So...
All flush with the "success" of the recent update, there is actually not much to talk about.
I am waiting on a BBB response letter from PB, I am sure it will be exciting.
I guess we shall see how it goes from here, if another uninformative "update" happens along, further government fun may need to be applied.
My options are much more limited as a Canadian citizen than what is available to our USA friends.
I am still very disappointed how little there is for consumer protection in Canada, "archaic" springs to mind.
I did find this interesting document:
http://cmcweb.ca/eic/site/cmc-cmc.nsf/vwapj/Sales_Template.pdf/$file/Sales_Template.pdf Well, looks like some collective is available that I could lodge a complaint through here:
http://www.econsumer.gov/english/resolve/overview.shtm It appears to be hosted by the FTC.
Anyway, back pocket for now, hopefully they now need to show some movement on this project.
I am oddly filled with some optimism.
It seems to be a bit of an uneasy truce, or at least apathy has settled back in for most.
They've moved the goalposts repeatedly, but have (repeatedly) doubled down on this vague 4-7 month time frame. For that to be real, they'll either need to have things to start showing progress in the next few months, or begin to walk it back further. Or they'll resume their silence.
Any of the 3 will drive topics of conversation, now it's just a waiting game to see which happens (or doesn't happen, as the case may be) first.
I agree that silence is the worst choice at present, as it just feeds ammunition to those who are beginning to sense blood in the water. A slow but steady (2-3 updates per month) trickle of *tangible* progress will let them drag things out, but even then we're only a few months from even the far end of that target being untenable and they're back at square one.
Identify clear and easy means of having recourse for a backer if a creator decides it is a low priority to finish a project or choose not to complete promised product.
The apathy of the backers was largely based on thinking there was nothing they could do. The "blood in the water" is now people cluing-in that there are easy ways to apply pressure.
I think that REALLY made Kevin angry realizing he truly is answerable to his promises, I think he may rethink kickstarters now due to the accountability.
"It is an "investment" and no guarantee of getting anything", indeed... debunking that was a happy moment.
I still REALLY want to see wave 2 happen and I think with these "gentle" means of motivation we may have a hope of seeing it before the heat-death of the universe before it is 98% complete!
Haven't they already walked it back? I was under the assumption they would have wave 2 out the door by the end of the year. Last update mentioned end of the year, or after Chinese New Year.
Sinful Hero wrote: Haven't they already walked it back? I was under the assumption they would have wave 2 out the door by the end of the year. Last update mentioned end of the year, or after Chinese New Year.
Yes, they conceded next year first quarter.
I figured a while back they were roughly paralleling the wave 1 release with Chinese new year woes and stuff, so expect to see a big push for GenCon 2016 and a poll on retail release of wave 2 before we get them. Karma will of course bite them in the butt and North America will see delivery December 2016 and the rest of the world around April 2017.
This is assuming of course no holdups of no money for dies.
Off the top of my head (as in, I simply cannot be bothered citing this forum post), around Adepticon the goal was the end of the year, during the Open House it was the end of the year (but maybe Oct/Nov) or early 2016. Now it's been again stated to be the end of the year or Q1 2016.
So if I'm not mistaken, there's been some minor drift, in that the "maybe early" language is missing, which is sensible, because Oct/Nov would require gak being loaded onto a ship within mere weeks, and they're still sorting the bloody figures out.
As per previous conversations, yes, if substantial quality improvements were being made, delays would be more justified and tolerable. However, I have minimal faith in them substantially improving anything, so lengthy delays for negligible returns isn't an even deal in my eyes.
If they actually get boxes in the mail by the end of March and/or make vast improvements on the figures, I'll revisit that stance, but (to me) they haven't remotely begun to rebuild benefit of the doubt on that.
Yeah, I think PB's reaction to all of this has further eroded any remaining goodwill rather than quell ill feelings.
Personally, I'm sick of them moving the goalposts. If the AG ever contacts me back, I'm going to push them to go after PB as there is no way in hell they'll make December, and that date was the final deadline for me.
Stormonu wrote: Yeah, I think PB's reaction to all of this has further eroded any remaining goodwill rather than quell ill feelings.
Personally, I'm sick of them moving the goalposts. If the AG ever contacts me back, I'm going to push them to go after PB as there is no way in hell they'll make December, and that date was the final deadline for me.
You may as well do it now, then. Wave Two is never getting produced, clapping fan-friends notwithstanding.
Stormonu wrote: Yeah, I think PB's reaction to all of this has further eroded any remaining goodwill rather than quell ill feelings.
Personally, I'm sick of them moving the goalposts. If the AG ever contacts me back, I'm going to push them to go after PB as there is no way in hell they'll make December, and that date was the final deadline for me.
You may as well do it now, then. Wave Two is never getting produced, clapping fan-friends notwithstanding.
I've already e-mailed them about a week ago (along with the BBB), I'm just waiting for a reply at this point.
I don't know I'm on the fence about contacting my states BBB and AG as well as Michigans. The last update was just a rehash of what was said before. The only new info is that the backers are mean and that PB cares soooooo much about rrt and "you the backers."
I'm not looking for a refund, but I do want my wave two models.
Cypher-xv wrote: I don't know I'm on the fence about contacting my states BBB and AG as well as Michigans. The last update was just a rehash of what was said before. The only new info is that the backers are mean and that PB cares soooooo much about rrt and "you the backers."
Yet, it's being seen by some as an actually informative update. Which boggles my mind. I guess it's true what they say, if you crap on long enough, some people will believe it. The only three bits of actual news were speaking with the broker, working to cut down parts count, convention exclusives having the release date extended, and the conventional vehicles being the same but with the caveat limited sales might see them not produced. The first isn't new (mentioned in the pre-GC KSU), I'm pretty sure the second isn't either (can't source it), the third is no surprise, and the fourth is irrational (as the only thing needed to produce them is the stats and some basic artwork, as the miniatures are from an existing line, and don't need sculpting). Of course, the real news is coming "soon".
Cypher-xv wrote: I'm not looking for a refund, but I do want my wave two models.
To quote Stephen from Braveheart, "The Almighty tells me he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're fethed.".
There was another piece of info that you missed Morgan - moving delivery in Q1 (so, around end of March). Although he words it as "possibly", we all know full well that once dates start getting thrown out, it'll be the far extreme date or beyond.
Stormonu wrote: There was another piece of info that you missed Morgan - moving delivery in Q1 (so, around end of March). Although he words it as "possibly", we all know full well that once dates start getting thrown out, it'll be the far extreme date or beyond.
I guess you're technically correct (the best kind of correct!), but as I don't consider completion dates to be worth anything from PB, it didn't trigger as news. This is what, the third or fourth pushback for Wave 2. EOY 2014 (remember that?), EOY 2015, Q1 2016. Probably another in there. And at least the last two have been while under the new policy of "we don't give release dates". For someone who doesn't give release dates, they sure do give a lot of release dates.
I guess you could also count "We DO listen to you. We learn, adapt and make changes." as news. Because prior to this announcement, there's been zero evidence that this has been happening. Kevin later goes on to talk about how they've "been trying to listen to all the voices on the web", and this leads to analysis paralysis, which means they've been missing quite a few of their voices. For years now, Forar (and others) have been pointing out the enemy of the good is the perfect, essentially pointing out that any kind of informative movement/communication is better than silence. Add in the number of people with a direct line to KevCo (Mike, NMI, Jeffar) who have stated (and I've got no reason to disbelieve they have), that they've passed messages on up to Kevin and Wayne personally, and still gotten silence, well... doesn't put much faith in them listening.
"And it has caused Palladium Books to be too quiet while some frustrated and angry backers rail against us and seem to find fault in EVERYTHING we say and do.". See, this is just utter crap. Most "frustrated and angry" backers DON'T find fault in everything they do, indicating they DON'T fething listen. Most "F&A" backers find fault when they're silent for long periods of time, or being completely dismissive of their concerns, despite having had their money for two plus years and counting, and showing little actual movement towards completing the project.
Did people get mad over Max/MiriyaGate? SpartanGate? Gen-Ghazi? And the continual "sorry, we'll try to communicate better"? Sure. But when they've shown actual progress ("ten questions", Feb Wave 2 prototypes, actual informative updates, hell, even the Wave split was accepted by most of what they would consider "haterz"), there's been mostly supportive, along with mostly constructive criticism. It's when they've failed to follow up on these things (still waiting on some answers to those "ten questions", and the followup questions they were supplied), that's when they get derision and mockery. But I guess it's easier to just throw all complaints, justified and not, into one bucket and label them "haterz", than actually address those concerns.
While sure, there are a few people they can never win over, there are a crapload more they've turned against them. And that's not on those backers, that's on Palladium.
I don't really know why I'm typing this up...guess I need more to do with my life.
As an outside observer, one of the things that bothers me (and I of course have less cause to be bothered than many here) is how they continue to act like there's no blueprint for how they could dramatically improve their communications with the backers and thus the project as a whole. It's not like they're explorers in some brand-new frontier anymore like could have been argued when they first funded lo these many years ago. Certainly in 2013 the idea of million-dollar KickStarters for small companies and major scope creep were reasonably novel in how these companies coped with it. You can see sort of a learning period wherein these companies (and their backers) get a rough education in manufacturing and the many pitfalls that they were not really privy to as much in the past.
If one looks around the KickStarter landscape today though, there's ample information on how to make that work. Projects that show this off the top of my head and an Obvious Lesson that Palladium Books Will Miss (OLPBWM) from them:
KD:M - Technically even later that Robotech; the Core game was supposed to be November of 2013 (as was Robotech *cough*) and it will likely get to backers September of 2015. That can go down as a bit of a miscalculation. However, as Orlando mentioned, the backers aren't filing with the BBB and rallying behind anyone like Rick-the-Ultimate-Instigator-of-All-Evil, even though KD:M has half the updates on the KS as Robotech. OLPBWM: Quantity is less important than quality.KD:M's fewer updates are *packed* with tangible proof of progress, and the quality is high. Now, Adam does have a significant advantage that he's selling a personal vision so nobody can tell him that the Gorm's left bottom mandible arm is .2mm too short according to the source materials, but being able to dodge nit-pickers isn't that huge of an advantage.
Dreamforge Games - Ended up being pretty late for everything, with an entire year passing between products actually being released despite supposedly being done in that year that was missed. Obviously scope creep reared it's head there, along with the naivete of the time from all parties in terms of what could be accomplished. Withall these delays, people did indeed get antsy and as a true one-man show Mark did sometimes fall behind on communication. F&A backers can be seen in the thread at Dakka. When given ample opportunities to throw his partner under the bus he continually emphasized that the delays were on him, and that the buck stopped there. He would also engage in honest conversation about things such as the process and where things were. While I'm sure it didn't placate everybody, I think the products have enjoyed reasonable success. OLPBWM: If you act worthy of respect and trust, people will respect and trust you. This makes everything easier, for what should be obvious reasons.
Mantic - They've run I think half the gaming KickStarters on the site it feels like, and that's just what they've done in the last week. They've made a HUGE assortment of...shall we say negatively-received decisions in terms of quality and material and you can readily find a good number of people will never buy from them again due to various factors. Mantic also sometimes get a few things to retail before it gets to backers, similar to GenConGate. Yet they still have successful KickStarter projects. If PB ever wants to attempt to go back to the crowdfunding well, this would be a company to examine in-depth, but they mostly accomplish this (I think) by being reasonably accessible. When they're called out on the carpet, they do often accept it as feedback and incorporate it back into how they do business. While some of the things are obvious and shouldn't have needed to be pointed out, the fact that they do change things demonstrates that they are, in fact, listening. Everyone makes mistakes, so people are generally willing to forgive (if not forget) so long as they try to make amends and improve. OLPBWM: Not every detractor is complaining for the sake of complaining and negative feedback is more important for improvement than positive. Nobody is perfect, so if you believe you can't improve you're lying to yourself. As a corollary to that, false humility without visible change can be argued to be worse than doing nothing; the latter just makes you appear foolish, the former means you're foolish and a liar.
SDE:TFK - I know I've brought this up before, but Ninja Division ran what I would describe as a near-perfect (from a communications standpoint) campaign here. Their updates were regular, contained quality information like we discussed earlier and kept the backers in the loop on what was happening. It showed they clearly had a plan, and when things went sideways they were quick to mention it to people so that bad news was relayed as quickly as possible. Yes, your company still gets burned by bad news, but it's eventually going to happen regardless is it not? Why add weeks of silence and/or obfuscation as fuel to that fire? People as a group know "technical truths" when they see them, and they don't appreciate having information they should have known kept from them. OLPBWM: Take your lumps when you deserve them; trying to hide what you know only hurts you twice as the people you tell are now angry about the bad news itself and the fact you didn't tell them. Being told "the latest from the manufacturer shows these kits may need some major tweaking, so X is probably going to delay things" isn't going to make anyone happy, but at least they know where things stand.
Of course, that all these things are obvious to a random person on the Internet also lends credence that PB knows full and well what they could be doing, but don't want to be doing these things because the reality is indeed that bad. Not stating that as a fact, but based on the information at hand it does seem a strong possibility. Since I've certainly blathered on for long enough, what are some OLPBWM that are out there from other projects? Yes, yes Rick...if you feth up badly enough it doesn't matter if you deliver something, you'll still be fined. I'm thinking of more quasi-positive angles for this fanciful world powered by unicorns where PB would ever internalize the wisdom of learning from the evidence offered by the experience of others.
Krinsath: Awesome.
PB seems to not look for best practices by others.
They unfortunately need to be poked with sharp sticks.
Speaking of that, my BBB saga continues on, Cypher may have more to add to his list soon.
here is my top ten list of things PB has done wrong in this project:
1: Communication, communication is key in all things, its how we pass along things and so forth, if you tell your backers there is going to be a delay and then be honest about why the delay instead of blaming anyone and everyone including the meter lady, you might have some receptive backers.
2: PB still lives in the 80's seriously Kevin called table top miniature games a new hobby companies and people are just now breaking into, seriously., as it goes Kevin is still stuck in the 80's and if it wasn't for many of his fan friends and such helping him and doing things for him, he would still be accepting orders by mail only.
3: treating this game like an RPG game, this game while may have RPG in the title and have some rules for RPG is not an RPG game, especially in Kevin's hands, as far as Kevin is concerned if he puts out an RPG book for a game every other year hes happy and all is good, you can't do that with table top miniature games you have to bring out product every year and or even twice a year.
4: too many fething pieces, this game is a disaster because its not a starter game, the starter box should have had easy to assemble or single piece minis, not this fething disaster we got.
5: too many unique units, PB brought out way too many unique units in this kickstarter (and can see the Conan game falling because of this too), they should have just added more of the basic game units to the pledges for stretch goals and saved the other unique pieces to bring out each year or so.
6: PB seriously underestimated costs, PB might have been able to deliver a Kickstarter on what they got, problem is they over did everything, from making so many piece minis to reserving factory time and their GC booths and false advertising (false release dates advertising), and constant changing of things, they are most likely out of money, was any of it spent on things other then RRT? maybe, but without looking at the books no telling and if they were on what? well probably on Con Exclusives and keeping the lights on and maybe even the NG books.
7: not hiring a project manager, PB's biggest mistake was not hiring a manager to over see this whole project and one who knew what they were doing not a friend.
8: Kevin, yes Kevin he is his own worst enemy he is doing more damage to the company and this project then anyone could ever hope to accomplish.
9: listening to fan friends, sorry Kevvy boy listening to your fan friends is not the best advice, you might be better to get hold of a real lawyer, instead of the armchair lawyers defending you, you have been listening way too much to CoK (Cult of Kevin) which has caused you to live in a fantasy world where you think you are above the law, and perfect, well Kevin is probably finding out he is not above the law and wonders why people are being mean to him(since he still thinks he is perfect).
10: refunds think of all the problems PB could have made go away with refunds (full refund so they can be booted from the KS), seriously Kevin isn't a few hundred dollars or so per backer worth it to get rid of thousands of dollars of headaches?
As it goes Attorney generals are being called in, we backers could let it go with just that and PB is screwed no matter what, there are only 2 avenues open to PB to get out of this now
1: Bring out Wave 2 this year.
2: Refund backers who filed.
if PB does neither of these this year, PB will not be around for another year. furthermore PB could even lose their IP to Rift's and such.
PB can even try filing for bankruptcy but a fine is a fine and will be collected and with each state filing it could be a lot of fines.
If that were a Palladium rpg style top ten, it would have 9 bullet points because only unimaginative types would limit a top ten list to 10 items (but 9 would be split up in 9a and 9b... and 5 would be listed before 3 because reformatting it is too hard)... and you would have posted it 3 years after posting the first line.
Some good points raised again by both of you that will again be ignored by anyone with the power to effect change.
Krinsath wrote: As an outside observer, one of the things that bothers me (and I of course have less cause to be bothered than many here) is how they continue to act like there's no blueprint for how they could dramatically improve their communications with the backers and thus the project as a whole.
What I've noticed with crowdfunding, is that, if a project funds, the creator doesn't change how they do business. Doom that Came to Atlantic City is the most egregious example. The creator misspent crowdfunding funds the same way he did funds from a previous private group of investors. Not too hard to find other examples, if you don't mind tearing scabs off wounds.
Thanks for your post, though. Myself, I haven't kept up with Mantic post-funding, so appreciate the info!
What I've noticed with crowdfunding, is that, if a project funds, the creator doesn't change how they do business. Doom that Came to Atlantic City is the most egregious example. The creator misspent crowdfunding funds the same way he did funds from a previous private group of investors. Not too hard to find other examples, if you don't mind tearing scabs off wounds.
Thanks for your post, though. Myself, I haven't kept up with Mantic post-funding, so appreciate the info!
People seem so desperate for an 'Anti-GW', they have given Mantic a pass on some pretty egregious behavior during and after their Kickstarter campaigns, and generally very poor after the fact customer service. After backing two of their campaigns, no more forever. Mantic is dead to me.
Asterios wrote: here is my top ten list of things PB has done wrong in this project:
1: Communication, communication is key in all things, its how we pass along things and so forth, if you tell your backers there is going to be a delay and then be honest about why the delay instead of blaming anyone and everyone including the meter lady, you might have some receptive backers.
AGREED
2: PB still lives in the 80's seriously Kevin called table top miniature games a new hobby companies and people are just now breaking into, seriously., as it goes Kevin is still stuck in the 80's and if it wasn't for many of his fan friends and such helping him and doing things for him, he would still be accepting orders by mail only.
AGREE, but only in Part. Yes, PB needs to update basically almost everything.
3: treating this game like an RPG game, this game while may have RPG in the title and have some rules for RPG is not an RPG game, especially in Kevin's hands, as far as Kevin is concerned if he puts out an RPG book for a game every other year hes happy and all is good, you can't do that with table top miniature games you have to bring out product every year and or even twice a year.
Nope, the license requires things to be based off the RPG, so it was. That's been well known for a long time now.
4: too many fething pieces, this game is a disaster because its not a starter game, the starter box should have had easy to assemble or single piece minis, not this fething disaster we got.
Agreed, again in part. I'm not so much against the number of part, but how they were split up. If the legs had not been in so many pieces it would have been better. The arms on them were done the right way except the forarm being two pieces. The shoulder and elbow joints worked out really well.
5: too many unique units, PB brought out way too many unique units in this kickstarter (and can see the Conan game falling because of this too), they should have just added more of the basic game units to the pledges for stretch goals and saved the other unique pieces to bring out each year or so.
Possibly, they jumped all the way to the end of the story. They should have left things like the Upgraded MPA and FPA as well as the YF-4 and Jotun out of the KS and focused on the rest.
6: PB seriously underestimated costs, PB might have been able to deliver a Kickstarter on what they got, problem is they over did everything, from making so many piece minis to reserving factory time and their GC booths and false advertising (false release dates advertising), and constant changing of things, they are most likely out of money, was any of it spent on things other then RRT? maybe, but without looking at the books no telling and if they were on what? well probably on Con Exclusives and keeping the lights on and maybe even the NG books.
Again, this is assuming PB did the costs. All evidence points to ND running the KS campaign with little to no oversight. PB does not have the expertise to know what to oversee even if they had tried. They should have gotten a PM to manage it.
7: not hiring a project manager, PB's biggest mistake was not hiring a manager to over see this whole project and one who knew what they were doing not a friend.
Again, answered in #6.
8: Kevin, yes Kevin he is his own worst enemy he is doing more damage to the company and this project then anyone could ever hope to accomplish.
I long ago stopped reading most of the rinse and repeat updates on everything including breakfast. The unnecessary hyperbole is in the updates is very unprofessional.
9: listening to fan friends, sorry Kevvy boy listening to your fan friends is not the best advice, you might be better to get hold of a real lawyer, instead of the armchair lawyers defending you, you have been listening way too much to CoK (Cult of Kevin) which has caused you to live in a fantasy world where you think you are above the law, and perfect, well Kevin is probably finding out he is not above the law and wonders why people are being mean to him(since he still thinks he is perfect).
Yes, PB needs to open their ears up and get out of their holes and find out what is up. It's like someone who only watches Rachel Maddow day in and day out. That is an issue. I doubt that will ever change.
10: refunds think of all the problems PB could have made go away with refunds (full refund so they can be booted from the KS), seriously Kevin isn't a few hundred dollars or so per backer worth it to get rid of thousands of dollars of headaches?
That all depends on the number and amount of the refunds and the state of the project. If they opened that door to a few, it would be expected every time someone got their pee pee hurt. Since the project was budgeted and promised for certain items, giving many refunds may very well prove more problematic. Let's say they gave a bunch and could no longer afford to make the YF-4? Do they simply say sorry, due to backer refunds the last X campaign promises are now null and void?
The AG and the rest is moot. We all know that you have openly stated your objective, the destruction of PB (A.K.A. Revenge) . #1 I see as unlikely in the extreme and #2 I see as even less likely.
As it goes Attorney generals are being called in, we backers could let it go with just that and PB is screwed no matter what, there are only 2 avenues open to PB to get out of this now
1: Bring out Wave 2 this year.
2: Refund backers who filed.
if PB does neither of these this year, PB will not be around for another year. furthermore PB could even lose their IP to Rift's and such.
PB can even try filing for bankruptcy but a fine is a fine and will be collected and with each state filing it could be a lot of fines.
3: treating this game like an RPG game, this game while may have RPG in the title and have some rules for RPG is not an RPG game, especially in Kevin's hands, as far as Kevin is concerned if he puts out an RPG book for a game every other year hes happy and all is good, you can't do that with table top miniature games you have to bring out product every year and or even twice a year.
Nope, the license requires things to be based off the RPG, so it was. That's been well known for a long time now.
My point was that as a miniatures game they need to put out new product every year unlike an RPG which can go years with nothing new (like PB), not talking as in play style but release style.
Asterios wrote: 5: too many unique units, PB brought out way too many unique units in this kickstarter (and can see the Conan game falling because of this too), they should have just added more of the basic game units to the pledges for stretch goals and saved the other unique pieces to bring out each year or so.
Possibly, they jumped all the way to the end of the story. They should have left things like the Upgraded MPA and FPA as well as the YF-4 and Jotun out of the KS and focused on the rest.
not just those, but left all of the wave 2 stuff off, that way they could release a new model or two every year and keep interest going in the game till the next generation comes out.
Mike1975 wrote: The AG and the rest is moot. We all know that you have openly stated your objective, the destruction of PB (A.K.A. Revenge) . #1 I see as unlikely in the extreme and #2 I see as even less likely. [/b]
its not revenge, revenge would mean passion while i do have passion for Robotech (love the show and stuff) I feel no true hatred or animosity towards PB, this is more like a civic duty, if I see someone robbing the bank I'm not going to ignore it and go on my way, i will contact the authorities and inform them of the situation.
Krinsath wrote: As an outside observer, one of the things that bothers me (and I of course have less cause to be bothered than many here) is how they continue to act like there's no blueprint for how they could dramatically improve their communications with the backers and thus the project as a whole.
What I've noticed with crowdfunding, is that, if a project funds, the creator doesn't change how they do business. Doom that Came to Atlantic City is the most egregious example. The creator misspent crowdfunding funds the same way he did funds from a previous private group of investors. Not too hard to find other examples, if you don't mind tearing scabs off wounds.
Thanks for your post, though. Myself, I haven't kept up with Mantic post-funding, so appreciate the info!
Doom seems to have been run intentionally to defraud backers though. The whole thing with the guy using other peoples names to promote the KS, getting the KS money, using it to move to another state, take uni courses and buy stuff etc, seems to indicate that.
No, I'm saying that how a creator behaves after funding has, from the crowdfunding projects I've seen, pretty much the same as before funding. Doesn't matter if its fraud or mismanagement.
Sining wrote: Doom seems to have been run intentionally to defraud backers though. The whole thing with the guy using other peoples names to promote the KS, getting the KS money, using it to move to another state, take uni courses and buy stuff etc, seems to indicate that.
What it did establish is what was promised needs to be fulfilled or some reimbursement.
What we are facing here is PB may not "feel like it" or the efforts may be inconvenient at the time or a financial hardship in their eyes and they decide to expand the timeline.
Say they spent all the money on the KS, now it is out of their pocket to complete the promises.
If they can push out production, not creating anything tangible for 10 years, can anyone say they do not intend on completing what was promised?
They are very quick to point out that the "estimated completion" is just that, when does it get ridiculous in the eyes of the law? (obviously not in PB's projects)
PB is quick to point out their high amount of frustration, that is typically at it's worst when things are out of your control.
I wonder if they are tapped out of money and us cheap hobbyists are not getting them the revenue they expect.
From the flurry of X-mas in July and "trinket" sales, these are unprecedented for PB so I can only assume this is the case.
It would be irritating to have a clear path to completion but stopped dead due to lack of liquidity.
If they came clean and said they ran out and the project was more than they expected, some support could be found for them.
Their hesitation to say anything can lead me to think money went to areas not directly part of fulfilling the KS rewards.
Anyway, repeating myself way too often.
I blamePB because of them not providing anything new!
Sining wrote: Doom seems to have been run intentionally to defraud backers though. The whole thing with the guy using other peoples names to promote the KS, getting the KS money, using it to move to another state, take uni courses and buy stuff etc, seems to indicate that.
What it did establish is what was promised needs to be fulfilled or some reimbursement.
What we are facing here is PB may not "feel like it" or the efforts may be inconvenient at the time or a financial hardship in their eyes and they decide to expand the timeline.
Say they spent all the money on the KS, now it is out of their pocket to complete the promises.
If they can push out production, not creating anything tangible for 10 years, can anyone say they do not intend on completing what was promised?
They are very quick to point out that the "estimated completion" is just that, when does it get ridiculous in the eyes of the law? (obviously not in PB's projects)
PB is quick to point out their high amount of frustration, that is typically at it's worst when things are out of your control.
I wonder if they are tapped out of money and us cheap hobbyists are not getting them the revenue they expect.
From the flurry of X-mas in July and "trinket" sales, these are unprecedented for PB so I can only assume this is the case.
It would be irritating to have a clear path to completion but stopped dead due to lack of liquidity.
If they came clean and said they ran out and the project was more than they expected, some support could be found for them.
Their hesitation to say anything can lead me to think money went to areas not directly part of fulfilling the KS rewards.
Anyway, repeating myself way too often.
I blamePB because of them not providing anything new!
the only places I can see KS funds going that PB could explain was reasonable to themselves is the NG books (gots to get them out), GC (gots to advertise), and keeping the lights on (gots to see where everything is).
Also the time limit that the AG's go after is 2 years.
the issue is, if PB is without money then they are just spinning their wheels and that won't wash with the AG's, right now PB is trying to scrape up loans and such to finish the project but not getting anywhere with it.
Asterios wrote: the only places I can see KS funds going that PB could explain was reasonable to themselves is the NG books (gots to get them out), GC (gots to advertise), and keeping the lights on (gots to see where everything is).
This would be a form of legal suicide but I can see it being tempting.
I would say it is equally probable they just mismanaged the money on the project and it is gone through that, but they should request a refund on the dies: could not have been all that expensive.
Also the time limit that the AG's go after is 2 years.
Nice to know, that is probably the limit I can get a credit card company to consider... speaking of which: need to explore that avenue.
the issue is, if PB is without money then they are just spinning their wheels and that won't wash with the AG's, right now PB is trying to scrape up loans and such to finish the project but not getting anywhere with it.
Well, this is where it could go differently: if PB can show a best effort of the money being spent appropriately and the resources of the company are limited: it could be considered OK.
It would be difficult to penalize them if all efforts were made short of bankrupting themselves, even if they were less than straight with the consumer.
Only PB knows the answer to this and AG involvement would only get expensive if they are found of wrongdoing (forgot they may actually have to consult their lawyer at least once).
If they're short on money due to their own mismanagement (and I count potential poor vetting of Ninja Division as THEIR own mismanagement in choosing them) then they should come clean and put out what they can afford giving priority to what was unlocked in order in the battlecry pledge firstinstead of dicking around for years.
So, they keep taking off that the new sculpts unlocked from the very end until they can affort to design, produce, and ship them. From the previous thread, the VF-4, the experimentals, the SDF-1, Lancer, and Ghost in that order. If that's not enough, keep going. Note that this doesn't mean that they still develop it and sell it but just stiff backers. IF they make it later, they sell it to backers for the amounts they initially pledged at cost. What they shouldn't do is spend that KS money to make sculpts and then on top of that not ship them to backers; I say that as it seems like the Palladium style mismanagement type thing they're wont to do.
I'd rather have most of my pledge before I die instead of waiting until palladium gets around to it (hopefully before they die).
Asterios wrote: the only places I can see KS funds going that PB could explain was reasonable to themselves is the NG books (gots to get them out), GC (gots to advertise), and keeping the lights on (gots to see where everything is).
This would be a form of legal suicide but I can see it being tempting.
I would say it is equally probable they just mismanaged the money on the project and it is gone through that, but they should request a refund on the dies: could not have been all that expensive.
very tempting, they thought they had more then enough and before they knew it they were out of funds
look at this years GC booth and last years, they rent all that space and barely use half of it.
Asterios wrote: the issue is, if PB is without money then they are just spinning their wheels and that won't wash with the AG's, right now PB is trying to scrape up loans and such to finish the project but not getting anywhere with it.
Well, this is where it could go differently: if PB can show a best effort of the money being spent appropriately and the resources of the company are limited: it could be considered OK.
It would be difficult to penalize them if all efforts were made short of bankrupting themselves, even if they were less than straight with the consumer.
Only PB knows the answer to this and AG involvement would only get expensive if they are found of wrongdoing (forgot they may actually have to consult their lawyer at least once).
look whats been shown for wave 2, that is not a best effort but laziness they have shown a total of maybe one days worth of work, hell Kevin spent more time defending and whining then working on wave 2.
And thats pretty much the AG equivalent to BBB practices. They took your letter of complaint, sent it or a summary to PB, and when they get a response they will forward it to you.
However the AG will read & file the response, and if there are concerns there, or perhaps with a dozen other complaints, that will start the investigation into "substantive proof"
That's also why i recommend everyone filing with the MIAG as well. He has jurisdiction due to PBs location as well, and instead of a few CA complaints, an IL complaint... .he gets the full picture that way
ThaneCawdor wrote: And thats pretty much the AG equivalent to BBB practices. They took your letter of complaint, sent it or a summary to PB, and when they get a response they will forward it to you.
However the AG will read & file the response, and if there are concerns there, or perhaps with a dozen other complaints, that will start the investigation into "substantive proof"
That's also why i recommend everyone filing with the MIAG as well. He has jurisdiction due to PBs location as well, and instead of a few CA complaints, an IL complaint... .he gets the full picture that way
yeah well if Kevin gives my States AG the same response he gave the BBB Pb is screwed.
also you'll notice it sent an inquiry top PB from their offices too, not just my complaint.
as it goes this is just the complaint and inquiry stage, next is PB's response and evidentiary stage where evidence will be presented from both sides, also have filed with the Michigan AG but no response from them yet, which could mean one of many things.
"A lawyer friend of mine said that KS is an investment platform in disguise, and that in a lawsuit, that would be the model pursued in court. That's just his word on it, so whatever. I suspect that no matter what Siembieda says, that's going to be how the courts will view it."
Hey, can't blame Kevin on that one. The White Knights (in ANY Kickstarter) always break that out as their first line of defense.
"The creator doesn't owe you ANYTHING YOU ENTITLED LOSER! This is a gift based on a dream. If it all got spent on hookers and blow it doesn't matter because they don't owe you anything!!!!1!1!"
If monies are collected post-KS via Pledge Manager (or better yet, Web Store), you had damn well better believe that things have moved from "gift" to sales.
In fact, from a legal standpoint, if KS doesn't get their gak together, we might see pledges reduce in order to take advantage of likely consumer protections tied to what clearly become preorders in every legal and consumer sense.
Hey, I want my Monster too. And it might actually be under the 200 parts Simbieda originally thought a large model (with "mouth watering detail!!!) absolutely must have.
Note that the CAAG letter says, "when substantive evidence is presented to us".
If the WAAG is anything to go on, this translates to "if you don't have a lawyer who gathers this info for us, we're not going to do anything". While the WAAG is taking credit for the Asylum Bicycle playing cards KS, in reality, the unpaid artist and a lawyer backer working pro bono had to gather the evidence to present to the WAAG. (The artist lives overseas, so agreed with another party in the US, who collected the funds for him and forward the money to him. Did. Not. Work. Out. That. Way.) I don't know if the FTC settlement against the Doom that Came to Atlantic City involved a backer lawyer working for free. Do we have any idea if a lawyer is working pro bono to bring legal action against Palladium?
IOW, Palladium Books indemnify them against legal costs. If people wanted to bankrupt PB out of spite, running up 3rd party legal fees would be an easy way to do it...
Of course, that's playing with fire - if they countersue, you could go down in flames, too...
Fortunately, PB doesn't have the time or resources for extended legal campaigns.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If monies are collected post-KS via Pledge Manager (or better yet, Web Store), you had damn well better believe that things have moved from "gift" to sales.
Kevin will argue with you on that point, his BBB reply to me says it rolls-in as "funding".
This of course means nothing because it still boils down to how long can he delay till the law feels the timeline = too long.
In fact, from a legal standpoint, if KS doesn't get their gak together, we might see pledges reduce in order to take advantage of likely consumer protections tied to what clearly become preorders in every legal and consumer sense.
Some clarity on a "pre-order" standpoint would be a fine thing.
Pre-orders had been added to the list for me of never doing: there is no consumer advantage "usually" in them.
ced1106 wrote: Note that the CAAG letter says, "when substantive evidence is presented to us".
If the WAAG is anything to go on, this translates to "if you don't have a lawyer who gathers this info for us, we're not going to do anything". While the WAAG is taking credit for the Asylum Bicycle playing cards KS, in reality, the unpaid artist and a lawyer backer working pro bono had to gather the evidence to present to the WAAG. (The artist lives overseas, so agreed with another party in the US, who collected the funds for him and forward the money to him. Did. Not. Work. Out. That. Way.) I don't know if the FTC settlement against the Doom that Came to Atlantic City involved a backer lawyer working for free. Do we have any idea if a lawyer is working pro bono to bring legal action against Palladium?
the gathering of evidence is not hard, just bring together the kickstarter and the current state law, hell I don't need a lawyer to do that with my Paralegal degree, its easy plus I have access to a legal library and my Black's Law Dictionary
the FTC was their own case.
Cypher-xv wrote: According to Rick his is and when PB has to pay fines and such Kevin will pay Rick's lawyers fees. Or something like that.
thats if I sue them, won't need my lawyer for a state CPA case.
JohnHwangDD wrote: IOW, Palladium Books indemnify them against legal costs. If people wanted to bankrupt PB out of spite, running up 3rd party legal fees would be an easy way to do it...
Of course, that's playing with fire - if they countersue, you could go down in flames, too...
Fortunately, PB doesn't have the time or resources for extended legal campaigns.
countersue for what? they have nothing to sue me over.
Mike1975 wrote: Hey Richard, this is for your Bioroids. I'll upload to the Google Drive later.
problem is your squads are 6 bioroid squads, the show only had them in 3 man squads, what is it with people not doing robotech squads in 3 like the show?
Mike1975 wrote: Hey Richard, this is for your Bioroids. I'll upload to the Google Drive later.
Thank you, Mike. In the show they were often 3 man squads, any chance you might have a 3 figure version, or be willing to quickly draft one up with the numbers you're using?
Mike1975 wrote: Hey Richard, this is for your Bioroids. I'll upload to the Google Drive later.
Thank you, Mike. In the show they were often 3 man squads, any chance you might have a 3 figure version, or be willing to quickly draft one up with the numbers you're using?
You had a typo. Several of them, actually.
I have fixed them for you.
Well said. Just because two people have diametrically different opinions on a subject matter, when one does a favor without condition for the other, being a dick about it shouldn't be the first resort.
Mike1975 wrote: Hey Richard, this is for your Bioroids. I'll upload to the Google Drive later.
Thank you, Mike. In the show they were often 3 man squads, any chance you might have a 3 figure version, or be willing to quickly draft one up with the numbers you're using?
You had a typo. Several of them, actually.
I have fixed them for you.
oops my bad thought I put thanks Mike on there but forgot
Yes, they are in fact in 3 man Squads.....if you look.
Squadrons on the other hand are in 6 because 9 would make them a bit too big and make squad cards harder to make at 1/3 a full squadron instead of 1/2.
We also know that killing one weakened the other three but that only showed up when the Invid Killers appeared and was not pointed out or spoke about with any of the other units. So I have endeavored to design accordingly. We also know the Greenies were seen on the ships and I think they were only seen once on land. The Boiroids also need some sort of VF-1J sub-commander so I thought that might work better than just floods of blues. To balance it out with the rest some tinkering needs to be done but I feel that they match pretty well.
If you got any ideas though...feel free to share them.
My point Mike is the Robotech Masters did all things in 3, not 6 or 9, but 3 even the civilians walked around in 3's that was their holy mantra and everything was based a round the number 3 not the rule of 3 but the triad, trinity, triumvirate, always 3's, the floating pods of the leaders were 3 per floating pod even.
Because really, before looking for embezzelment, or misappropriation or whatever, I would just assume the game isn't moving so PB is stuck with a lot of capital tied up in products that don't move.
PB obviously spent a lot on wave one and extra materials for sale. It only makes sense since Factory Time is not cheap and doing more later on would be a big cost. That is a very valid concern.
Because really, before looking for embezzelment, or misappropriation or whatever, I would just assume the game isn't moving so PB is stuck with a lot of capital tied up in products that don't move.
Nope. At the moment, it's all just circumstantial. Namely (in some attempt at keeping it to a timeline)
- it being heavily discounted immediately upon release
- there being no mention of them being resupplied since the initial deliveries concluded
- anecdotal information about individual stores, or locally grouped stores
- low, but not provably trending, sales data from EBay and the like
- PB still appearing to have a substantial stock at the Open House
- PB discounting the entirety of GenCon
- PB anecdotally appearing to still have significant stock remaining at GenCon*
- PB announcing sales of GenCon Exclusives were disappointing
- PB doing "flash sales" on RRT product immediately following GenCon.
* I saw how much was there on the Thursday morning, and how much was still there Sunday afternoon, with my own eyes (anecdote!). But they COULD have been doing daily restocks from backfield storage.
None of that looks good, but it's far from hard evidence. And short of a civil suit demanding it during discovery, or bankruptcy filings, we're never likely to know. PB and KevCo seem to be private in that regards (for the most part), and there doesn't appear to be any kind of tracking system worth a damn for games in general.
Regarding direct embezzlement into pocket, or using KS funds to fund other projects, like Northern Gun, I don't think that's what happened (though I wouldn't be shocked if it were, based on prior history and them showing their "character", but I'd consider it well below probable). Regarding your last part, that appears to be the key point of contention for some people. If they've got "kickstarter capital" tied up in product that's not moving, is THAT misappropriation? Because if it's their own money tied up in the production, shipping and storage elements of what was designated "retail stock", how would that impact the reserves of the Kickstarter?
Basically, while the setup costs, and the costs to manufacture and ship the backer rewards as being legitimate expenses for the Kickstarter funds, I can see advertising post Kickstarter (including convention expenses), and the costs to manufacture and ship retail stock as a portion of the overall costs, to be questionable at best. I mean, I can understand doing a printrun of 20,000 boxes to get them at $10 per box, rather than doing two separate 10,000 runs, one for backers, one for retail at $12 per box. Same as shipping in bulk across eleven containers. Economy of scale is important. But spending only KS funds for the entirety of the single print run, then diverting half that stock to retail, with an intention to funnel part of the profit from retail back into the KS funds? Yeah, that seems like a questionable way to spend KS funds.
Mike1975 wrote: PB obviously spent a lot on wave one and extra materials for sale. It only makes sense since Factory Time is not cheap and doing more later on would be a big cost. That is a very valid concern.
And one that they completely glossed over to instead address the mostly mean spirited (but deserved) joking about spending it on stocks, houses, vacations, etc. Only palladium would miss the 98% of comments that worry they overspent on dead wave 1 stock to instead comment instead on the 2% throwaway comments about spending it on nefarious things.
Assuming it is not moving (it seemed the 2 game shops near me did not sell much/any in the year I was in Washington), I do feel for PB.
After all how do you predict sales on a 30 year old licenced property?
OK so the die hard fans all bought into the KS, how many more will there be when it hits the stores? Will the name Robotech and the mecha designs bring in new fans? Was the KS fanbase the beginning, or the end? Should PB have prepared for a bigger audience or just assumed that the KS backers represented everyone in the ven diagram of wargamers/modelers+robotech fans?
I don't envy someone trying to make that call.
I also really think they shouldn't have gone for 100% plastic, if they'd gone plastic/resin they could be done now.
Sure Valkyries and Destroids and Battlepods will sell enough for plastic, but Lancer IIs? Ghosts? AWAC Valkyries? Obscure Zentradi ships?
Even the Monster could probably have been done in resin. People will buy one, but that's it, they'll buy one. If by good fortune it sold tons, then revisit doing it in plastic.
But all this is Monday Morning Quarterbacking (a Monday 2 years later that).
To join in on the retrospectovision, I'd say that the initial KS was supposed to hook the nostalgia crowd but the next 6 months of "hype" before the initial Oct-Dec 2013 delivery period, seeing the game played, and people enjoying the hobby aspects were supposed to hook the next generation. Unfortunately, palladium screwed up all three of those key aspects that would have grown the game post KS.
Asterios wrote: .
the gathering of evidence is not hard, just bring together the kickstarter and the current state law, hell I don't need a lawyer to do that with my Paralegal degree, its easy plus I have access to a legal library and my Black's Law Dictionary
So have you contacted Rick and his lawyer to offer your services? I often read about upset backers on various projects saying they're going to take legal action that will actual accomplish something, but that's about as far as they get.
fwiw, To follow up on Morgan's post, I think it's pretty common for creators to produce units for retail and backers at the same time, because it's more efficient than doing two production runs. Of course, as you cited, if the creator mismanages the project by overestimating retail demand, then he's stuck with inventory and no cash for shipping to backers nor for further production (no money left to make models for later waves). But, while it's "questionable" to spend KS funds to create retail product with the assumption that this will generate cash (heck, I thought that was SOP!), I've yet to read anything that suggests backers can legally do anything about this. But if anyone can cite any actual crowdfunding articles that specifically address this, let me know. Thanks.
n815e wrote: I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).
I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!
Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....
Mike1975 wrote: PB obviously spent a lot on wave one and extra materials for sale. It only makes sense since Factory Time is not cheap and doing more later on would be a big cost. That is a very valid concern.
And one that they completely glossed over to instead address the mostly mean spirited (but deserved) joking about spending it on stocks, houses, vacations, etc. Only palladium would miss the 98% of comments that worry they overspent on dead wave 1 stock to instead comment instead on the 2% throwaway comments about spending it on nefarious things.
the issue I have with this is, who the hell said they bought cars or boats or stock or? I don't recall anyone saying they used KS funds for these things, for keeping the lights on and for the NG books yes, that has been speculated since it was considered very interesting as soon as they would have gotten the money from KS, they were able to start printing and shipping the NG books, like I said suspicious, especially after a 2 year hiatus.
Asterios wrote: .
the gathering of evidence is not hard, just bring together the kickstarter and the current state law, hell I don't need a lawyer to do that with my Paralegal degree, its easy plus I have access to a legal library and my Black's Law Dictionary
So have you contacted Rick and his lawyer to offer your services? I often read about upset backers on various projects saying they're going to take legal action that will actual accomplish something, but that's about as far as they get.
ummm I am Rick
ced1106 wrote: fwiw, To follow up on Morgan's post, I think it's pretty common for creators to produce units for retail and backers at the same time, because it's more efficient than doing two production runs. Of course, as you cited, if the creator mismanages the project by overestimating retail demand, then he's stuck with inventory and no cash for shipping to backers nor for further production (no money left to make models for later waves). But, while it's "questionable" to spend KS funds to create retail product with the assumption that this will generate cash (heck, I thought that was SOP!), I've yet to read anything that suggests backers can legally do anything about this. But if anyone can cite any actual crowdfunding articles that specifically address this, let me know. Thanks.
spending money for additional stock, while not illegal, not being able to deliver on product already paid for is illegal.
The issue is my personal opinion is PB spent KS money on printing the NG books, and paying bills for the company while spending the bulk on the KS itself, problem is with that bulk $150K (according to Kevin) was spent on just shipping, then there was reserve time a couple times at the factory, there was over priced over sized space at GC there were Con exclusives, essentially if an accountant went thru PB's books on this KS they would shake their heads and cry, PB has no experiance of how to use such an amount of money, they think ok a few bucks to get the NG books out, a few bucks for the GC booth a few bucks here and there, thinking they got over 1Mil. but those few bucks add up real quick and before you know it, your out of money and have more stock you need to design and produce and no money to do it, do you tell the backers and possibly cause a rioting mob to burn down PB? or do you mislead them and stall them and hope the funds come in some way or somehow?
n815e wrote: I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).
I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!
Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....
the whole points system needs to be redone, from Macross thru. thats whats throwing off your numbers, is your basing it off of the Macross stuff, you need to redo that and start from scratch.
Asterios wrote: the issue I have with this is, who the hell said they bought cars or boats or stock or? I don't recall anyone saying they used KS funds for these things, for keeping the lights on and for the NG books yes, that has been speculated since it was considered very interesting as soon as they would have gotten the money from KS, they were able to start printing and shipping the NG books, like I said suspicious, especially after a 2 year hiatus.
It's been joked about both on the kickstarter comments as well as here on dakka. From just a few pages back:
Merijeek wrote: Hey, can't blame Kevin on that one. The White Knights (in ANY Kickstarter) always break that out as their first line of defense.
"The creator doesn't owe you ANYTHING YOU ENTITLED LOSER! This is a gift based on a dream. If it all got spent on hookers and blow it doesn't matter because they don't owe you anything!!!!1!1!"
Hookers and blow. Now, obviously (to us) that is a joke but Palladium has chosen to respond to a joke instead of the hundreds of comments postulating that they've tied down kickstarter funds in other ancillary things like RETAIL product and two years worth of wasted salaries, fees, and storage that they never budgeted for and that should have been paid for with their own private funds. On a side note, if anyone is interested in buying some UEDF NOS stuff (basically the rulebook and UEDF starter contents plus 4 more destroids), send me a pm. I'm also selling a painted 3,000+ pt Southern Heavy Gear army as well to sell as a complete lot.
n815e wrote: I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).
I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!
Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....
You could probably have Invid Fighters be in units of only three, since they are an elite unit type.
thinking about what amount of stock palladium ordered and still have left over you also have to consider what their manufacturers minimum order was and what the price break was for units in addition to the minimum order
If the only ordered the minimum that would be a ok no matter how many they have left over
if they ordered more it would depend on quite how good a deal they got for the extras (and whether they used general company funds rather than KS cash).. smart businesses keep the KS cash flow separate.. whether Palladium did or not I guess we'll see if their books ever get examined
Asterios wrote: the issue I have with this is, who the hell said they bought cars or boats or stock or? I don't recall anyone saying they used KS funds for these things, for keeping the lights on and for the NG books yes, that has been speculated since it was considered very interesting as soon as they would have gotten the money from KS, they were able to start printing and shipping the NG books, like I said suspicious, especially after a 2 year hiatus.
It's been joked about both on the kickstarter comments as well as here on dakka. From just a few pages back:
Merijeek wrote: Hey, can't blame Kevin on that one. The White Knights (in ANY Kickstarter) always break that out as their first line of defense.
"The creator doesn't owe you ANYTHING YOU ENTITLED LOSER! This is a gift based on a dream. If it all got spent on hookers and blow it doesn't matter because they don't owe you anything!!!!1!1!"
think that was posted after the update though.
before the update don't think i heard anyone say that, so it construes maybe one of Kevin's fan friends said that was being said, thats the only thing I can think of.
It was but it was to illustrate a point. The comments are out there over two years but they're few and far between and blatantly jokes, not something that the semi-annual real update should be spending precious space addressing.
warboss wrote: It was but it was to illustrate a point. The comments are out there over two years but they're few and far between and blatantly jokes, not something that the semi-annual real update should be spending precious space addressing.
well as far as Kevin is concerned misleading and misdirecting is normal instead of the truth.
"Narcissists' language and demeanor is often geared toward one objective: to maintain power in an interaction. Psychologist Anita Vangelisti of the University of Texas at Austin found that tactics in the narcissists' toolbox include bragging, refocusing the topic of conversation, making exaggerated hand movements, talking loudly, and showing disinterest by "glazing over" when others speak."
"Because control is so important to narcissists, they can abruptly lose their charm if destabilized or threatened. This two-faced behavior is often the first clue to their true character. They get angry when rejected, overreacting to small slights and punishing those who do not support their grandiose image of themselves. One study even found that when spurned, highly narcissistic individuals "punished" other research participants who had nothing to do with the rejection itself."
"It appears that narcissists seek out people who maintain their high positive self-image, at the same time intentionally avoiding and putting down people who may give them a harsh dose of realism. "Seeking admiration is like a drug for narcissists," notes Back. "In the long run it becomes difficult because others won't applaud them, so they always have to search for new acquaintances from whom they get the next fix."
Anyway, I suppose me offering "a harsh dose of realism" is not appreciated for what it is intended.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: thinking about what amount of stock palladium ordered and still have left over you also have to consider what their manufacturers minimum order was and what the price break was for units in addition to the minimum order
If the only ordered the minimum that would be a ok no matter how many they have left over
if they ordered more it would depend on quite how good a deal they got for the extras (and whether they used general company funds rather than KS cash).. smart businesses keep the KS cash flow separate.. whether Palladium did or not I guess we'll see if their books ever get examined
Yeah, we have no idea where the Economy of Scale benefits were with regards to manufacturing and shipping. Working with mass production can be weird, and you end up in situations where the setup is so much more expensive than the materials and labour that for an extra 10% you can get like 600% more stuff (hyperbole for emphasis, but I know people who had things made and paid minimal amounts to get massive extra quantities for passing over more efficient break points in their pricing structure).
Obviously they wouldn't have gotten this stuff for free, but for all we know it was a sizable enough savings to justify it (and if they've spent X dollars of Backer funding for the Backer stuff, tacking on the retail as well for a fraction of that could've been the wise business move).
We'll probably never know, but I just find the 'maybe they spent it all on core boxes!' argument unlikely. If CSI can at least break even at $50 for a core box (or take a slight loss to bring people in), presumably that's at least vaguely around the whole sale price, which would mean that even with a fire sale in the $40-50 range, presumably they could recoup their costs or even make a profit. Basically, product in hand isn't that big a deal unless storage costs are a problem or it simply cannot be sold at any price. Even then, taking a loss in a *steep* sale (like, $25-40) is still a minor loss over potential, but still probably at or around their out of pocket costs. If anything, the main thing holding them back there, as I see it, would be that going too low would make certain people *lose their minds* and decry that the sky is, in fact, falling. Yes, the Gencon sale was a bit odd, but whatever, if it brings in some new players and a few Battletech dollars, it is what it is.
Long story short, pallets and pallets of these things could well add up to tens of thousands of dollars in stuff, but that's obviously still a drop in the bucket compared to what they brought in. It could be 100k, I still don't believe they could've zeroed out making less than a dozen sprues and producing/shipping them with ~$1.5m.
Wyrd manages to pull those kinds of figure numbers off yearly (or even every couple of quarters) and nobody is going to call them a titan of the industry. This stuff is expensive, I'm sure they made some expensive mistakes, but overbuying on Wave 1 retail and being broke doing it (even together) just doesn't seem to quite add up.
I think the more likely and reasonable situation could be simply being short on cash, not broke, but tens of thousands (or a couple hundred thousand) from going full swing. Which isn't quite as dire, but as the months tick by (with expenses ongoing), making that up in t-shirts, mouse pads, and pencils is going to take a lot longer than I think a lot of people are going to accept (assuming they're even making headway of course. They could even just be breaking even, in which case all these sales to turn excess stock into cash had better be going a long bloody way.
You know, a guy who tells it like it is and doesn’t blow sunshine up your behind. So when he says something is good, you know it’s good. Heck, all the guys are like that.
Funny how they never say it completely sucks gak... which has been the case both with their RPGs at times and this robotech project. Talizvar, you need to tell him that the warm feeling he has on his face after getting such honest feedback from his fan friends and employees isn't sunshine.
I had to go look - the whole quote is even better and more confusing?
That’s great to hear, and it’s nice to have a cheerleader like Alex in your corner. You know, a guy who tells it like it is and doesn’t blow sunshine up your behind. So when he says something is good, you know it’s good. Heck, all the guys are like that. Some days I wish they were yes-men, but not really. I like getting honest criticism and feedback even when it is harsh at times. It’s what helps me keep the level of quality strong. Of course, I tend to be my harshest critic, so it’s good to know I’m hitting on all cylinders when I’m so not sure myself.
You might be tempted to think he was kidding about that whole "my harshest critic" and "I like getting honest criticism" comments given the date of the post but he's not.
Has he ever considered Palladium might require a staff member who's job is sales?
I'm guessing they're used to selling their product to fan friends. Surely it must be obvious that to sell a new product you need someone generating sales?
Well um, Warboss, I never went looking at his forum posts.
Thanks, it is worse than I thought.
Classic Narc. 101.. sheesh!
Yeah, now I know he will have a special hatred for the vocal "minority".
Oh well, I have locked horns with bigger than him so we shall see how it goes.
Worse thing is, he may look at the controversy as a good thing. The longer no hammer drops the bolder he will get.
It may only get uglier.
Post lots of critical negativity or just go straight into ignore other than consumer actions. <sigh>
Joyboozer wrote: Has he ever considered Palladium might require a staff member who's job is sales?
Of course he has. How could you think that he has been in business for 34 years with simple stuff like going over his head? Luckily for all of us, the guy who delivers pizza for Domino's in that area is a HUGE rifts fan and will be willing to take over global sales for minimum wage (with a 90 unpaid volunteer period first of course packing boxes and sweeping floors to properly evalute his skills).
Well, Palladium did use to do a lot of advertising in Dragon Magazine (full page ads sometimes), that was how I first learned of them. But that was back in the 80's and 90's and likely Kevin put the ads together himself. But he was getting his product out to folks beyond his fan-friends/KS mailing list.
Question is, beyond their own magazine Rifter, where WOULD there be a good place for them to advertise their wares? All the gaming magazines I know of are defunct, TV's too expensive and it's not like they'd get the attention of Forbes or other such magazines like D&D has.
I did think it was funny that in the UEDF book, there's advertisements in the back from two other publishers on the last two pages of the book.
n815e wrote: I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).
I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!
Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....
You could probably have Invid Fighters be in units of only three, since they are an elite unit type.
So out of curiosity I put up a poll on the FB page on this. Right now there are 9 for Squadrons of 6 and 3 for Squadrons on 9. Here are a couple slides for comparison. Keep in mind that this is the cheapest of the Squadrons and it still reaches 105 points....
It is funny the odd parallels of PB vs Games Workshop.
Except that GW has a bit more money to play with and are good at plastic molds... well there ARE some similarities in management styles: no advertising and do not listen to the fan-base they will only make you choose wrong.
I think we had come up with some changes but I cannot find them....Bioroid Sled rules.
Hoversleds are used exclusively by the Robotech Maasters Bioroid forces.
These sleds allow additional firepower and faster movement to the front lines for Bioroid forces. Bioroid squadrons can purchase the sleds. Sleds are an integral part of the Bioroid strategy. Bioroids can freely mount and dismount their sleds at the start of their activation step. Once mounted a Bioroid moves at the speed of the Sled and it will also lose the Jump AND the Quick traits. When an Bioroid dismounts the platform will land safely and is taken off the table and out of harm's way. The sleds are much faster when unoccupied by a bioroid but cannot attack or dodge autonomously. They are essentially advance remote controlled sleds with a limited AI that have been slaved the the Bioroid computer systems. When a Bioroid is mounted and is hit, roll a D6. On a result of a 1 to 3 the Bioroid is hit and on a result of 4 to 6 the Hoversled is hit by the attack. Excess damage from any single attack that destroys the sled of rider is lost. Bioroids are so nimble that if they are on a sled when it is destroyed they land in the same spot that they are in on the ground and do not take any additional damage. Bioroids on Hoversleds are limited in their Hand to Hand options to Punching or performing a Body Block and can freely exit Hand to Hand combat without paying the cost cost of a Command Point.
Woot! Glad to hear it. I'm looking forward to some first-hand information!
So what sort of cases are you familiar with with the misuse of funds, investor or otherwise? I know the FTC went after the KS creator behind Doom that Came to Atlantic City, but his use of funds were obviously n/a to the project. Have you found cases where the use of funds were, say, tangential to the project, but not direct? Do you know if a lawyer worked pro bono for the backers of Doom? TIA!
Woot! Glad to hear it. I'm looking forward to some first-hand information!
So what sort of cases are you familiar with with the misuse of funds, investor or otherwise? I know the FTC went after the KS creator behind Doom that Came to Atlantic City, but his use of funds were obviously n/a to the project. Have you found cases where the use of funds were, say, tangential to the project, but not direct? Do you know if a lawyer worked pro bono for the backers of Doom? TIA!
well for starters it has nothing to do with mismanagement of funds, but lack of delivery, with an estimated delivery date of Dec. 2013 and 2 years later still waiting on a bunch of stuff, even that stretches credulity, its one thing if they didn't already collect the money back in June of 2013, but they did, thereby they are in defiance of basic principles of the Consumer Protection Act.
in other words 2 years past the estimated delivery date is too long to hold our money with out delivering full product and not talking about the BC pledge either but the add-ons and such.
n815e wrote: Well, that's assuming PB gets them made!
forget PB were making our own
Not really a route I want to have to take, though.
As long as they don't intend to sell them, they are very much in the clear.
Not sure how this is a response to what I wrote.
ayup making for myself, working on an Armored Veritech now and some Invid, but only for me not to sell
well for starters it has nothing to do with mismanagement of funds, but lack of delivery, with an estimated delivery date of Dec. 2013 and 2 years later still waiting on a bunch of stuff, even that stretches credulity, its one thing if they didn't already collect the money back in June of 2013, but they did, thereby they are in defiance of basic principles of the Consumer Protection Act.
in other words 2 years past the estimated delivery date is too long to hold our money with out delivering full product and not talking about the BC pledge either but the add-ons and such.
Other KS projects have not delivered within a two year timeframe. Does the FDIC (or whomever you're filing a complaint with) take this into consideration? Do they want additional information that would make them take action against PB?
well for starters it has nothing to do with mismanagement of funds, but lack of delivery, with an estimated delivery date of Dec. 2013 and 2 years later still waiting on a bunch of stuff, even that stretches credulity, its one thing if they didn't already collect the money back in June of 2013, but they did, thereby they are in defiance of basic principles of the Consumer Protection Act.
in other words 2 years past the estimated delivery date is too long to hold our money with out delivering full product and not talking about the BC pledge either but the add-ons and such.
Other KS projects have not delivered within a two year timeframe. Does the FDIC (or whomever you're filing a complaint with) take this into consideration? Do they want additional information that would make them take action against PB?
I filed with the BBB to show attempt to resolve said matter, then I filed with the Michigan state AG (no word from them yet) and filed with my own States AG who has sent an inquiry to PB, as to other KS projects not delivering within 2 years they do not care unless someone files with them regarding them.
as to information pretty much all that is needed is evidence product was not delivered within a certain time frame, which is why the Washington State Attorney did nothing on the card game till a certain time frame lapsed.
All i have to show for now is date money was paid, estimated date of delivery of full project and what was delivered and not delivered.
theres a couple other avenues that might be used in case this needs to go to court, but thats all i'm at liberty to say for now.
Asterios wrote: still think you should have gone with my Synchronized targeting special ability
I didn't for three reasons.....
1. In the Masters Saga only the Terminator Bioroids were the ones that fought specifically in threes. The others were organized in threes but not mentioned or seen specifically fighting as a team of three units. Once the Advanced units came out that was mentioned.
2. I don't like the idea of ignoring LOS on any unit with direct fire weapons. (The you have units shooting around hills).
3. The Bioroids will have a much better survival chance by having a larger CF radius. This means that they can avoid having multiple units hit in a single volley. There were also never seen bunching up like pods but spreading our to take cover and pour the hurt on. Plus it helps them a lot against Blast weapons.
Nothing new on the PROGRESS of Wave 2, BUT apparently they're starting to put up cards for items in Wave 2. I hadn't seen an announcement anywhere that they'd done that, though to be fair, I also wasn't actively looking. And I honestly applaud that effort.
Though, so far it's the FPA, and MPA, and soon to be the SValk and Zent HInf. So the cynical part of me kind of thinks it's just an attempt to sell more of the promo figures to be used "as proxies" for these units, at a ridiculous markup.
Cause $66 for a FPA squadron, or $132 for an MPA squadron, seems a bit pricey at this point. But for that price, you do get to play with them (likely officially, according to the POH tourney rules allowing Miriya FPA as a proxy), months/years before anyone else does.
All the rest of the promises (Force Orgs, Conventional Forces, Expanded Rules/FAQ/Errata) are still being promised, but I do note they've removed "in the weeks ahead". Probably a good thing not to put any form of timeframe on it. Because for a company that has said they don't want to put schedules on things (Like Wave 2), they sure do put a lot of schedules on things (Like Wave 2).
Well, to make it appear something will get done "soon" it is to alleviate that fear of pre-ordering, or get all angry wanting your money back after waiting months for "soon" to be over.
Yep, PB is realizing capital rolled into stock is worth more even discounted as liquid cash. Let us hope it is for molds not keeping the lights on.
I too didn't realize they came out with the MPA and FPA cards either. Was that announced on the facebook group? Or last week's update and I just missed it? Or is it new?
warboss wrote: I too didn't realize they came out with the MPA and FPA cards either. Was that announced on the facebook group? Or last week's update and I just missed it? Or is it new?
No idea. I saw them on DrivethruRPG's daily updates some days ago... must admit I didn't bother to pick them up.
Asterios wrote: PB said in the last update they were going to be bring these cards out, but nothing about them being brought out.
I don't recall that but (for obvious reason) I admittedly skim over the stuff they plan/wish/hope/want/pray to get out until it's actually out. Thanks.
warboss wrote: I too didn't realize they came out with the MPA and FPA cards either. Was that announced on the facebook group? Or last week's update and I just missed it? Or is it new?
No idea. I saw them on DrivethruRPG's daily updates some days ago... must admit I didn't bother to pick them up.
I did just in case they get pulled down at a later date. Never hurts to have them.
Asterios wrote: PB said in the last update they were going to be bring these cards out, but nothing about them being brought out.
I don't recall that but (for obvious reason) I admittedly skim over the stuff they plan/wish/hope/want/pray to get out until it's actually out. Thanks.
from the last KS update:
We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead:
Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces.
Force Organization Charts.
Stats for Conventional Combat Vehicles (pre-Robotech).
Expanded rules, errata, and clarifications.
A free set of basic rules and paper miniatures will be made available online.
More photos of painted minis.
And we’ll try to do more updates.
Ok, thanks, Yeah, most of that stuff has been advertised for months and yet doesn't exist in the wild despite the weekly/monthly claims of working on it so I didn't expect much. I'm glad it's out though. Even if they completely fail getting out wave 2, I'll at least officially be able to use my resin miriyas.
Anyone have any idea how small a 1/4000 scale VF-1 will be?
I just noticed that there are 8 VF-1's, 8 VF-1 Supers, and a couple of "Destroyed" Monsters in the 1/4000 SDF-1 kit I have ordered from Japan.
I'm hoping that they'll be at least a couple of mm long!
umm your sure those are in 1:40000 scale? cause thos would be microscopic, look at the RRT fighters, now imagine if they were about a third of a mm big I believe?
Anyone have any idea how small a 1/4000 scale VF-1 will be?
I just noticed that there are 8 VF-1's, 8 VF-1 Supers, and a couple of "Destroyed" Monsters in the 1/4000 SDF-1 kit I have ordered from Japan.
I'm hoping that they'll be at least a couple of mm long!
umm your sure those are in 1:40000 scale? cause thos would be microscopic, look at the RRT fighters, now imagine if they were about a third of a mm big I believe?
And that's where I got that from. I'm not terribly worried about the fighters or "Destroyed" monsters to be frank, I just want a decent looking ship configuration SDF-1 this century.
Anyone have any idea how small a 1/4000 scale VF-1 will be?
I just noticed that there are 8 VF-1's, 8 VF-1 Supers, and a couple of "Destroyed" Monsters in the 1/4000 SDF-1 kit I have ordered from Japan.
I'm hoping that they'll be at least a couple of mm long!
umm your sure those are in 1:40000 scale? cause thos would be microscopic, look at the RRT fighters, now imagine if they were about a third of a mm big I believe?
And that's where I got that from. I'm not terribly worried about the fighters or "Destroyed" monsters to be frank, I just want a decent looking ship configuration SDF-1 this century.
my bad then about 1/4 of an inch give or take a mm or two
So looking in Shapeways, I've found a 1/200 Gnerl. Using the Miriya Super Gerwalk, it's possible to cast up parts to kitbash some Super Valks from the standard Valks. The only thing left I need are the Monster, Glaug Eldare and armored valks. The VF-4, Jotuns and Zent Infantry aren't too high on my must have list.
Thinking about some of these a little more, given the number of pieces things already come in for PB to have just done some upgrade sprues. The Glaug Eldare could just be the Glaug sprue with an alternate booster sprue. The Armored and Super Valks could have just been add-on parts as well. Even the 1D/1E could be an alternate fighter/guardian/battloid top with an extended cockpit and different head.
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Hey, everyone. Just a quick note today before the holiday weekend.
We’ve put all the cards for the Queadluun-Rau and Nousjadeul-Ger on DriveThruRPG over the last week, including the Malcontents cards that just went up today.
Super Valkyrie cards will come next week, but I think Monday’s uploads will be updated versions of the standard Valkyrie cards to reflect the official change in the number of Long-Range Missiles from 8 to 6, reflecting the reduced cost of the Ammo 6 version of that missile upgrade.
Nine Comments at last count. Four from "haterz". Nothing negative. I think it's a decent Update too. Could be more, obviously, but it's a start.
Here's hoping they learn that a decent update that gives backers SOMETHING doesn't get them crap.
Not expecting that to happen, though. I half expect them to think that "going after the haterz" in the prior update is the reason for the civility. Because... Palladium.
Hey, that guys asking for information on wave two, he's a hater!
Stop trying to bring about the downfall of Palladium Books®, hater!
Why must you thrust raging dagger of hate into Kevin's® open heart™? Why do you want Palladium Books® to die?
Because I don't want any more people to be scammed by these 'people'.
Because they are useless.
Because they are morons.
Because they are incompetent.
Because they have been quiet for far too long [on any real proof of life for wave 2].
Because they took $140 from me and all I got for it [so far] is a lousy $5 decal sheet.
Because it's just a matter of time.
Because I want someone else to get the licence and then I might actually get my stuff.
Because they still haven't addressed the fact that the resin components of the campaign could have been worked on at the same time as wave 1 and been in our hands already.
Stormonu wrote: Huh, two months into the "restart" of the conversation and still not a word by PB on the actual state of Wave 2. Typical PB.
I think you misinterpreted their meaning. Common mistake, thinking what they're saying should be taken in a more standard manner. Nope, they're being completely literal. As they appear to be in everything that isn't a scheduling/release date type of thing. Like their twisted logic over "backers first".
Their conversation started with us on May 21st, 2013. The day after the campaign ended, and they took over for Ninja Division. On that day they said the Pledge Manager would be "a couple weeks". Then "end of June". Then July 6th. Then July 11-12. And then it actually got released July 19-20. Which is kind of reminiscent of the Conventional Vehicles thing.
It took three months to get the Force Orgs up.
It took five and a half months (Nov 2) before they acknowledged they couldn't make their 'end of year' target.
It took more than 7 months for actual physical proof (Dec 31st) with the Glaug Eldare.
While the release of the MPA/FPA and now the updated vanilla valkyries (SV's by end of week) are an improvement over the last six months of nothingness, it is a significant step up from the previous one. It took 5.5 months from the "start of the conversation" to show samples. Though on the flip side, it's not like the recent ones should have taken even this long. The fomatting template has been done for at least 22 months. The stats have been confirmed for at least 15 months. This could be arguably longer, as in September 26th 2013, they were saying the rulebook was in "final layout", but as late as Feb 17th, 2014, they were still "finishing up corrections to the rulebook". So I went with the date where we saw a physical version, though they said that was a mockup too. But given how close to actual manufacture that was, I'll take that as a good starting date. My point is, they've had the capacity to do this for well over a year by just plugging in the appropriate text/stats/art, so it being earlier than last time isn't that big a deal.
You, and some others thought "restart the conversation" meant "restart, and be BETTER". Whereas PB apparently meant "Yup, we're gonna go back and do the same as we did when the campaign started.".
We're likely to get another update this week, announcing the vanilla Valks are up, and the SV's being done. Which is still an improvement over business as usual. But they've got a long way to go before they've proved they've actually changed.
"Because it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy/company"
I can think of plenty more deserving guys/companies to get $1.4 million for a business campaign that would be more humble, competent, and thankful for the unprecedented opportunity it was.
They should just let me show you guys what we have on the Conventionals and then you guys can opine and we can make changes as necessary. They could get more input that way. I already made squadrons smaller because the cost to buy the ones I did would be huge for a simple squadron. The units are so cheap compared to RRT stuff.
I don't mind making changes that make sense. Shoot this whole thing started with other players asking me if I could do some up!
Mike1975 wrote: They should just let me show you guys what we have on the Conventionals and then you guys can opine and we can make changes as necessary. They could get more input that way. I already made squadrons smaller because the cost to buy the ones I did would be huge for a simple squadron. The units are so cheap compared to RRT stuff.
I don't mind making changes that make sense. Shoot this whole thing started with other players asking me if I could do some up!
Yup. And the most obvious thing is they could even declare them as "preliminary".
The whole point of wanting the stats/forceorgs is so that people know at least in broad terms if they're going to be useful. That it might be slightly modified before final publication isn't THAT big a priority for most people. People want to know firstly, how many of X they need for a formation, both at the Squadron and Squad levels. Because buying a pack of Tanks and then finding out you need a pack and a half for a Squadron (like the Arthur Pods) would be all kinds of frustrating. Similarly the two aircraft sold singly.
And they need to know the approximate value, so people can make informed choices. If a mechanized infantry squadron (two packs of Inf, two packs of APC's, $40 total) is gonna be appropriately costed at 15pts in game, versus 75pts in game, that's going to have an affect on people's purchasing tactics. While it might not want to be a driving factor in balance, it is something that does need to be taken into account from a purchasing perspective. Don't get me wrong, more expensive cash units shouldn't be more powerful "Points Cost vs Battlefield Effect", but I'm also not wanting to spend five times as much in figures, when I can just use plastic mecha for a much cheaper force.
But that's both much different from listing the tanks as having MDC 8, doing 4 damage, costing 50pts for 4, and then them ending up being MDC7, doing 5 damage, costing 55pts for 4. But by keeping quiet as they dot the t's and cross the i's, causing this whole thing to balloon into yet another scheduling farce. Three times now, the date for this has been pushed ("mid June" to "mid July" to "mid August" to "when we get around to it"), over what was SUPPOSED to be a week's wait.
Microcosm of Wave 2, essentially.
EDIT: And if they want to say it's because they're doing some in-depth testing (the only legitimate reason they're taking so long?) how about making it open to the backers, and letting them help? First, they'll be able to point out any glaring inconsistencies, second, it'd make backers have some feeling they're a part of the process, and finally, it might make the Kickstarter an entertaining discussion place again. But that's just my take on it.
"Because it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy/company"
I can think of plenty more deserving guys/companies to get $1.4 million for a business campaign that would be more humble, competent, and thankful for the unprecedented opportunity it was.
So can I. In fact, given what has happened on this campaign overf the last two years, I can't think of a single company LESS deserving of that amount of money. But don't forget, the original question was "Why do you want Palladium Books to die?". Answer. "Because it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.". Simples.
Conrad Turner wrote: So can I. In fact, given what has happened on this campaign overf the last two years, I can't think of a single company LESS deserving of that amount of money.
Defiance Games. The only company that can stand next to Palladium Games and make them look like a paragon of professionalism. And not surprisingly, a worse person in charge than Kevin. But that's it.
Conrad Turner wrote: Because they took $140 from me and all I got for it [so far] is a lousy $5 decal sheet.
Wait, didn't TPTB claim to have delivered all of the Wave 1 boxed sets globally? No?
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Morgan Vening wrote: While the release of the MPA/FPA and now the updated vanilla valkyries (SV's by end of week) are an improvement over the last six months of nothingness, it is a significant step up from the previous one.
I'm not entirely sure that PB should be praised for doing a marginally less gakky of job as they've done in the past.
It's like praising the Pod or Prodos for being marginally less gakky than PB. Woo-hoo, right?
These guys should get on the stick and provide weekly fact-based updates - that's what we really want.
I think it is the underserved expectation that we should be fawning at the feet of PB and they cannot seem to understand why we are critical of their efforts.
Kevin has been a long time fan of "pre-order" where it seems to be free money with little of no repercussions if product does not get out any time "soon".
I really like how Kickstarter has "matured" enough that legal cases are being made and now PB is beginning to realize they are legally on the hook unlike their rather self-satisfied comments to the contrary.
I find their business practices offensive.
I feel they should be held to account for their taking money with false promises.
I believe ANY business acting like this deserves to die, PB just has been getting away with it longer than most.
They truly are a small-fry company so have stayed below the radar because they were not worth going after.
$1.4 million suddenly puts them under an uncomfortable spotlight.
They better make good on their promises, "soon" or not.
Conrad Turner wrote: So can I. In fact, given what has happened on this campaign overf the last two years, I can't think of a single company LESS deserving of that amount of money.
Defiance Games. The only company that can stand next to Palladium Games and make them look like a paragon of professionalism. And not surprisingly, a worse person in charge than Kevin. But that's it.
Black Cat Bases (stopped doing business, still keeps a web shop open that takes orders and money)
All Fronts Armor Depot (garbage resin models made from molds of other people's work)
CMON (owned by same guy that owned New Wave Miniatures, notorious for taking money and not delivering)
Eric Hotz (takes orders, refuses to communicate, unknown delivery date)
Battlefoam (tried to run competitors out of business with frivolous lawsuits)
n815e wrote: Black Cat Bases (stopped doing business, still keeps a web shop open that takes orders and money)
Black Cat Bases actually recently fulfilled an order I had long since written off. Admittedly, the minis I was looking for (A robot resembling Cap Trap from Borderlands) were available in a better form form Armorcast, who are easier to deal with (but still get weird if it's convention season) but BCB did fulfill my rather ancient order. Not sure I can recommend them right now, but they are making good on old orders after some sort of long illness.
problem is a lot of those companies are small one man operations it seems, PB blasted their 30 year experience and such and even flaunted it, our problem is we did not realize PB meant 30 years of delays and false starts and promises.
CMON? Those are the ones who did Zombicide, correct? I haven't had any issues with season 2/3 (didn't participate in Season 1) where they weren't on top of the issue in a flash.
Defiance? Yeah, I got suckered into that one, and it's the reason I'm PO'ed about PB dragging their feet.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Wait, didn't TPTB claim to have delivered all of the Wave 1 boxed sets globally? No?
That, unfortunately, is quite possible. I'm the poor git who didn't go in for this campaign for the game. I'm more of a modelmaker than a player, and I have fond memories of both Robotech and "Battle of the Planets" [not a patch on the original "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman", but that's another story.] and wanted a decent model of the ship version of the SDF-1 and the character models.
So it may be correct that all the Wave 1 stuff has gone out, but all my wave 1 items totalled a lousy decal sheet - which they blew around 1/3 of what I paid in postage to get it to me. I look forward to getting that SDF-1, Rick, Roy, Khyron, Miria(? the female power armour figure) and YF-4 set for less than $6 in postage to the UK. I'm quite happy to pay the Grasping Post Office whatever they charge to get it to mee due to import duties and the £8 they add on for the privellege of paying it on your behalf whenever PB actually ship these items [sometime between now and the sun going nova. PB may have some clue as to international business, answering e-mails and the like by then. The SDF-1 is going to be sold straight on no matter what, I have already pre-ordered the one I linked to on HLJ. It will undoubtedly be bigger, more detailed, and arrive quicker than the vapourware we've had so far on wave 2 from PB.
Seriously, PB would lose less money - and gain some slight goodwill - if they just refunded my pledge [which is obviously why they won't do it.]
Kinda makes you wonder, does Palladium just not know how to refund a credit card payment? Like it's not stubborn refusal or lack of funds, they just can't work the tech?
Conrad Turner wrote: They have my address, they know how much I paid, and what they've spent sending me what little they have. I don't see the problem.
Unless you are suggesting they don't know how to operate a cheque book and pen?
You are, aren't you?
OMG, they don't, do they?
Oh, they know (or at least claim to know) how to operate a chequebook and pen. The reason I know this, is because when I initially wanted to get the pledge transfer happening (someone was willing to buy my pledges before Wave 1 shipped, as my issue was with parts count/assembly, not the later shenanigans), here was the procedure they put in place.
1) Buyer sends PB a cheque by snailmail for the value of the pledge. 2) PB deposits said cheque. 3) PB waits for cheque to clear. 4) PB changes the details on the order. 5) PB issues a cheque to me, again by snailmail. 6) I cash that cheque.
After much frustration over three months of shoddy communication with PB, the buyer just said "stuff it", Paypalled me the money, I changed the mailing addresses, and we both sent them a KSPM indicating that the change had happened. I did eat the PayPal fees in the exchange (my choice, he was happy to split them), as well as half the shipping cost, about $100US in real terms, but it was worth it to avoid the frustration. That's about what I'd have lost on a refund after KS/Amazon fees were removed anyways.
So, chequebook yes. Internet banking? Mmm... not so much. That was at the point in the whole discussion I went from thinking PB were not just in over their heads, to being horribly, possibly terminally, incompetent and out-of-touch.
CMON is pretty bad at communicating, but they do eventually deliver.
Z3 went pretty well so they do show signs that they are learning.
Z2 was pretty bad. Basic sets arrived just before gencon and there were unsubstantiated rumors that then getting sold to non backers st the event. Shipping started at the end of august only to find out that they were missing containers, but CMON said they would ship out partial pledges. A month went by without any information and few if any reports of anyone getting anything. It then took about 3 months to get everything in the US out. Internati ok nal backers also had problems, particularly since European fulfillment was through Battlefoam UK which didn't have the bandwidth while the European distributor had plenty of available stock so product was on shelves well before backers got theirs.
Relic Knights distribution was also (mis)handled by CMON with European backers again getting the shaft with the rewards being packed last on a slow plane. There was also a bit of a screw up and some backers got xenoshyft instead.
Ironic thing is that Ninja Division did a good job recovering from that and there's a Relic Knights expansion on the way soon (tm). While there were complaints about the quality of the restic and lack of assembly directions, compared to what we got for Robotech, I'd rather have gotten restic instead of what we got.
Anyone remember if there were problems with Sedition Wars or Rivet Wars?
Stormonu wrote: CMON? Those are the ones who did Zombicide, correct? I haven't had any issues with season 2/3 (didn't participate in Season 1) where they weren't on top of the issue in a flash.
Defiance? Yeah, I got suckered into that one, and it's the reason I'm PO'ed about PB dragging their feet.
Conrad Turner wrote: They have my address, they know how much I paid, and what they've spent sending me what little they have. I don't see the problem.
Unless you are suggesting they don't know how to operate a cheque book and pen?
You are, aren't you?
OMG, they don't, do they?
Going back to Morgan's "joke-but-disturbingly-true" statement that "restart" means "begin doing the same thing again", could it be that they similarly don't know the conventional meaning of refund and think that it means all these people are trying to fund them again?
No wonder they're getting curt! They have all these people who keep saying they want to give them even more money but they never do!
cannonfodr wrote: Relic Knights distribution was also (mis)handled by CMON
Ninja Division did a good job recovering from that and there's a Relic Knights expansion on the way soon (tm).
Anyone remember if there were problems with Sedition Wars or Rivet Wars?
CMoN deliberately screwed up RK production & distribution in order to poison the well of future sales, knowing that they were spinning the property back to SPM / ND. The sheer magnitude and variety of problems, in the wake of the CMoN "captive" ZC KS' makes that pretty obvious the RK screwups were done out of malice, not incompetence.
Fortunately, ND/ SPM had a lot of backers with a lot of love for SDE, and that carried them through; however, SDE:FK was pretty late, due to a "mono wave" concept, rather than pushing the base box out, and then following with expansions. Also, SPM was way too tight on SDE:FK playtesting, and the final product suffered for a lack of blind playtesting. The RK expansion, with non-KS items is coming, and that's good for SPM, although it's not quite my cup of tea.
Sedition Wars wave 1 was adequate - minis were OK, although there were a lot of TTG complaints about off-center tokens and counters, along with serious (i.e. unplayable) issues of board warpage; similarly, there were issues with minis assembly - it's like working with WMH restic, and that simply isn't any fun. Wave 2 kept all of the bad rules, made the unit and scenario balance worse, changed the minis scale and style and was very late - a total clusterfeth. Basically, SMV completely failed to realize that Wave 2 was their chance to relaunch a lackluster and flailing SedWars board game franchise with clearer, cleaner, and simpler rules. In many ways, SMV is directly comparable to TPTB behind RRT, full of incompetent and clueless yes-men that spend their time blowing smoke up the boss' ass.
I heard the exact opposite about RK and who was to blame... And ND followed it up with Robotech, another clusterfeth. While a huge portion of the latter blame belongs with Palladium, it would be very naive to assume the common thread between the two was somehow blameless.
Well, the various rounds of BBB have reached a conclusion.
They keep threatening to post the various details of the complaints but I cannot seem to find one that can be read.
Maybe I was the only one that faithfully took it the prescribed number of back and forths?
Video springs to mind...
Spoiler:
Anyway, if nothing sees the light of day, I will dump the 4 letters out there for review.
Anyway, maybe we will something in the months to come...
Stormonu wrote: CMON? Those are the ones who did Zombicide, correct? I haven't had any issues with season 2/3 (didn't participate in Season 1) where they weren't on top of the issue in a flash.
Defiance? Yeah, I got suckered into that one, and it's the reason I'm PO'ed about PB dragging their feet.
The point was that CMON was originally New Wave, a scam company. CMON was funded by money that was being stolen from New Wave customers.
Talizvar wrote: Well, the various rounds of BBB have reached a conclusion.
They keep threatening to post the various details of the complaints but I cannot seem to find one that can be read.
Maybe I was the only one that faithfully took it the prescribed number of back and forths?
Video springs to mind...
Spoiler:
Anyway, if nothing sees the light of day, I will dump the 4 letters out there for review.
Anyway, maybe we will something in the months to come...
well at least 6 complaints have been filed with the BBB and are now closed most likely over this incident.
@Alpharius: Good point, I keep forgetting what the topic is here rather than a gripe session on PB.
I have way too much of this darn stuff, I have supported PB more than they have a right. (6 retail boxes of stuff till I figured out wave 2 was going nowhere and snagged another starter box on the cheap). I might as well bulk out all the other units with the big blast templates (let the crying ensue). Need to set up some VF's with the graviton bombs, just have to figure out what an appropriate WYSIWYG munition that would be.
Some people are mounting a small stand with a magnet on the base to place missiles on marking what it has so that you can forgo WYSIWYG since each mini will have it clearly indicated on the base during play.
Mike1975 wrote: Some people are mounting a small stand with a magnet on the base to place missiles on marking what it has so that you can forgo WYSIWYG since each mini will have it clearly indicated on the base during play.
Yeah, I knew about that, I am weird that way.
I like doing slight variations on paint scheme to reflect armament.
Remember, we are trying to make it appear as much variety as possible since we are without........ ... ... wave2!
Post approved - "Re: A Thread For Discussing Threats of Litigation Over RRT"
Hello UserName,
You are receiving this notification because your post "Re: A Thread For
Discussing Threats of Litigation Over RRT" at "Forums of the Megaverse®"
was approved by a moderator or administrator.
If you want to view the post, click the following link:
So, being shocked that my response passed muster I followed the link -
Information
You are not authorised to read this forum.
What
The
Frell
Seriously, PB mods? Not only did I submit that response at least 2 weeks ago but you've locked the thread already? I'd say these guys are shooting themselves in the foot but they can't figure out where the safety is on their Glock.
At least you got approved (sorta!). I posted a reply about 2-3 weeks ago and got this denied message:
"Hello IGotMoose,
You are receiving this notification because your post "Re: So, how about an
alternative to litigation ?" at "Forums of the Megaverse®" was disapproved
by a moderator or administrator.
The following reason was given for the disapproval:
The reported message does not fit into any other category, please use the
further information field.
Your comment has been disapproved for being relatively factless...
Considering Palladium cannot show any work, communicate or account for the
funds raised, it does look very much like "UNABLE"
-- The existence of Wave 1 and photos of Wave 2 items shows accountability
for funds. The nearly 200 Updates on the KS page show they communicate.
As I've said on other forums, I don't think a single person genuinely cares
if the project is late. The problem is the absolute lack of communication
which is completely disrespectful to the 5k+ people that invested in making
Palladium's project come to life. As part of the KS ToS the creator is
required to act in good faith, communicate and be transparent. Palladium is
doing none of those things despite polite requests, firm requests,
aggressive requests and now through legal means.
-- Again, the nearly 200 updates on the KS page, plus the updates made via
Press Releases indicates that Palladium is communicating. Whether or not
you like or agree with the said updates is a personal decision that you
decided to make."
I bolded the parts I found amusing and just shows how out of touch they are ... I have a hard time believing that someone actually typed that out and thought it legitimately answered any questions.
Can someone tell me how to set a custom avatar over on the PB Forums - I can't see how to do it, unless...you're not allowed to, and can only use pre-set avatars?
Maybe I was the only one that faithfully took it the prescribed number of back and forths?
I'm still awaiting a response on mine.
As am I. I'm beginning to think my BBB complaint has fallen into a black hole of some sort. It's got to be close to, if not past 30 days since I sent it in. So far, I've gotten nothing back via e-mail or otherwise.
Unfortunately, I didn't save what I sent to the BBB, it was similar to what I sent to the AG, but for my "resolution" I added that I wanted assurances from PB, backed by paperwork, that they were going to meet the End-of-year deadline or I wanted my money back (for the add-ons I paid separately for, at least).
This is what I sent to the AG:
Spoiler:
Dear Sirs I am writing to you in the hope that you take action against Palladium Books.
Palladium Books, Inc.
39074 Webb Court Westland, MI 48185 (Wayne County)
Phone: 734-721-2900
Palladium Books successfully completed their Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter on May 20, 2013. This kickstarter was aimed to produce a tabletop wargame with miniature figures based on a popular sci-fi cartoon series from the 80's known as "Robotech". The kickstarter raised $1,442,312 among 5,342 international backers. Additional funding was collected via the Kickstarter's "backerkit", which allowed backers to add additional copies or add-on purchases to their "rewards". There is, unfortunately, no public information on the amount of additional funds collected with the "backerkit".
At the time of completion, the original estimated shipping date was December of 2013. As of Dec 31, neither on their weekly update or the kickstarter site was ANY mention made that the shipping would be delayed. On January 30, 2014 - a month after the initial, original shipping date was missed - Palladium Books announced in both a weekly update and on the Kickstarter site that the items would be split into two waves, with a shipping date of May/June 2014. In the April 10, 2014 weekly update, Robotech Wave One was announced with an expected delivery date of Spring 2014. In their April 25, 2014 weekly update, Robotech Wave One was revised with an expected delivery date of Summer 2014. Robotech Wave One went "into manufacturing" on June 12, 2014 according to their weekly update, with an estimated delivery date still Summer 2014. As of the Palladium website weekly update on June 26, the estimated delivery date was September, 2014. On July 17, 2014 as noted in the weekly update, the first of at least 11 containers was loaded to depart China, with an estimated arrival date of August 8, 2014. The weekly update was also changed to reflect a Fall 2014 estimated release date. US shipping for Wave One was declared in the weekly update to began on August 28, 2014. However, due to a number of transport issues, the majority of shipping did not actually begin until October 2, 2014 (announced in the weekly update and on the Kickstarter website). Europe was shipped their Wave One products by sea on or around Jan 21, 2015 as noted in a Kickstarter website update. Australia was shipped their Wave One products by sea around Feb 8, 2015 as again noted in a Kickstarter website update. "Rest of the World" was shipped their Wave One products (by sea?) on May 13, 2015 (again, via Kickstarter Website update).
Since the shipping of Wave One items began, backers have been asking for information on the status of the Wave Two items. This information has been frustatingly sparse, with the last tangible update occuring on Feb 28, 2015. This update consisted of "incomplete" 3D renders of two of the twenty-eight miniature figures for Wave two. Finally, in a two-part Kickstarter update on June 6, 2015 we were given a tenative release date for Wave Two of "The end of 2015". Since that time, all information about Robotech Tactics has been for items NOT a part of the "rewards" and items purchased in the original Kickstarter, with continual promises of a forthcoming Wave Two update. Kevin Siembieda has posted detail information in reflection about the Kickstarter from its inception to the delivery of Wave One in a two-part update on the Kickstarter site on June 6, 2015.
While the ever-shifting release dates are signs of bad customer service and not criminal actions, Palladium books has increasingly shown dwindling ability to produce products based on its primary business - roleplaying books. Based on the information available to me and other backers at this time, we do not believe that Palladium Books has the resources - or willpower - to complete Robotech RPG Tactics Wave Two. In his June 6, 2015 update Kevin mentions serveral costs. The initial outlay for the Kickstarter was $40,000. International shipping is mentioned to have cost $150,000 (no mention of domestic shipping). There is a mention in the same update that "make(ing) the game and expansion packs" would be "between $550,000 and $900,000". Based on these rough numbers, it is my beleif that the funds for Wave One have been depleted and Palladium lacks the remaining funds - or ability to secure funding to cover the cost of Wave Two. Further, based on their inability to produce other products from their own line, it is my belief the company is incapable of admitting they cannot produce Wave Two.
As an example of the latter, I direct you to their projected book release schedule that was listed in their January 11, 2015 weekly update. The update listed the following books for release in 2015:
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Advanced Rule Book
Splicers® Sourcebooks – several
Beyond the Supernatural™ – Tomes Grotesque™ Volume One
Beyond the Supernatural™ – Beyond Arcanum™
Palladium Fantasy® Land of the Damned 3: The Citadel (probably 2016)
Palladium Fantasy® Land of the South Winds
Heroes Unlimited™ sourcebooks
Dead Reign® sourcebooks
Rifts® Secrets of the Atlanteans™
Rifts® Heroes of Humanity™
Rifts® The Disavowed™
Rifts® Antarctica
Rifts® Sovietski
Rifts® New Navy™
Rifts® Delta Blues™
Rifts® Dark Woods™
Rifts® Voodoo
Of the books listed, I can only find that Palladium Fantasy RPG: Bizantium and the Northern Islands has been released so far. The only other book that they have released this year that I can discern is the Robotech Expeditionary Force (formerly UEEF Marines) book, which was released this month. This latter book was originally slated for release on April 10, 2014 with numerous dates shifts - many of which had emphasised promised hard release dates.
We urge you to act in the interests of the 5,342 backers to force the hand of Palladium to either produce information to its backers on the current state of all Wave Two items and the feasibility of producing Robotech RPG Tactics with a general statement of the company having the finacial resources to produce said wave or reasonable proof of intent to secure funds to pay for said Wave Two. We urge you, that should Palladium refuse to provide such information to pursue forcing the company to refund the monetary value of the unproduced items to the backers.
Forar pointed out a couple of inaccuracies:
Spoiler:
While we don't have a precise number for the backerkit amount, they did say this on Update #120 in a comment:
"The BackerKit added to that, for sure, but a successful pledge manager is generally expected to add about 10% on top of the Kickstarter total. We did pretty close to that (slightly over). "
So "slightly over 10%" of their amount sounds like ~$150k or so, give or take.
They did admit they'd miss December before the end of the year.
"The ship date. At this point, we still do not have an exact release date, but it’s no longer possible for it to be in December, as we have not even gone into manufacturing yet. If I had to guess, I’d say February, 2014, though we’re working to try to make it sooner." - November 1st, 2013.
That target would indeed continue to move as the months progressed.
Regarding the renders: the February 28th update had 5 sprue breakdowns, not two. Gnerl, Ghost, Lancer, Officer's Pod Booster Sled, and the Jotun were all shown off.
I apologize if this seems pedantic, but where the law is involved we do want to be as accurate as possible.
Revised Vanilla Valkyrie stat cards are up. Two minor errata changes (a 1R upgrade still keeps leader stats, and LRM's go from 8 to 6).
That's it for this week in new content. The list of big promises is still there. Two weeks and counting after "We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead". They were smart to remove any talk of a schedule from the following updates.
If they keep working this hard on the RRT project, they should finish sometime next century. Obviously, if we see something significant this weekend on a KS Update (beyond the expected SValk stuff up on DriveThru), that may change. There's still a lot of stuff to do, and they need to start buckling down.
Cause I'm not sure lawyers and their clients will accept "Wave 2 is in active development" if it's less than a couple hours a week total, given how late this project is. Sure, a judge might rule otherwise, but that's still going to suck resources PB don't have, to "defend" themselves. And it's not like having that be a matter of public record (or that they ARE spending significant amounts of time, but that's all they're able to accomplish) will do good things for their tattered reputation.
Y'know Mike you might want to start a new thread on rules since this one is on the KS so, barring a sudden breakthrough, will continue to be dominated by complaints.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Y'know Mike you might want to start a new thread on rules since this one is on the KS so, barring a sudden breakthrough, will continue to be dominated by complaints.
In a different forum his various publications would also be better received.
They only seem to underscore that RRT needs more tweaking
Oddly, I am less concerned of the rules: I am certain they can be made to work with or without PB.
As a local FLGS game that groups get together to play I figure it missed the boat.
BUT wave 2 models are a little harder to do without.
Just the core box. I wonder if they're trying to stir up more interest, or just looking to clear out some warehouse space and a pile of those need moving.
NOTE: I am NOT going all 'omg gaem failz lol', merely pondering why the core box might see an extra chunk taken off their already decent discount.
Obviously they rotate through sales on all kinds of things regularly. Merely pondering aloud what might've led to this choice in particular.
Perhaps prepping shelf space for when Wave 2 arrives by the end of this year. 74 days and counting until Black Friday!
;-D
Okay that last bit is entirely tongue in cheek. At this point, unless they announce manufacturing started already, BF is impossible, which means their drive to finish before the end of the year is probably non-existent.
So the new game is to see when they'll admit aloud that Q1 next year is the new target! ... maybe Q2. Oh hell, let's just call a spade a spade; Gencon 2016. But they're totally prioritizing delivering in the next 3... 6... 12'ish months.
Forar wrote: Just the core box. I wonder if they're trying to stir up more interest, or just looking to clear out some warehouse space and a pile of those need moving.
NOTE: I am NOT going all 'omg gaem failz lol', merely pondering why the core box might see an extra chunk taken off their already decent discount.
Obviously they rotate through sales on all kinds of things regularly. Merely pondering aloud what might've led to this choice in particular.
Perhaps prepping shelf space for when Wave 2 arrives by the end of this year. 74 days and counting until Black Friday!
;-D
Okay that last bit is entirely tongue in cheek. At this point, unless they announce manufacturing started already, BF is impossible, which means their drive to finish before the end of the year is probably non-existent.
So the new game is to see when they'll admit aloud that Q1 next year is the new target! ... maybe Q2. Oh hell, let's just call a spade a spade; Gencon 2016. But they're totally prioritizing delivering in the next 3... 6... 12'ish months.
nothing special, its just a daily sale. it will be back up to their regular discount price tomorrow.
Forar wrote: Just the core box. I wonder if they're trying to stir up more interest, or just looking to clear out some warehouse space and a pile of those need moving.
NOTE: I am NOT going all 'omg gaem failz lol', merely pondering why the core box might see an extra chunk taken off their already decent discount.
Obviously they rotate through sales on all kinds of things regularly. Merely pondering aloud what might've led to this choice in particular.
Perhaps prepping shelf space for when Wave 2 arrives by the end of this year. 74 days and counting until Black Friday!
;-D
Okay that last bit is entirely tongue in cheek. At this point, unless they announce manufacturing started already, BF is impossible, which means their drive to finish before the end of the year is probably non-existent.
So the new game is to see when they'll admit aloud that Q1 next year is the new target! ... maybe Q2. Oh hell, let's just call a spade a spade; Gencon 2016. But they're totally prioritizing delivering in the next 3... 6... 12'ish months.
nothing special, its just a daily sale. it will be back up to their regular discount price tomorrow.
Forar wrote: Just the core box. I wonder if they're trying to stir up more interest, or just looking to clear out some warehouse space and a pile of those need moving.
NOTE: I am NOT going all 'omg gaem failz lol', merely pondering why the core box might see an extra chunk taken off their already decent discount.
Obviously they rotate through sales on all kinds of things regularly. Merely pondering aloud what might've led to this choice in particular.
Perhaps prepping shelf space for when Wave 2 arrives by the end of this year. 74 days and counting until Black Friday!
;-D
Okay that last bit is entirely tongue in cheek. At this point, unless they announce manufacturing started already, BF is impossible, which means their drive to finish before the end of the year is probably non-existent.
So the new game is to see when they'll admit aloud that Q1 next year is the new target! ... maybe Q2. Oh hell, let's just call a spade a spade; Gencon 2016. But they're totally prioritizing delivering in the next 3... 6... 12'ish months.
nothing special, its just a daily sale. it will be back up to their regular discount price tomorrow.
I believe it has been discussed here and a few other venues.
As I've mentioned (in general) regarding the various litigation against KS campaigns, it's interesting, but that's about it.
It's not a silver bullet to force any issues, but it's important for KS creators to note; they do *not* want to be the next example that is made.
For all the dissimilarity between any given cases (and yes, campaigns where the creator ran off with the money or failed to deliver anything at all for years are not 1:1 comparisons to contentious campaigns like this one), I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of campaigns began speaking up more regularly in the coming days/weeks.
Even if just to establish some meager paper trail.
But imo, the smart ones will actively connect with backers. If there's struggles behind the scenes, show them. Show Work In Progress pics. Bring people up to speed.
A lot of the frustration and disconnect comes from being told "this is challenging, it's time consuming, we're putting hundreds of hours per month into this!" and having nothing to show for it after half a year.
We don't need to see contracts and get conference call transcripts, but "we're totes working on this soooo haaaard you guys!" doesn't cut it.
Stormonu wrote: Something doesn't look right about the hips (too wide?).
Did you make that design yourself or get it from somewhere else? It is a 3D print, is it not?
my design, problem is my photoshop free trial ran out so was unable to fix it, had to rearrange the legs and hips (widen the torso and angle the upper legs in) and extend the back launchers.
this rough draft was all I had so ran it thru shapeways.
I would like to hope that the official model is better detailed and more sculpted than your 3-D test print. But the push toward simpler models and who knows?
JohnHwangDD wrote: I would like to hope that the official model is better detailed and more sculpted than your 3-D test print. But the push toward simpler models and who knows?
JohnHwangDD wrote: I would like to hope that the official model is better detailed and more sculpted than your 3-D test print. But the push toward simpler models and who knows?
JohnHwangDD wrote: I would like to hope that the official model is better detailed and more sculpted than your 3-D test print. But the push toward simpler models and who knows?
yes but who has one in their hands now ?
Good question...
yours looks better then mine boss.
problem is its too big, mine is 1:285 scale that is what 1:200 ?
Good choice for the model to work on, the Crusader... uh, "Armored Veritech".
I would really like a Phoenix-Haw... I mean, "Super Veritech".
I have issues with Robotech loyalty and the old transferred loyalty to Battletech.
Looking good there, right. They need a few less corners and more round edges on parts but definitely better than I could do.
For those too lazy or disappointed to read the newest salesletter (because newsletter would be a completely incorrect descriptions), it's basically:
1) we're working SOOOO hard
2) please buy our stuff... we've added a discount!
3) tomorrow is the next email that will have the normal 2% news/98% sales pitch ratio to qualify as a newsletter.
warboss wrote: Looking good there, right. They need a few less corners and more round edges on parts but definitely better than I could do.
For those too lazy or disappointed to read the newest salesletter (because newsletter would be a completely incorrect descriptions), it's basically:
1) we're working SOOOO hard
2) please buy our stuff... we've added a discount!
3) tomorrow is the next email that will have the normal 2% news/98% sales pitch ratio to qualify as a newsletter.
sad thing is my version one was the base skeleton I designed and was going to finish it up later, but then photshop ran out so had to use Tindercad which is well not a very easy program to use for complex designs nor will it let me move any of the original design but was able to do ver. 3 of my armored vech which is shown above
So a lone fan playing with a home computer and shapeways is closer to making my beloved Jetfire Wearing an Overcoat Made Entirely of Missiles than the people we gave over a million bucks to?
Buy their base books... and the RRT core box for less than they were selling it at Gencon! And *anyone* can buy Consclusives (shout out to Morgan), not just backers!
Remember when I and others asked politely to be able to buy Consclusives back in August 2013, and were told to feth off by some random asshats? Oh how the times have changed.
Please buy our stuff! Pleeeeease?!
Also note that apparently the upcoming newsletter has taken 'hours' of writing, and there's still more to go? Good, then there shouldn't be an excuses as to why there isn't much to say.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: So a lone fan playing with a home computer and shapeways is closer to making my beloved Jetfire Wearing an Overcoat Made Entirely of Missiles than the people we gave over a million bucks to?
Yeah... Sounds about right.
I think it is more accurate to say that dakka's third party lone fanboys like Rick and especially Mike are more productive with the Robotech minis franchise judging by the effort put forth by Palladium's staff. Their actual end product released over the past year definitely corresponds more to a single person working on it on the side rather than what SHOULD be occuring when you raise $1.4 million which would namely a full time team getting the product out within a time frame that remotely resembles what they promised. But they're working sooooo HardTM to bring us those Robotech branded pencilsTM!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forar wrote: Buy their base books... and the RRT core box for less than they were selling it at Gencon! And *anyone* can buy Consclusives (shout out to Morgan), not just backers!
FYI: I think our next, and probably last, Flash Sale for the season will celebrate Robotech® and will make Robotech® Convention Exclusives (at the full price of $22.00 each) available to ANYONE for those FOUR DAYS ONLY, as well as a number of Robotech® sale items.
yknow something doesnt add up. The stated reason for the delays was that the 3d models were formatted in the wrong filetype for their chinese partners equipment.
I call bs.
As someone who has pretty extensive CAD & CAM experience, I can tell you while there is no real 'industry standard' file format, there are about a half-dozen to a dozen common filetypes that are commonly used, and just about every major 3D CAD package is able to save/import/export to. Even if Palladium/ND used some proprietary file format for the initial set of models, they should have been able to export into one of those common file types that their people in China could then import. Even if there was no 'direct link' between the two due to using two different sets of proprietary software, I can almost guarantee that there is some intermediate software package that would be capable of importing Palladium/Ninja Divisions Output, and then exporting a file type compatible with Chinas Input.
In my mind, unless I misunderstood the issue, there are only a handful of possible explanations for what has occurred:
- Ninja Division (IIRC they were the ones who handled the modelling)/Palladium are clueless, and got taken advantage of by their manufacturers in China (after they saw how much money they raked in from the kickstarter).
-Palladium is clueless, and got taken advantage of by Ninja Division somehow (perhaps ND wanted more money and claimed they had to reformat stuff?)
-Various parties are clueless, a direct link between the file formats didn't exist, and nobody bothered to research what software package they could purchase to do the Import/Export to make things compatible.
-Various parties are clueless, a direct link between the file formats didn't exist, and Palladium was too cheap to invest in a license for a software package to do the import/export.
-Palladium is flat out lying to us.
I will note that ND/SPM appears to have moved to digital sculpt for production during SDE:FK, and is all digital for NAS and upcoming SDE 2.0 / Legends. Obviously, they are totally fething clueless how to convert digital sculpt to production...
Ninja Division isn't necessarily using the same company as Palladium is for manufacturing though, there is no "standard" for CAM processes, etc. If Palladiums people are using a different setup than Ninja Division/Soda Pops people then they wont necessarily know about it. Knowing how to do something doesn't mean anything if its an entirely different process/package/format or you're being lied to by an associated party (or you yourself are doing the lying).
Also worth noting, if ND has had no issues with the file types/formats that theyve been using for their manufacturers, why didn't Palladium simply switch manufacturers or find another manufacturer who would accept those file types (or an exportable one)? The price that Palladium was given to manufacture the miniatures absolutely could not have been cheaper, after the cost of re-doing the 3d models, than simply going to another manufacturer. Most companies will charge between $20 and $50 /hr for 3d modeling services, depending on what is being done. Some can charge $100s/hr if its a really complex/high precision setup.
chaos0xomega wrote: yknow something doesnt add up. The stated reason for the delays was that the 3d models were formatted in the wrong filetype for their chinese partners equipment.
I call bs.
As someone who has pretty extensive CAD & CAM experience, I can tell you while there is no real 'industry standard' file format, there are about a half-dozen to a dozen common filetypes that are commonly used, and just about every major 3D CAD package is able to save/import/export to. Even if Palladium/ND used some proprietary file format for the initial set of models, they should have been able to export into one of those common file types that their people in China could then import. Even if there was no 'direct link' between the two due to using two different sets of proprietary software, I can almost guarantee that there is some intermediate software package that would be capable of importing Palladium/Ninja Divisions Output, and then exporting a file type compatible with Chinas Input.
I can't give you an exact URL but sometime over the last year (gencon? the 19 page news-free history lesson update? adepticon podcast interview?) they said Ninja Division supplied them with STL files and the factory couldn't use them. I remember because that is the file type I worked with on my 30 day free trial of 3dsMax (Rick, you may want to try that program, btw) when I made my Krogan minis via Shapeways.
chaos0xomega wrote: yknow something doesnt add up. The stated reason for the delays was that the 3d models were formatted in the wrong filetype for their chinese partners equipment.
I call bs.
As someone who has pretty extensive CAD & CAM experience, I can tell you while there is no real 'industry standard' file format, there are about a half-dozen to a dozen common filetypes that are commonly used, and just about every major 3D CAD package is able to save/import/export to. Even if Palladium/ND used some proprietary file format for the initial set of models, they should have been able to export into one of those common file types that their people in China could then import. Even if there was no 'direct link' between the two due to using two different sets of proprietary software, I can almost guarantee that there is some intermediate software package that would be capable of importing Palladium/Ninja Divisions Output, and then exporting a file type compatible with Chinas Input.
I can't give you an exact URL but sometime over the last year (gencon? the 19 page news-free history lesson update? adepticon podcast interview?) they said Ninja Division supplied them with STL files and the factory couldn't use them. I remember because that is the file type I worked with on my 30 day free trial of 3dsMax (Rick, you may want to try that program, btw) when I made my Krogan minis via Shapeways.
I did try it. didn't fancy it much, was able to do up some of my G.I.Joe stuff
.stl happens to be one of the most common (if not the most common) file types out there used for CAM, 3d printing, etc. and just about any CAD package (at least all the major ones I've used) is capable of both importing and exporting it. If not, there is almost always a 3rd software package capable of translating .stl into something else thats usable.
If the manufacturers were unable to import it, and Palladium/ND couldn't export another filetype that they could use, or find a software package capable of importing a .stl or similar format and exporting something that China could use, then I call bs shenanigans. I've had to do a lot of crazy file conversions in the past, some that required me to export my output from software 1 in format 1, so that I could import it into software 2 in order to export format 2, so that I could import into software 3 in order to export format 3 to import to software 4 to export in format 4 etc. that could then be used by the person who I was sending the file to (in one particular case they happened to be using an old/out of date and archaic software package on an old machine that couldn't handle some of the less compressed formats out there which created a lot of headache). In only one instance I can recall was I unable to get something to work, but that wasn't an issue of readibility, in fact the file was fully openable, usable, and insofar as we could tell, accurate when it came out the other end, rather the issue was that the end-output wasn't editable (I believe it was the result of DRM or something similar from one of the packages I used to translate the file types rather than an issue with the geometry). Even then, it was still usable for manufacturing purposes, its just that the geometry couldn't be altered dimensionally.
That may just be beyond their comprehension. We are, after all, talking about Palladium. They haven't figured out how to use a calendar for the past 30 years of business and the Mayans and Ancient Romans did that thousands of years ago.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But no, seriously, I dont want to accuse anyone of lying or theft, and there is always the extremely unlikely corner case situation where all parties concerned here are telling the absolute truth, but everything I know about 3D modeling/CAD/CAM (which is quite a bit, between being an engineer and having used about a dozen different software packages over the past 12 years or so, starting in high school), absolutely none of the claims theyve made regarding file type/formatting issues seem to hold any water.
Ummm... I had a thought about the model conversion stuff.
They could have printed out a "master model" and they could have scanned it in at China if desperate.
It may have been easier to tweak from actual data points than start from scratch.
Just does not make sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But no, seriously, I dont want to accuse anyone of lying or theft, and there is always the extremely unlikely corner case situation where all parties concerned here are telling the absolute truth, but everything I know about 3D modeling/CAD/CAM (which is quite a bit, between being an engineer and having used about a dozen different software packages over the past 12 years or so, starting in high school), absolutely none of the claims theyve made regarding file type/formatting issues seem to hold any water.
Zbrush to injection moulded plastic can be a very big pain - zbrush can export some complete junk if you dont know what you are doing, and I've seen a large number of instances where things had to be resculpted because of it. This is amplified when going from zbrush export to CAD import, where if the production company is not familiar with zbrush's STL muck, then they will ask for it to be done again. If they sculpted in rhino, solidworks or some other pure CAD package then there are far fewer complaints to make about files, but if it was zbrush then there is certainly scope for it to be true and lead to notable delays with manufacturers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But no, seriously, I dont want to accuse anyone of lying or theft, and there is always the extremely unlikely corner case situation where all parties concerned here are telling the absolute truth, but everything I know about 3D modeling/CAD/CAM (which is quite a bit, between being an engineer and having used about a dozen different software packages over the past 12 years or so, starting in high school), absolutely none of the claims theyve made regarding file type/formatting issues seem to hold any water.
Zbrush to injection moulded plastic can be a very big pain - zbrush can export some complete junk if you dont know what you are doing, and I've seen a large number of instances where things had to be resculpted because of it. This is amplified when going from zbrush export to CAD import, where if the production company is not familiar with zbrush's STL muck, then they will ask for it to be done again. If they sculpted in rhino, solidworks or some other pure CAD package then there are far fewer complaints to make about files, but if it was zbrush then there is certainly scope for it to be true and lead to notable delays with manufacturers.
I don't think anyone in business for model designing would even look at zBrush let alone use it.
Zbrush to injection moulded plastic can be a very big pain - zbrush can export some complete junk if you dont know what you are doing, and I've seen a large number of instances where things had to be resculpted because of it. This is amplified when going from zbrush export to CAD import, where if the production company is not familiar with zbrush's STL muck, then they will ask for it to be done again. If they sculpted in rhino, solidworks or some other pure CAD package then there are far fewer complaints to make about files, but if it was zbrush then there is certainly scope for it to be true and lead to notable delays with manufacturers.
I don't think anyone in business for model designing would even look at zBrush let alone use it.
Most wargaming companies use it. Privateer Press use it, Mantic use it, Kingdom Death use it, and pretty much every other company I've spoken to who make organic digital sculpts use it at least for components. Sculptor prices are much cheaper than pure Freeform (or similar) and results are much more flexible compared to pure CAD, though Spartan, Dreamforge and a couple of others do go the pure CAD route.
Talizvar wrote: Ummm... I had a thought about the model conversion stuff.
They could have printed out a "master model" and they could have scanned it in at China if desperate.
It may have been easier to tweak from actual data points than start from scratch.
Just does not make sense.
Well, I dont think its that simple. I mean, Im not up to date on how scanning tech works, admittedly, but from what little I know about that side of things it might not have been a viable solution. Also scanners are kind of expensive. Then again, $1.5 million raised. Although I do find it somewhat tenuous that the chinese dudes dont have the means to make molds from physical masters (as in print masters and use I mean its a technology thats existed for over a century at this point, and while ive never dealt with one in person, I cant imagine a pantograph is expensive or difficult to use.
Zbrush to injection moulded plastic can be a very big pain - zbrush can export some complete junk if you dont know what you are doing, and I've seen a large number of instances where things had to be resculpted because of it. This is amplified when going from zbrush export to CAD import, where if the production company is not familiar with zbrush's STL muck, then they will ask for it to be done again. If they sculpted in rhino, solidworks or some other pure CAD package then there are far fewer complaints to make about files, but if it was zbrush then there is certainly scope for it to be true and lead to notable delays with manufacturers.
Having used ZBrush for exactly this purpose, and knowing many others who have as well, if youre even halfway competent and have any idea how ZBrush functions and whats required from a computer model to make a real model, its really not that difficult or complicated.
I don't think anyone in business for model designing would even look at zBrush let alone use it.
You would be (horribly) incorrect. ZBrush is quickly taking over pretty much the entire 3d graphics industry for all sorts of applications (though its often being used in conjunction with another package for certain specific uses), video games, film, art, jewelry, physical sculpture, etc. Corvus Belli is doing all their sculpts in ZBrush now, and I believe Wyrd is as well, just to name a few.
Talizvar wrote: Ummm... I had a thought about the model conversion stuff.
They could have printed out a "master model" and they could have scanned it in at China if desperate.
It may have been easier to tweak from actual data points than start from scratch.
Just does not make sense.
Well, I dont think its that simple. I mean, Im not up to date on how scanning tech works, admittedly, but from what little I know about that side of things it might not have been a viable solution. Also scanners are kind of expensive. Then again, $1.5 million raised. Although I do find it somewhat tenuous that the chinese dudes dont have the means to make molds from physical masters (as in print masters and use I mean its a technology thats existed for over a century at this point, and while ive never dealt with one in person, I cant imagine a pantograph is expensive or difficult to use.
FWIW, nobody seems to use pantographing any more except for Renedra, and I've not seen a single place in China offer it at wargaming levels of detail (0.1-0.2mm). Getting someone to buy in the machinery and take the time to ruin a few tools learning how to do it would be a big ask from most companies I'm familiar with.
Zbrush to injection moulded plastic can be a very big pain - zbrush can export some complete junk if you dont know what you are doing, and I've seen a large number of instances where things had to be resculpted because of it. This is amplified when going from zbrush export to CAD import, where if the production company is not familiar with zbrush's STL muck, then they will ask for it to be done again. If they sculpted in rhino, solidworks or some other pure CAD package then there are far fewer complaints to make about files, but if it was zbrush then there is certainly scope for it to be true and lead to notable delays with manufacturers.
Having used ZBrush for exactly this purpose, and knowing many others who have as well, if youre even halfway competent and have any idea how ZBrush functions and whats required from a computer model to make a real model, its really not that difficult or complicated.
Hence the 'if you dont know what you are doing', but most zbrush sculptors sadly do not know how plastic models work and their limitations, and most in the industry have come from videogame or generic backgrounds and take a few years to get up to scratch. I know of four (fairly big) companies with more experience than paladium/ND who have lost months of work and lots of money falling into this zbrush trap, so it is reasonable that it could happen to them too. Maelstrom's Edge is not one of them though, as we dont use zbrush
Fair enough on the pantographing, in any case I think the Zbrush discussion is moot, as the images of the 3d sculpts do not look like zbrush output to me (I can usually tell), and it wouldnt make sense to use zbrush for something like the robotech minis.
Automatically Appended Next Post: also worth noting, as far back as when the campaign was active, Palladium had 3d prints of the .stl models that they were using as prototypes and demo pieces, to me this says that if they *did* use ZBrush, whoever did it was aware of the "water tightness" requirements, as well as he geometric considerations involved with generating physical product. The models might not have been optimized for the two part molding process, but any mold engineer worth their salt should have been able to take an stl (or similar), cut it and reconfigure it for production tooling.
Talizvar wrote: They could have printed out a "master model" and they could have scanned it in at China if desperate.
from what little I know about that side of things it might not have been a viable solution. Also scanners are kind of expensive. Then again, $1.5 million raised. Although I do find it somewhat tenuous that the chinese dudes dont have the means to make molds from physical masters
Adam had the Kingdom Death master sculpts scanned and digitized and cleaned by WarGames Factory in China for plastic production. Hence, some KD:M plastics being larger and crisper than their resin counterparts.
Based on what I heard from ND it was my understanding that they did indeed do the original files in zbrush and .STL use for plastics is not widespread atm. The factory was using a solidworks based tooling so they couldn't make use of the zbrush models. STL is usable by almost every 3d printer, but when it comes to milling solidworks tends to dominate and it cannot process the complexity of zbrush models as the huge amount of geometry tends to crash most systems that normally run solidworks without an issue.
You can also tell by the renders and lighting tools that it's done in zbrush, the artist has also done stuff for megaman, and kingdom of death all in zbrush. He has some rather impressive hard surface modelling for zbrush (as does Fausto who sculpts for infinity). While it's usually best for organic work if you know how to use the right tools zbrush can produce some fantastic hard surface models.
Dreamforge uses Rhino, Mark knows how to set things up for plastic and the models still need tons of work to be properly formatted for milling. They are originally created with a combination of zbrush and rhino depending on the part he's going for. Then they are further re-translated at WGF into whatever software they are using. I'm pretty certain they are using Freeform, but not 100%
You would be (horribly) incorrect. ZBrush is quickly taking over pretty much the entire 3d graphics industry for all sorts of applications (though its often being used in conjunction with another package for certain specific uses), video games, film, art, jewelry, physical sculpture, etc. Corvus Belli is doing all their sculpts in ZBrush now, and I believe Wyrd is as well, just to name a few.
Infinity is not plastic injection, they are using zbursh to makes prints which are used for metal casting which is an entirely different ball of wax compared to milling with 3d files. Wyrd models are done via freeform and sculpted in house with WGF.
paulson games wrote: Based on what I heard from ND it was my understanding that they did indeed do the original files in zbrush and .STL use for plastics is not widespread atm. The factory was using a solidworks based tooling so they couldn't make use of the zbrush models. STL is usable by almost every 3d printer, but when it comes to milling solidworks tends to dominate and it cannot process the complexity of zbrush models as the huge amount of geometry tends to crash most systems that normally run solidworks without an issue.
You can also tell by the renders and lighting tools that it's done in zbrush, the artist has also done stuff for megaman, and kingdom of death all in zbrush. He has some rather impressive hard surface modelling for zbrush (as does Fausto who sculpts for infinity). While it's usually best for organic work if you know how to use the right tools zbrush can produce some fantastic hard surface models.
Dreamforge uses Rhino, Mark knows how to set things up for plastic and the models still need tons of work to be properly formatted for milling. They are originally created with a combination of zbrush and rhino depending on the part he's going for. Then they are further re-translated at WGF into whatever software they are using. I'm pretty certain they are using Freeform, but not 100%
You would be (horribly) incorrect. ZBrush is quickly taking over pretty much the entire 3d graphics industry for all sorts of applications (though its often being used in conjunction with another package for certain specific uses), video games, film, art, jewelry, physical sculpture, etc. Corvus Belli is doing all their sculpts in ZBrush now, and I believe Wyrd is as well, just to name a few.
Infinity is not plastic injection, they are using zbursh to makes prints which are used for metal casting which is an entirely different ball of wax compared to milling with 3d files. Wyrd models are done via freeform and sculpted in house with WGF.
You would think ND would have used SolidWorks since its the most reliable and applicable program out there I know of. but seriously they used zBrush ? seriously? also thought WGF is using Solidworks, but not sure either.
Ah, ZBrush to Solidworks is a hassle, but its not impossible. You would have to export an .stl into a program like Geomagic or Rapidform, use that to convert to NURBS and export a .obj or or .iges parametric solid or whatever it is. Really heavy duty processor-intensive computing, the software itself is, from what I understand, pretty expensive, but... its cheaper and less time consuming than hiring a CAD operator to remake dozens of models from scratch.
The 3d sculpts atill dont look anything at all like zrenders to me, but if you say so.
Automatically Appended Next Post: You can, in theory (depending on polygon count) use Rhino w/ certain plugins (T-Splines I think) to convert to NURBS, not sure if that was an option for ND of not (depending on the file size/polygon count).
It is, however, entirely possible to use ZBrush .stl output for milling. Ive never done it but a friend whos a jeweler has in the past, Ill have to ask him what CAM package hes using for milling. That would have required Palladium to change manufacturers however (and there might not be one that is set up to do steel tooling via that system).
And yeah, the use of ZBrish instead of solidworks for those sculpts is mystifying to me. When it comes to inorganic/hard surfaces like mechs and jets, zBrush is totally inferior to solidworkz/proE/unigraphics, etc. Really youre just making it harder for yourself.
The key to all these problems is that PB wanted things on the cheap, you can get just about anybody to produce a zbrush sculpt for bottom dollar. But what they didn't understand is that you can get a zbrush file (or any other type of file built for video game/display) just about anywhere but that doesn't mean it's viable for printing much less plastic milling. Like a lot of other companies they only see upfront dollar signs and don't understand the value of what an experienced hand will end up saving save them in the long run. Rather than pay X they end up paying X+Y+Z due to fixing repeated problems caused by working with inexperienced 3d artists. They get stuck bumbling their way though things and having to learn those modelling requirements the hard way on the fly. They had been in contact with somebody who could have walked them through that process much better, but Kevin is all knowing and all seeing so he never makes mistakes and certainly never ignores sound advice grown from hands on experience.
Some artists are incredibly good at hard surface modelling in zbrush, they use zbrush because it suits their workflow much better. It's a giant pain to learn all the various interfaces to work in the 3d field as you need to know how to use about 4-5 programs at a minimum. AT least two programs for for the modelling, 2-3 programs for lighting rendering, and photoshop for layering and editing, that's all without any animation elements. Most of the interfaces for stuff like Maya, Rhino, Blender etc all have some common ground but Zbrush is completely alien so if you spend the majority of your workflow using zbrush it can be easier just to do all of the hard surface stuff in there too, assuming you have the right skills and brush sets. Zbrush also offers a pretty advanced set of tools for making stamps and detailing within the matter of minutes which take significantly more time in other programs. For instance if I want to make a standardized "cog" to be on each joint I can extract the geometry from a vectored drawing in the matter of seconds vs having to build the geometry by hand and taking 15-20 minutes.
Most of the artists that are being contracted out for freelance work on minis are coming from a zbrush background for character and animation design, they have very little background in the technical side of having to make things for printing and even much less for milling which is highly technical and not taught in the typical 3d college courses. I've been attending Gnomon which is pretty top end for 3d design, they on ocassion mention 3d printing and prototyping but it's not a main stream topic or focus of classes as it's usually a footnote at best. Given how much reach it currently has and will grow to be they really should cover it a bit more extensively as it'll be a huge field in the very near future. Most of the classes are focused on 3d as a tool for film, video games and display, there's definitely some cross over due to 3d printing, but 3d milling work tends to draw more on the CAD background which tends to attract more technical minded artists and fewer of of the creative/free form type artists if that makes sense?
As someone who regularly gets stuff done by "the Chinese" I've never had a problem or found them to be any different to any other manufacturer in other countries.
Joyboozer wrote: But according to WRRD, it's all because ND chose China, surely that's not incorrect?
Well, if you read what Jon wrote. ND did it all in XBrush which uses .STL files and those are not common in the industry in China for manufacturing plastics. From what I understand PB honestly thought ND was going to do things domestic. Since obviously PB likes to have others do the heavy work and just try to bring in the cash it makes sense that they did not check all the details before going into working with ND. Also evidenced by the handover after the KS and also the problems with the files in China. So the dots in this case do connect.
So
1. PB does like to do things cheap.
2. They don't check stuff but depend on others too much and that causes additional problems. (we have plenty of evidence of that)
3. By not properly managing things they get into a mess like wave 2.
4. They appear to be trying to fulfill obligations at least in word but lack of solid info on wave 2 puts doubts to that.
5. WRRD, as much as some complain, in this case, all the evidence supports what he was saying, go figure.
6. PB needs to get off the pot and learn to self-manage so that can manage their business.
Mike1975 wrote: From what I understand PB honestly thought ND was going to do things domestic.
That seems like a very basic question to ask your subcontractor about the million dollar project you're hiring them for. I doubt that many people when asked about cheap plastic toy figurines instantly jump to the conclusion of "made in america" outside of palladium.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To put if fairly it's the guy who approached PB. He has a "they can do no wrong" attitude.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The basics of any tender, China or not, are the same, you state what you require, and companies respond with how they meet those requirements and what it will cost. You check out the company you think best matches those requirements, make sure they're reputable, and sign a contract.
The type of files that would be provided should have been in that process.
Exactly how have Palladium managed to bypass that entire process?
If when the project was in obvious trouble, they had admitted their were problems ( including WRRD) solutions could have been offered.
Instead we got everyone stop hating Palladium, it's on track and will deliver early.
Now here we are, and they still haven't hired a project manager.
paulson games wrote: The key to all these problems is that PB wanted things on the cheap, you can get just about anybody to produce a zbrush sculpt for bottom dollar. But what they didn't understand is that you can get a zbrush file (or any other type of file built for video game/display) just about anywhere but that doesn't mean it's viable for printing much less plastic milling. Like a lot of other companies they only see upfront dollar signs and don't understand the value of what an experienced hand will end up saving save them in the long run. Rather than pay X they end up paying X+Y+Z due to fixing repeated problems caused by working with inexperienced 3d artists. They get stuck bumbling their way though things and having to learn those modelling requirements the hard way on the fly. They had been in contact with somebody who could have walked them through that process much better, but Kevin is all knowing and all seeing so he never makes mistakes and certainly never ignores sound advice grown from hands on experience.
Some artists are incredibly good at hard surface modelling in zbrush, they use zbrush because it suits their workflow much better. It's a giant pain to learn all the various interfaces to work in the 3d field as you need to know how to use about 4-5 programs at a minimum. AT least two programs for for the modelling, 2-3 programs for lighting rendering, and photoshop for layering and editing, that's all without any animation elements. Most of the interfaces for stuff like Maya, Rhino, Blender etc all have some common ground but Zbrush is completely alien so if you spend the majority of your workflow using zbrush it can be easier just to do all of the hard surface stuff in there too, assuming you have the right skills and brush sets. Zbrush also offers a pretty advanced set of tools for making stamps and detailing within the matter of minutes which take significantly more time in other programs. For instance if I want to make a standardized "cog" to be on each joint I can extract the geometry from a vectored drawing in the matter of seconds vs having to build the geometry by hand and taking 15-20 minutes.
Most of the artists that are being contracted out for freelance work on minis are coming from a zbrush background for character and animation design, they have very little background in the technical side of having to make things for printing and even much less for milling which is highly technical and not taught in the typical 3d college courses. I've been attending Gnomon which is pretty top end for 3d design, they on ocassion mention 3d printing and prototyping but it's not a main stream topic or focus of classes as it's usually a footnote at best. Given how much reach it currently has and will grow to be they really should cover it a bit more extensively as it'll be a huge field in the very near future. Most of the classes are focused on 3d as a tool for film, video games and display, there's definitely some cross over due to 3d printing, but 3d milling work tends to draw more on the CAD background which tends to attract more technical minded artists and fewer of of the creative/free form type artists if that makes sense?
Makes perfect sense. I come from a CAD background. 3DS, Maya, Blsnder, and to a lesser extent Rhino (which I received some instruction in as its used in industry for some things) have been a nightmare for me to figure out and seem completely unintuitive. Zbrush on the other hand has been a breeze, I think it only took me a few hours to figure out how to make it do what I wanted it to do.
Mike1975 wrote: From what I understand PB honestly thought ND was going to do things domestic.
That seems like a very basic question to ask your subcontractor about the million dollar project you're hiring them for. I doubt that many people when asked about cheap plastic toy figurines instantly jump to the conclusion of "made in america" outside of palladium.
Completely Agree....but we are talking PB and they have a history of doing things just as bad so.....
Mike1975 wrote: From what I understand PB honestly thought ND was going to do things domestic.
That seems like a very basic question to ask your subcontractor about the million dollar project you're hiring them for. I doubt that many people when asked about cheap plastic toy figurines instantly jump to the conclusion of "made in america" outside of palladium.
Completely Agree....but we are talking PB and they have a history of doing things just as bad so.....
Palladium, the gold standard in doing things wrong.
And if you thought this weeks 'update' would contain any information, think again.
We'll all be dead of asphyxiation fomr holding our breath and then they'll be able to say "We don't have to worry about Wave 2, all the backers are dead."
Someone at PB really ought to get put on a course in sound engineering. Then maybe we'd get someone capable of changing the record!
stanman wrote: Palladium, the gold standard in doing things wrong.
See all you haters? You were saying Palladium can't do anything right, but I think everyone agrees they are *excellent* at mis-handling things. This seems appropriate to link as well, as it's another lesson PB should internalize.
The shop talk on 3D modelling-to-tooling has been most enlightening, so I wanted to give a thanks to all the guys who contributed there. As someone only familiar with the computer end of the equation it's always fascinating to see how the pixels on a screen become lumps of plastic I can hold.
Well, a friend of mine (and the guy with whom I might end up playing X-Wing the most) is completely allergic to everything and anything Star Wars... but loves to bits the X-Wing system. And we both love Macross, so...
Asterios wrote: 25mm or 40mm ? that is the question, should I put the ShockTrooper on a 25mm base or a RRT 40mm base (which it is on now)?
Hard choice.
Depends if you will have cyclones fielded on one stand or not: do they fit ok on 40mm or 25?
I think it would look strange with the ShockTrooper on 25 then cyclones on 40...
First reaction is it is fine on the 40 and would look cramped a bit on a 25, I think you would see some overhang off the base but GW has been conditioning us into that being OK for years.
OR they are putting out 30mm bases and I bet it would fit perfect.
Or you can forget the whole thing and play with that Battlestar Galactica model...
Asterios wrote: 25mm or 40mm ? that is the question, should I put the ShockTrooper on a 25mm base or a RRT 40mm base (which it is on now)?
Hard choice.
Depends if you will have cyclones fielded on one stand or not: do they fit ok on 40mm or 25?
I think it would look strange with the ShockTrooper on 25 then cyclones on 40...
First reaction is it is fine on the 40 and would look cramped a bit on a 25, I think you would see some overhang off the base but GW has been conditioning us into that being OK for years.
OR they are putting out 30mm bases and I bet it would fit perfect.
Or you can forget the whole thing and play with that Battlestar Galactica model...
if i use a 40mm for the cyclones it will be like 4-5 of them per base was thinking of doing 3 cyclones per base as a unit and 2 invid scouts and one invid armored scout per base as a unit.
Asterios wrote: If i use a 40mm for the cyclones it will be like 4-5 of them per base was thinking of doing 3 cyclones per base as a unit and 2 invid scouts and one invid armored scout per base as a unit.
I guess the thought being: do you want it a more large army type game or more skirmish?
Would these units tend to stick together or operate a bit more independently?
I would lean toward individual stands where possible until the models get too small.
They remind me of in size "protomechs" they had in Battletech.
Asterios wrote: If i use a 40mm for the cyclones it will be like 4-5 of them per base was thinking of doing 3 cyclones per base as a unit and 2 invid scouts and one invid armored scout per base as a unit.
I guess the thought being: do you want it a more large army type game or more skirmish?
Would these units tend to stick together or operate a bit more independently?
I would lean toward individual stands where possible until the models get too small.
They remind me of in size "protomechs" they had in Battletech.
well you see that Invid Shocktrooper? its about 2-3 times bigger then an Invid Scout.
Anyway, it your stuff, just thinking if I had the joy of your "problem" what would I do?
The difficulty is cyclones "punch above their weight" so a single stand of 5 guys represents a scary prospect.
You also use 1 Command Point PER base so that cyclones don't give a force hundreds of CP's. Another reason to group things like cyclones, APC's, and Tanks.
Mike1975 wrote: You also use 1 Command Point PER base so that cyclones don't give a force hundreds of CP's. Another reason to group things like cyclones, APC's, and Tanks.
Hence why in Battletech "Proto-Mechs" are considered one unit that activates like a single model. 1 Command Point per base is an unfortunate wording of the rule in this case. Cyclones felt like character models rather than massed grunt squads.
The TV series always had a skirmish look to it even with those large scale battles: the focus was on only a few units.
It feels like lumping units together takes away from that a bit.
It feels right in some ways having a named squadron in SW: Armada for instance, but the game is appropriately large in scale.
I feel like I entered that "Should RRT be a larger scale?" debate again, I still say no.
Mike1975 wrote: You also use 1 Command Point PER base so that cyclones don't give a force hundreds of CP's. Another reason to group things like cyclones, APC's, and Tanks.
Hence why in Battletech "Proto-Mechs" are considered one unit that activates like a single model. 1 Command Point per base is an unfortunate wording of the rule in this case. Cyclones felt like character models rather than massed grunt squads.
The TV series always had a skirmish look to it even with those large scale battles: the focus was on only a few units.
It feels like lumping units together takes away from that a bit.
It feels right in some ways having a named squadron in SW: Armada for instance, but the game is appropriately large in scale.
I feel like I entered that "Should RRT be a larger scale?" debate again, I still say no.
1. Cyclones were portrayed as Hero units when used by the main characters and rarely seen otherwise.
2. Giving each a CP would be insane and break the CP balance of the game.
3. Adding LIC or a renamed equivalent is an option, but adds complication to the game.
4. Cyclones have really short range and firepower and only as groups can they do anything serious.
5. Cyclones are cheap, on the order of a few points each, so having each one as an individual unit means you will have a crapload to move on the table.
6. If I do X command points per Y cyclones such as 1 per 3 or 4 you would have to count up all the units at the end of every single turn to see how many command points you have. When you have 4 or so per mech that can add up to a lot of counting.
7. Normal Infantry are 8 per stand, 4 cyclones or 1 leader is not that bad at all.
@Mike: Agreed on many points, since I keep forgetting it MUST be based on the RPG with all the pitfalls that entails.
Some comments to your points however:
1) Glad we agree.
2) I was recommending the unit of 5 use and get 1 CP even though they may be 5 separate models initially, I think now an alternative below may be better.
3) Since when were we ever afraid of complications? I could see using LIC on "red-shirts" and getting points for named characters. That could keep things down a bit.
4-5) Maybe "red-shirt" multiples on a single stand and character models on their own... like the Glaug with pods, they are a form of support/buff unit.
6) Character models generating their own points and on their own stands and with their own cards make totaling easy.
7) I think we are somewhat on the same page here... a "leader" could be on their own stand right?
I was also thinking in terms of the less models on each base then some of the supporting rules could come into effect. I could see two stands of two redshirts and a leader or hero on their own = 3 stands per group. Mind-you I am not looking forward to the "Cyclone punch-line" (tm).
Yeah, that is why I have support scouts and commanders as a single cyclone on a single stand.
When I get around to doing a Freedom Fighter faction we might see more individually based Cyclones since they will have some nasty upgrades and special abilities but less power units.
Side note: got contacted by my government, was assigned a "case number" and talked to an honest to goodness human being.
They seemed rather excited to delve into the world of kickstarters.
I organized everything including BBB stuff and FTC... I hope I do not scare them off...
Anyway, not angry anymore, just curious now what my silly government will do with it all... they do have a serious big-brother issue with the USA so they may just run with this... lord help us all.
I hope something positive (for you) comes from it. I don't mean that sarcastically either. Palladium needs to be shown that there are consequences for taking people's money and putting off completing their end of the contract for over two years with NO end in sight.
3-6 months! They've told us as much repeatedly, and despite having done so for the last half year or so, haven't adjusted that estimate more than adding a few months.
Seems pretty airtight to me. We should begin seeing pre-production prototypes any day now!
3-6 months! They've told us as much repeatedly, and despite having done so for the last half year or so, haven't adjusted that estimate more than adding a few months.
Seems pretty airtight to me. We should begin seeing pre-production prototypes any day now!
>.>
ZOMG! Totally. The end is in sight as long as you're the one holding the eye! I believe that is Alex, Kevin, and Wayne from L to R. The problem is that we, the valued backers, can't hold it so we have to rely instead on the updates that consist of casting chicken bones instead.
3-6 months! They've told us as much repeatedly, and despite having done so for the last half year or so, haven't adjusted that estimate more than adding a few months.
Seems pretty airtight to me. We should begin seeing pre-production prototypes any day now!
>.>
I can't wait to have fulfilled a 2nd KS before this one finally fully ships.
3-6 months! They've told us as much repeatedly, and despite having done so for the last half year or so, haven't adjusted that estimate more than adding a few months.
Seems pretty airtight to me. We should begin seeing pre-production prototypes any day now!
>.>
I can't wait to have fulfilled a 2nd KS before this one finally fully ships.
I'm sure you're backers will be thrilled as well. I'd love to know how it feels. How would you rate the following in order of importance as a KS creator in getting the job done on time?
1) Not lying.
2) Knowing what you're doing.
3) If not #2, hiring someone who does.
4) Not lying.
5) Keeping your word.
6) Communicating clearly, on a regular schedule, and with actual pertinent substance.
I'm sure you're backers will be thrilled as well. I'd love to know how it feels. How would you rate the following in order of importance as a KS creator in getting the job done on time?
1) Not lying.
2) Knowing what you're doing.
3) If not #2, hiring someone who does.
4) Not lying.
5) Keeping your word.
6) Communicating clearly, on a regular schedule, and with actual pertinent substance.
7) Not lying.
Honestly, that's a pretty good run down.
#2 is pretty important. #3 can make up for it, but its better if you at least have some idea of what you're doing.
I personally feel I'm bad at #6, but I try to do weekly/every other week updates and respond to PMs/E-mails within a few hours.
warboss wrote: ZOMG! Totally. The end is in sight as long as you're the one holding the eye! I believe that is Alex, Kevin, and Wayne from L to R. The problem is that we, the valued backers, can't hold it so we have to rely instead on the updates that consist of casting chicken bones instead.
And don't forget that 'mouth-watering' quality can also be explained.
.
.
.
.
"Beauty is in the eye of the Beer-Holder!"
Asterios wrote: here is the Invid shock trooper on a 40mm base and a 25mm base (the light blue base) for better perspective.
Figured it would have a bit of overhang on a 25mm. For simplicity a 40mm base would probably be best for the game, 30mm it would fit perfectly esthetically however.
Looks good anyway.
Didn't I read something a while back about Zentraedi infantry getting a different size base or was that something from Mike's homebrew rules? If they are getting something smaller like 25mm then that barrier is already broken. When you're switching to a different era, that's the time to consider different basing options if needed. Since we're talking about stuff that on average (mean) is less than half the size, I'd be fine with smaller bases if we're talking about accurately scaled minis and not sliding scale stuff.
Of course, it doesn't matter because despite that option in the vote getting the LEAST amount of votes out of all the choices by a wide margin, there is not surprisingly enough "interest" for Palladium to explore non-compatible 15mm scale for future alternate versions of the minis (you know... their preordained result that they were totally pushing for 19 pages). Although as whining goes, the above is pretty pointless. I'll be grey, deaf, and arthritic before they finish future eras.
Asterios wrote: here is the Invid shock trooper on a 40mm base and a 25mm base (the light blue base) for better perspective.
Figured it would have a bit of overhang on a 25mm. For simplicity a 40mm base would probably be best for the game, 30mm it would fit perfectly esthetically however.
Looks good anyway.
actually the overhang is a lot less then on some pods, also you have to consider Invid are swarmers, they swarm like bees, if you have them on 40mm bases that can becoming daunting quite fast.
Well, you could say I am more inspired by the "fan support".
I have been a fan of "Net-Epic" ( http://www.net-armageddon.org/) so I figure if PB loses interest (you know they will) we get things hammered out here.
Not like Mike is not pounding away with or without them.
Funny, with the way the rules are I actually am somewhat afraid of smaller bases due to the rules for ganging up in melee: the more you pack-in the more overkill.
Talizvar wrote: Well, you could say I am more inspired by the "fan support".
I have been a fan of "Net-Epic" ( http://www.net-armageddon.org/) so I figure if PB loses interest (you know they will) we get things hammered out here.
Not like Mike is not pounding away with or without them.
Funny, with the way the rules are I actually am somewhat afraid of smaller bases due to the rules for ganging up in melee: the more you pack-in the more overkill.
I haven't seen epic played in over a decade (n=1). I'm not claiming that there aren't folks out there playing it but rather that I had higher hopes for Robotech than another house ruled up the wazzo unofficial play it once a year on a special occasion after begging your friends minis game. I have trouble enough finding interest to play officially supported 2nd/3rd tier games (outside of the ICV2 top 5) that get regular releases both in minis and rules. YMMV.
3-6 months! They've told us as much repeatedly, and despite having done so for the last half year or so, haven't adjusted that estimate more than adding a few months.
Seems pretty airtight to me. We should begin seeing pre-production prototypes any day now!
>.>
ZOMG! Totally. The end is in sight as long as you're the one holding the eye! I believe that is Alex, Kevin, and Wayne from L to R. The problem is that we, the valued backers, can't hold it so we have to rely instead on the updates that consist of casting chicken bones instead.
Spoiler:
You're so generous. I was totally expecting something like this:
Your comparison is better only if you change it to speak no updates on wave 2, see no progress on wave 2, and hear no complaints from backers about wave 2.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Joyboozer wrote: Now there's coke zero and spit all over my phone.
They definitely look better on 25mm (and not in such close up zoom pics where the limitations of affordable 3d printing resolution are obvious). Also, I really hope palladium changes their mind and goes with a sliding scale for the other eras in 10 years when they get around to doing them.
warboss wrote: They definitely look better on 25mm (and not in such close up zoom pics where the limitations of affordable 3d printing resolution are obvious). Also, I really hope palladium changes their mind and goes with a sliding scale for the other eras in 10 years when they get around to doing them.
you honestly think Palladium will be around in 10 years? me I'm giving them 1 maybe 2 years tops myself.
They're the zombies of the tabletop gaming industry. There is enough white knight flesh to feed on to sustain their minimal product output activity for decades to come. The question is rather whether we'll be around long enough to get wave 2.
warboss wrote: They're the zombies of the tabletop gaming industry. There is enough white knight flesh to feed on to sustain their minimal product output activity for decades to come. The question is rather whether we'll be around long enough to get wave 2.
I dunno, it is quickly becoming an aging population who have progressively moved out of their parent's basements.
I have been away from the RPG scene for a while but I imagine if the game is not Pathfinder it could be hard to get a game in.
Hard enough with tabletop to get people to bite with RRT.
I am a little afraid to say I am unsure how old I could get before I did not care about Robotech as my first Japanese anime stomping / transforming robot show.
Paladium as a company however, truly is a zombie.
For such a shoe-string company they sure have the attitude.
I honestly thought long ago "White Wolf" had buried these guys, never mind the various iterations of D&D or Pathfinder.
So, how to force these guys to get serious about wave 2 before they decide to go belly-up?
I am sure they will think it is the end of days if they get a fierce letter from my government politely asking them to play nice and give their citizen his money back pretty please...
25mm as well?
Wow! They are tiny.
Might be a bit more entertaining fitting them in there as bikes.
Your focusing in that close is doing your paintjob no favors, anything that small is not easily done.
Talizvar wrote: So, how to force these guys to get serious about wave 2 before they decide to go belly-up?
I am sure they will think it is the end of days if they get a fierce letter from my government politely asking them to play nice and give their citizen his money back pretty please...
All of that unpleasantness could be avoided if they would just deliver the stuff that people paid for...
Talizvar wrote: I dunno, it is quickly becoming an aging population who have progressively moved out of their parent's basements.
I have been away from the RPG scene for a while but I imagine if the game is not Pathfinder it could be hard to get a game in.
Hard enough with tabletop to get people to bite with RRT.
I am a little afraid to say I am unsure how old I could get before I did not care about Robotech as my first Japanese anime stomping / transforming robot show.
Paladium as a company however, truly is a zombie.
For such a shoe-string company they sure have the attitude.
I honestly thought long ago "White Wolf" had buried these guys, never mind the various iterations of D&D or Pathfinder.
I suspect the Matrix quote about "there are levels of survival we are prepared to accept" also applies here. As long as coming out with one book and a little accessory like a pencil or hat or dice bag twice a year (in addition to the grab bags...did they tell you about their grab bags available for a limited time!?!?!)) pays the bills and leaves a bit left over for pierogi, why try harder? The only wrinkle in the plan is when they lose to death, common sense, or hobby attrition a Jorel superfan (I.e. a fan who treks across the country to pay to meet Kevin again at their in house con, gets dozens of books signed, and buys 7 copies of a book because his name was in it).
25mm as well?
Wow! They are tiny.
Might be a bit more entertaining fitting them in there as bikes.
Your focusing in that close is doing your paintjob no favors, anything that small is not easily done.
you see that little plastic rod holding them up in flight? that rod is 1mm wide, those guys are about 6mm's high, I'm not gonna put too much work into them
warboss wrote: I suspect the Matrix quote about "there are levels of survival we are prepared to accept" also applies here. As long as coming out with one book and a little accessory like a pencil or hat or dice bag twice a year (in addition to the grab bags...did they tell you about their grab bags available for a limited time!?!?!)) pays the bills and leaves a bit left over for pierogi, why try harder? The only wrinkle in the plan is when they lose to death, common sense, or hobby attrition a Jorel superfan (I.e. a fan who treks across the country to pay to meet Kevin again at their in house con, gets dozens of books signed, and buys 7 copies of a book because his name was in it).
It's hard to imagine a half dozen people getting paid a living wage to release 3-4 Rifters a year and 1-3 (or so) books. Assuming they even get half of MSRP from wholesalers, they still have to pay freelancers (something, yes, even after Kevin edits half of it and slaps his name over the top), artists, for their office/warehouse space, assorted bills, and production run costs. Like, that has to be operating expenses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, for a company with minimal widespread distribution. Sure, there's the theory often postulated that they drifted by on the generosity of fan friends, being bailed out after 'the crisis of treachery', Kevin's collectibles sales, and that great big lump of cash post KS, but it still remains a bit baffling.
Like, Kevin, Wayne, and the others presumably have rent or mortgages to pay. Banks and grocery stores are unlikely to go on promises of greatness, and even 2 income households (assuming they're all in relationships) only go so far when one of those two is allegedly doing things but can't actually show anything for those efforts.
As always, I'm not saying that every company has to be rolling in cash like it's the high times, but for a company that so clearly struggles for so long, something has to give eventually.
People (KS comments, Mike's page, etc) keep speculating that PB needs these sales (copious flash sales in the past year) to get wave two done, but I think the flash sales, grab bags, and whatnot are how they make up for shortcomings; turning excess stock into cash, even at a reduced level of efficiency.
There's no way they're going to fund a half million dollar production and shipping run with pencils and mousepads, not on a community as small and insular as they are.
Forar wrote: There's no way they're going to fund a half million dollar production and shipping run with pencils and mousepads, not on a community as small and insular as they are.
That is why this situation is so funny / strange.
Say despite my expectations, PB had been spending the money "correctly" and just plain ran out.
The logical thing to do is say:"Hey we do have this stuff GHQ is helping us out to make, we need the money, could you buy pretty please?".
Even I would buy the stuff, it is not vaporware, it is on-hand and gets me more models: win-win.
Since I am assuming they bought too much retail stock I refuse to give them any money and hold them accountable to pay for wave 2.
So say, they admit they messed that up too:"We thought RRT was going to go like crazy so we have way too many starter boxes: buy pretty please?".
Bring it down to $40 and I would buy two.
I bet they would still make a profit on it, not as much as they would like, but it would still be liquid money on-hand rather than unmoving stock.
I think for Kevin's entire career he has seen it pay-off to do a long print-run for cost efficiency and hold onto the stock: he has the space.
Then just a slow trickle of product being bought and it keeps the lights on.
I think he puts more "stock" in a large selection of product available than put energy in new releases (then you have to pay people to make stuff).
He is then able to exercise his creative juices writing the various missives we know and love trying to hawk his wares to a progressively shrinking audience.
I want my models.
I want to ignore PB so bad: it is what they deserve (plus a few public warnings of their "pre-order" scams).
I can't claim ignorance as I knew they were screw ups from two decades of RPG gaming (including a 10+ year Rifts campaign) but I believed them when they said they were NOT going to be doing the work and that the work was 98% DONE.
It was the Ninja Division "in-charge" bait and switch that was our downfail. (intentional misspell).
I am really looking forward to the day where I can tell them to stuff their weekly spam letter.
But you know, it is just that slightly more informative and more frequent than their Kickstarter "updates".
This has gone on so long at this point that I lost all interest in playing RRT, went back to 40k, stopped playing 40k for 6 months, and am now going back to 40k and there is still no end in sight.
I still can't find a single interested player within 50 miles either.
I've gotten into X-Wing, picked up Star Trek Attack Wing, bought D&D Attack Wing, picked up All Quiet on the Martian Front, filled out my Dust American and German army, learned Warmahordes (with starter armies for Crix, Ouroboros, Kaldor, Everblight, and the blue guys), splurged on AT-43, painted my Tyranids army, got my son a Necron army (and finished my Necron army), got my other son an Ork army, tried out my IG army (after bulking it up and painting it), had both Zombicide 2 and 3 kickstarters start, finish and deliver, bought into a played the Alien encounter deckbuilding game, painted my Vampire Counts army, learned Kings of War and wrote, edited and released my own Crimson Empire campaign sourcebook while waiting for this flipping KS to complete.
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