
ACD Games Day: May 22nd - 24th in Madison, Wisconsin
Asmodee Retailer Day: May 30th in Birmingham, UK UK Games Expo: May 31st - June 2nd in Birmingham, UK Asmodee Nordics: June 4th in Copenhagen, Denmark
GamesConCanada: June 14 - 16th in Edmonton, Alberta
Origins Game Fair: June 19 - 23rd in Columbus, Ohio
Randall's Tour:
European Nationals: May 18 - 19th in Barcelona, Spain
English Nationals: May 25-26th in Leeds, UK UK Games Expo
Irish Madness: June 8-9 in Limerick, Ireland
GamesConCanada
Tuesday Newsday:
- The fourth Force Manual will be Invading Clans
- Aces is currently planned to be a series of Campaign Boxes, something slightly larger then a current force pack.
- They are looking at incorporating BattleTech Aces Support into the MechCommander's Handbook
- Development on Aces for Classic has begun but Ray does not know how far along it is.
- A second Ilclan Hotspots book is in planning
- Star League Command Lance and 40th anniversary boxes have reached the warehouse and are being processed.
- Liya doesn't get approval before posting factory videos
- The Colored minis on the Liya channel are for an unannounced product that will be talked about soon, do not expect it to be anything too major.
- Force Manuals are Clan Invasion era because of the success of the Clan Invasion Kickstarter.
- Ray admits to being a Pirate.
- There is supposed to be a big announcement in next weeks stream.
EDIT: Catalyst didn't get the information from QML Friday like they were hoping. They're hoping it get it today but they haven't received it as of yet.
Lorcan Nagle wrote:Rem has just gotten the new shipping date from QML and it doing spot-checks in the CGL Discord. So far only one person outside of the clearly incorrect ones (like Kappas being charged $1) has seen their rates rise and Rem is gonna double-check that. Mine dropped from $190 to $79, for example.
Lorcan Nagle wrote:To be clear, no new shipping fees have been added to Backerkit yet. Rem had literally just gotten the file and was going through it live. We passed over our details and she went and found us in the spreadsheet.
From the CGL Discord:
Results: We spot-checked 77 backers live in the Discord. Of those, only 7 were thought to be inconsistent, either by Rem, or by the backers themselves.
From Rem on the live feed @ around the 37-to-40-minute mark, most product has reached the hubs, all miniatures and rulebooks are at the hubs, they are still waiting on some of the swag (Patches where specifically mentioned)
Shipping is expected to be posted this week, it will be posted in batches so it won't be up for everyone at the same time.
Mine was about $100, now down to $92
The tax of $60 on goods was expected. Shipping basically dropped from $40 to $32.
I wasn't going to complain about the postage at all. $40 (about £30?) seems reasonable for what is going to be a rather large package with all those forcepacks. Not necessarily heavy, but very bulky.
I'm just not sure how to pay it? In my backerkit, it states there's a card on file, but no button to actually pay now. Is there a date they take it automatically from a registered card?
My shipping went down to $44 from $55.
On a $180 pledge that’s pretty steep.
I added Alpha Strike tokens and an Objectives box, and that’s it.
I think I’ll just buy from my LGS from now on. There is no savings at all on the KS, and dare I say it’s more expensive. I’m sure my LGS won’t complain about getting more of my business.
My shipping price went from $160 to $100. Double what I've paid for KS campaigns in recent years. (And no, this one isn't coming with more stuff than the others.)
In retrospect it's borderline psychotic that they originally didn't plan to offer bonuses over retail when the campaign originally dropped. I would have been paying over $9 per 'Mech in the end. Assuming I get my stuff as ordered I'm happy to have backed, but probably wouldn't do another campaign with Catalyst. And I think I might skip buying physical copies of their upcoming books to offset the shipping hit on the Battletech budget.
Mine was a slightly reasonable ~$30, but it also included ~$2 of "State Tax Shipping" which isn't a thing.
So CGL is adding a literal junk fee right when most US regulators are coming out and cracking down on them.
Dysartes wrote: Seems like the answer to the question of "Are shipping fees taxable in the US?" is "It's complicated" - and that's after reading that article.
The answer to most any question regarding doing business in America is 'it's complicated'. It really needs to be streamlined.
I vowed to never deal directly with Catalyst again after Clan Invasion. No regrets on that decision. After the way they treated their backers on Shadowrun and Clan Invasion, who needs ‘friends’ like that?
Even though most States claim the right to tax shipping, many actually don't, so of course this appears to be another nut punch by CGL.
As I said before, complain about the S&H to CGL. They listened once, they'll listen again.
Seems it's getting awfully Jeff Ruiz up in here too.
More like states do tax shipping, but sellers don't collect it or report it and states don't pay attention to it. The trend for the last 6 or so years though has been that states and the fed govt are getting more aggressive about collecting taxes owed to them, mainly by going after ecommerce platforms like shopify, paypal, ebay, etc. and putting the onus on them to collect and report the relevant taxes. Would not be surprised in the slightest if this is due to that.
so a big "problem" of this KS is that companies should pay taxes but avoided doing it in the past to sell the product cheaper and now the company that pays the taxes gets blamed that they should not do it?
totalfailure wrote: I vowed to never deal directly with Catalyst again after Clan Invasion. No regrets on that decision. After the way they treated their backers on Shadowrun and Clan Invasion, who needs ‘friends’ like that?
How would you allege they mistreated people on those two KS (I didn't follow them), and what do you think they've done to mistreat anyone in this KS?
and see how Catalyst resolves its issues, and handles ‘customer service’. Years after the close and shipping, people were still waiting or got incorrect product. Clan Invasion made a ton of promises to backers, some of which Catalyst
never fulfilled, of just dropped when it was inconvenient for them to have to actually do some work. Now they had every intention of screwing people on shipping for mercenaries, until there was an outcry. The ‘adjustments’ are still a joke. There’s pretty much no reason to back their Kickstarter. It rewards their incompetence, and is minimal at best savings over retail. I’ll deal with less product being made, and the risks borne by Catalyst, instead of me.
and see how Catalyst resolves its issues, and handles ‘customer service’. Years after the close and shipping, people were still waiting or got incorrect product. Clan Invasion made a ton of promises to backers, some of which Catalyst
never fulfilled, of just dropped when it was inconvenient for them to have to actually do some work. Now they had every intention of screwing people on shipping for mercenaries, until there was an outcry. The ‘adjustments’ are still a joke. There’s pretty much no reason to back their Kickstarter. It rewards their incompetence, and is minimal at best savings over retail. I’ll deal with less product being made, and the risks borne by Catalyst, instead of me.
So... you didn't participate in this kickstarter, and are just here to complain about the last couple kickstarters?
I don't think it's invalid to look at a company's past Kickstarter experiences when making a decision about participating in their next KS campaign... I missed the CI campaign as well and was super excited for Mercs, but things like the dice credits and still pending written content rewards gave me pause and now that we're in this shipping mess they make me wish I'd considered those issues a bit more.
and see how Catalyst resolves its issues, and handles ‘customer service’. Years after the close and shipping, people were still waiting or got incorrect product. Clan Invasion made a ton of promises to backers, some of which Catalyst
never fulfilled, of just dropped when it was inconvenient for them to have to actually do some work. Now they had every intention of screwing people on shipping for mercenaries, until there was an outcry. The ‘adjustments’ are still a joke. There’s pretty much no reason to back their Kickstarter. It rewards their incompetence, and is minimal at best savings over retail. I’ll deal with less product being made, and the risks borne by Catalyst, instead of me.
So... you didn't participate in this kickstarter, and are just here to complain about the last couple kickstarters?
That right - I did not participate in Mercenaries. Because Catalyst has a demonstrable record in Shadowrun and Clan Invasion of treating backers like garbage when it suits them, and being weasels in general. I’m glad Battletech is alive. I’m sorry it’s through CGL.
I think my postage has been updated, but I've not had a notification yet. For me at least, the overall pledge cost including postage and tax is still favourable compared to local discount retailers.
I do agree that CGL are a bunch of muppets that have not taken adequate care given the scale of the operation, and their previous experience in such campaigns.
Flinty wrote: I think my postage has been updated, but I've not had a notification yet.
It was noted by Rem in this week's Tuesday Newsday that they won't send an update until everything is uploaded and tweaked. I myself have not seen an update on shipping since they zeroed out all of the accounts and it is still showing that I have a shipping total of $0.00 and others in the Kickstarter comments have said the same.
I backed the clan invasion campaign, had a couple issues with my pledge when it delivered, catalysts customer service did great by me and sent me the missing items quickly and at no cost to myself. They even sent me an entire extra force pack at no cost because one mech in the box I received was damaged, got to keep the original I received and was able to repair the one damaged Mech too.
It's almost like basing your assessment of their performance by a handful of loud complaints (the circumstances and specifics of which you know nothing about) as opposed to the literal thousands of backers who've had no issues whatsoever is a way to get a flawed and skewed perspective.
I'm glad I backed out of this kickstarter. A friend of mine did not, and doing the calculation, he's basically paying more than I will at retail when these hit. Christ, what a mess. Oh well, just remember that CGL couldn't give less of a feth at least they banned all the bad people
CaptainKlang wrote: I'm glad I backed out of this kickstarter. A friend of mine did not, and doing the calculation, he's basically paying more than I will at retail when these hit. Christ, what a mess. Oh well, just remember that CGL couldn't give less of a feth at least they banned all the bad people
His current shipping estimate may not be his final shipping charges.
Some quick math suggests I landed around a 20% discount over msrp, so I actually probably made out really well as there's a lot I'm not including in that estimation, and I'd probably need to pay taxes/shipping on top of the discounted retail price as well.
My shipping charges have updated and are less than half of what they were (they were over $240 before, now down to ~$80). Colour me happy, as it seems like a reasonable amount given the size of my order and the interesting times we live in. I've paid more for shipping on smaller orders than this, so I'm still ahead of what I would be paying at retail for this.
Where are you guys shopping online that would charge anywhere close to that for shipping? Most online retailers not only offer a discount but either free shipping or reduced shipping over a certain amount, which the highest I have seen is around 200 USD.
I have a lot of trouble understanding these claims of high shipping being reasonable, when it clearly is not....
caladancid wrote: Where are you guys shopping online that would charge anywhere close to that for shipping? Most online retailers not only offer a discount but either free shipping or reduced shipping over a certain amount, which the highest I have seen is around 200 USD.
I have a lot of trouble understanding these claims of high shipping being reasonable, when it clearly is not....
This is probably the thing that bugs me the most.
The end result of "we will secure local shipping hubs" ended up being shipping charges that, in many cases, dwarf the standard rates offered by domestic postal services and/or couriers.
If that was going to be the reality it really seems like someone should have been able to figure that out earlier and say so, so that people could make an informed choice about waiting for retail. Nobody in their right mind expected "local hubs" to translate to "> post office x2"
Yeah, I can order four lance packs from Gamenerdz and get free shipping. And for all future Battletech releases, I will be.
It's a bad look, obviously for people hit with a triple digit bill who can't just swing that like it's nothing, it's got to be infuriating. The furor will pass, but like my friend mentioned to me after a certain incident with one of their authors, it spends all of the goodwill they have with a lot of customers. For many it's going to be more business, 'no benefit of the doubt, no charitable purchasing because I like the company, I'll buy it if it's great, I'll skip it if it's not.'
caladancid wrote: Where are you guys shopping online that would charge anywhere close to that for shipping? Most online retailers not only offer a discount but either free shipping or reduced shipping over a certain amount, which the highest I have seen is around 200 USD.
I have a lot of trouble understanding these claims of high shipping being reasonable, when it clearly is not....
Standard shipping here is 5-15€ for small package
like some paint pots get me 5€ shipping (including tax), 2 boxes are 10€ and non-standard sized board games 15€, free shipping usually starts at 50-100€
exceptions are bulky or oversized items which are charged differently and get ~40-50€ shipping with either no free shipping or value being much higher
(so it can be cheaper to have several small orders instead of one big package)
for non-domestic shipping, it gets interesting as the basic value already vary between 5€-25€ with some charging 25€ no matter what as minimum
UK shipping often being % of order with a minimum value so for larger orders shipping can get expensive, while bulky items can get you a 100€ charge for special delivery service
like the most ridiculous shipping I paid was 30€ on a 3€ item because I ordered acrylic rods to base flyers which were too long so I had to pay the extra costs on receiving the item.
Overall there is a certain risk with Kickstarters involved as no one really knows the how shipping is being handled as even if local hubs are promised there is no guarantee that the company they have contracted still exists 2 years later or still operates those hubs
caladancid wrote: Where are you guys shopping online that would charge anywhere close to that for shipping? Most online retailers not only offer a discount but either free shipping or reduced shipping over a certain amount, which the highest I have seen is around 200 USD.
I have a lot of trouble understanding these claims of high shipping being reasonable, when it clearly is not....
Honestly I've seen similarish values of high shipping costs from a good few kickstarters when they have to come from the USA to the UK. It does seem that these one-off big shipping movements get priced very high for people. I've seen KS books that cost more than the book in shipping to get to the UK if ordered through the KS, only to see them at a regular book price when they go retail in the UK (which means that they must have gotten a much cheaper shipping cost to make it viable).
Now sometimes its also inexperience on the part of the KS organisers that lands them in a higher price bracket or with a more costly firm. I think that there's also picking elements that some use so the shipping firm isn't just posting, but also plucking product out of boxes to pack up individually for the customers; which I think further adds a big cost, esp for KS with a lot of components.
As you say regular retail outlets aren't charging this much and firms like Ebay and Amazon are building international systems that are letting them move stuff USA to UK very cheaply (though I note that every time I get a USA Amazon parcel the first leg is Amazon and then the local delivery is done by Hermes...). But these one-off KS deliveries from books to boxes seem to have to pick up a huge charge.
Nothing like the first quotations they got of course, those were totally bonkers
@Overread - While that may be the case for other Kickstarters, the whole point here is that Catalyst were supposed to pick up the international leg to distribution centres.
Royal Mail parcel prices for 20kg and a large-ish box is less than £10. The £44 that is currently my postage charge is quoted by Parcelforce for a 30kg parcel of 2.5m dimension on a 48 hour delivery. Move down to a maximum of 1.5m in length, and the same 30kg and 48hour comes in at about £12. I mean thre is quite a bit of stuff in my order, but 1.5m is really quite big.
I have flipped flopped around a bit about my reaction to this, and at the moment I'm on the grumpy side that CGL have put bugger all effort into sorting reasonable delivery charges. While taken as a whole I'm still happy that the value I'm getting in the plastic is still there, I'm basically losing out on a forcepack due to overly simplistic assumptions being made by CGL on postage that will basically be going straight into QML's bottom line.
frankelee wrote: Yeah, I can order four lance packs from Gamenerdz and get free shipping. And for all future Battletech releases, I will be.
It's a bad look, obviously for people hit with a triple digit bill who can't just swing that like it's nothing, it's got to be infuriating. The furor will pass, but like my friend mentioned to me after a certain incident with one of their authors, it spends all of the goodwill they have with a lot of customers. For many it's going to be more business, 'no benefit of the doubt, no charitable purchasing because I like the company, I'll buy it if it's great, I'll skip it if it's not.'
Agreed. They even said during the KS, if you want a discount wait for retail. I shall do so in the future, as I no longer trust them. And they've burned enough goodwill with me, I will review my potential BT and Alpha Strike purchases VERY closely: no more, "hey why not?' and impulse buy it.
Sean: Ray, you mentioned there’s another Kickstarter coming, maybe. You’ve had the Clan Invasion, you’ve had the Mercenaries Kickstarters, both of these were huge successes. Is it safe to say that these kind of big blowout product releases are going to be done via Kickstarter going forward?
Ray: No.
Sean: No?
Ray: That’s not destined. We’re not working towards the next Kickstarter yet. There won’t be a Kickstarter for BattleTech this year. But we are discussing doing smaller, focused ones, non-miniature Kickstarters. We have other games for the BattleTech IP in development that may go the way of Kickstarter. Aaron pitched something brilliant that I think would work for Kickstarter, but it’s not happening this year. So to say that the next Kickstarter would be something like Clan Invasion or Mercenaries, that’s not guaranteed.
Aaron: We’ve learned our lesson, I think. Or at least, certainly Ray and I have learned it, and I think I can speak for the rest of the team, too. These big Kickstarters are very exciting, they generate a ton of enthusiasm for the brand, they generate a ton of money, but they are almost debilitating, and there’s somewhat of a diminishing return.
Obviously, that did not play out with Mercenaries, but to Ray’s point when you asked him about favorite ‘Mechs, we’ve already hit a lot of the big ones, so you’re trying to get people hyped about an increasingly smaller popularity base for some of these minis. I think it makes sense to start to transition towards something more sustainable where we’re getting like booster-sized Kickstarters. Things that will get a little bit of excitement, but we’re also keeping in mind a more normalized production schedule.
I think the problems with this Kickstarter and the Kerensky Con news definitely puts the final nail in the coffin for the big Kickstarters such as Clan Invasion and Mercenaries. Moving forward I wouldn't expect more than the side games or booster-sized Kickstarters mentioned above (unless they finally get a relaunch of AeroSpace ready to go ).
Graphite wrote: My shipping seems to be $26 on a Company pledge with a couple of extra bits, plus $5 VAT on the shipping, which converts to £25
Which seems steep, but not abominably so. Unless it gets changed again.
Before they zeroed them out in early April, my shipping charges for a Company pledge with an additional challenge coin and Blood Asp was $44.66 (including the 6% state sales tax).
My shipping went down a staggering 3$ from 78$ to 75$ on a company pledge plus some extras. I call that a resounding success.
I'm not sure if I want to bother contacting Catalyst but very sure that next Catalyst's KS needs to be heavily discounted for me to support them again.
The shipping definitely hurts the value, and the value was especially bad for a lot of levels before they added extra packs of minis for stretch goals.
That all said my Battalion pledge, +2 extra packs, + extra swag + shipping was still a pretty good deal. After shipping I am basically getting the Mercenaries Boxed Set, one force pack, and all the Swag/Ebooks/Map Packs for free. With normal online discounters I probably wouldn't have had to pay for shipping and could probably get everything but the swag for a similar price......so I'll call that a win assuming they deliver on time.
My shipping is nearly 50% of the cost of my pledge. A $150 company pledge, a force pack and Alpha strike counters is costing me $60.
If I were to buy all of this at my LGS, it would cost me $300. I didn’t count the dice, pin and coin, along with the posters as part of the cost. But I also don’t really care about those, so they provide almost zero value.
In the end, I saved maybe $30 over retail.With savings that small, I’ll just buy anything else through my LGS
New Shadowrun Actual Play: World of Shadows on Six Sides of Gaming!
Friend of Catalyst, and prolific sci-fi/fantasy writer Kevin J. Anderson has a new Kickstarter launching today!
EDIT: Rem has noted that there will be a Kickstarter update coming TODAY covering state tax adjustments, shipping subsidies and getting ready to charge for shipping.
I feel pretty fortunate. I had nothing but good experiences on the Clan Invasion KS, but this one had me a little nervous for a while. $150 Company pledge +Sommerset Strikers pack+ Alpha Strike rulebook was only $36 shipping, and I still had $50 credit from the first KS that they automatically applied, I neither knew about it nor asked for it until it showed up on my survey. That covered Apha Strike book and some shipping, so altogether I'm $180 out of pocket for about $300 worth of product and some KS swag I don't particularly care about (challenge coins etc). I DO care about the free double-scale Madcat, that should be fun to paint.
I'm relieved it worked out for me, but I understand why people are still so upset. Some of those shipping costs are absolutely crazy even after the revisions. I don't think I'll be gambling on any future kickstarters from CGL.
Update #90 - CGL did all they could, then realized there were far more States than they thought not charging Shipping Tax. Outside of that, what you see is what you pay, sorry we tried.
Also, if you really hate your S&H amount, send us a message and tell us you're poor. We might be able to help.
> so a big "problem" of this KS is that companies should pay taxes but avoided doing it in the past to sell the product cheaper and now the company that pays the taxes gets blamed that they should not do it?
Yup. :/ Same thing happened to VAT, with CMON being the first company to enforce VAT and explicitly pass it onto customers.
I did order way too much to be fair. I got a regiment and then x2 battalions. Idk what I planned on doing with that many mechs but now I'm dealing with last year me's problems.
I'm at $390 on a $2000 pledge. With a lot of books (8 rulebooks, 4 Tech Readouts, plus the three GDL novels), and a full suite of the new neoprene maps except the supermat and the unhexed one. I think it's 11. $40 for the aerospace one, $100 for two bundles (so assume 3 mats each), and $120 for the third bundle (four mats). That makes the most sense of it being a discount, but not a steep one.
I did ask about it, and they offered me $170 in store credit. So that's not nothing, as I'll be in the US in a couple months and will get it sent to a local. Will allow me to get the UrbieLAM, and maybe some of the newer boxes, maybe.
Shadowrun:
News with Jason
Shadowrun 5th Edition Bundle of Holding coming next month!
Shadowrun: Munchkin, coming in September.
ChupacabraCon in Austin Texas this week!
RPG Division:
Announcing: **REDACTED** the Roleplaying Game!
AMA on the Catalyst Game Labs Discord
Fans - Join us for an AMA with Battletech Line Developers, Ray A and Aaron C this Thursday (May 16) at 8:30PM US EDT(GMT -4)
**How will this work?**
Before the AMA begins, please post your Battletech questions to <#1239689626248151101>. This channel will be heavily moderated. Anything that is not a question will be deleted, along with duplicate questions. Before the AMA starts, we will remove posting privileges to that channel. On Thursday, CGL will join us and will reply to your questions. During the AMA, conversation about the questions and answers will happen in <#1157414258649354272>
This is our first AMA on this discord, and we're definitely learning as we go. Please be patient with us as we learn and find the best way to do this. If we can be successful at this, there will be future AMAs.
Please note that the folks involved in managing the Kickstarter will not be part of the AMA, so answers to questions about the Kickstarter will be limited.
It's a Capellan style AMA! Ask whatever you want, citizen. But remember that the Maskirovka is always watching, and Brazen Heart is a cold place to live.
Apple fox wrote: Ohh, cool box ! This one I definitely want to pick up.
I've asked my LGS to order me one. I might get the 2nd Star League Assault Lance too, but I dislike the ilkhan era so that is a definite non-starter with me.
Everything has been delivered to the hubs except for a few tchotchke items that they're waiting to air ship in and once they drop they'll start fulfilling the Kickstarter (approximately 7 to 10 days).
Flinty wrote: Any indication where the hubs actually are?
The KS campaign page states; US, Canada, UK, EU, Australia and Asia.
I'm sure by the shipping costs that have been charged, this may no longer be correct.
I received a preliminary shipping address confirmation from Pick n Pack Logistics in Ontario.
So that’s the Canadian hub. Not sure what the others are.
My mistake. The email was for another project.
No word on this one yet.
Managed to get my patch while at UK Games Expo this weekend, which was nice - Randall was nice to chat to for a few minutes, even when I'm a complete Battletech newb
Catalyst is still waiting on a Norse Foundry shipment for some dice pucks and a shipment from their warehouse as well, so hopefully within a week or two.
Some more of the colored 'Mechs for an unannounced game (confirmed to be for a Retailer Grinder kit.).
I know it's been discussed to death but... I'd give a lot to just buy even a random bag of all those bits. Build my own mech designs, my own frankenmechs, etc. so little effort to do to - I know a lot of oldsters don't want to assemble but they really are missing a money maker and cost cutter in selling what is basically mech Legos.
Quartermaster Logistics wrote:BattleTech: Mercenaries from Catalyst Game Labs has commenced packing and shipping this morning!
This is quite the undertaking, our largest single project to date, so we'll have updates on this and other projects that are shipping alongside in the coming weeks!
Ah yes, the inevitable time where we kick the unfinished Kickstarters of yesterday under the table and make room for a new pile of plastic with the hope that this time will be different.
It's okay Battletech Clans stuff, Warzone minis from the previous reboot, and original Deadzone KS minis... I'll get to you one day...
But for now, I have to make room for enough Devastators to fill out my next Lyran scout lance, their metal brothers have been waiting so long for friends.
Ronin_eX wrote: Ah yes, the inevitable time where we kick the unfinished Kickstarters of yesterday under the table and make room for a new pile of plastic with the hope that this time will be different.
It's okay Battletech Clans stuff, Warzone minis from the previous reboot, and original Deadzone KS minis... I'll get to you one day...
But for now, I have to make room for enough Devastators to fill out my next Lyran scout lance, their metal brothers have been waiting so long for friends.
There's also Flects Sheets, which is where my gaming group gets all out sheets. It's made to be interactive for tablets, and such, but you can also save the mech sheets as PDF's. I think they are superior to the ones from Catalyst when it comes to listing weapons and having extras like the appropriate cluster table(s) for each mech included.
Maybe a bit longer, but yes. They have 25,000 backers to get through and none of the parties involved seems to be particularly competent or efficient. It depends on what point through the fulfilment process CGL feel comfortable in releasing retail before backers have been serviced.
Catalyst will definitely be looking to not get yelled at more by angry fans, so I'd put my money on a September release at the earliest for this stuff into retail. Because I don't think they'll move to send it out until the last Wave 2 pledge has shipped, and given how slow they are to do anything, at least two months is realistic.
Will the products from the new Kickstarter start releasing this year or next year?
Oh, it'll definitely be next year. We will fulfill to our backers end of this year/beginning of next year, probably. We predicted June 2024, but things are going so smoothly at the moment that it looks like we'll fulfill very early. Backers first, then the hobby trade will be somewhere within three months after all backers are fulfilled.
This is one of the selling points of the Kickstarter, that Backers get their product before it goes on sale to the general public. So, unless you have a FLGS that was a Company Store Backer of the Kickstarter (and they haven't sold through their stock) you'll most likely not be seeing anything at retail until maybe sometime around September or October.
Really excited that stuff is starting to go out, though I haven't even gotten my QML address confirmation yet, so I'll probably be waiting another 3-4 weeks minimum. Shame, because I wanted to bring some new painted plastic to GenCon for my events there.
AegisGrimm wrote: There's also Flects Sheets, which is where my gaming group gets all out sheets. It's made to be interactive for tablets, and such, but you can also save the mech sheets as PDF's. I think they are superior to the ones from Catalyst when it comes to listing weapons and having extras like the appropriate cluster table(s) for each mech included.
I wish I’d heard of this sooner, I’ve been just using an art app to mark up PNGs of mech sheets on my tablet
Did the pack with the Hatamoto-Chi get funded through late pledges? I didn’t remember seeing it as an option, but certainly wouldn’t mind picking it up at retail
Ghaz wrote: ... So, unless you have a FLGS that was a Company Store Backer of the Kickstarter (and they haven't sold through their stock) you'll most likely not be seeing anything at retail until maybe sometime around September or October.
Fair enough. Though I'm sure a few sets will show up on the secondary market in the coming weeks from backers who’ve decided to sell some for whatever reason.
zend wrote: Did the pack with the Hatamoto-Chi get funded through late pledges? I didn’t remember seeing it as an option, but certainly wouldn’t mind picking it up at retail
Iirc it was available as an add-on even before late pledges. I'm in the same boat, you can never have enough Bushwackers and while I don't play dragons the Mauler and Hatamoto are both really cool
Iirc with the previous campaign they dragged out retail releases of the KS sets over the period of about a year in several waves so as to not overstaying their sales channels. I would not expect all the sets to release to retail simultaneously.
I think the Clan Invasion stuff was spread over two waves due to production issues. Since everything is coming in one wave this time, I don't know Catalyst's warehousing capabilities, or that of their distributors, but I doubt they will have much leeway in just holding stuff back. But all the new boxes will give them a very impressive display in game stores that are selling Battletech.
frankelee wrote: I think the Clan Invasion stuff was spread over two waves due to production issues.
Part of that was CGL having not finalized the contents of some of the ForcePacks (and even had Backers voting 'Mechs out of the ForcePacks mid-campaign IIRC). The biggest problem was the pandemic of course, which hit six months after the Kickstarter launched.
zend wrote: Did the pack with the Hatamoto-Chi get funded through late pledges? I didn’t remember seeing it as an option, but certainly wouldn’t mind picking it up at retail
Iirc it was available as an add-on even before late pledges. I'm in the same boat, you can never have enough Bushwackers and while I don't play dragons the Mauler and Hatamoto are both really cool
Nah it was the 8mil stretch goal which wasn’t hit on Kickstarter, and I don’t remember seeing it as a selection when picking my rewards.
zend wrote: Did the pack with the Hatamoto-Chi get funded through late pledges? I didn’t remember seeing it as an option, but certainly wouldn’t mind picking it up at retail
Iirc it was available as an add-on even before late pledges. I'm in the same boat, you can never have enough Bushwackers and while I don't play dragons the Mauler and Hatamoto are both really cool
Nah it was the 8mil stretch goal which wasn’t hit on Kickstarter, and I don’t remember seeing it as a selection when picking my rewards.
The Somerset Strikers were added as an add-on via the pledge manager after the campaign closed.
An ingenious compromise wherein you could get the Somerset Strikers, but only in addition to a pledge, not with one. Not that it ultimately will cost me anymore money that I would otherwise spend.
frankelee wrote: An ingenious compromise wherein you could get the Somerset Strikers, but only in addition to a pledge, not with one. Not that it ultimately will cost me anymore money that I would otherwise spend.
If the Kickstarter would have reached the $8M stretch goal, Regiment backers and above would have received and additional ForcePack to their pledge and the Somerset Strikers ForcePack would have been available for pledge levels and as an add-on purchase.
Since the Kickstarter didn't reach the $8M stretch goal, they didn't have to release the Somerset Strikers ForcePack at all and saved it for release at retail at some future date, but they still went ahead with with allowing them to be purchased as an add-on.
There is no way any other retail launch could have netted more than they got from 25,000 plastic hungry maniacs on a post KS high. This was not an act of mercy, given that they apparently made another several million dollars in the post campaign backerkit stage.
If you have a physical copy of the Art of War or the Art of Cooking in your pledge, it will not be shipping with the rest of your pledge but will ship directly to the backers when available. This is because they're behind on the physical copies and to include them with your pledge would delay fulfillment by one to two months (yes, months!).
-Last week Rem and Randall were in LA teaching Alpha Strike to a bunch of Actors and other Hollywood people including Freddie Prinze Jr and Seth Green's Wife! Before COVID he was streaming a lot of tabletop games like X-Wing but his studio got broken into and he swore off YouTube, but he's interested in streaming again and doing some BattleTech with Sam Witwer. -BattleTech products for Gencon: Universe (standard book), First Star League Command Lance, Second Star League Assault lance, Force Manual Davion and the plastic map-scale dropships, 40th anniversary hoodies, mugs, and a new T-shirt. They decided against selling stuff the Kickstarter explicitly funded at the con as it's too close to the fulfillment date. Mike showed off the 40th anniversary mug -Mercenaries shipping update: QML is determining fulfillment groups by number of picks. Larger backers by pick totals are going first with other groups being worked on as they can. If you need an address change via the QML survey give QML your email, old address and new address in your initial contact. There may be some damage to the pin cases but these are just meant for transit and the pins will be fine themselves. Art of War and the Cookbook were delayed getting to QML in the US and Canada so they'll be sent out separately later at no additional cost to backers. -Regional shipping hubs are getting closer to being ready, but it's still moving slowly.
Q&A -Activitiy Book 3 is up on Amazon, will it be up on the CGL webstore? Unsure at this point -Will RecGuide ilClan 2 be at Gencon/Before Gencon? They don't know, it's in the process of shipping at present. -When will Second Star League Assault Lance be available to retailers? Unsure, they're airshipping the ones for GenCon in. -When will Aces be released officially? Rem has some info but she's not sure what she can say publicly yet. They have news though. -Any update on Trial of Bloodright? It's been pushed, In The Shadow of the Dragon will be out first. Hopefully it'll be out in July -Who is the local partner for Mercs fulfillment in the UK/Europe? Gamesquest. -Didn't update 88 say QML had all the books at hand? Rem isn't sure, the info she got says no. She noted that QML had a time budget for fulfillment as well as everything else so it had to start now. -Will European shipping be delayed 1-2 months for Art of War and the cookbook? No, that's not how it works. -Any news on the Succession Wars successor? Mike hasn't seen it yet, he expects the BattleTech team will show him when it's ready.
It's nice to see that BattleTech also has its own celebrity fanbase. Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sam Witwer may not be the equal to Henry Cavill but you can't have it all
Since some seem to have not read what was in the Tuesday Newsday recap:
Art of War and the Cookbook were delayed getting to QML in the US and Canada so they'll be sent out separately later at no additional cost to backers.
The rest of the world is not affected by the delay as the books will be at the hubs outside of North America in time for fulfillment. Catalyst will send out the books at no additional cost for those affected by the delay.
zend wrote: Did the pack with the Hatamoto-Chi get funded through late pledges? I didn’t remember seeing it as an option, but certainly wouldn’t mind picking it up at retail
Iirc it was available as an add-on even before late pledges. I'm in the same boat, you can never have enough Bushwackers and while I don't play dragons the Mauler and Hatamoto are both really cool
I was joking with a friend that if you squint, the Somerset Strikers pack is essentially also a Kurita lance pack, lol.
Glad to see this is on the move. I've got enough plasic/resin stuff backed up to get painted I can wait on picking a few mechs/vehicles up (IS mech were always more my jam) when it finally hits retail.
Someone can tide me over though, showing me a painted Urbi-lam when they have a moment though.
Part of me laughs at how Loren was bragging that they might deliver months early and then June rolls around and they're like "Oh we forgot to make the dice! ...Oh we forgot to make the patches! ...Oh we forgot to make the books!"
I've seen some people supposedly getting single vehicles in their Mecenaries Salvage Boxes that are only supposed to contain Battlemechs. Vehicles were only supposed to be in the Battlefield Support Salvage Boxes at two each. Keep an eye out for this when you get your shipment.
Also heard of missile carriers coming with a duplicate of one type of missile instead of having one each SRM and LRM in the same set.
They just posted an update regarding the salvage boxes.
Thanks to reddit user kahadin, it was brought to our attention last night that some Mercenaries Salvage boxes contain vehicles. Catlayst has confirmed this error.
Loren and Randall have been meeting with Liya, our manufcaturer in China, to identify how the error occured and how widespread it is. Then they had more meetings with Liya and our fullfilment agent QML to determine how to fix it, together. Out of the 300,000 Salvage Boxes manufactured 6,008 have vehicles. Liya has been onboard from the first call to help make things right – as such, they have committed to comping an extra Salvage Box to every order going out to keep shipping from stalling.
For those who have already received a shipment, or have a shipment already in the mail, we are working on the best way to correct this for you. Because of the holiday weekend, please give us some time to find the best way to do this in collaboration with Liya and QML.
On the small chance that anyone received TWO vehicles in the same shipment we will work with you individually to correct this mistake. We will post instructions next week so we can resolve this as efficiently as possible.
Just checked my five Salvage Boxes before I turn in for the night. I received a Devastator, an Imp, a Hoplite, a Griffin IIC and a Maxim Hover Tank. I’m also missing a Clan Diamond Shark challenge coin. How lucky am I
Wait, there's not supposed to be an Imp. That was specifically denied/didn't make the cut. I'm stoked if true, but wtf is going on with the Salvage Boxes?
Actually a decent response. And a pretty major one. How many spare salvage boxes did they make that they can add about 20,000 of them! I imagine most orders included at least one salvage box.
Prometheum5 wrote: I dig the Falconer, but the Dragon Fire still looks bad.
Unless it's to fix a 'Mech that physically wouldn't work (e.g., the Falconer), the goal is to tweak the 'Mech and keep it close to the original. The original Dragon Fire wasn't the prettiest 'Mech but it did work. Personally, I'd have to wait and see a 3D render on the Dragon Fire before making a decision.
Your Battletech: Mercenaries order has shipped!
Catalyst Game Labs c/o Quartermaster Logistics <shipping@qmlogistics.com>
YOUR NAME
Congratulations! Quartermaster Logistics has shipped your order on behalf of Catalyst Game Labs for the Battletech: Mercenaries fulfillment!
Your order contains the following items:
YOUR ITEMS
Your order is being sent to the address below:
YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS
Your Tracking Number is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. (Please note the tracking number may take up to 24 hours to become active in the FedEx system) We have provided the tracking number so you can monitor the status of your package. Below is a link that was created to update you on the status of your shipment. Please understand that if you just received this email, the tracking number may not be active. Go ahead and try it, but if it doesn't work you may have to wait a few hours for it to be active. If for some reason the link doesn't work there are instructions below the link to check the status manually.
If your package has already arrived, we apologize for the delay in getting this notification to you and please disregard this email. If you have any questions about the status of your order or do not notice movement on your tracking in the next 72 hours, please reach out to us at https://www.qmlogistics.com/contactUs.html.
From the BattleTech Forums. It's third hand from Anthony's Patreon, so take with a grain of salt:
shivanwurm wrote:This is a quote from Scroggins apparently
“Dragon Fire Concept Sketch
23 hours ago
Show less
With another Battletech Activity Book dropping recently there were a few new art reveals, including the Dragon Fire here.
I don't believe we've revealed how this mech will be releasing as a miniature yet, but it is coming and in a pretty interesting set.
I'd put this mech solidly on my list of the most ugly mechs in Battletech's history. Definitely not at the top, but the raw chicken body with actual chicken thin legs, combined with some questionable weapon placements (and the art being eternally published backwards) all do it no favors. To ice the cake, the metal miniature is even worse, being a blob pill on legs.
Now all that said, I could immediately see potential in Loose's work, as I stipulated this thing was going to be blown up. We're clearly working with a dragon here, so I laid into a reptilian form for the torso. The eclectic weapons placement was also pushed, which will be played into even further alongside its Marauder co-origins with a new variant we'll be introducing. I like how it has barrels and sensors protruding from all over.
I'm looking forward to this mech having a gameplay revival because it has a very compelling stat line for an IS 75ton mech. Now it has the looks to match.
Who's throwing this on the table? Who was already running the old blob?”
So it looks like we'll be getting another ForcePack with all of the one's announced HERE, and an 'interesting' one as well.
A brief recap of the most important parts grabbed out of the comments section of the Kickstarter:
QML has posted on Facebook that the next round of address verification are expected to go out in 2 weeks.
Tuesday stream:
Good news on the international front, UK and Australia hubs are nearly ready to start shipping. Specifically: UK has got VAT approval, and Australia has recently resolved that last of the road blocks.
EU is still waiting on VAT approval. Shipping in the EU should start once that's sorted.
No new for Asia right now.
A small number of shipments to Latin America have gone out via QML.
As to who the international HUB are. QML is handling all customer service for all hub. The international hubs do not have any staff assigned to customer service. Therefore they do not want backer contacting the international HUBs. This is why they are not relieving the identity of those HUBs.
News:
-There's reluctance to share info on the regional hubs when customer service is meant to go through QML.
-UK VAT requirements have been approved, shipments are being loaded into warehouses now.
-EU VAT requirements are still awaiting approval and some of the Norse Foundry and other little bits are still on the way, should be ready to fulfill soon.
-Australia is ready to go and should be commencing soon.
-Asia has no update right now
-Canada/ROW has begun shipping
-They will be putting up spaces online to ask questions for Tuesday Newsday if you can't make it to chat.
-Freddie Prinze Jr's group did a test game at the weekend, Prinze's team won, and included his YouTube producer, Sam Witwer and Macualy Culkin
-CGL will be doing a run of UrbanMech legion hoodies in honour of Conner Coleman, options are pink with black text/image and black with pink text/image, as Conner's favourite colour was pink
-RecGuide volume 2: ilClan went live on the CGL store earlier. Johannes was there to talk about the project
-The RecGuides as a project pulled in a lot of old writers and new ones as well.
-For the Classics side of things they wanted to ensure they could keep the feel of the original designs while updating them
-The mission statement was to make the minis from the Clan Invasion Kickstarter relevant for the 3150s
-Johannes talked about the art homages in the RecGuide chapter openings, like the Warhammer IIc/Marauder IIc fight being a callback to TRO:3055 and the Stinger sitting like Rodin's The Thinker being a homage to art from Volume 3, issue 2 of Stardate magazine (he actually bought the latter piece from Natán Meléndez, the artist for all the chapter title images). Gideon, who drew the original Stardate art had died in the intervening years and there's a reference to Gideon in the Stinger writeup in the RecGuide.
-They had a bit of a chat about unit naming, which can be whimsical but often leads to a lot of arguments between the developers, and in the end people often forget who actually came up with the name. Johannes called out the Alpha Wolf as one where they're aware that the idea of Alpha males has been debunked, they felt it fit the mech. When they came up with the name Jade Phoenix the person doing the writeup for the mech ran with it and came up with the whole "has some of the armour of Aidan Pryde's Mad Cat" thing as a result.
- They also chatted about unit design philosophy. This can be tied up in the mission statement for the project. BattleTech stats can be cosy, and they can be boring. Every unit needs some level of purpose to stand out amongst the thousands of designs. You tend not to start with the stats, preferring a hook but there are exceptions. With the RecGuides some of the units had been designed in advance like the new Wolf mechs, from there Johannes had the idea of bird-themed Falcon mechs to have bad guys to match the Wolves as nominal good guys.
Johannes was very pleased at getting so many old vehicles from the setting that hadn't been statted up before into the RecGuides
Q&A:
-How does someone get involved in mech design? Johannes got his start by being a long-time contributor of errata on the forums. Other people have been recruited via forum activity or other contribution like being on the Demo Team or submitting to Shrapnel. Unit design tends to be quite closed off even inside the BattleTech volunteer/freelancer pool.
-When designing a unit to you discuss drawbacks, is there a reason for some units to have more severe drawbacks? They shy away from optimisation and as such units tend to be designed with deliberate drawbacks. They tend not to go in with specific drawbacks in mind, one of the last ones Johannes could think of was the Stalker II's small cockpit in XTRO: Marik.
-Will people coming to big cons like Gencon or Essen get a chance to talk design with Johannes? Essen is more of a possibility (Johannes lives in Germany)
-Any update on the McCarron's Armoured Cav, Davion and Kurita Forcepacks? Big MAC is getting ready, no update on the others. There'll be a better update soon. Ray says no update right now in the chat.
-Any chance of fiction in historical events? Rem will pass the question to John Helfers. They're not planning on livestreaming from GenCon like they did the last couple of years and pre-recording panels and games instead, so Rem will try and have an answer for the fiction panel.
-Any more videos coming up? Stuff like the Crescent Hawks is on the nice to do list but they're expensive and take a lot of project management. Rem only gets one day a week to work on content so it's slow going. Bryan Young will be doing more short pieces like the ads and little profiles.
-Any update on store credit from Clan Invasion Kickstarter? Rem will follow-up with Talon.
-What is the definition of Waves 1-3 for shipping? Rem isn't sure, but her understanding is: Wave 1 is everyone who had their final address details in by December. Wave 2 are people who made changes when CGL put out an email for address updates, and Wave 3 are people who changed their address from the QML requests for address updates.
-someone asked about Kickstarter odrer prioritisation, Rem repeated the quote from last week.
And along with Freddie Prinze, Jr and Sam Witwer, this guy plays BattleTech
Got one of the 6008 tooseen in a dud salvage box (and no compensatory extra box, so I guess my stuff was already processing/packed when that issue was discovered).
Pretty happy with all the loot.
I was kinda worried about getting poorly-moulded or assembled figs -- much of the early Clan Invasion stuff I bought had issues... floppy guns, bent legs, carelessly posed stances, etc.
Those issues seemed to be mostly cleared up as reprints rolled out, but I was paranoid that the first wave of Mercenaries releases would suffer similarly.
But I didn't notice many problems. One of my multi-barreled tanks has a barrel that's shorter than the others, one of my Visigoths isn't quite plumb down the centre, and my Flea has one canted arm. The barrel on my SM1 Tank Destroyer is a bit droopy and crooked, which is the only flaw out of the group that annoys me.
Does the plastic they've used respond to hot water / cold water as a fix, Altruizine, do do you need to give the tank a little blue pill to clear it up?
Did I see something when the Salvage Pack issue came up about contacting QML if you did get one with a vehicle in it, or is my memory bating me again?
Dysartes wrote: Does the plastic they've used respond to hot water / cold water as a fix, Altruizine, do do you need to give the tank a little blue pill to clear it up?
Did I see something when the Salvage Pack issue came up about contacting QML if you did get one with a vehicle in it, or is my memory bating me again?
Hot/cold has worked on their plastic in the past, although not as well as it would on HIPS since theirs seems to have more memory. The tank destroyer is an awkward design for that process, however, since the barrel is sunk into the body of the vehicle and the whole vehicle would need to be immersed (as opposed to being able to spot treat the affected zone). I might try it, or I might just let the little guy live his drowsy, floppy life.
AFAIK they announced that there would be an upcoming solution for people who didn't get the automatic extra salvage box, but that they were still working out the details.
Dysartes wrote:Did I see something when the Salvage Pack issue came up about contacting QML if you did get one with a vehicle in it, or is my memory bating me again?
Altruizine wrote:AFAIK they announced that there would be an upcoming solution for people who didn't get the automatic extra salvage box, but that they were still working out the details.
From Update #95:
For those who have already received a shipment, or have a shipment already in the mail, we are working on the best way to correct this for you. Because of the holiday weekend, please give us some time to find the best way to do this in collaboration with Liya and QML.
On the small chance that anyone received TWO vehicles in the same shipment we will work with you individually to correct this mistake. We will post instructions next week so we can resolve this as efficiently as possible.
Someone on the comments had received no Galleons in their Mercs box, so there are definitely some QC issues at play. Pretty sure CGL will make it all good, it will just take time for them to sort it all out.
@Altruzine - worth just removing it ans replacing with a nice straight brass or plastic rod?
legionaires wrote: I just got an email for the digital content. Did the folks who already got the pledges get the digital notice just before the shipping notice?
I just got my digital content email as well. What an excellent question, thank you!
I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.
I'm a late backer and I heard people talking about digital content. I went into my Backerkit on Monday and found a load of downloads. Today I received an email saying there was updated digital content, so I looked again - nothing that I hadn't downloaded.
I guess they put up all the stuff first and have been emailing out since.
And being in the UK, I don't think it means anything to do with shipping.
frankelee wrote: I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.
The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought. One of the guys in our play group got his, and he got two accidental vehicles out of 4 salvage boxes. I’ve seen a few other people having similar experiences to you also.
Sabotage! wrote: The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.
It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.
Yeah, my working assumption would be the boxes weren't that randomized, so if you get one tank, your odds of a second tank are much higher than random because the dude in the warehouse is grabbing from the tank pile.
But then, I don't know that, they could have way more tanks than they realize.
frankelee wrote: Yeah, my working assumption would be the boxes weren't that randomized, so if you get one tank, your odds of a second tank are much higher than random because the dude in the warehouse is grabbing from the tank pile.
But then, I don't know that, they could have way more tanks than they realize.
If the particular model isn't being used for what you're packing at the time, then it shouldn't be in the packing area. This would have been an error on someone who was a supervisor or above IMHO.
Gimgamgoo wrote: I'm a late backer and I heard people talking about digital content. I went into my Backerkit on Monday and found a load of downloads. Today I received an email saying there was updated digital content, so I looked again - nothing that I hadn't downloaded.
Although not a late backer, I've had the same experience. Someone here mentioned a week or so ago that the digital content was up, and I downloaded it then. Just got the backer e-mail today, and it lists all the stuff I downloaded previously. So TalonZahn is probably right that now that they've confirmed everything is up, they've e-mailed all the backers.
Tangentially, I'm no longer enthusiastic about this KS. I'll get a brief burst of interest when my physical rewards come in, but right now BT and Alpha Strike are not in my hobby space. Something I'll need to remember the next time I want to back any KS; will I still be interested 18+ months later?
Ghaz wrote: If the particular model isn't being used for what you're packing at the time, then it shouldn't be in the packing area. This would have been an error on someone who was a supervisor or above IMHO.
I don't know how they do it, but if I were to design a system tomorrow to do a shipping job like this, I would have runners going out into the warehouse, filling a cart with a specific item, bringing that item back to a staging table next to the packing table. Then I would have my order packers grab/fill a cart with what they need from the staging table and take it back a short distance to the packing table, put it in the box. It wouldn't surprise me if the salvage boxes are not randomized on the pallets, so Catalyst just instructs them to be aware you need to mix them at the picking stage. And to some degree they do that, maybe by making ten stacks of salvage boxes off ten different pallets in the staging area, and then the packer grabs a handful here, grabs a handful there. Hence four of my 20 salvage boxes were from the Clan Fire Star, five were from the Mercenaries box, and three were Maxim Hover Tanks. Just how I'd imagine it can happen.
Sabotage! wrote: The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.
It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.
Unless Liya are lying, then They should know almost exactly how many were made (within reasons, allowing for wastage etc), because they made/bought in specific single- vehicle inserts.
Ghaz wrote: If the particular model isn't being used for what you're packing at the time, then it shouldn't be in the packing area. This would have been an error on someone who was a supervisor or above IMHO.
I don't know how they do it, but if I were to design a system tomorrow to do a shipping job like this, I would have runners going out into the warehouse, filling a cart with a specific item, bringing that item back to a staging table next to the packing table. Then I would have my order packers grab/fill a cart with what they need from the staging table and take it back a short distance to the packing table, put it in the box. It wouldn't surprise me if the salvage boxes are not randomized on the pallets, so Catalyst just instructs them to be aware you need to mix them at the picking stage. And to some degree they do that, maybe by making ten stacks of salvage boxes off ten different pallets in the staging area, and then the packer grabs a handful here, grabs a handful there. Hence four of my 20 salvage boxes were from the Clan Fire Star, five were from the Mercenaries box, and three were Maxim Hover Tanks. Just how I'd imagine it can happen.
We know how Liya makes their Salvage Boxes from their YouTube channel
Someone would have to set up the packing area for the shift, and the supervisor/lead should be checking that it's correct as that is their job.
Sabotage! wrote: The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.
It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.
Unless Liya are lying, then They should know almost exactly how many were made (within reasons, allowing for wastage etc), because they made/bought in specific single- vehicle inserts.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, then they do know how many they've made and Catalyst has even told us in the most recent update:
Catalyst Games wrote:Loren and Randall have been meeting with Liya, our manufcaturer in China, to identify how the error occured and how widespread it is. Then they had more meetings with Liya and our fullfilment agent QML to determine how to fix it, together. Out of the 300,000 Salvage Boxes manufactured 6,008 have vehicles. Liya has been onboard from the first call to help make things right – as such, they have committed to comping an extra Salvage Box to every order going out to keep shipping from stalling.
The only thing I'm not sure of is if they use one double insert or two single inserts in the Vehicle Salvage Boxes (the Long Tom and carriage is almost definitely a double insert) as I did not get any of those boxes.
Haha, I just meant at QML where the picking and packing gets done.
And them not having an accurate count wouldn't mean they were lying. People will just have to take my word on this, but sometimes mistakes happen. If you're a customer of Catalyst you haven't experienced it, but other companies it has happened.
But like I said before, it probably just came off the same pallet of salvage boxes.
frankelee wrote: I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.
Did you get Maxims and Galleons?
Sabotage!, what about your pal?
I'm still wondering whether it's just the box set vehicles that accidentally got included. My pull was a Galleon.
Regarding the packing and picking discussion, don't Salvage Packs go to retailers in larger boxes/counter displays of ~9x or ~12x packs?
I suppose I could envision CGL/Liya having made the decision to just pack *all* the Salvage Packs that way, then shipping those to QML, who unseal them and pick individual packs out for orders, even though it wastes a bunch of cardboard.
Either way, it's interesting to speculate about *who* actually does the randomization for the random Salvage Packs in a KS. Does Liya randomize batches into boxes which QML unboxes and divvies out? Or does Liya pack boxes full of the same unit which QML unpacks into different hoppers that pickers are supposed to randomly select from (or one big hopper that is a mix of handfuls from different boxes)?
Ghaz wrote:Since I worked in a distribution center back in the 2000's, I can tell you that they're most likely using something like this:
That would make sense. Though now I do kind of hope they figured out my two step process, packing like in the video makes tremendous sense when you have a big warehouse full of different items and different orders, but would be quite inefficient when you have a big warehouse full of a relatively small number of items. A sub-staging area for the packers would allows things to go way faster. Then again, maybe that's why Kickstarters take so long to finish shipping.
Altruizine wrote:
frankelee wrote: I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.
Did you get Maxims and Galleons?
Sabotage!, what about your pal?
I'm still wondering whether it's just the box set vehicles that accidentally got included. My pull was a Galleon.
Regarding the packing and picking discussion, don't Salvage Packs go to retailers in larger boxes/counter displays of ~9x or ~12x packs?
I suppose I could envision CGL/Liya having made the decision to just pack *all* the Salvage Packs that way, then shipping those to QML, who unseal them and pick individual packs out for orders, even though it wastes a bunch of cardboard.
Either way, it's interesting to speculate about *who* actually does the randomization for the random Salvage Packs in a KS. Does Liya randomize batches into boxes which QML unboxes and divvies out? Or does Liya pack boxes full of the same unit which QML unpacks into different hoppers that pickers are supposed to randomly select from (or one big hopper that is a mix of handfuls from different boxes)?
I got 3 Maxims. Would not surprise me if the tanks from the Mercenaries box were the only ones in the salvage packs, because they confused instructions to put the Mech models from the Mercenaries box in this type of salvage pack, but missed the part about not including the tanks, and of course they're all little robot models to them so they wouldn't think twice about it after the mistake was made.
The salvage displays hold 9 boxes, and if you bought one within a year or so after they came out you would have discovered they were not random. I bought one and got a Clan Heavy Star and an Inner Sphere Fire Lance. Some people on Reddit were logging all 9-10 pairing varieties of display box you could get. Subsequently I bought one and it was actually randomized. If I had to guess Liya didn't change the way they made the the salvage packs, they just added a step where they didn't load them into display boxes directly, but instead allowed a wider mix to go into any one display box.
But I don't know that they would go to the trouble of randomization or display boxes for product that doesn't need it. Don't know, but don't know why they would. It would be easier just to stack hundreds of little boxes in a giant square, wrap it with plastic, and send to Orlando for them to deal with. If you need extras then you can bust into the properly display packed ones.
I'm considering doing something to keep all the potentially-loose parts on the models from this KS (ie. vehicle turrets, stuff that plugs loosely into its base like the Savannah Masters or flight stands, etc.) stable and accounted for. Don't want to lose a main gun during drunken Alpha Strike lol.
But I also don't want to permanently commit with something like superglue. Need to keep my options open when painting & basing in the (distant) future.
Would PVA glue be good for a temporary-but-indefinite hold? It should remain water soluble, but I'm not sure if water would actually penetrate all the way into a PVA'ed turret socket...
Sabotage! wrote: The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.
It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.
Unless Liya are lying, then They should know almost exactly how many were made (within reasons, allowing for wastage etc), because they made/bought in specific single- vehicle inserts.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, then they do know how many they've made and Catalyst has even told us in the most recent update:
Catalyst Games wrote:Loren and Randall have been meeting with Liya, our manufcaturer in China, to identify how the error occured and how widespread it is. Then they had more meetings with Liya and our fullfilment agent QML to determine how to fix it, together. Out of the 300,000 Salvage Boxes manufactured 6,008 have vehicles. Liya has been onboard from the first call to help make things right – as such, they have committed to comping an extra Salvage Box to every order going out to keep shipping from stalling.
The only thing I'm not sure of is if they use one double insert or two single inserts in the Vehicle Salvage Boxes (the Long Tom and carriage is almost definitely a double insert) as I did not get any of those boxes.
There are some comments implying that there might be many more of the mistaken single vee salvage boxes. I think it’s unlikely, unless there is skullduggery going on.
at least they banned all the bad people
