Mike1975 wrote: LOL, well we already have a Community Organizer that brought us useless universal healthcare.....
Seriously, dude, let's keep the politics out of this.
Edit: also you still haven't answered my question. Are you, Mike, stating a desire to see a class action lawsuit against PB for their failures in this campaign?
No dancing around the point with needles and fat bears, just all Braveheart style: "The Lord says don't change the subject and just answer the fething question."
I might be willing to join if someone started the ball rolling. I don't have time to do it myself. I already told Rick that a while back. I'm waiting to see what the "relaunch" entails before making a move one way or the other. I'm not holding my breath though.
Heres an update from june 7, 2012. While not related to robotech tactics it is an interesting read if only for how Kevin views the world;
By Kevin Siembieda
Something Unexpected
I have spent the last six weeks doing a lot of market research. It started at the Palladium Open House and intensified the last two weeks. My calls to Ultimate Insiders, Insider Benefactors and freelancers/friends contributed to it. The reason for the research was that a number of potential “new opportunities” have presented themselves to us, including doing miniatures for Robotech®, among other things. My thanks to the Benefactors, Insiders and others who have knowingly and unknowingly contributed to this vital research.
Surveying a few hundred Palladium customers revealed several important things.
1.Satisfaction is through the roof.
2.Most of you love the game rules.
3.Most of you are loving the new book releases.
4.Most of you want MORE. More for Rifts®. More for EVERYTHING. And the sooner the better.
5.Favorite recent release: Rifts® Lemuria.
6.Most anticipated upcoming release: Rifts® Northern Gun™ with Beyond the Supernatural™, Splicers® and Palladium Fantasy RPG® sourcebooks all clustered and fighting for the Number Two slot. I was surprised that these game lines had that much interest.
7.Favorite Palladium game line: Rifts®, with Heroes Unlimited™, Dead Reign™ and Palladium Fantasy RPG® fighting for second and third place and the rest of our world settings all coming in behind them.
When asked, what would you like to see Palladium do differently, change or improve?
A whopping 90% of you said, “Don’t change a thing. Keep doing what you are doing. Just, please, keep new product coming out at a steady pace.”
“We want more, and we want it now,” was a common, unsolicited sentiment. Along those lines, many expressed excitement for the promise of new material for Palladium Fantasy®, Splicers®, Beyond the Supernatural™, Nightbane®, Heroes Unlimited™ and Robotech®, pretty much in that order.
Of the remaining 10%, most wanted a few minor changes and tweaks, nothing major, and were very satisfied with Palladium and our products, overall.
Fun Facts Revealed
Of the customers/fans surveyed (90% of whom did not realize I was gathering information – I wanted their unbiased opinions), we learned what most of YOU probably already knew:
•86% are dying to see a darn movie made. If not a Rifts® movie, they’d like to see Nightbane®, Splicers®, Dead Reign™, Beyond the Supernatural™, Phase World®, Palladium Fantasy®, Mechanoids® or Heroes Unlimited™, pretty much in that order.
•78% want character generators for all Palladium games.
•75% want video games of any variety based on Rifts® or any Palladium game setting.
•75% are “excited” about the new Megaverse® Insider offer for the two Northern Gun™ books, and anxious for the new Insider offer to start. (FYI: It starts today!) Most said they were planning to make an Insider purchase for Northern Gun™ and would participate in future crowdfunding. 25% thought Palladium should do them more often. Only 2% thought it was too soon to do another already. (Four months after the first!?) But most also planned to make a purchase from the new crowdfunding offer for Northern Gun™ One and Two. 90% thought crowdfunding was a smart move. Note: The level of customer excitement and participation over the Megaverse® Insider offers (especially among those who made a purchase in the first offer) really surprised me. In fact, 30% thought we offered too much or an impressive value for what they paid; 68% thought it was perfect.
•98% were completely satisfied with the Lemuria Megaverse Insider offer. Note: I was so glad to hear it. I always want to release products and special offers that please as many people as possible.
•55% would like toys/action figures. Note: But not necessarily metal or plastic miniatures, which surprised me.
•42% would like to see more hardcover editions of Palladium game titles, including sourcebooks. Note: This surprised me as well.
•40% would like more novels based on Palladium game settings, especially for Rifts®.
•33% would like more comic books based on Palladium game settings.
•33% were “interested” in seeing an optional set of simplified rules, provided it kept the terms and feel of the current game system and they could use existing sourcebooks with it.
•24% want to see more PDFs, but most said they also wanted to see printed books along with them. Many of these people were also interested in seeing Palladium titles made available in other e-reader formats.
•20% want to see more miniatures and/or a miniature game for Rifts® or other Palladium settings. The number increases to 30% among Robotech® fans. Note: This comparatively low number surprised me, as several people have been pitching and hyping miniatures.
•7% did not play (for various reasons; no time, no players in the area, etc.), but enjoyed reading and collecting the books for the “story” and “ideas.”
•Fewer than 1% were dissatisfied with the Palladium game system. Most of those used Palladium world settings but the rules of another game or a combination of rules from two or more game publishers plus house rules. Despite this, all continued to enjoy and buy Palladium RPG titles to read for the “ideas” and “game setting.”
What all this tells us
This information tells us Palladium’s agenda to produce a lot of new, dynamic product is exactly what YOU – our customers – want. Everything else is secondary.
It also made something else very, very clear: a) That many of Palladium’s relentless critics are, not customers (i.e. they do not buy or play our games in the first place); b) some are outsiders who have never actually played our games and point out what they think they see as weaknesses and problems (i.e. comments like, “the game system is broken”); c) some have different tastes and prefer other styles of role-playing rules (resulting in comments like, “the world settings are great, but the rules suck,” or “I wish Palladium would change their rules to be more like Game X”); and d) some are dissatisfied with our product, me or the company. That’s okay. One of the things I love about role-playing games is that they are so flexible and can be altered to fit your personal inclinations and style of play. I learned long ago that you cannot please everyone, so I am delighted to see that not only are we satisfying the overwhelming majority of Palladium customers, but that most of you are delighted with the end product and wouldn’t change a thing.As a result of this market study, I will be focusing on giving YOU what you want: More product. More product for all our game lines, and as quickly as we can without sacrificing quality!
Seriously. Those were the four things I heard over and over again. And most of the time they were couched as suggestions or wishes, not complaints or criticisms. I thought it was all positive, useful and helpful.
All of this data and the start of the new Megaverse® Insider crowdsource funding is plenty to chew on for this week’s Update, so I’m not going to say much more.
Do you love the part about critics not being customers?
That entry is what I referred to when I mentioned his infamous Open House poll and 1% of fans unhappy with the current status of Rifts that he conducted without actually asking people if they were unhappy.
I've put out two feelers for a class action lawsuit. Haven't heard anything back yet. I don't know if I'm being ignored or if the two firms I attempted to contact are still recovering from the holidays...
evilsmurf wrote: When asked, what would you like to see Palladium do differently, change or improve?
A whopping 90% of you said, “Don’t change a thing. Keep doing what you are doing. Just, please, keep new product coming out at a steady pace.”
•Fewer than 1% were dissatisfied with the Palladium game system. Most of those used Palladium world settings but the rules of another game or a combination of rules from two or more game publishers plus house rules. Despite this, all continued to enjoy and buy Palladium RPG titles to read for the “ideas” and “game setting.”
My two favourite bits.
The first is funny from a reasonability perspective. So, 90% were happy with the "steady pace" which is 2-3 books a year, and not the 20+ books you promise will be done in a year? That fully 90% of your participants not just accepting of your failure to hit your targets (which is kind of understandable, maybe) but don't want you to IMPROVE on your hit to miss ratio? Yeah, I have a hard time believing that.
The second is funny from a math perspective. To have "fewer than 1%", and then use "most", sure, he could have polled 301 participants, had 3 people in this category, and two fit his "most" claim, and be technically correct (The best kind of correct!), it still comes across as statistical wankery, when he could have said "and only one of those didn't use the PB world settings...". Even at 901 polled, and it's 5-4 that fit the situation, it's still lame to use "most". If I asked three people and got two responses, I wouldn't say "most respondants said this.". Maybe it's just me, but unless there were at least 20-30 people in that <1% category (meaning he polled 2000-3000 people at a minimum), he could have just used raw numbers.
But as the last 30+ months have shown (to me, at least), Kevin has a tenuous relationship with numbers, facts, times, promises and reality. So, I'm in no way surprised by what he said. Just amused.
I am still trying to wrap my brain around Kevin listening to more than 20 people. When I met him at Anime North he did not impress as a listening type... but then again he could make time for praise. I am sorry, but when you tally numbers resulting in 42% (Life, the universe and everything!) he better have had the clipboard out: I suspect a false presentation of precision.
I was thinking about the degree of managerial involvement for the kickstarter.
Glory is the important thing to Kevin.
The scut-work leading up to release is dead to him.
That is why the last minute messing about is key: to lay claim to the release fame.
I think he may have had no clue even at December initial release date and being used to year long overruns, he may have clued in around the time of one of his walls of texts... most likely the throwing ND under the bus one if I was a betting man.
Well, time to keep poking the KS page, maybe we will rouse Kevin's ire with properly framed words.
Talizvar wrote: I am still trying to wrap my brain around Kevin listening to more than 20 people. When I met him at Anime North he did not impress as a listening type... but then again he could make time for praise. I am sorry, but when you tally numbers resulting in 42% (Life, the universe and everything!) he better have had the clipboard out: I suspect a false presentation of precision.
I was thinking about the degree of managerial involvement for the kickstarter.
Glory is the important thing to Kevin.
The scut-work leading up to release is dead to him.
That is why the last minute messing about is key: to lay claim to the release fame.
I think he may have had no clue even at December initial release date and being used to year long overruns, he may have clued in around the time of one of his walls of texts... most likely the throwing ND under the bus one if I was a betting man.
Well, time to keep poking the KS page, maybe we will rouse Kevin's ire with properly framed words.
Sounds like you met him the same weekend I did.....yeah he was all fine and chatty with what little praise I gave and hten suddenly had to bugger off somewhere once I started on the not so praising items...adn afterwards, while his enthusiasm is a bit infectious, I felt like I had just got chatted up by a smarmy used car salesman....
several people have gotten responses from the Michigan AG and various other state AGs but their over all stance is unless more file there is nothing they will do, as to the FTC I have heard of no one posting here as of yet getting a response.
People have said that the MIAG was who to go to for a while, so while it sucks to have wasted some time there, it's probably not a bad idea to forward over whatever you sent to the Oregon AG to them.
If nothing else, seeing a couple dozen of these land on their desk (over time perhaps) might eventually catch someone's eye.
"Hey, Alexis, didn't we get mail about some plastic figures thing for a Palladium Books last week?"
Here's something really hillarious - the copy of the AvP boardgame I'd ordered through my FLGS finally came in. I'm both tapped out to buy it and their garbled KS is now apparently going to finish before this one does.
I got an appointment with the MD AG office (wrote a physical letter before that).
I was passed to some low level staffer that listened to what I had to say and told me they'd look into the T&Cs of the site but it was really the MIAG's problem...They basically care about fining a business in the state of MD that doesn't have the correct licenses, etc.
The staffer knew what KS is and had backed projects before.
I will have to apologize for behavior in the KS comments but this unmoderated environment brings the flame out.
Plus, someone was wrong on the internet so I have to inform them of their error, to be helpful... yeah.
Yep, vaccine for high horse itus, I will try to be careful of terminal hypocrisy infection.
I think it's been the venting of some pent-up rage on the KS page. We pretty much know PB's not listening - and they aren't bothering to moderate the comments, so folks are just getting wound up and need to blow off some steam. Unfortunately, a few bystanders are getting singed.
I have my moments at losing my cool with this KS, usually right after Kevin puts up a non-update on the KS site.
Oooh, pushed the Midnight (EST) barrier, but there's a newsletter!
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
We intend to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ forward in 2016 in a big way. To get the Wave Two Kickstarter exclusives and expansion packs into manufacturing and ultimately into your hands. For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized. With all the past delays and frustration, we don’t want to even speculate on release dates and other details until we have hard, complete information ourselves. But we will be sharing and offering more throughout the year in the weeks and months ahead.
It is all part of the relaunch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. By “relaunch” we mean a new and renewed market push of core games, regular product releases and game support, like RRT rules clarifications and elaboration, rules additions, advanced rules, demos, gaming events and promotions, adventures, PDF and physical releases, and more.
Please know that we are truly committed to making sure we complete and fulfill our Kickstarter obligations and to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ truly epic, with future expansions across all eras of Robotech®. We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.
Don't give us the same Bullgak about how worried you are about giving specifics. Don't want to, don't. But this year of vague generalities is insulting, and needs to end. Oh, going to give news in the next week or two? Feth off. Fething Show, Don't Fething Tell. I'll believe it when I see it, and until they can line up something tangible to go over (by the end of January, by their own vague timeline that I'm going to cheerily take at face value), they deserve every bit of mockery, scorn, FTC, BBB, AG and other letter that heads their way.
LAST chance – Palladium Surprise Package offer ends TODAY after midnight PST, Friday, January 15, 2016
Oh, well, that era has finally come to a conclu..
A secret: Wayne probably will not remove the Surprise Package offer from the store till sometime on Saturday afternoon. So if you miss the midnight deadline you may have time until Saturday afternoon to sneak in your order. We will honor all orders placed until the offer is taken down from the online store.
I believe Kevin left a few words out of the following sentence I took the liberty of correcting.
We intend to move the release date of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ wave 2 back in 2016 in a big way.
"We also expect to relaunch Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and get Wave Two expansion packs and Kickstarter exclusives into final manufacturing."
*Flips finger at PB* That's what supposed to happen in 2015. So despite working so "hard", they haven't even got into final manufacturing?
And that line about not speculating about release dates? Well they just speculated that they are getting into final manufacturing in 2016.
They are just gakky at things, Just telling us "Hey the designs are tweaked and at the factory end getting a look over, except the Eclair which has problems" will have gotten some flak, but would have been sufficient to satisfy some of us. They truly are terrible at managing customer expectations.
EDIT: The whole "we got big news for RRT too!" gak in the first email just end up being the same drivel in the second. PB being PB again.
Does he not realise that these updates are supposed to be on the project page and not in the weekly advertisement? It's in the bloody TOS that they have to update us THERE not in direct mail. I don't even get that stupid newsletter and only know about it when someone posts it to this thread.
"We also expect to relaunch Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and get Wave Two expansion packs and Kickstarter exclusives into final manufacturing."
Translation; Q2 ain't happening, boys. Gird up your loins and prepare to hurry up and wait.
What could these business and/or strategic reasons be? It's not like there is a lot of competition for robotech minis/games and the way this has been mishandled, they're not even on the radar for any other game companies. The only reason I could see is that the information would be damning enough to open the floodgates to legal action.
Like not having enough funds to complete wave 2 or no longer having intention to complete wave 2 because they've lost interest/enthusiasm or it would no longer be profitable.
With wave 2 no longer scheduled for the first 6 months of 2016 I think the relaunch will be to rebrand the game as Rifts RPG tactics and maybe a new kickstarter for that. Funds wouldn't go to complete wave 2 though because they'll bank on Rifts doing better despite their lackluster promotion and marketing and plan on using profits from Rifts Tactics to fund wave 2.
So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.
Then there would be observed progress and they do not have to fill a cargo container.
Then that trickle of income can continue!
Rather than the sad pewter offerings they have now (suggest releasing anything NOT that type first).
So many options, so little information shared.
Talizvar wrote: So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.
Hell, I can think of some backers that would probably be supportive of that idea. Encouraging of it, even. Right, Forar?
So the comments now have gay text porn thanks to Mr. Wong and Palladium has officially unofficially moved Wave to out of "ideally Q2" to anytime in 2016 or beyond. Did I miss anything else overnight?
Forar wrote: Oooh, pushed the Midnight (EST) barrier, but there's a newsletter!
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
We intend to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ forward in 2016 in a big way. To get the Wave Two Kickstarter exclusives and expansion packs into manufacturing and ultimately into your hands. For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized. With all the past delays and frustration, we don’t want to even speculate on release dates and other details until we have hard, complete information ourselves. But we will be sharing and offering more throughout the year in the weeks and months ahead.
It is all part of the relaunch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. By “relaunch” we mean a new and renewed market push of core games, regular product releases and game support, like RRT rules clarifications and elaboration, rules additions, advanced rules, demos, gaming events and promotions, adventures, PDF and physical releases, and more.
Please know that we are truly committed to making sure we complete and fulfill our Kickstarter obligations and to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ truly epic, with future expansions across all eras of Robotech®. We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.
Haven't we been told this for...quite a few months now?
Talizvar wrote: So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail? They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.". It is not like we could get much more angry.
Hell, I can think of some backers that would probably be supportive of that idea. Encouraging of it, even. Right, Forar?
(pokes Canadian Grizzly)
At this point? They'd continue to get mockery for the 'backers fiiiiiirrrrsssssst!' thing, but actual tangible progress would be better than another year or two holding pattern waiting for them to finally collapse (and we all know PB are the zombie of RPG companies; shambling along and surprisingly resilient to punishment).
It'd probably get more of a shrug than ire from me, at this point, and even previously it was more about them abandoning their promises and the pretense that was used to draw in more money during the PM period. Actually finishing this gak rather than stumbling along for months and years holds appeal here.
I know some people would consider it the launching point for their Legal Tsunami Of Awesome Badassery, but my roller coaster of apathy wouldn't even budge much at that kind of change in direction.
OK, so the latest PBWU is full of chuckle material (or rage fuel for those who haven't yet seen the funny). Kevin kicking the can down the road with a promise of more information soon, yet again is just hilarious. So... here's an annotated list of promises. (inspired by Marnie Jefferson's post over on PB's FB page)
June 14 2015 KSU Conventional Forces - These stats and info will be posted next week
June 20, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - You’ll get to see this material in the next few days.... Force Organization Charts are coming in a few days
July 10, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Info - As for Wave 2, I’m working on a big breakdown of where each and every component is in its development, but that’s going to take some time.
July 10, 2015 KSU Conventional Forces - We’ll need to go over them and make any final adjustments, but they’ll be posted soon
July 16, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Passive Aggresively - I should have more info shortly, including Breetai pics and hopefully, you know, that other thing you’ve all been asking about.
June 20, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - We will be posting the stats and point costs for the Earth Defenders blister packs in a few days.
June 25, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 2, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 9, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 17, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - We have a telephone conference with the manufacturing broker next week to discuss a number of Wave Two related details. Rules, stats and other things are also coming your way. Working on a number of things related to this game line.
July 17, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 23, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 28, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - Especially with Wave 2 RRT products coming in the months ahead.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - Rules, cards, force organization tables and more should start getting posted in the weeks ahead.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - We are shooting to release the 20+ Kickstarter Wave Two items at the end of 2015, but don’t know yet.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
August 13, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - Especially with Wave 2 RRT products coming in the months ahead.
August 27, 2015 KSU Conventional Forces - We hope to have those stats and rules available soon.
August 27, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Release - As stated, we’re shooting to release RRT Wave Two around the end of 2015 or sometime in the first quarter of 2016.
August 27, 2015 KSU 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.
August 27, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead: Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces.
October 30, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - Shooting for second quarter 2016.
October 30, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - they {Wave 2 Stats} should start going up in the next few days, along with their associated paper game pieces.
November 5, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - A Wave Two release in the second Quarter of 2016 would be ideal.
November 5, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - Right now we are finishing a couple of RPG books, but in a few weeks, we’ll be turning our full attention back to Robotech® RPG Tactics™.
November 20, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Secrets - but for a variety of business reasons we can not yet discuss or reveal exactly what we are looking into and considering.
December 4, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Secrets - All are works in progress so we cannot reveal any details just yet. We’ll talk about our plans for 2016 as the New Year approaches.
December 11, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - We’ll try to provide some more insight on this next week.
December 12, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Info - We’ll try to provide some more insight on this next week.
January 8, 2016 PBWU Wave 2 Info - I’ll offer up more info and details in an update in the next few weeks.
But this time... he's serious!
January 15, 2016 PBWU Wave 2 Info - I’ll offer up more info and details in an update in the next few weeks..... We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.
January 15, 2016 PBWU Wave 2 Release - we don’t want to even speculate.... Not Yet Scheduled for 2016: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave 2 expansions packs
I know the list isn't completely comprehensive. But I'm not putting in more effort than Ctrl-F "Wave", Ctrl-F "Tactics". Cause trying to properly read even a pair of PBWU's makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, turn the spoon around and jab my brain with the spoon handle.
On a mostly unrelated note, Kevin's committing to 8 items (not including 3 Rifters) for the first six months of the year. Anyone want to take the over on half that? Especially as KevCo are 'refocused on RRT'. And I don't think PB have released 8 non-Rifter books in a full year since at least 2011. Let alone half that.
Talizvar wrote: So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.
Then there would be observed progress and they do not have to fill a cargo container.
Then that trickle of income can continue!
Rather than the sad pewter offerings they have now (suggest releasing anything NOT that type first).
So many options, so little information shared.
On further thought, I think I'd actually respect a concise but thorough (not 20 pages of rambling; detailed, but on point) admission "look, when we said that mold costs and doubled and moved to 2 waves of shipping and all these other overruns, we fell behind."
Bite the bullet, admit actual failing regarding the 'promise' of backers first, show some fething humility and humbleness, and state that completing X figures and going to retail is what would be necessary to complete wave two.
Obviously if they're in financial trouble (not even drowning, just on too tight a budget to buff things up) it'd be hard to 'make it good' for the backers to really offset this sting, but if they're *serious* about getting this product line fully to market, hard choices have to be made. They tried (and failed, laughably) to sell RRT at Gencon after playing it up as 'for the games good!', so if that's the standard and precedent, then have the ovaries to admit aloud that For The Good Of The Game We Need Money From Retail.
I suspect they wouldn't get 75 or 80% approval again (not that I'm suggesting it should be another vote; sham or otherwise), but aside from a few who would lose their minds (and may already have anyway), I think most reasonable people would roll their eyes and go back to apathy more than anything.
So, yeah, if that were the case, I might even support that, if they didn't try to ineptly pull a fast one on us again. None of this "omg we're such fans, like YOUUUUUU, and just want to do what's best for YOU, the FAN, of ROBOTECH(tm)(c)(r)" crap.
Basically write it out, send it to me, and let me take an axe to whatever he has avalanched onto the pages.
Edit: the anger I read from most people is based off their silence and inability to do anything but spew nothingness in great quantities onto their updates and newsletters. The eye rolling or even ire over abandoning all pretenses of "backers fiiiirst!" would be, imo, made up for by showing actual, tangible plans to proceed and then actually following up on them.
Eh, mine comes from that and from the fan-friends whose only response is "You guys are horrible people for questioning The Mighty Simbieda! You're probably all serial killers! We all know Kevin will knock it out of the park again, you just need to give him tiiiiiiiiiiiime!" crap.
As for what theyre actually working on (from the newest update);
New Books Slated for the First 5-6 Months of 2016
The Rifter® #73 – Winter issue – Cat. No. 173 – 96 pages, filled with “official” source material by Siembieda, Rosenstein, Walton, Kluge and others. In final production right now. Ships early February.
Rifts®, The Coalition States: Heroes of Humanity™ Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda and Matthew Clements – in final production right now. Ships end of February.
Rifts® The Disavowed™ Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda and Matthew Clements – in production right now. Ships March, 2016.
Rifts® Secrets of the Atlanteans™ Sourcebook by Carl Gleba – Spring, 2016.
Rifts® Haunted Tech™ by Kevin Siembieda sourcebook – Spring or Summer.
The Rifter® #74 – Spring issue – 96 pages, filled with “official” and optional source material. Ships April or May.
Garden of the Gods™, a Palladium Fantasy RPG® Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda – Spring.
Lopan™, a Palladium Fantasy RPG® Adventure Sourcebook by Glen Evans, additional material by Kevin Siembieda – Spring or Summer.
Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.
Chaos Earth® First Responders (more than you may imagine) – Summer.
The Rifter® #75 – Summer issue.
The first 2 books plus the rifters is probably what we'll see for the year.
Forar wrote: Oooh, pushed the Midnight (EST) barrier, but there's a newsletter!
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ [...]
Lynx7725 wrote: WTF with that update.
[..] EDIT: The whole "we got big news for RRT too!" gak in the first email just end up being the same drivel in the second. PB being PB again.
No kidding, it's basically just another collection of weasel words strung into sentences.
Merijeek wrote: Eh, mine comes from that and from the fan-friends whose only response is "You guys are horrible people for questioning The Mighty Simbieda! You're probably all serial killers! We all know Kevin will knock it out of the park again, you just need to give him tiiiiiiiiiiiime!" crap.
Definitely agree there, as I find it hard to believe those kind of folks would have had any money left in the first place for their KS pledges after the door to door, phone, and internet con-artists got done abusing them if they truly possessed such a level of credulity.
Basically it's trolling the dissatisfied, whether those folks have a legitimate issue/complaint or not, because if everyone is free if not actively encouraged by peer pressure to praise what may not be praiseworthy, the opposite point of view should be just as acceptable.
And their typical defense strategy, ''We tell company [X] what they want to hear (instead of what said organization in all probability needs to hear) and at least get what we want.'' (or, at least, this time they did), solves nothing for nobody.
Of course, there is always the inevitability of some such fan friends eventually becoming just as disillusioned/crushed/banned/otherwise driven away from the fold as those they previously spoke out against to look forwards to.
Forar wrote: [..] show some fething humility and humbleness, [..]
Yeah, this is the part that irks/angers me the most about folks like Siembieda or Dubois (over at DP9) et al not only ending up in charge, but remaining in charge for so long, despite their repeated demonstrations of absolute ineptitude regarding even the most minor of details.
Anyone suffering from such a lack of inability to say ''I frakked up, but [this] is what I'm going to attempt/do to fix that.'' about even the smallest instance of failure should never again have been trusted to do or produce anything at all.
Their lack of ability to even see and understand they have such a problem, is just plain wrong.
Forar wrote: [..] show some fething humility and humbleness, [..]
Yeah, this is the part that irks/angers me the most about folks like Siembieda or Dubois (over at DP9) et al not only ending up in charge, but remaining in charge for so long, despite their repeated demonstrations of absolute ineptitude regarding even the most minor of details.
Anyone suffering from such a lack of inability to say ''I frakked up, but [this] is what I'm going to attempt/do to fix that.'' about even the smallest instance of failure should never again have been trusted to do or produce anything at all.
Their lack of ability to even see and understand they have such a problem, is just plain wrong.
Yeah, that's one of my personal "time to pull the ripcord" flags when dealing with a company. I get that mistakes happen, and that things don't always go as we wanted. I get that sometimes things turn out to be more complex than it was originally thought, or that the complexity of thing X outstripped the available expertise on the matter. This is reality, and none of us are perfect.
However, when you put a baseball through a window, stand up and own that mistake. Mantic has accumulated a pretty checkered history with their KS projects at this point and their bigger foul-ups do indeed make me less inclined to back their KS projects in a major way. However, they do acknowledge that they've screwed things up and need to do better, and they recently showed that they had hired additional people and what they would purportedly be doing to address the problems. That's probably not enough to allay my fears about handing more than couch-cushion money over sight-unseen, but it does make me willing to continue to do business with the company for those products I can see and know I like. Had they acted like PB to date though without really acknowledging that there IS a problem with not providing real information, that probably wouldn't be the case.
Fun fact based on Morgan's post: this coming April 10th, it will have taken longer to present their promised full breakdown of each and every component than it will have taken the average woman to create a viable new human being. Also, a child born during the original delivery estimate is almost assuredly walking around and probably talking, which is more than PB can really claim to be doing.
Almost makes you feel as old as realizing that there are teachers in the schools that never lived a day during the Cold War...where did all these damn kids on my lawn come from?!
Forar, if I believed they'd get back to sending stuff to us if they did a portion of Wave 2 direct to retail, I'd be all for it - it would show progress, after all.
I just don't believe a) they have the money to do even a partial wave and b) that after doing a partial retail wave that we'd ever see anything because somehow they'd feth that up and end up even deeper in debt, unable to continue.
I'm actually partially wondering if those phone calls to China might be to finish paying off Wave 1 debt so they'll stop holding Wave 2 hostage.
I can understand us not getting the big update on wave 2 we were promised back last July.
After all, they are T.o.i.l.ing* so hard it must be hard for him to keep up and he wants it to be perfect for us valued backers, but how can he when the situation keeps changing before he can get us the information.
*T.O.I.L. A scheme my company has just set up which is the equivalent to what used to be caller 'flexitime'. Stands for Time Off In Lieu. All the 28 hour days they put in on Wave 1 means that there as only Kev in now - the others have booked the rest of the year off because they have already worked it.
There is a lot of sense in what forar says about releasing a par of WAve 2 to retail first - even if it will be annoyong.
However, i also wonder is there could be a bigger change of direction.
One big critisism we nearly all raised was the parts count and how Wave 1 was mot really a starter set. Now in recent months I have takenin KS product such as Incuersion with realtively high detailed one piece models. I will shortly get my Firwteam Zero which by the reviews so far are ven better. Both are still very paintable, if that is your bag. So why the need for hard plastic, multi part kits if you want detauiled models
The point ? I wonder if PB are considering a softer plastic , one piece (or very few piece) model production, with the obvious lack of alternative posing (maybe one to three per type). It would ceratnly suit a revamped starter box - preassembled models would be a bigger draw than the current set up - and I wold tentativeluy suggest the similar wave 2 models could be included in a second "starter" at least for retuil.
As for the "specials" , PB could still use this method or possibly ask GHQ to step in - these are supposedly KS limited so possibly metal does make more sense?
Others are better and more knowledgeable but if the 3d render is ready , I assume it is still viable for this alternative merthod?
As for the existing Wave 1 product,PB could firesale it to garner at least some extra funds to make it happen. POssibly replacing the sprues with the newer one piece models?
I know it sounds a little absurd for them to be starting over again, but at this point, anything is possible.
Personally, I would have released like the Battletech starter box.
Less parts the better and PVC.
Less eye watering detail but a closer out of the box experience.
Then the more centerpiece models done "properly" as upgrade kits.
Throw in some punch out cardboard terrain and tokens and it would all work out.
Ah well, hindsight is 20:20.
I can't see PB having the money to cut new models of existing models. Especially when the current stuff is hard tool for styrene that is dirt cheap to produce. It's not like they're converting from rubber to styrene, for a long term savings.
And Wave 2 probably is 1,000s of casts each model. I could see restic / bones, perhaps, to simplify the molds.
wilycoyote wrote: There is a lot of sense in what forar says about releasing a par of WAve 2 to retail first - even if it will be annoyong.
However, i also wonder is there could be a bigger change of direction.
I doubt it. Palladium is more known for repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different reaction. The "relaunch" will end up as just some stuff that they were supposed to release for free last summer and, if we're very very very very lucky, some miniatures that they were supposed to ship us for free two years ago. As for wave 2 going to retail first, I don't care anymore. They've already broken that promise (or more accurately attempted to as hard as they possibly could and were foiled by fate). Just like with "convension/kickstarter exclusives", it's just a running joke at this point. If they sell at retail (and that is a huge IF since it requires them actually making new products) and that helps them fulfill their long overdue contractual obligations then so be it. It's not going to change history and how badly they'll be known for actually treating their most lucrative and hopeful customers.
I can see them trying to go back and releasing the conventional and advanced rules stuff that they have as if it was something cool and new. Most likely using the earlier version of the Conventional rules that Carmen has "adopted" from what I had done that was just way unbalanced and present them as cool "new" ideas.
n815e wrote: I don't see them releasing the conventional rules because there is no money in it for them and Jaymz already released them into the wild.
Rehashing the same rules that folks already have hasn't stopped palladium in the past. See every RPG after 1988 they've made. The real 99% of fans will buy it in their eyes... just not us gaming 1%ers.
You'll buy every rehashed rpg ruleset they put out in the future? I'm not sure if you were responding to me. If so, why?
Sorry I was on my phone. I would release the conventional rules again if had it to do over. Wayne is an ass who whines and cries how busy he is and when called on his bs back pedals more than Bill Clinton after it came out that he did in fact had sexual relations with that woman. LOL
Something I just thought back on the discussion of PB's funds, to add to PB's woes.
Taxes. Federal taxes for corporate earnings over $335,000 is at 35% (and I suspect PB has no clout/mind for garnering tax breaks). That's about $400K of the money PB garnered for the KS. Amazon/KS gets what, 10% - amounting to $140K. State of MI corporate tax is 6%, another $84K. That's $624,000 out of the KS before the money is even spent.
If my figures from a few pages back are anywhere close to accurate, just providing Wave 1 ate all the KS funds and ran over into whatever they collected through the backerkit for funds. If, as I've heard Forar recount, what the backer kit collected was about 10% of the KS ($140K), they are some $60K in the hole BEYOND all the funds collected for the entire KS.
Stormonu wrote: Something I just thought back on the discussion of PB's funds, to add to PB's woes.
Taxes. Federal taxes for corporate earnings over $335,000 is at 35% (and I suspect PB has no clout/mind for garnering tax breaks). That's about $400K of the money PB garnered for the KS. Amazon/KS gets what, 10% - amounting to $140K. State of MI corporate tax is 6%, another $84K. That's $624,000 out of the KS before the money is even spent.
If my figures from a few pages back are anywhere close to accurate, just providing Wave 1 ate all the KS funds and ran over into whatever they collected through the backerkit for funds. If, as I've heard Forar recount, what the backer kit collected was about 10% of the KS ($140K), they are some $60K in the hole BEYOND all the funds collected for the entire KS.
Does the kickstarter money count as "earnings"? I wonder what kind of money they made selling the box set to retailers? Probably not much.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Sure. OTOH, in your country, you only pay taxes if you add value. <.<
Or if you want to park. Or have public healthcare. Or throw garbage. Or collect solar energy (why yes, my country has put a tax on the sun). Or breathe...
We pay 'Duty' to HMRC on our fuel, and pay VAT on top of that - so we're getting taxed twice on the same thing.
Cars are funny that way, yeah xDD. You pay a yearly "transit tax" and a yearly compulsory technical inspection, but you also need to pay double tax for gas (VAT plus all the previous fees paid by the provider that kindly reverts to you) and a parking tax every time you do park outside your home (and/or a yearly parking fee if you do park inside your home)
Yeah, the tax thing isn't likely to be a big deal in the short-term; one of the random articles I was reading about KS in general mentioned that taxes owed on funds like from a KS that are given for a future product, and not an immediate exchange of goods/services, can be deferred until the product is delivered. I'm not sure if there is a cap on the amount of time it can be deferred, but one would imagine it exists somewhere. However, such things are obviously recommended for KS projects, especially ones that will be delivering retail products.
Now, that could be an excellent "strategic" reason to not produce Wave 2 at this point. If they produce and deliver Wave 2, they incur their tax liability. Unlike their contributors, the IRS and state tax agencies are unlikely to take payment in the form of extra Rifters and empty promises. They also can't ignore that bill like they can the KS backers, because the IRS can and will start legal proceedings quickly and easily. In that circumstance, the tap show they're putting on would be plausibly explained.
Pure speculation though; just as likely they foolishly paid the tax bill directly and that's why the money has gone the way of the rum. Or that ND actually made sure they got paid and Kevin, unused to actually paying outside contractors, had figured that money into the budget and now they're short. Or as Forar thought up that one time he did way too much peyote, that PB is just secretly developing everything and will drop a surprise update in March showing containers full of Wave 2 product leaving port.
Forar's supplier is good is what you can take away from that.
And just going through the PBWU again, I spot the phrase "For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized."
EVERYTHING! I don't NEED them to share EVERYTHING. I want them to share ANYTHING! Just ONE little thing that they can back up with pictures, just ONE, and they haven't been able to do that in I don't know how long.
It does seem there is a fair bit of claims/conjecture and putting 2 and 2 together from our pooled information that PB is out of money.
So the incessant delays help them how?
Other than of course, why take your lumps now when you can take them later with interest.
Well, the renewed vigor into their RPG's may help keep them distracted for a bit.
Ah, I was about to go back into the usual... it is even boring me.
Heck, I was even figuring out worst case scenarios and trying to figure out how to help PB get better and still produce our stuff.
Any other option would have me demand their closure just on the principle of the thing.
The Aliens vs Predator kickstarter is pretty much the same scenario we are staring down except at least those guys were open about their messing up.
So yeah, all is fair in making our toys, multi-step retail sales first, failing that, their demise... take no prisoners damn the torpedoes.
I am still not buying a darn thing from them till they come clean.
Conrad Turner wrote: And just going through the PBWU again, I spot the phrase "For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized."
EVERYTHING! I don't NEED them to share EVERYTHING. I want them to share ANYTHING! Just ONE little thing that they can back up with pictures, just ONE, and they haven't been able to do that in I don't know how long.
Yup. Palladium's view of the world is as color blind as it is myopic with some hallucinations thrown in to mix things up. You're either part of the 99% of fans who are "happy" or you're one of the 1%ers that aren't their customers. They can't share everything with you so they'll share NOTHING. Black and White with no shades of grey. Then throw in that they view themselves today as their 1980's and early 1990's selves...industry leading trendsetters that the rest of the world watches to gauge which way the various hobbies will flow instead of the has been brunt of jokes that the community actually sees them as. I personally don't think anyone else in the industry (except for people that directly work for them) or wider fanbase cares at all what they do or have done for the past 20 years but they still think others do.
warboss wrote: Then throw in that they view themselves today as their 1980's and early 1990's selves...industry leading trendsetters that the rest of the world watches to gauge which way the various hobbies will flow instead of the has been brunt of jokes that the community actually sees them as. I personally don't think anyone else in the industry (except for people that directly work for them) or wider fanbase cares at all what they do or have done for the past 20 years but they still think others do.
Sadly you are bang on here as Kevin has in the past few years tossed out things about how they were "leading edge blah blah blah" to which people like us usually point laugh and say "have you even LOOKED at your competition over the last 20 years?"
I suppose from Palladium's stuck in 1989 point of view that it might be how they see it. Either way, I don't recall them commenting on the industry in general but I wouldn't put it past them.
I dimly recall the quote, but I think it wasn't miniature wargaming in general so much as crowd-funded miniature wargaming projects. Looking at the list of "Tabletop Games" in the list of KS projects, it's hard to call them outright liars, especially when you look at that the actual timing this campaign finished; Reaper's Bones 1 was not yet completed with shipping! Could be wrong, but at the time I recall that being the overall tone that the market hadn't quite settled into norms with KS money floating about.
Even today, the idea of brand-new companies without a lot of experience starting into full products is pretty novel, and are usually associated with massive delays and overruns. A lot of the products I see on the Tabletop Gaming feed on KS are by companies already in the market, and while PB can be said to be in the gaming market, they are absolutely newbies in the miniature wargaming niche of it. As warboss says though, at some point you lose the ability to claim freshman feth-ups because even if a company had no clue to start with, they will have had plenty of time to learn and adapt.
Oh dear, there's that "adapt" word...welp, so much for that idea.
Hmm... If PB didn't have to pay taxes on reciept of funds, surely they had to pay on backer rewards distributed after distributing Wave 1 (not to metion what went to retail) - I'd find it hard to imagine they'd be allowed to defer paying until after Wave 2 is shipped.
And am I understanding correct that taxes would be Net - costs? If so, I need to talk to the government about lowering my income taxes to account for mortage, utilities and car costs...
Stormonu wrote: Hmm... If PB didn't have to pay taxes on reciept of funds, surely they had to pay on backer rewards distributed after distributing Wave 1 (not to metion what went to retail) - I'd find it hard to imagine they'd be allowed to defer paying until after Wave 2 is shipped.
And am I understanding correct that taxes would be Net - costs? If so, I need to talk to the government about lowering my income taxes to account for mortage, utilities and car costs...
I think maybe you've hit on the answer, Stormonu. It would not surprise me in the LEAST if Palladium either thought that Kickstarter funds were completely tax-exempt, or at the least, able to be deferred until the completion of the project. And that might be part of the current problem that they can't talk about.
Look at this section from the latest PBWU, and tell me that doesn't look like it could be "Oh crap, we need to settle our tax liability before we can do anything further!".
"For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized."
Maybe the IRS put them on a payment plan, and that's why they've been spruiking crap since GenCon, with Flash Sales etc.
I've read enough KS tax articles that I wouldn't speculate *how* PB did their taxes wrtKS, but they're enough that I wouldn't be surprised if PB -- and many other creators -- made mistakes with their KS-related taxes. KS own tax document wasn't released until April, 2013, the same month as Robotech's funding -- which Forbes criticized could trigger a tax audit. Another article I read warned creators that, just because they've been in business and filed taxes, doesn't mean they know how to prepare their taxes on a well-funded KS project.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if I came into 1.5(ish) million dollars, I think the first question I'd have would be "what are the tax implications here?" (edit; okay, second question, first would probably be "can I roll around naked in it?")
I'm not a financial expert, but even accepting that the last 2 days had a huge upswing in contributions, it's not like them being past the 7 figure mark should've been any surprise.
I didn't add up every last dollar, but at a glance they were at over half a million around the half way mark. This was going to be a *very* considerable sum no matter how things went.
Not that I expect PB to do all the reasonable and sensible things, but even with Ninja Division apparently sticking to their contractually obligated duties, their Relic Knights campaign had ended over half a year prior. Unless tax codes changed literally that year or something (and they may well have!), the people they were supposedly working with had finished a $900k campaign already, at the very least.
Not that I expect PB to do all the reasonable and sensible things, but even with Ninja Division apparently sticking to their contractually obligated duties, their Relic Knights campaign had ended over half a year prior. Unless tax codes changed literally that year or something (and they may well have!), the people they were supposedly working with had finished a $900k campaign already, at the very least.
Huh, knowing PB as we do, they probably expected ND to pay the taxes...though I imagine in reality, Kevin didn't put a thought into it until everything went to his accountant (surely he doesn't do his business's OWN taxes) - and said accountant came back with "You owe X". Whereupon Kevin had a Crisis of Consciousness.
(I also think their first thought wasn't "what are the tax implications here?", but "how can we keep these funds quiet from the government?")
Forar wrote: I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if I came into 1.5(ish) million dollars, I think the first question I'd have would be "what are the tax implications here?" (edit; okay, second question, first would probably be "can I roll around naked in it?")
I'm not a financial expert, but even accepting that the last 2 days had a huge upswing in contributions, it's not like them being past the 7 figure mark should've been any surprise.
Not to worry, Forar. Kevin realized that a fan friend said he once worked as a bank teller years ago so he promoted him to official corporate financial expert. At the low, low cost of two grab bags and a Rifter subscription, he generated a ingenius plan to keep the maximum amount in Palladium's coffers. The top secret paper napkins detailing this plan are safe and sound next to other priceless works of art on the break room refrigerator. You worry for nothing; Kevin wishes he could tell you more but he doesn't want the rest of the industry (let alone the IRS!) in on his plan.
The sad thing is that, at this point, I think any of the wild guesses, snarks, ribbings and plain mockeries here have much more traction and credibility than anything PB or KS might have to say.
At this point, if PB told me the sky was blue, I'd demand pics (and they would probably end up with a pic of a flock of geese flying across the sunset...)
Albertorius wrote: The sad thing is that, at this point, I think any of the wild guesses, snarks, ribbings and plain mockeries here have much more traction and credibility than anything PB or KS might have to say.
Agreed. Sarcasm and biting wit is all I have left at this point (except for a few brief spurts of mild anger once or twice a year). It's sad that if you just take the absolute most negative view of EVERYTHING that palladium posts without verifiable proof simultaneously attached then you're more accurate and predictive of future (lack of) progress than anything you read in an update (whether weekly spam or kickstarter).
I'm sure CMoN did - they had already gotten underway with Zombicide 1, and lined up factory, etc. I'm sure CMoN gave SPM / ND the requirements for feeding into the same production pipeline.
For Robotech, I'm sure ND told PB what tools they would use for the sculpts and so on, and they probably left the splits and production to PB / factory.
Have we seen a single scrap of news regarding the resin items? There's no reason those would be produced anywhere but domestically(that I can think of) but we've only ever seen them mentioned during the campaign.
Several people have mentioned they could be done domestically, and with the likely small numbers (couple thousand max), it seems like something they could get off their plate quite easily to show SOME form of progress.
I can’t believe it is already January 19th. Wasn’t it just New Year’s Day like a week ago? No, I guess not. We have a lot of things going on for what is shaping up to be an exciting year full of new product releases. Including many more PDF titles in our DriveThruRPG. In fact, working on and plotting upcoming releases has been a lot of what we have been doing these past 19 days. That and 2015 year-end bookkeeping and wrap up.
Speaking of wrapping up, we just spent that the first five hours of today in the icy warehouse signing and packing the last of the 2015 Surprise Packages. The wind must be blowing just right because even with all the heaters going, it is quite cold back there. I'm happy to say the last of the Surprise Packages are shipping out today. A lot of you waited till those last few days to place your orders or to place your second, third or sixth order. There were close to a hundred of them, plus regular orders. I am glad that people enjoy the annual Christmas Surprise Package offer so very much. And thank for your comments and input.
Ah, but now that Grab Bag season is over, we can focus all of out attention on finishing books. One of those books is The Rifter® #73 which is looking to be the first issue to contain entirely “official” source material. We’ve had issues that contained official material, sometimes a lot, but never an entire issue. So we’re pretty excited about that. There is some pretty cool stuff you can drop right into your games. You’re gonna love it. I was surprised to see Julius’s Rifts® article on the Nexus Born expanded to include an actual setting, the Town of Moorcroft. And my Palladium Fantasy RPG® article has taken on a life of its own. It is always fun for a writer when the ideas just flow out of him.
I have two New Year resolutions: The first is to get myself back into the habit of posting Murmurs from the Megaverse® on a much more regular basis, like a minimum of 2 or 3 a week to keep you guys informed on some of the things going on behind the scenes, our thoughts, plans and murmurings. The other is to get a truck load of product out this year. From Rifts® and Robotech® to Palladium Fantasy® and Splicers®, and more.
If you’re like us in Michigan, you are in the deep freeze, so try to stay warm and game on.
Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer and Surrogate Santa
<insert copyright wankery>
Takeaways are he plans on doing 2-3 a week on things going on behind the scenes (because that's something he's got a reputation for doing ), and they're going to get a truckload of product out this year (because again, famous for doing so. ).
I mean, I don't have words to describe how tone deaf and painfully ignorant this sounds.
I can’t believe it is already January 19th. Wasn’t it just New Year’s Day like a week ago? No, I guess not. We have a lot of things going on for what is shaping up to be an exciting year full of new product releases. Including many more PDF titles in our DriveThruRPG. In fact, working on and plotting upcoming releases has been a lot of what we have been doing these past 19 days. That and 2015 year-end bookkeeping and wrap up.
Speaking of wrapping up, we just spent that the first five hours of today in the icy warehouse signing and packing the last of the 2015 Surprise Packages. The wind must be blowing just right because even with all the heaters going, it is quite cold back there. I'm happy to say the last of the Surprise Packages are shipping out today. A lot of you waited till those last few days to place your orders or to place your second, third or sixth order. There were close to a hundred of them, plus regular orders. I am glad that people enjoy the annual Christmas Surprise Package offer so very much. And thank for your comments and input.
Ah, but now that Grab Bag season is over, we can focus all of out attention on finishing books. One of those books is The Rifter® #73 which is looking to be the first issue to contain entirely “official” source material. We’ve had issues that contained official material, sometimes a lot, but never an entire issue. So we’re pretty excited about that. There is some pretty cool stuff you can drop right into your games. You’re gonna love it. I was surprised to see Julius’s Rifts® article on the Nexus Born expanded to include an actual setting, the Town of Moorcroft. And my Palladium Fantasy RPG® article has taken on a life of its own. It is always fun for a writer when the ideas just flow out of him.
I have two New Year resolutions: The first is to get myself back into the habit of posting Murmurs from the Megaverse® on a much more regular basis, like a minimum of 2 or 3 a week to keep you guys informed on some of the things going on behind the scenes, our thoughts, plans and murmurings. The other is to get a truck load of product out this year. From Rifts® and Robotech® to Palladium Fantasy® and Splicers®, and more.
If you’re like us in Michigan, you are in the deep freeze, so try to stay warm and game on.
Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer and Surrogate Santa
<insert copyright wankery>
Takeaways are he plans on doing 2-3 a week on things going on behind the scenes (because that's something he's got a reputation for doing ), and they're going to get a truckload of product out this year (because again, famous for doing so. ).
I mean, I don't have words to describe how tone deaf and painfully ignorant this sounds.
Yay! So we are back to hearing about stomach flu problems and wild geese......Jazz Hands
"Ah, but now that Grab Bag season is over, we can focus all of out attention on finishing books"
Feth you Kevin. Feth you and your parents, and their parents, for causing you to be. The only thing you need to focus on is getting the items I bought, for my kids and me, into my hands, you bloated sack of lies. Were it not only against forum rules as well as local laws I'd threaten bodily harm upon him in ways that would make Tarantino cringe.
@jaymzn - Backer apathy is exactly what PB wants, so they don't have to fulfill their promises. If you're planning to "give up", file with the AG, FTC and BBB before anyone does so; it doesn't take much effort and adds to the pile so PB doesn't get away with this monkey business.
As for Kevin's latest murmur - Hah! What a load. You KNOW its crap with the "2-3 times per WEEK". A reasonable resolution from a sane individual would be Weekly. And do you really think he's going to spend one iota of cut & pasting on Robotech? He's had over a year to address us on the state of the KS and hasn't bother to do more than regurgitate the mismanagement of the post-campaign era.
Burn your customers on various pre-paid options that take years to come to fruition.
Sell fairly inexpensive items so going to small claims court or some other option appears "petty" in a normal setting.
Where it seems to fall apart is how do they get new customers? They do not advertise enough to get some casual person off the street.
Or is it a strange Stockholm syndrome with their on-going customers? Normally people would stop buying until they get what they paid for or risk getting burned AGAIN.
Our excuse is we are tied to them due to money: they have ours.
How does PB run off of fumes with bad press (or none at all)?
Oh ill be filing over the next couple of days with whomever i can.
I frankly at this point am done. Im walking away after i file.
That means walking away. Im leaving the facebook groups as well. That means unless someone wants administrative control of the rrt proboard and wiki they are done. The last pwu and asshat murmur were the straws that broke the proverbial camels back.
I will run my little fb group (renamed), proboard, and wiki.
I really don't understand how Palladium stays in business. I didn't even know they were still in business until this Kickstarter. I bought some of the Robotech rpg books back in the late '80s but never played a game. I've seen forums posts going back 10 years and it sounded like they would fold any day. Employees taking voluntary layoffs, crisis of treachery, free lancers not getting paid - I would hate to work at such a place. I wish I had read theses things before backing this joke. Live and learn.
darkminstrel wrote: "Ah, but now that Grab Bag season is over, we can focus all of out attention on finishing books"
Apparently YOU don't understand how much effort it is to look through their warehouse to find the most random crap they can find to round out the full retail value of those Grab Bags(tm).
You think a used mouse trap (sorry, Multiversal Mouse Entrapment System) can just be tossed into a box to fill out $2.99 in value? Of course not. Wayne needs to visit Amazon, find the most expensive mouse trap he can, mark it up by 30% (by hand, calculators can't be trusted), and then add it to the packing slip. Then Kevin needs to make sure Wayne isn't fething it up.
Basically, each Grab Bag encompasses, like, four hours of labor. Which you don't even get charged for.
So, with both Jaymz and Mike distancing themselves from the RRT Volunteer Service, I wonder who (if any) is going to step up? Because as Kevin said on his last partially informative KSU, "Ultimately, the fate of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ rests in your hands. It always has. We need you. "
It seems clear that without people donating time and energy, even less is going to be done. Not sure if GenCon 2015 got missed because of lack of effort, or PB not caring, but it's clear that them not having an event at Adepticon was because noone was willing to step up (they made several appeals to have someone do it). And heaven forfend someone from Palladium run it!. With no POH this year, we're less than two months from Events Registration closing for GenCon 2016 (March 14th). An entire year without organized events at major conventions isn't going to restart jack.
I mean, I have heard about people running events at local conventions (an event in Pasadena last April that the TO said "ended up with too few players for a full tourney", and GASPCon last November, of which I've seen nothing reported), but that's the totality on the PBForums outside of Adepticon and POH last year. Maybe more HAS happened, but helpful hint to TO's, if that's the case? Keeping it a secret DOES NOT HELP. Doesn't help the tournament, and doesn't help show an active gaming scene.
There are still people happy to volunteer for PB, and I honestly applaud that effort. But they don't seem to have anything more than a passing interest in this particular product (preferring the RPG side of things). It just seems that Palladium don't care about ostracizing the people who give them the most value for effort. And going forward, for this to be anything more than a dismal failure, they're going to need to gain and RETAIN people like that.
Well, for PB to run a RRT tournament, they'd have to have someone on staff whose familiar with the system. Honestly, beyond the freelancer who "wrote" the rules, they have no one - their business is RPGs and shipping out reprinted product from yesteryear.
What would be cringeworthy - but totally believable as something PB would do - was if NMI stepped up (or was pushed forward) to handle a RRT tournament. Unless he's been practicing since that video a few months back, that could just kill the tournament scene dead - well, deader than it already is.
I think I would take a hit for the team just so NMI does not try to teach anyone RRT again <shudder> that video was painful.
He is... very "lifelike", his excitement in things is very well... "contained".
I think a little bit of his soul was extracted when pounding the "ban" button a few too many times.
I think he needs to be forced to play Pokémon for a few days to get a spark back into his eyes... even if it results in insanity.
Please reference my "Meet the Pyro" video earlier, that too would apply.
I am finally getting my paint area / stuff organized again after the move, I could continue painting my RRT models: I have no hate for them.
My only regret (other than the money) is not getting the Gnerl, Super Valk and Armored Valk (especially it).
The other stuff would have been nice but those are what I fixated on as a kid.
Okay, I am babbling now... wave 2 or down with PB!
I bought four of those a few years ago when the price went from the $80us mark down to $30. They look great beside a 1/200 figure, not so much 1/285.
1/200 is probably a better scale anyways - thats what all the prepainted, preassembled gashapon figures seem to be in anyways. And they have the benefit of having the entire line already in existance, along with all the other Macross series...
I got involved with two games last year..... All Quiet on the Martian Front and Robotech RPG tactics! Woops!
I told myself when I finished my Tripods and Americans i would turn to Robotech. I finished them, and then I picked up some more tripod and Americans instead of doing the Robotech stuff.
Those tripods just go together way too smooth, the Robotech stuff scared me!
Easy E wrote: I got involved with two games last year..... All Quiet on the Martian Front and Robotech RPG tactics! Woops!
I told myself when I finished my Tripods and Americans i would turn to Robotech. I finished them, and then I picked up some more tripod and Americans instead of doing the Robotech stuff.
Those tripods just go together way too smooth, the Robotech stuff scared me!
Wake me when the MACII comes out!
AQOTMF looked like a lot of fun, I think I am envious.
I think there is now sufficient supporting material at DrivethruRPG to help with identifying proper mating parts so assembly now is much better than it was.
I would suggest assembly of the Zentradi pods as the easiest, the Battleoids are not bad (the matching of the feet was brutal before!).
The most rewarding but most fussy is the Veritechs, it is a great result but yes, parts are on the tiny side.
I broke the one of each Glaug chin guns of two sets before I figured out how to remove it without breaking it in half.
The fits to the Scout pod... ummm... some issues there and a couple parts that break by the force of looking at them.
I have finally figured out a way but I am waiting for my patent to go through before I say anything.
I would so love a MAC but even I had a brief moment of sanity in the backer kit and thought "There is no way those turkeys would get this done never mind right!".
One of few moments I can feel satisfaction with this kickstarter being right.
Hobbies should be things we enjoy. Hopefully not having to worry about those (and helping build/sustain a community through brute force) will alleviate some of those stresses.
Obviously you care about the IP and wanted the game to at least be big enough to have chatter other than about the ongoing shenanigans, so I'm sincerely sorry to hear it.
Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
I sold mine for blisters of somebody's x-wing miniatures and a soda. You could say I felt bad for scamming someone by taking their valuable and supported FFG Miniatures and precious carbonated beverage in exchange for mouth watering value, but isn't that the apparent spirit of Robotech RPG Tactics(tm)?
Killionaire wrote: Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
So it's actually worth less than a Sedition Wars boxed set? Awesome. Never thought I'd see that.
In wondering if I should offer such a trade, I'm kinda thinking I'd be ripping myself off, because someone would probably take SedWars just for the bases...
Indeed, KK. Now where is the Destroid Monster that I paid PB for back in 2013? Oh yeah, nowhere. More than 2 years later.
I should have bought the Bandai kit:
I may yet do so.
I tell you this, if I ever see Kevin, I'm going to give that gakbag a piece of my mind, and he's going to fething take it.
I got 3 of them.
Counts as Manticores coming one of these days.
And yeah still waiting for my RTT Monsters... sadly that's the kit that broke my will and got me to join the KS. If I'd known about the Bandai re-release then I might never have kicked in.
Killionaire wrote: Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
I sold mine for blisters of somebody's x-wing miniatures and a soda. You could say I felt bad for scamming someone by taking their valuable and supported FFG Miniatures and precious carbonated beverage in exchange for mouth watering value, but isn't that the apparent spirit of Robotech RPG Tactics(tm)?
I'd buy a RTT starter set for $20. There are lots of useful bits for conversions in there.
Indeed, KK. Now where is the Destroid Monster that I paid PB for back in 2013? Oh yeah, nowhere. More than 2 years later.
I should have bought the Bandai kit:
I may yet do so.
I tell you this, if I ever see Kevin, I'm going to give that gakbag a piece of my mind, and he's going to fething take it.
I got 3 of them.
Counts as Manticores coming one of these days.
And yeah still waiting for my RTT Monsters... sadly that's the kit that broke my will and got me to join the KS. If I'd known about the Bandai re-release then I might never have kicked in.
Exactly. I recall checking the Destroid Monster pricing during the KS, and seeing RRT as a relative bargain. Now, of course, that's totally bunk.
I guess if they do rebrand RPG Tactics as a Rifts product they'll do some cheapo thing like standees or a PDF of standees you can print out and cut and assemble yourself.
It's sad. I wish that whoever owns the Macross IP would talk to FFG about doing a new major project, and rescind prior licenses for damage to the brand along with a "here's a nickel for your trouble kid" payment and get us some games and anime up in the USA finally.
Carl Macek is NOT going to come back from the dead with a killer Robotech idea for HG to push the idea forward. Palladium is hapless and in a nostalgia based cult like boutique market AT BEST.
I doubt we'll ever seer any Southern Cross or Mospeada stuff or even the rest of the Macross stuff.
From what I hear PB want to sell us GHQ modern stuff in Robotech packaging with a card for use as filler units. Like we can't get a Junky, Dragon II, Karyovin, or the APCs on the SDF1 or the Comanchero attack helicopter even. We get Apache's, Strykers, Bradleys, M113s, HEMTs, Cougars, A-10s, and probably MATV's.
Bleh. Meanwhile we get no Fast Pack or Armored Valkyries or the Oguroid Valkyrie thing.
This sucks.
RIght now Battletech has one of the best box sets I've ever seen for $60 FLGS retail, $45 street. Sure it's silly looking robots but the sculpts are plastic just like the metal versions. fairly clean, one piece and the map boards are hard coated thick cardboard like you'd find in a Memoir '44 box. This is with Catalyst in a controversial and tennuous position after some shenanigans and a big Alpha Strike box set on the way that it is hinted will have decent acceptable new but non-infringing versions of the old classic unseen and some clans.
Palladium is probably selling mostly TO Battletech fans who go nuts trying to put the things together.
Killionaire wrote: Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
So it's actually worth less than a Sedition Wars boxed set? Awesome. Never thought I'd see that.
In wondering if I should offer such a trade, I'm kinda thinking I'd be ripping myself off, because someone would probably take SedWars just for the bases...
Um...if you had trouble putting SedWars together then you want nothing whatsever to do with what's in the Robotech RPG Tactics box.
Spoiler:
Lots of tiny, fragile. split pieces on fat 1967 type car-model runners.
And for all that work you get something kind of mushy detailed with seams for you to putty and sand.
Spoiler:
And the directions included suck and are wrong about a couple of things.
I was actually hoping RRT would come out in 1/200 since I have so many gashapon and 3d printed Mechwarrior figures. I think they did 1/285 so they could market to the Mechwarrior crowd wanting classing Unseen figures.
Killionaire wrote: Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
So it's actually worth less than a Sedition Wars boxed set? Awesome. Never thought I'd see that.
In wondering if I should offer such a trade, I'm kinda thinking I'd be ripping myself off, because someone would probably take SedWars just for the bases...
Sedition wars has gotten a bad rep on its minis from people saying they are not easy to assemble, me and a few others found out they are a dream to assemble compared to the RRT UEDF, as to the Sedition wars games when I find deals on em I buy them, picked up a bunch of $18 ea. shipped and its so much plastic goodness I will have to get too in a while.
Killionaire wrote: Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
So it's actually worth less than a Sedition Wars boxed set? Awesome. Never thought I'd see that.
In wondering if I should offer such a trade, I'm kinda thinking I'd be ripping myself off, because someone would probably take SedWars just for the bases...
Um...if you had trouble putting SedWars together then you want nothing whatsever to do with what's in the Robotech RPG Tactics box.
Lots of tiny, fragile. split pieces on fat 1967 type car-model runners.
And for all that work you get something kind of mushy detailed with seams for you to putty and sand.
And the directions included suck and are wrong about a couple of things.
Dude, did you even read what I wrote? Nowhere did I say that I had trouble putting SedWars together. Although I will say that SedWars was a PITA because restic is just awful to clean. And a number of the parts were warped (Grendlr, female rifles). The RRT minis were easier to build: Those are mine, and they came together just fine, with regular small scale modeling techniques.
Sure, the detail could have been shallower and more scale, and the model splits and bitz could have been better, but it's OK for my purposes.
I built mine without instructions. Not that hard if you know what the model should look like. Or have built models for 30-40 years.
What I did say was that I was surprised that the SedWars box had a higher dollar value than the RRT box. That's all you should have gotten from my comment.
I'd say any plastic miniature is a dream to put together compared to the garbage sprue designs that [MOD EDIT - Pleas don't try to work around the expletive filter - thanks! Alpharius] Kevin pawned on us.
Killionaire wrote: Robotech's been so popular in my area, that you could say people have been selling their box sets for 20 dollars. And failing to find buyers.
So it's actually worth less than a Sedition Wars boxed set? Awesome. Never thought I'd see that.
In wondering if I should offer such a trade, I'm kinda thinking I'd be ripping myself off, because someone would probably take SedWars just for the bases...
Um...if you had trouble putting SedWars together then you want nothing whatsever to do with what's in the Robotech RPG Tactics box.
Lots of tiny, fragile. split pieces on fat 1967 type car-model runners.
And for all that work you get something kind of mushy detailed with seams for you to putty and sand.
And the directions included suck and are wrong about a couple of things.
Dude, did you even read what I wrote? Nowhere did I say that I had trouble putting SedWars together. Although I will say that SedWars was a PITA because restic is just awful to clean. And a number of the parts were warped (Grendlr, female rifles). The RRT minis were easier to build:
Those are mine, and they came together just fine, with regular small scale modeling techniques.
Sure, the detail could have been shallower and more scale, and the model splits and bitz could have been better, but it's OK for my purposes.
I built mine without instructions. Not that hard if you know what the model should look like. Or have built models for 30-40 years.
What I did say was that I was surprised that the SedWars box had a higher dollar value than the RRT box. That's all you should have gotten from my comment.
Never mind. Sorry I engaged you at all. Won't happen again.
Yep, lack of information can make us all pretty grumpy.
I would suggest if you feel a need to express yourself more completely, the kickstarter page will do.
All we got is the consistent self satisfied postings from the PB website and spam mail from them if you have filtered it by now.
I was wondering, other than making a 3D model and printing your own: anyone else make a Super-VT or Armored-VT?
I have to get off my lazy butt and see if I can scratch build some add-ons (or on top of) the models we have... possibly mold-up the component parts for my personal use.
It is bothering me that this game will be unfinished.
The Gnerl is the one model where I look at it and draw a blank.
Ah well, guess I can look forward to Anime North and decide if I really want to say anything or not.
If I really cared to play, I'm lucky I have some plastic 3rd edition BT minis I can pull in to use, as well as a matchbox monster and a plastic armored valkerie from an old battletech kit (though I don't know what happened to the marauder and plastic "Leopard Dropship" it also came with).
I've also metioned it earlier, but the gashapon models (with the exception of Regults, for some bizarre reason) are fairly cheap upscale replacements for the incomplete mess we got from PB.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "Or have built models for 30-40 years"
That shouldn't be something said when dealing with a STARTER set. Personally, I found the UEDF models to be a pain in the neck and nowhere near enjoyable to cut out, construct or paint.
I'd have preferred the veritechs and destroids in the starter to be 5 unique monopose figs (so five veritechs that only go together one way for each fig) to give them more animated styling as well as likely significantly easier assembly (see the 40k Vengeance starter set for examples of such models). I'm fine though with the zentraedi overall in terms of both parts and complexity. There are some issues with the officer and recon pod but those are obviously in the tiny minority in terms of model count in the box.
I built mine without instructions. Not that hard if you know what the model should look like. Or have built models for 30-40 years.
Well as for me I can honestly say that the UEDF forces in the RRT are the hardest models(notice I didn't say minis) I have ever assembled and I have most likely assembled more models and as long if not longer then you have and thats including RRT models.
That shouldn't be something said when dealing with a STARTER set. Personally, I found the UEDF models to be a pain in the neck and nowhere near enjoyable to cut out, construct or paint.
I think RRT minis would be fine for someone with 5 years scale model experience. Maybe as little as 3 years, if they'd been working toward IPMS competition. But 10 years is probably ideal. Right?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Asterios wrote: Well as for me I can honestly say that the UEDF forces in the RRT are the hardest models(notice I didn't say minis) I have ever assembled and I have most likely assembled more models and as long if not longer then you have and thats including RRT models.
The UEDF Destroids were pretty easy. The Valks had some wierd clearances with how the arms were to go into the bodies, esp. Gerwalk. Not labeling the arm pairings was Not Good.
Asterios wrote: Well as for me I can honestly say that the UEDF forces in the RRT are the hardest models(notice I didn't say minis) I have ever assembled and I have most likely assembled more models and as long if not longer then you have and thats including RRT models.
The UEDF Destroids were pretty easy. The Valks had some wierd clearances with how the arms were to go into the bodies, esp. Gerwalk. Not labeling the arm pairings was Not Good.
the Guardian mode was the worst of the lot, especially if you wanted to have both arms holding the gun, and the size of the pieces makes it even more fun.
n815e wrote: Rick, did you ever find that industry standard definition of what constitutes a model versus a miniature?
its a personal standard if I can assemble it without thinking too much about it, its a mini, this includes all Sed. wars, RRT Pods(even Glaug and scout and recovery) and 40K and all others. unfortunately this does not include RRT UEDF forces.
Anyhow, getting the Gerwalk to hold it's GU-11 in both hands was almost as much fun as getting a 3E metal pack/gun/arm SM Devastator together without any bad seams/joints...
palaeomerus wrote: It's sad. I wish that whoever owns the Macross IP would talk to FFG about doing a new major project, and rescind prior licenses for damage to the brand along with a "here's a nickel for your trouble kid" payment and get us some games and anime up in the USA finally.
"Harmony Gold's official stance is that the Japanese court case has no bearing on them nor their Macross distribution rights. Moreover, neither Big West nor Tatsunoko have challenged Harmony Gold's Macross trademark claim in the U.S., and so it remains in place. Basically, this trademark effectively prevents any other company from purchasing the international distribution rights to any Macross product—be that anime, game, or merchandise—without inviting a lawsuit."
Article's from 2013. Anything more recent? Or why Big West or Taktsunoko haven't challenged HG?
palaeomerus wrote: It's sad. I wish that whoever owns the Macross IP would talk to FFG about doing a new major project, and rescind prior licenses for damage to the brand along with a "here's a nickel for your trouble kid" payment and get us some games and anime up in the USA finally.
"Harmony Gold's official stance is that the Japanese court case has no bearing on them nor their Macross distribution rights. Moreover, neither Big West nor Tatsunoko have challenged Harmony Gold's Macross trademark claim in the U.S., and so it remains in place. Basically, this trademark effectively prevents any other company from purchasing the international distribution rights to any Macross product—be that anime, game, or merchandise—without inviting a lawsuit."
Article's from 2013. Anything more recent? Or why Big West or Taktsunoko haven't challenged HG?
thing of it is, any company in the US can challenge it, they most likely will win, problem is they do not deem it cost effective with all the Legal fees to do such on a market that has been killed by HG by their inadequate handling of the IP.
Anyhow, getting the Gerwalk to hold it's GU-11 in both hands was almost as much fun as getting a 3E metal pack/gun/arm SM Devastator together without any bad seams/joints...
I've always referred to them as Guardians since its better then Gerwalk. which sounds like a name for the Pods, it sounds like a gawky 2 legged walker.
I can do Devastators in my sleep but after assembling 16 squads of them no wonder.
palaeomerus wrote: It's sad. I wish that whoever owns the Macross IP would talk to FFG about doing a new major project, and rescind prior licenses for damage to the brand along with a "here's a nickel for your trouble kid" payment and get us some games and anime up in the USA finally.
"Harmony Gold's official stance is that the Japanese court case has no bearing on them nor their Macross distribution rights. Moreover, neither Big West nor Tatsunoko have challenged Harmony Gold's Macross trademark claim in the U.S., and so it remains in place. Basically, this trademark effectively prevents any other company from purchasing the international distribution rights to any Macross product—be that anime, game, or merchandise—without inviting a lawsuit."
Article's from 2013. Anything more recent? Or why Big West or Taktsunoko haven't challenged HG?
thing of it is, any company in the US can challenge it, they most likely will win, problem is they do not deem it cost effective with all the Legal fees to do such on a market that has been killed by HG by their inadequate handling of the IP.
Anyhow, getting the Gerwalk to hold it's GU-11 in both hands was almost as much fun as getting a 3E metal pack/gun/arm SM Devastator together without any bad seams/joints...
I've always referred to them as Guardians since its better then Gerwalk. which sounds like a name for the Pods, it sounds like a gawky 2 legged walker.
I can do Devastators in my sleep but after assembling 16 squads of them no wonder.
Hasbro apparently roundly defeated Harmony Gold when making the GI Joe/Transformers crossover Jetfire in 2013. So, it looks like Harmony Gold is standing on quicksand if someone were to properly go after them and the rights.
Talizvar wrote: Yep, lack of information can make us all pretty grumpy.
I would suggest if you feel a need to express yourself more completely, the kickstarter page will do.
All we got is the consistent self satisfied postings from the PB website and spam mail from them if you have filtered it by now.
I was wondering, other than making a 3D model and printing your own: anyone else make a Super-VT or Armored-VT?
I have to get off my lazy butt and see if I can scratch build some add-ons (or on top of) the models we have... possibly mold-up the component parts for my personal use.
It is bothering me that this game will be unfinished.
The Gnerl is the one model where I look at it and draw a blank.
Ah well, guess I can look forward to Anime North and decide if I really want to say anything or not.
I found a source of Gnerls. They are just really costly at $15 each!
I think someone has some Armored done up.
Someone also did up some parts to make some supers with. I think they were going to send me some of those in the mail.
Hasbro apparently roundly defeated Harmony Gold when making the GI Joe/Transformers crossover Jetfire in 2013. So, it looks like Harmony Gold is standing on quicksand if someone were to properly go after them and the rights.
Some of us just got a disappointing update from another anime robot ks tonight. It's not good news but I find the result and the communication to be acceptable but obviously not optimal.
I *wish* we had gotten something like this last summer instead of the stupid history of everything but nothing useful updates or even two years ago with the gencon first debacle and subsequent sham vote.
warboss wrote:Some of us just got a disappointing update from another anime robot ks tonight. It's not good news but I find the result and the communication to be acceptable but obviously not optimal.
I *wish* we had gotten something like this last summer instead of the stupid history of everything but nothing useful updates or even two years ago with the gencon first debacle and subsequent sham vote.
JohnHwangDD wrote:Assuming that everything the Pod says is true, backers will get 90% of the different sculpts and total models that they pledged for.
Yes. It's not great news, but DP9 did explain the rationale, the loss of the Tiger and Sidewinder Gears isn't terrible (for the uninitiated, these are "upgrade" models that are better Gears than the standard Hunter/ Jager Gears, but not super critical to the force. Sort of like an Armoured Valk: good for some scenarios, but not something you'd want in every situation.), and they cleverly bundled it with the news that mold cutting has started. So overall the update came as good news.
If you look back over the communications, guess what? DP9 didn't really leak any "sensitive industrial information", but they posted in-progress shots of 3D Gears (and took action on feedback), explained some delays such as the difficulty they had when the factory told them about the limits of the cutting tool. That was an example of a technical delay that the audience could relate to and could adjust their expectations for. That's what even decent communications can do, it helps manage customer expectations. Something PB very, very obviously don't know how to do.
DP9 is still late, but you don't really here that much burning torches and pitchforks. PB is just.... terrible at this.
jaymz wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that January 31st is the deadline to step forward if interested in taking over the RRT Proboard and/or Wiki....
Would that be slightly less painful than signing up with the AG or FTC?
I find it easier to joke since I do not consider myself knowledgeable enough or have the passion / free time to keep up on it.
Let us hope the apathy is not too strong in the 5000.
Good luck!
If you look back over the communications, guess what? DP9 didn't really leak any "sensitive industrial information", but they posted in-progress shots of 3D Gears (and took action on feedback), explained some delays such as the difficulty they had when the factory told them about the limits of the cutting tool. That was an example of a technical delay that the audience could relate to and could adjust their expectations for. That's what even decent communications can do, it helps manage customer expectations. Something PB very, very obviously don't know how to do.
DP9 is still late, but you don't really here that much burning torches and pitchforks. PB is just.... terrible at this.
Things certainly haven't been all rosy and perfect over in Heavy Gear but they're certainly better than this clustermess. I realize that using this ks as a bar to compare others to requires a shovel to dig out the bar as it is so low but it's just an example. They're a largely 2 man company whose best days are long behind them making an 80's anime "inspired" robot minis kickstarter in plastic. There have been bumps (it's currently 8 months delays iirc) and some thuds (some of the changes to the minis' looks compared with the metals are IMO less aesthetically desirable) but at least they've been open in a relatively timely fashion (a month to two months delay). They need prodding occassionally to post updates but we're talking about a poke every month (with roughly half the updates being meaty with the other half not) but that's still better than the year of silence, obfuscation, and lies that we've gotten from Palladium. I just wanted to show that a company can update backers with bad news instead of just wasting months to years hoping that the problem will just go away.
It's funny having some extremes of service to contrast against.
This currently holds the distinction as the most delayed campaign I've backed, along with awful (substantial) communication and iffy product.
Whereas Dwarven Forge just sent me the 'label created' email for their 3rd campaign today.
It's funny how 'people' (read: Lola) would argue that, oh, DF single piece tiles don't compare, it's not apples to apples, etc.
But here we are, approaching 3 years later. Palladium has delivered roughly 1/3 of their models (by type). DF is delivering their 3rd campaign (on time, if not early) and their fourth should launch sometime around March. Roughly 4 times the money brought in across maybe twice the number of backers (with overlap), and they're continuing to fire boxes off like pros.
Is a single piece terrain tile equal to a multi-part miniature kit? No. But millions of tiles across dozens and dozens of designs produced, often painted, and delivered is a hell of a lot more impressive than what PB is failing to accomplish.
Sorry, just riding the euphoric high of professionalism here.
JohnHwangDD wrote:Assuming that everything the Pod says is true, backers will get 90% of the different sculpts and total models that they pledged for.
Yes. It's not great news, but DP9 did explain the rationale, the loss of the Tiger and Sidewinder Gears isn't terrible (for the uninitiated, these are "upgrade" models that are better Gears than the standard Hunter/ Jager Gears, but not super critical to the force. Sort of like an Armoured Valk: good for some scenarios, but not something you'd want in every situation.), and they cleverly bundled it with the news that mold cutting has started. So overall the update came as good news.
If you look back over the communications, guess what? DP9 didn't really leak any "sensitive industrial information", but they posted in-progress shots of 3D Gears (and took action on feedback), explained some delays such as the difficulty they had when the factory told them about the limits of the cutting tool. That was an example of a technical delay that the audience could relate to and could adjust their expectations for. That's what even decent communications can do, it helps manage customer expectations. Something PB very, very obviously don't know how to do.
DP9 is still late, but you don't really here that much burning torches and pitchforks. PB is just.... terrible at this.
I fail to see how removing -2 sculpts and removing -1 model from the total are "good news", and I think other backers who can do basic math will start to come to the same conclusion pretty quickly. I bet the tide turns in the next couple days, as the backers start reading Comments.
PB knows how to show pictures of actual work. Except the gakbags at PB haven't done a lick of work for the past fething year.
Per my earlier note, the reason the torches and pitchforks aren't out is because, "well, at least it's not fething Robotech... "
Things certainly haven't been all rosy and perfect over in Heavy Gear but they're certainly better than this clustermess. [...] I just wanted to show that a company can update backers with bad news instead of just wasting months to years hoping that the problem will just go away.
For the benefit of those who don't know the timeline for DP9 HGB KS:
KS started 24 Oct 2014, and closed on 23 Nov 2014 with $150,406 CAD. Their original target delivery date was Nov 2015, which was, at that time, a strangely pessimistic timeline. The KS hit the usual problems -- too many stretch goals unlocked (in hindsight), et. al. Then along the way they had CAD design issues, CAD to reality translation issues, yadda yadda. Quite normal. The latest update had the following points:
They listed their HK counterpart (so much for industrial secrecy... not).
The current status: Molds are starting to cut, in HK, and expected to finish 5 steel molds by end Feb. Those of you familiar with Chinese customs will know that the Lunar New Year is in 2 weeks, which means not much gets done for the front half of Feb. Otherwise, this timeline looks reasonable.
QC of the molds is expected to finish by mid March, then they intend to ship the molds via sea to North America, which would take a month (reasonable for sea shipping, unless we get port strikes again). Note that they could shave a whole month off their schedule by having a Chinese firm do the plastic injection (and is probably cheaper), but the KS promised NA manufacturing, so they are doing NA manufacturing... and suffers a one month delay for that (and of course a risk of losing the molds at sea, but well... Acts of God.)
Production runs are expected to be for one month, so they are expecting to start fulfillment in May.
All told, they planned for 12 months of work but suffered delays of 6 months or so (50% overrun), and was short some deliverables due to cost overruns.
Personally I wasn't reading every update, not the way I'm spending scrutinizing the crap coming from PB (which mercifully takes a short time because it's usually no content anyway), but enough that I'm aware they hit some issues, have potential solutions, took feedback, and generally were managing the situation. In many ways, it's a typical design-to-manufacturing story that is actually fairly ok.
(For those of you who want to hear sad sack stories other than PB, go take a look at the Buccaneer 3D printer KS, or the CST-01 KS, or the "successful" Jorno KS, or closer to home, the Defiance manure pile.)
Now, it's inevitable that the RRT design-to-manufacture process would hit the same problems. The things encountered in HGB KS are quite familiar stories that results from the various details you encounter in manufacturing -- if you don't run into them, it's suspicious. Anyone who spent enough time around injection molding for plastic miniatures know these things happen. So there's nothing particularly wrong with PB saying they ran into a technical problem, and if they can say what are potential fixes they are trying, all the better still. DP9 did that, the backers made some sensible suggestions IIRC, and we ended up with a superior product.
So instead of trying to inform and create a collaborative environment for a niche product (wargaming) that ultimately thrives on community involvement, PB decided to closet everything. I suppose in hindsight I should just be grateful that the stuff we have now for RRT is not even worse, given the weird stuff that can happen in closets.
And now they want to do a relaunch. I sort of shudder. I suppose it is necessary since they squandered the hype window they had initially, but given previous track record, it feels like the relaunch is yet another retreat into another closet and blindly firing out the slits at random.
jaymz wrote: Just a reminder to everyone that January 31st is the deadline to step forward if interested in taking over the RRT Proboard and/or Wiki....
Would that be slightly less painful than signing up with the AG or FTC?
I find it easier to joke since I do not consider myself knowledgeable enough or have the passion / free time to keep up on it.
Let us hope the apathy is not too strong in the 5000.
Good luck!
It is pretty hands off actually by and large lol.....I am just disassociating myself as much as I can and sticking to my personally groups/pages etc.
I fail to see how removing -2 sculpts and removing -1 model from the total are "good news", and I think other backers who can do basic math will start to come to the same conclusion pretty quickly. I bet the tide turns in the next couple days, as the backers start reading Comments.
It's a bit going off tangent from this thread, but hell I don't use Tigers or Sidewinders, so I'm not missing them much. So to me personally, it's a minor issue.
It's always balanced off in that the files are done, and if they can afford it in the future, the Tiger and Sidewinder will be high on the likelihood scale to get the plastic treatment. Overall it's a risk-vs-rewards calculation: Get the stuff out as soon as possible minus the Tiger/ Sidewinder and get cashflow going, or throw a diminishing purse in for a hope that people will be willing to wait a bit more.
Given our suspicions of what happened at PB, DP9's decision feels a lot more prudent.
Forar wrote: It's funny having some extremes of service to contrast against.
This currently holds the distinction as the most delayed campaign I've backed, along with awful (substantial) communication and iffy product.
Whereas Dwarven Forge just sent me the 'label created' email for their 3rd campaign today.
It's funny how 'people' (read: Lola) would argue that, oh, DF single piece tiles don't compare, it's not apples to apples, etc.
But here we are, approaching 3 years later. Palladium has delivered roughly 1/3 of their models (by type). DF is delivering their 3rd campaign (on time, if not early) and their fourth should launch sometime around March. Roughly 4 times the money brought in across maybe twice the number of backers (with overlap), and they're continuing to fire boxes off like pros.
I preordered Super Dungeon Explore (1.0 original) and backed Sedition Wars, Relic Knights, Zombicide 2, Zombicide 3, and Blood Rage from CMoN. All apples-to-apples minis games. In every case, CMoN delivered 100% of what they said they would. Both SDE and BR were on time. Both Zombicide 2 & 3 delivered *early*. SedWars was basically on time. Had I backed Black Plague, that would have also been on time. The point stands that I was never shorted, even if I had to wait an extra year for Relic Knights as the SPM / CMoN relationship unraveled behind the scenes.
Lynx7725 wrote: Note that they could shave a whole month off their schedule by having a Chinese firm do the plastic injection (and is probably cheaper), but the KS promised NA manufacturing, so they are doing NA manufacturing... and suffers a one month delay for that (and of course a risk of losing the molds at sea, but well... Acts of God.)
Would it really be a lost month? Assuming the travel time across the ocean is basically the same, and production isn't that far off either, it seems like (essentially) the same outcome.
Produce Models In China + Ship Them Across Ocean
vs.
Ship Molds Across Ocean + Produce Models in US.
Is a Chinese factory really going to be so much more productive as to shave an entire month off that? I'm sure some time savings might be found, but in a semi-apples to apples comparison, all that's changing seems to be where the stuff is punched out.
At this point, the Pod is so late, and so tight on the budget, an extra month won't make any difference, as long as they deliver.
And bringing it back to the gakbags behind RRT, if they actually had something real to show, instead of lame fething excuses, I'd be glad to give them an extra month for shipping gak around the world.
Forar wrote:
Would it really be a lost month? Assuming the travel time across the ocean is basically the same, and production isn't that far off either, it seems like (essentially) the same outcome.
Is a Chinese factory really going to be so much more productive as to shave an entire month off that? I'm sure some time savings might be found, but in a semi-apples to apples comparison, all that's changing seems to be where the stuff is punched out.
Good point. The answer is probably "Yes" and "No". The issue is really that they are shipping heavy molds, so they can't get good rates on anything other than a ship.
If they produce the plastic in China, then what they are shipping is plastic, and that opens options -- they can air a limited quantity over either as promotional material or early bird fulfillment, with the main bulk going by ship. Alternatively, if they are confident enough, they can set up a distribution center in China itself to fulfill APAC backers, and ship stuff to a European center -- China has regular trade routes to Europe, so shipping can be simpler. The manufacturer Wargame Factory essentially did that for Dreamforge and IIRC Kingdom Death KS, and it simplifies logistics to some degree.
But if they are being clunky about ways of doing things and insist on plastic getting to NA before fulfillment? Well.. again, lighter plastic means they have more options on ships; shipping companies go by weight and dimensions (containerization, after all) and while the bulk would be significantly more, it's possible to split up the shipment and stuff a little bit here, a little bit there onto a NA-bound ship. It's not likely to shave that much more time off though.
Creative application of the shipping options can at least give backers the appearance that the KS is fulfilling, so yeah, I'd say overall having the manufacturing in China makes a bit more commercial sense. But the pre-requisite is that you must have the necessary trust in relationships to ensure things go right.
EDIT: Also, the other aspect is labour cost should be still cheaper over in China, even with the shifting dynamics nowadays. That means you can afford more in a production run, or save some money. Depending on the distribution of global backers, these savings may add up, or disappear during fulfillment.
JohnHwangDD wrote:At this point, the Pod is so late, and so tight on the budget, an extra month won't make any difference, as long as they deliver.
And bringing it back to the gakbags behind RRT, if they actually had something real to show, instead of lame fething excuses, I'd be glad to give them an extra month for shipping gak around the world.
Pretty much. The more I think about it, the more it seems that DP9 essentially ran out of money, but had just enough in reserve to make this call.
Honestly, the KS probably hurt DP9 in the pockets more than they'd ever admit. It raked in up front cash for the KS, but the tradeoff is people won't want to buy the old metal stuff with plastic very likely on the horizon. Sales of HGB stuff must have tanked somewhat -- I know I stopped buying because I have stuff coming in. It's good that they actually looked forward and planned sufficiently so that they have the fiscal resources to cover the fulfillment portion of the KS.
And to bring it back to RRT, yeah, if what we suspect is true, then fiscal irresponsibility is part of what torped Wave 2 badly. To be fair to PB, the two are of quite different scales in terms of units to produce and quantity, but still...
Forar wrote:
Would it really be a lost month? Assuming the travel time across the ocean is basically the same, and production isn't that far off either, it seems like (essentially) the same outcome.
Is a Chinese factory really going to be so much more productive as to shave an entire month off that? I'm sure some time savings might be found, but in a semi-apples to apples comparison, all that's changing seems to be where the stuff is punched out.
Good point. The answer is probably "Yes" and "No". The issue is really that they are shipping heavy molds, so they can't get good rates on anything other than a ship.
you would be surprised the cost to ship a mold from China to US either thru ship or air is not much of a difference.
JohnHwangDD wrote:At this point, the Pod is so late, and so tight on the budget, an extra month won't make any difference, as long as they deliver.
And bringing it back to the gakbags behind RRT, if they actually had something real to show, instead of lame fething excuses, I'd be glad to give them an extra month for shipping gak around the world.
Pretty much. The more I think about it, the more it seems that DP9 essentially ran out of money, but had just enough in reserve to make this call.
Honestly, the KS probably hurt DP9 in the pockets more than they'd ever admit. It raked in up front cash for the KS, but the tradeoff is people won't want to buy the old metal stuff with plastic very likely on the horizon. Sales of HGB stuff must have tanked somewhat -- I know I stopped buying because I have stuff coming in. It's good that they actually looked forward and planned sufficiently so that they have the fiscal resources to cover the fulfillment portion of the KS.
And to bring it back to RRT, yeah, if what we suspect is true, then fiscal irresponsibility is part of what torped Wave 2 badly. To be fair to PB, the two are of quite different scales in terms of units to produce and quantity, but still...
It's no coincidence that the Pod has been flogging chibis and other random items all along, while unlocking and reopening the PM for people to add to their pledges... Not sure if that behavior reminds anybody here of anything they've see on other KS' *cough*Prodos*cough* *cough*Palladium*cough*...
I joked early on that the Pod was going to TPTB lite. We'll see what/when the Pod delivers.
Just the usual garbage with no real info on Robotech. The grab bags are finally done...so the Rifter subscription drive shilling begins. The notable part was this though:
We expect to be able to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave 2 along much more quickly now, have big plans for it and other Palladium game lines, and hope to see new third party ventures, like Rifts® Savage Worlds, expand the Palladium Megaverse®. All are things that should surprise and please you.
Will we miss release dates? I’m sure we will, but by days or weeks, not many months or a year. The proof will be in the products that are going to be out soon.
Um... is it my imagine or would Palladium missing release dates by ONLY many months or a year (as in one...singular.. not a couple, few, or many) be the improvement that they should actually be reaching for? They seem to think somehow that they've been doing better than that on average when in fact its been worse.
It's just the usual palladium cart before the horse speak. If they came out with 3-4 books, they claim to come out with two dozen the next year. If they're late 1-3 years on average for major products, they'll claim to cut it down to a few days or weeks. Despite how often they tell them, Palladium still hasn't figured out that the key is to tell a believable lie if you want there to be even a slight chance of suckering most folks in with it.
warboss wrote: It's just the usual palladium cart before the horse speak. If they came out with 3-4 books, they claim to come out with two dozen the next year. If they're late 1-3 years on average for major products, they'll claim to cut it down to a few days or weeks. Despite how often they tell them, Palladium still hasn't figured out that the key is to tell a believable lie if you want there to be even a slight chance of suckering most folks in with it.
Actually, Warboss, I think they HAVE learnt regarding book releases. In the most craven and weasely way possible, of course. Just had a flick back through some previous catalogs, and most books tend to be in the 160, 192, or 224 page counts.
Of the eight books in the "first six months" schedule, we have page counts for seven. One is 160-192 (Secrets of Atlanteans), one is 160 (Hell Followed), and the other five (Heroes of Humanity, The Disavowed, Haunted Tech, Garden of the Gods and First Responders) are all 96 pages. Couple that with (at least from my older books) PB's tendency to label every page for page count (including flash pages, credit pages and contents tables), and you're looking at closer to 90 pages per, less if there's much copypasta. And of course, two 96 page books are more expensive than one 192 page book.
I still don't think they'll achieve their goal. But they've subtly stacked the deck in their favour by reducing more than half the books to modern Rifter size, and keeping the remaining books to the lower end of their scale.
Back in the 80s and early 90s a lot of their books were 48, 64 or 96 pages, particularly the Robitech and TMNT/After the Bomb lines. They tended towards bigger books in the late 90s and early 2000s. They still tend to big books in most lines, but the small books have been showing up again, especially in the Chaos Earth and Robotech lines.
And yet they STILL only manage 3-4 books a year. (Rifters to me do not count as they SUPPOSED to be fan material despite Kevins meddling the last few years with constant additions of official material with this next issue being all official. Work on ACTUAL books not the "fanzine")
"Schedule of 2016 Releases for the First 6 Months
◾The Rifter® #73 – Winter issue – Cat. No. 173 – 96 pages, filled with “official” source material by Siembieda, Rosenstein, Walton, Kluge and others. In final production right now. Ships early February.
◾Rifts®, The Coalition States: Heroes of Humanity™ Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda and Matthew Clements – in final production right now. Ships end of February.
◾Rifts® The Disavowed™ Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda and Matthew Clements – in production right now. Ships March, 2016.
◾Rifts® Secrets of the Atlanteans™ Sourcebook by Carl Gleba – Spring, 2016.
◾Rifts® Haunted Tech™ sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda – Spring or Summer.
◾The Rifter® #74 – Spring issue – 96 pages, filled with “official” and optional source material. Ships April or May.
◾Garden of the Gods™, a Palladium Fantasy RPG® Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda – Spring.
◾Lopan™, a Palladium Fantasy RPG® Adventure Sourcebook by Glen Evans, additional material by Kevin Siembieda – Spring or Summer.
◾Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.
◾Chaos Earth® First Responders (more than you may imagine)
◾The Rifter® #75 – Summer issue. "
Automatically Appended Next Post: I don't hold any vitriol but I am saddened that something with tons of potential was treated as a red-headed stepchild. When you have a passion about something, you come up with ideas, ways to make it better, and much more. Unfortunately PB, being an RPG company, has little passion for RRT. Same as with many KS's that are done one after the other such as what CMON does. When you make 6 games or so, you cannot say you care and have equal passion for all of them. That's just reality.
The difference being, CMoN is just a publisher. The developers of the games have a lot of passion for their games, but some have less talent than others at executing.
Morgan Vening wrote: I still don't think they'll achieve their goal. But they've subtly stacked the deck in their favour by reducing more than half the books to modern Rifter size, and keeping the remaining books to the lower end of their scale.
I'm actually fine with that and would be mildly impressed if they stuck with it. Unfortunately, Kevin "loves" his fans so much that he keeps adding material. He did it with the NG books and others and even the robotech books. The invid occupation book I have from my grab bag has an entirely different sized font and spacing for a section because they put in filler (the whole book was crap frankly...art and text) and weren't willing to actually remove it. It's very jarring but Palladium is only a bit more accurate with their page counts than they are with their release dates.
They *SHOULD* set realistic goals for themselves. Since coming out with a Rifter each season on time is feasible (albeit usually with years of fan submitted material that they pluck from at random), coming out with a book of the same size each season ON TIME (instead of 1-3 years late) should be. I think THAT should be their goal... getting out one rifter and one book each season like clockwork for 2016 in addition to their existing commitments (specifically Robotech). Once robotech is done (ha!) and they're putting out consistently (ha!), they should try to add another book every two rifters to the mix the next year (so 6 books in 2017), etc. Coming out with 8 books and three rifters in the next six months isn't given their history regardless of the page count... unless they all come out pamphlet sized (<48) like the only suprise and on time book I've ever seen them come out with.
Jefffar wrote: Back in the 80s and early 90s a lot of their books were 48, 64 or 96 pages, particularly the Robitech and TMNT/After the Bomb lines. They tended towards bigger books in the late 90s and early 2000s. They still tend to big books in most lines, but the small books have been showing up again, especially in the Chaos Earth and Robotech lines.
TMNT I never collected, but Robotech has never been that trim, at least on the scale provided.
TMNT I never collected, but Robotech has never been that trim, at least on the scale provided.
The RDF field guide, zentraedi book, accelerated training manual, ghost ship adventure, and lancer's rockers were all about that 48 page size iirc. The Macross II deck plan series of books were a bit thicker (64pgs?) but still obviously thinner than the typical non-adventure book at the time.
◾Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.
Ugh.
And if they don't say a release date for RRPGT Wave 2, they can't be late, right?
I would offer that, unless they develop a flux capacitor or acquire a Galifraen police box, they're already VERY late regardless and actual work and due diligence finally on their part will only affect the end calculation of just how late. That, of course, doesn't sink in for them because logic. The only lesson they learned from putting out nonsensical plucked from the air meaningless release dates that were missed over and over again was to not say anything. A responsible company would have instead learned to try and give GOOD release dates as well as list some possible pitfalls that could derail them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forar wrote: I stand corrected. Guess I missed some of those during my collecting days.
Possibly because they were too thin to be seen on store shelves. >.>
No worries... I've still got them all somewhere so they're still fresh in my mind. I sold most of my (complete up until I stopped) rifts collection a decade ago but I kept my robotech stuff. I'm not sure if all those titles were reprinted during their entire run of the license and I suspect they were OOP for long periods of time and obviously off of store shelves (unless your store had the dusty never sold years old copy typical of palladium shelves in FLGS).
And, boy oh boy, did that result in a superior product and happy fans!
That's why when a product is substandard there are people out in the wild who take it upon themselves to make it what it should be. https://tolkieneditor.wordpress.com/ in the case of the Hobbit.
◾Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.
Ugh.
And if they don't say a release date for RRPGT Wave 2, they can't be late, right?
Todd Ferrullo over on the Kickstarter Comments posted a similar PBWU to this one, but from this time last year. In the "To be done within the first six months of 2015", lists five books. Bizantium, RT Marines, DR Hell Followed, CE Ressurection, and CE First Responders (I don't count Rifters, or branded dicebags as worth listing).
Of those items, I know Byzantium was released in that timeframe. I know CE Ressurection wasn't until the end of the year (failed target). And two items that were due in TF6MO2015 have been punted to TF6MO2016. Not sure when RT Marines was actually completed for sale (I know preview copies were available at the POH, and I think the book was done at GenCon), so PB are getting 20-40% of their promises done. Yay them! I don't think anything from the "rest of 2015 and beyond" got done. And yet PB continue with setting unrealistic expectations for themselves that I doubt anyone who's been paying attention believes in.
As for the release date on Wave 2, that's about right. Of course, they won't stick to that, and at some point, PB will announce it'll be complete 9 months from when they speak out on the subject. Because they have no idea what they're doing.
Morgan, the RT Marines book had been touted since the RRT campaign was going, if not years before. On the RPG line they are sooooo dedicated to, 2 1/2 to 3 years seems to be the average - some books upwards of 5 years.
How can we expect a company that only releases 2 books a year - which are already late by years - to fund completing a game whose funds were eaten up producing the first half?
So I quite enjoyed Marcross Frontier, lots of giant robots, crazy weapons, sort of a plot and the singing wasn't too bad either.
Of course it was ultimately about a group of high school students who fly space fighters in their spare time or are pop idol/messiahs, but that's just Macross at this point.
Still I wonder whenever I see this logo
Did some poor graphic designer think the show was spelled Macross Flontier and have to add a line to make the L an R?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Asterios wrote: here is my Robotech Tribute to StarBlazers, will be doing 3 veritech sets of these and one of Wildstars ship:
Awesome, you should also do a tribute to Susumu Kodai's fighter in Space Battleship Yamato, very similar color scheme.
Stormonu wrote: I'd love to get an affordable copy of Space Battleship Yamato 2199 in the US (if anyone knows where I can, please let me know).
Of course, it'd also be nice to be able to get all the later Macross stuff legally here as well.
Is that the live action version? If it is, check Family Video. My local Family Video has the live action one on hand, and you can purchase movies from them relatively cheap.
Jonwayne Stricker wrote:sounds exactly like what happened to all of us that supported the kickstarter for the RObotech tatics.. still waiting for half the stuff they promised me.
And the response from the blog author:
Blaine Pardoe wrote:Robotech really set the bar for screwed up Kickstarters and defined new ways to piss off your customer base.
So warboss was right all along! Even when the company who makes most of your KS product closes down before the end, the mantra appears to be "at least it's not fething Robotech..."
Stormonu wrote: I'd love to get an affordable copy of Space Battleship Yamato 2199 in the US (if anyone knows where I can, please let me know).
Of course, it'd also be nice to be able to get all the later Macross stuff legally here as well.
Is that the live action version? If it is, check Family Video. My local Family Video has the live action one on hand, and you can purchase movies from them relatively cheap.
God, I sound like a commercial.
Yamato 2199 was a remake of the original 1st series with the Gamilons.
Blaine Pardoe wrote:Robotech really set the bar for screwed up Kickstarters and defined new ways to piss off your customer base.
So warboss was right all along! Even when the company who makes most of your KS product closes down before the end, the mantra appears to be "at least it's not fething Robotech..."
Ouch.
My concern is that the bar is set... and kept moving lower.
Six weeks of silence after the Kevster told us news was coming. My already thin patience (what remained of it) snapped today.
I blame being buried alive in my apartment by this blizzard.
I complained to the Michigan Attorney General and the FTC today. It probably won't achieve anything, but who knows? One more complaint followed by one more, etc. might get things in gear at the very least.
Bah, Kevin's admitted his typical book run is 1,000 copies. At $20 per, that's only $20K net, maybe $10K profit. Two books per year. And that's when they sell out (which they've seem to keep stock for years, as evidenced by their grab bags...).
Assuming Wave 2 would cost them about what they expected their initial (non-stretch goal) Wave 1 would cost - ~$900,000 - it would take them 45 DEDICATED years to come up with the money, assuming they didn't spend it on such frivolities as rent, power and employees...
Stormonu wrote: Bah, Kevin's admitted his typical book run is 1,000 copies. At $20 per, that's only $20K net, maybe $10K profit. Two books per year. And that's when they sell out (which they've seem to keep stock for years, as evidenced by their grab bags...).
Assuming Wave 2 would cost them about what they expected their initial (non-stretch goal) Wave 1 would cost - ~$900,000 - it would take them 45 DEDICATED years to come up with the money, assuming they didn't spend it on such frivolities as rent, power and employees...
No idea what it is but I call serious BS on these numbers.....
1. Most books cost $1-2 to print
2. They sell to distributors for much more than that.
3. The also sell books directly
4. PB could not pay the employees and keep the lights on with $20k/year.
Let's say they make $8 per book....that means it's more like $160000+ a year, which is still too low to pay everyone and keep the lights on. So you also need to include sales of existing books and that would add a lot more to the numbers.
Which is why even with regular (or irregularly frequent) 'sales', it's hard to imagine they're doing much more than treading water. Pencils? Mouse Pads? Kevin's random stuff on eBay? These can't be massive money making ventures. They talk about doing hundreds of grab bags (in aggregate), but even at thousands, pulling in 40k, 80k, hell over 100k (and I'm not convinced they're selling 2,500+ of those things, but let's be really generous here), that's after paying for materials, shipping (if just getting it to their warehouse), keeping the lights/heat/internet/rent/other bills covered, and a living wage of their own.
And that's presumably a drop in the bucket of what it'll take to punch out and ship wave 2.
Even if they're not broke (as many allege, I don't know or really care either way, the results are the same currently), the occasional person who claims that their ongoing sales and new nick knacks are meant to build funds for Wave 2 strike me as cheerfully naive. How many of those Glitter Boy Jackets do they really think are selling? How many courier bags? Pencils? What kind of margins do these starry eyed folks really think there are with print on demand items?
Even if they're selling 10,000 copies (between global distribution to limited stores/fronts/online retailers) and stock on hand for direct sales and the next round of Grab Bags, 80k (to use Mike's ballpark) then breaks down to half a dozen employees, all their overhead, whatever debt they might owe (if it wasn't covered with KS funds, another theory I don't necessarily abide but wouldn't rule out entirely either), freelancers, future product funding, etc.
Without the books we can nitpick the particulars, but the reality is that they're not going to claw their way up to 6 figures or more for another massive figure production and distribution run with mugs and mouse pads.
Not intended to debate any points so much as put to 'paper' something that rattles around every so often and I see people making excuses on the PB Forums and whatnot.
Stormonu wrote: Bah, Kevin's admitted his typical book run is 1,000 copies. At $20 per, that's only $20K net, maybe $10K profit. Two books per year. And that's when they sell out (which they've seem to keep stock for years, as evidenced by their grab bags...).
Assuming Wave 2 would cost them about what they expected their initial (non-stretch goal) Wave 1 would cost - ~$900,000 - it would take them 45 DEDICATED years to come up with the money, assuming they didn't spend it on such frivolities as rent, power and employees...
No idea what it is but I call serious BS on these numbers.....
1. Most books cost $1-2 to print
2. They sell to distributors for much more than that.
3. The also sell books directly
4. PB could not pay the employees and keep the lights on with $20k/year.
Let's say they make $8 per book....that means it's more like $160000+ a year, which is still too low to pay everyone and keep the lights on. So you also need to include sales of existing books and that would add a lot more to the numbers.
Damn, too much angst at Kevin, I guess. Hadn't considered their old books might be more than a dribble (from what I'd read on other RPG publishers, books sales fall off tremendously after 3 months).
At about $160K, that would be somewhere around 20K books a year, I think. That's about 1,500 to 1,600 books a month. Do they really chuck that much out to unsuspecting RP'ers a month? I'd be very doubtful, myself.
Stormonu wrote: Bah, Kevin's admitted his typical book run is 1,000 copies. At $20 per, that's only $20K net, maybe $10K profit. Two books per year. And that's when they sell out (which they've seem to keep stock for years, as evidenced by their grab bags...).
Assuming Wave 2 would cost them about what they expected their initial (non-stretch goal) Wave 1 would cost - ~$900,000 - it would take them 45 DEDICATED years to come up with the money, assuming they didn't spend it on such frivolities as rent, power and employees...
No idea what it is but I call serious BS on these numbers.....
1. Most books cost $1-2 to print
2. They sell to distributors for much more than that.
3. The also sell books directly
4. PB could not pay the employees and keep the lights on with $20k/year.
Let's say they make $8 per book....that means it's more like $160000+ a year, which is still too low to pay everyone and keep the lights on. So you also need to include sales of existing books and that would add a lot more to the numbers.
Damn, too much angst at Kevin, I guess. Hadn't considered their old books might be more than a dribble (from what I'd read on other RPG publishers, books sales fall off tremendously after 3 months).
At about $160K, that would be somewhere around 20K books a year, I think. That's about 1,500 to 1,600 books a month. Do they really chuck that much out to unsuspecting RP'ers a month? I'd be very doubtful, myself.
LOL, not defending, jsut looking for accurate numbers and those were not even close.....on a good day. I think they sell more than we give them credit for. They have to just to pay the employees they have, all 7 or 8. Plus Kevin. I don't see them scraping 6 figures anytime soon either.
Yeah, I think it's getting to the point where I need to step away from this entire thing for a few months. I can't seem to keep away from poking my head in to see if anything's changed, but knowing it won't.
A think a good 3-6 months of staying out of this thread would be best for me (and my blood pressure). Things won't have changed in that time, I'm sure. Plenty of other (positive) threads to haunt on here.
Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
They are.
The only PB book I've ever seen with a quality similar to current print/layout standards of the industry is the RRT one.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
They are.
The only PB book I've ever seen with a quality similar to current print/layout standards of the industry is the RRT one.
Really?
That's really sad, the RRT book was probably a really big deal for them, seeing their name on a book of that quality after what they're used to, then having to go back to the same old, same old, knowing it'll never come around again.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
They are.
The only PB book I've ever seen with a quality similar to current print/layout standards of the industry is the RRT one.
Really?
That's really sad, the RRT book was probably a really big deal for them, seeing their name on a book of that quality after what they're used to, then having to go back to the same old, same old, knowing it'll never come around again.
Just so we're on the same page, this is from one of their latest books:
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
I used to work at a college book distributor warehouse and they would pay $4-5 for a book that would sell to a student for $120...granted that was 20 years ago. I used to buy school books that would be $100 for ~$40 at work. If we got a load with paperback in it those you could take home for free. They did not care.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
I used to work at a college book distributor warehouse and they would pay $4-5 for a book that would sell to a student for $120...granted that was 20 years ago. I used to buy school books that would be $100 for ~$40 at work. If we got a load with paperback in it those you could take home for free. They did not care.
Yes, study materials going on line really cut into my bottom line a few years back.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
Eh, you don't know? PB is known in the RPG industry for selling affordable RPG books. (I'm being nice.) That comes at a cost... which means it's cheap black and white pages, even most of the art. And that's when they were in the 80s and 90s, and they hadn't change much.
'Bout the best RPG book they put out was the Rifts main book, which had colour art pages in the middle. RRT is a total departure from their usual.
And wow, now we have an estimate for Wave 2. 45 years. At least.
My flgs has one of their latest releases on the shelves. I happened to notice it and I was astounded as to how cheap the quality is.
Someone mentioned that they were shocked by how much the rrt book cost them to produce.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
Eh, you don't know? PB is known in the RPG industry for selling affordable RPG books. (I'm being nice.) That comes at a cost... which means it's cheap black and white pages, even most of the art. And that's when they were in the 80s and 90s, and they hadn't change much.
'Bout the best RPG book they put out was the Rifts main book, which had colour art pages in the middle. RRT is a total departure from their usual.
And wow, now we have an estimate for Wave 2. 45 years. At least.
PB's books are basically exactly the same as they were in the 80s, down to layout. At least now the Kevster is using actual layout computer programs instead of honest to god cutting and pasting of physical pages.
That said, B/W pages with B/W art is not mark of lack of quality. You can do absolutely amazing stuff with that. It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.
love it how people seem to think PB is going to do wave 2, problem is they just will not wake up and realize PB is not going to invest 100% in something they will only get 40% return on at best. its not smart business.
so PB is doing what many shady companies would do, which is stall waiting for people to grow apathetic and forget about their money, and they will have to do nothing, until then they can say they are working on it.
It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.
And that's not even talking about content.
Well, to be honest I don't find PB books that bad. It's just that everyone else has moved so far ahead that they are comparatively ancient. As ideas go, some of their books are fairly good. If you're plumbing for adventure ideas, PB books aren't too terrible.
The sad part is that PB appears to have the idea that "cheap is good", and tried to apply that to everything. Wargaming is by nature a more high-end luxury product, with, by now, a certain level of expectations. The "Cheap is Good" approach has different connotations in this industry, which PB was (and is) evidently not prepared mentally nor logistically for it.
I really cannot foresee PB managing RRT as a game line the way GW or Warlord or PP or CMON does their various game line. Personally, I'm just waiting to get Wave 2, and then I'm probably calling it quits. As good a ruleset RRT may have, the crux of any wargaming line longevity is commercial support, which is very iffy in this case.
Asterios wrote: so PB is doing what many shady companies would do, which is stall waiting for people to grow apathetic and forget about their money, and they will have to do nothing, until then they can say they are working on it.
From what I'm seeing here, what that seems to be doing is rile people enough to write complaints.
Dunno how much good it will do, but if enough peoples does it...
Albertorius wrote: From what I'm seeing here, what that seems to be doing is rile people enough to write complaints.
Dunno how much good it will do, but if enough peoples does it...
PB knows people can write in complaints all they want but until they unify and do something about it, PB has no worries, this crowd will not unify, you have those who want too, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who just don't care, and that is what PB is relying on, they are counting on people doing nothing, and when good people sit by and do nothing when wrong is being done, this society is screwed.
I would organize. The problem is I don't have the funds to do anything. If someone needs my signature for a class action suit, I'll give it. If someone needs me to the pay the bill for a lawsuit, I can't. Sadly, I used the sale of an ancient* collection of Star Wars action figures to pay my way into this Kickstarter. Granted the stuff was just taking up space, and all, but I'd rather have that back than this mess we currently have.
*My collection started when my dad brought some figures back from ToyFair in the 70's. My first figures were the first out in the wild, and I had them before they were in stores.
Asterios wrote: <snip>...they are counting on people doing nothing, and when good people sit by and do nothing when wrong is being done, this society is screwed.
The reporting PB to AG and FTC is still a reasonable start.
PB will not get a dime from me until wave 2 happens, take that how you wish.
If others remember being burned by PB and never buy from them again: that is a pretty damaging thing to do as a consumer.
Letting people know at any forum a perspective customer may visit that PB does not make good on anything approaching an "advanced order" is worth doing.
"Organizing" typically still needs someone as a go-to so it has some coherency.
My money loss and PB's behavior does not motivate me enough to take-on that kind "hassle" never mind being on the wrong side of the border.
I think if I can generate enough apathy as stated, I would feel much better walking away from PB and never looking back.
May they shrivel as a company due to that kind of organization: either method will achieve the desired result.
Asterios wrote: <snip>...they are counting on people doing nothing, and when good people sit by and do nothing when wrong is being done, this society is screwed.
The reporting PB to AG and FTC is still a reasonable start.
it is and if you can get hundreds of backers or maybe even thousands to file it might accomplish something, but like I said most of the backers are apathetic and defeatist, so they will not file.
People are grumbling more and more on PB's Facebook comments, and one guy has been dutifully adding links and reminders to file with the BBB/FTC/AG/etc, so it's out there.
People can choose to file or not, and there's no guarantee anything will happen if they do, even in large quantities.
Sure, some are apathetic or defeatist, some don't care, some are even happy with how things are going. None of us can force anyone to actively express their displeasure (or even be displeased in the first place).
I guess we'll just need someone else to lead the Legal Tsunami(tm). Its original founder seems to have lost his taste for (figurative) blood.
I really cannot foresee PB managing RRT as a game line the way GW or Warlord or PP or CMON does their various game line. Personally, I'm just waiting to get Wave 2, and then I'm probably calling it quits. As good a ruleset RRT may have, the crux of any wargaming line longevity is commercial support, which is very iffy in this case.
My expectations of this were always low. Not based on whether or not PB was willing to step up to the plate, but based on that this is a niche product.
Although I tried to guide PB in how to meet miniature wargamer expectations on a minimalist level in order to help the game succeed (they didn't do anything I suggested), I would have been perfectly happy just getting the models.
Joyboozer wrote: Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.
Eh, you don't know? PB is known in the RPG industry for selling affordable RPG books. (I'm being nice.) That comes at a cost... which means it's cheap black and white pages, even most of the art. And that's when they were in the 80s and 90s, and they hadn't change much.
'Bout the best RPG book they put out was the Rifts main book, which had colour art pages in the middle. RRT is a total departure from their usual.
And wow, now we have an estimate for Wave 2. 45 years. At least.
PB's books are basically exactly the same as they were in the 80s, down to layout. At least now the Kevster is using actual layout computer programs instead of honest to god cutting and pasting of physical pages.
That said, B/W pages with B/W art is not mark of lack of quality. You can do absolutely amazing stuff with that. It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.
And that's not even talking about content.
Yeah, early GW, GDW, WEG, and FASA stuff was B&W along with TFG and ADB stuff. Even R. Talsorian did most of their work that way back when they still did regular new stuff, before the FUZION ONLINE era. And D20's rise and fall was mostly 200 page hardbound B&W stuff. It's not like everybody does full color Osprey and D&D stuff.
But consider that the format of the first PB product: Mechanoids was essentially a fat, 3 volume, B&W comic book. By that I mean it was actually newsprint cut to half tabloid & stapled. I used to have a copy a dude gave me for doing some yard work for him when his leg was broken since it seemed like the kind of thing I was into. (He meant sci-fi). I had a copy of TMNT, Robotech, and the Palladium RPG monster-manual thing back then. So I was quite amused by it. And the idea of fanzine rpgs seemed cool to me at the time. So cheap as it was it had me making a big stupid mess at kinkos trying to emulate it with spiral binding and failing.
I was sixteen I think.
Not that that is any excuse for this mess with the RRT kickstarter but I do have a few fond old memories of PB.
Albertorius wrote: That said, B/W pages with B/W art is not mark of lack of quality. You can do absolutely amazing stuff with that. It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.
And that's not even talking about content.
I'd disagree with you there as I think it is. Now, that said, there are exceptions to the rule but those exceptions are few and need to be earned. The industry and the world have moved on and most customers expect more. The lack of an automatic transmission and airconditioning may not have been marks of a lack of quality in the 1970's but they're standard now and you'd be hard pressed to find a new car without them that would be lauded as an example of quality. The flipside of that though is NOT a mark of quality though as there are plenty of badly done books in full color with modern style art. The difference is that nowadays a company has to prove themselves an exception to the rule rather than just being given the benefit of the doubt. There is of course a sliding scale for truly new ventures from newcomers to the field but that doesn't apply to the dinosaurs at Palladium that keep plodding around as if the giant technicolor modern formatted asteroid didn't hit publishing two decades ago. Even new companies acknowledge that as they frequently try to upgrade their books to full color in KS stretch goals. Palladium is more of a prototypical example of that general first impression rule with their horribly outdated (to match!) and incoherent rpg rules.
I guess I was lucky and don't recall ever having an issue with the page binding on PB books, but what I found more commonly was that the laminate on the cover (front and back) would begin to peel on books I used a lot (handling and putting back in their place on the shelves).
One of the few I kept, a well worn copy of Psyscape, has like 2 or 3 inches of it peeled back off a corner.
The inner layout and B/W art never really bothered me, though their layouts (for finding rules) always left a lot to be deserved. There were rules that had general applications that would just get tucked into a spell or ability description, stuff like that. Made all the more obnoxious when they'd have copy pasted info multiple times just eating up page space, along with full page images that didn't really need to be full page (imo).
I did have Forar's "laminate peeling from the cover" issue occasionally.
However, about every damned PB book my friends and I had (a significant number back in the day) had what we called the "Palladium Curl", which was when the front cover would automatically curl itself into a C shape.
I just see it as a fairly common assumption by companies that have been around for a long time: what was good enough then, is not good enough now.
At least look at what your direct competition is doing.
When "White Wolf Publishing" came out, it looked like they were going to eat PB alive.
Funny how PB remains shambling along because it has never changed ownership so they even outlasted WWP who created a better IP in my opinion.
They have had no encore since the 80's and very early 90's and little else of note since.
Pathfinder and even D&D have found a new lease on life lately with some good RPG systems.
I am sure printing in black and white is the thing to do when your competition can do this:
Spoiler:
I am sure they must have gone into convulsions when they produced the RRT rulebook, it was so different for them.
Probably never to be seen again.
Forar wrote: I guess I was lucky and don't recall ever having an issue with the page binding on PB books, but what I found more commonly was that the laminate on the cover (front and back) would begin to peel on books I used a lot (handling and putting back in their place on the shelves).
One of the few I kept, a well worn copy of Psyscape, has like 2 or 3 inches of it peeled back off a corner.
I take very good care of my books (never opening them flat on a table for instance) and I had occasional binding issues from back in the day but admittedly they weren't common; the cover lamination peeling though was/is an issue. The first rifts sourcebook (original version, not the revised one) was particularly bad though for binding for reasons I'm not sure of (different printer?). I don't think I ever saw an in use copy that wasn't falling apart (whether in my own rifts group or at gencon convention game tables with strangers).
I never had a binding issue, and the only books that had the curl for the longest time were the ones that were owned by someone else. Just noticed a few of my oldest books are now starting to get their top edge peeling.
Forar wrote: I guess I was lucky and don't recall ever having an issue with the page binding on PB books, but what I found more commonly was that the laminate on the cover (front and back) would begin to peel on books I used a lot (handling and putting back in their place on the shelves).
One of the few I kept, a well worn copy of Psyscape, has like 2 or 3 inches of it peeled back off a corner.
I take very good care of my books (never opening them flat on a table for instance) and I had occasional binding issues from back in the day but admittedly they weren't common; the cover lamination peeling though was/is an issue. The first rifts sourcebook (original version, not the revised one) was particularly bad though for binding for reasons I'm not sure of (different printer?). I don't think I ever saw an in use copy that wasn't falling apart (whether in my own rifts group or at gencon convention game tables with strangers).
I personally never had issues with the binding. Everything has been fine from the day I got them...I also never had much issue with the peeling but I know a few people have.
Back to RRT, going over last week's update, I noticed this;
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two is coming ...
– but you can get started with the core box set and Wave One expansions right now.
Suuuuuure it is.
And from the previous week;
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
We intend to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ forward in 2016 in a big way. To get the Wave Two Kickstarter exclusives and expansion packs into manufacturing and ultimately into your hands. For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized. With all the past delays and frustration, we don’t want to even speculate on release dates and other details until we have hard, complete information ourselves. But we will be sharing and offering more throughout the year in the weeks and months ahead.
It is all part of the relaunch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. By “relaunch” we mean a new and renewed market push of core games, regular product releases and game support, like RRT rules clarifications and elaboration, rules additions, advanced rules, demos, gaming events and promotions, adventures, PDF and physical releases, and more.
Please know that we are truly committed to making sure we complete and fulfill our Kickstarter obligations and to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ truly epic, with future expansions across all eras of Robotech®. We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.
"We expect to post more information and details in a week or two."
Good news guys! This update will have been 2 weeks since that was said, that means info will be coming!
Of course, Nicholson's version is "because you wouldn't be able to take what I have to tell you because it's so terrible".
Simbieda's version is "It's so awesome you'd blow through every pair of shorts you have ever owned because it'll give you nerdgasms that will shoot both forward and backward in time."
As of midnight the proboard and wiki will be under new administration. The wiki may take a few days to transfer as we figure out how to actually hand it over. The proboard will be transferred tonight.
The new admins of the proboard will be Talizvar and n815e.
Thank you to everyone who supported the two sites while I ran them
megatrons2nd wrote: Sadly, I used the sale of an ancient* collection of Star Wars action figures to pay my way into this Kickstarter. Granted the stuff was just taking up space, and all, but I'd rather have that back than this mess we currently have.
*My collection started when my dad brought some figures back from ToyFair in the 70's. My first figures were the first out in the wild, and I had them before they were in stores.
megatrons2nd wrote: Sadly, I used the sale of an ancient* collection of Star Wars action figures to pay my way into this Kickstarter. Granted the stuff was just taking up space, and all, but I'd rather have that back than this mess we currently have.
*My collection started when my dad brought some figures back from ToyFair in the 70's. My first figures were the first out in the wild, and I had them before they were in stores.
That sucks dude.
Shall we share our stories then? I invested in RRT because my kid was just getting into an age where tactical gaming was in his ability. My boy has moved up 3 grades since this project started and we have yet to play one game because the pieces he wanted to use aren't even made yet. He's also lost interest in the game as a whole,and doesn't watch the show any longer. I also blew through 6 months of our gaming budget just to pick up RRT. I regret it fully.
Although I only 'invested' the money I could afford at the time for some models I used to love, and am not currently sweating on that money, I didn't sell anything to be able to buy into the campaign, I didn't commit months worth of model budget to get this............
I am still mightily annoyed that my money, amongst all those that have backed, has allowed PB to continue being the faildogs that they are, which has probably allowed them to catch more unsuspecting 'customers' and take their money for sub-standard merchandise and a flood of weak excuses and "We're totally working on it, dude! [giggle]" non-updates.
I am sorely tempted to back their next campaign for as much as I can ................... Just so I can cancel it in the last week of the campaign and give them a weak excuse as to why I did it.
So in other words "I was working really, really hard on that pledge, but due to strategic reasons I was unable to complete the pledge in my originally forecasted time. It's really because I care about you guys just, so much. You deserve the best pledge possible so I'll revisit in a few month's time and let you know how much progress I'm making towards that. It will simply be the best pledge ever, even if it takes years to finally deliver."?
It is rather saddening to hear of the people who gave up much better things to back this project, and Conrad's point about the bigger issue being that they can continue to take money for not delivering is certainly one that should be taken to heart. Bad things will only continue happening as a result until someone is made to account for them. Defiance serves as a good example in this regard as how many people were burned before that wreck collapsed on itself? It did finally collapse right? Thought I remembered seeing that they were officially bankrupt somewhere...
jaymz wrote: Howdy
As of midnight the proboard and wiki will be under new administration. The wiki may take a few days to transfer as we figure out how to actually hand it over. The proboard will be transferred tonight.
The new admins of the proboard will be Talizvar and n815e.
Thank you to everyone who supported the two sites while I ran them
I would echo n815e and say thanks for the hard work.
The proboard will be interesting.
I will see what we can do to get things going there.
I dunno, it may distract me from dakka a bit.
Just to add there is a link to the proboards on the main FB page. It came about as a way to hold conversations and keep them there where FB quickly buries things. Boards are much better for remembering and having older conversations that people may want to reference down the road.
I would like to see more traffic on the boards. I visit them at least once a day to check out what others have been posting. When wave one shipped out there was a good amount of traffic.
I realize that people have given up, moved on, are holding off or whatever. But if you are doing things with the models or the game, it would be nice to see you there.
I post there whenever I do something RRT related.
I volunteered to become an admin because I still have interest in this project and I didn't want to see the boards go away or get handed to a PB stooge.
Between PB's own forums, here, the KS comments, and a few other places the topic comes up now and then, I generally never saw enough need to post on those as well.
Oh, also the now defunct boards that died an ignoble death ages ago.
So I won't be bringing my particular brand of ... "humour" (and abyssal negativity) along, but I sincerely hope they thrive and provide a place for people to talk about the game with likeminded folks.
I dropped about 3 months worth of gaming budget into my portion of the Robotech split, because I was hoping to get a set of hard plastic minis in consistent scale. I'm pretty mad at Kevin for completely mismanaging this thing. Fething gakbag.
n815e wrote: I would like to see more traffic on the boards. I visit them at least once a day to check out what others have been posting. When wave one shipped out there was a good amount of traffic.
I realize that people have given up, moved on, are holding off or whatever. But if you are doing things with the models or the game, it would be nice to see you there.
I post there whenever I do something RRT related.
I volunteered to become an admin because I still have interest in this project and I didn't want to see the boards go away or get handed to a PB stooge.
I just posted a set of Gnerl force cards on there. I'm still working on getting a set of organized play rules finished, but work has kept me extremely busy..that in my down time...I don't even want to look or sit at a computer...
n815e wrote: I would like to see more traffic on the boards. I visit them at least once a day to check out what others have been posting. When wave one shipped out there was a good amount of traffic.
I realize that people have given up, moved on, are holding off or whatever. But if you are doing things with the models or the game, it would be nice to see you there.
I post there whenever I do something RRT related.
I volunteered to become an admin because I still have interest in this project and I didn't want to see the boards go away or get handed to a PB stooge.
I just posted a set of Gnerl force cards on there. I'm still working on getting a set of organized play rules finished, but work has kept me extremely busy..that in my down time...I don't even want to look or sit at a computer...
My intent was to get Destroids, for use in Battletech. I got them.
Everything else, is pretty much icing. MAC IIs are the big ticket item, but the rest I'm ok to wait a bit. PB still have to deliver, that's a given.
Yes, I did drop a bit of the budget into it, but at that point I was over-saturated in other systems, so diverting a bit from other places wasn't too bad.
Well, I'm working on Nodal Wars: Skirmish for 12-24 units/side, Nodal Wars: Tactics for larger scale games, and have Battletech, CAV, and RRT minis to spare.
If you have all of them that means PB has them...so why aren't they releasing them to the public? Why sit on them when releasing them can ease the heat they are getting from the backers? Idiots. My support card differs from theirs in the fact that my support card can be added to a Elite Core or Regult Force card. I figured they could be added to a unit of Battle Pods as close air support.
megatrons2nd wrote: Sadly, I used the sale of an ancient* collection of Star Wars action figures to pay my way into this Kickstarter. Granted the stuff was just taking up space, and all, but I'd rather have that back than this mess we currently have.
*My collection started when my dad brought some figures back from ToyFair in the 70's. My first figures were the first out in the wild, and I had them before they were in stores.
That sucks dude.
Shall we share our stories then? I invested in RRT because my kid was just getting into an age where tactical gaming was in his ability. My boy has moved up 3 grades since this project started and we have yet to play one game because the pieces he wanted to use aren't even made yet. He's also lost interest in the game as a whole,and doesn't watch the show any longer. I also blew through 6 months of our gaming budget just to pick up RRT. I regret it fully.
He might be a candidate for Starwars Imperial Assault if he likes Starwars.
The Universe begins a few hundred years from now as we are expanding. Humans start a Civil War with the Border Worlds. A mining ship catches snatches of a battle between some unknowns and we are drawn into battle.
After that war, which Humanity came close to losing someone developed Node Gates. They allow ships to move into other planes. So Humans now become pirates and start stealing resources, technology and more from other universes.
So you can crossover using any 6mm or close to it minis that you have at home.
Hope that helps.
Automatically Appended Next Post: We also later develop Deployment Gates based on the same tech. You can deploy forces through them. Ideal for raiding.
A few times Earth exploratory fleets get stomped. One was when we sent a ship into a plane where we came upon some massive green ships and Ostrich like mecha.
Cypher-xv wrote: Mike1975 you need to stop doing Wayne's job. Your making him look like he's getting nothing done for rrt.
Agreed. For them not to have Wave 2 cards in PDF form on DrivethruRPG.com is shameful. To do my version of the Gnerl cards it only took me an evening..and that's mainly because I had to scan a different zentraedi card for each type..then replace the contents of that card with the gnerl stats with content aware and clone tools. If I had the templates that PB have, I could have done it in a matter of minutes. This type of work, if you have the templates already...doesn't take long at all. There is NO excuse why they can't have these ready other than laziness. Otherwise, I call them either stupid, or liars.
Why don't they just post them then? WTF? If the work is done. Release it! I know many people that would like to have the official cards because they are scratch building Lancers, Gnerls, etc. and would like play these units with official cards. Idiots. Uploading something to the web takes very little time. This could have been done months ago. OR should have been done immediately when they were completed.
I know that they have. I just don't get why PB would sit on the completed cards when they could have saved themselves the headache and just put them all up on DrivethruRPG.com. Doing that gives people the chance to try out those units...even if they have to proxy or scratch build them, etc. while they wait for Wave 2. Personally, I'm having a blast with the female power armor and even though the new blast rules nerfed them slightly, they still are one of the most powerful units in the game. If PB was smart, they'd package the metal convention exclusive versions into a box set and release it. They are losing money by doing nothing with them. The people that bought them at the conventions already have them...they aren't buying anymore. They aren't really exclusive anymore...so they should just release them. Then when the plastics are ready...re-release the box set of them in plastic. GW did this with some of their models...and I don't see why PB couldn't do it with FPA. Meh.
Cypher-xv wrote: Mike1975 you need to stop doing Wayne's job. Your making him look like he's getting nothing done for rrt.
Agreed. For them not to have Wave 2 cards in PDF form on DrivethruRPG.com is shameful. To do my version of the Gnerl cards it only took me an evening..and that's mainly because I had to scan a different zentraedi card for each type..then replace the contents of that card with the gnerl stats with content aware and clone tools. If I had the templates that PB have, I could have done it in a matter of minutes. This type of work, if you have the templates already...doesn't take long at all. There is NO excuse why they can't have these ready other than laziness. Otherwise, I call them either stupid, or liars.
Heh. That was a long running point I had back on the Kickstarter comments in response to people defending PB. Ignorant, inept, or deceitful. Pick one. Never considered lazy. But with the current state of things with regards the Wave 2 cards/standees, I have to concede it's a possibility.
And your point regarding timeframe is perfectly valid. When you look at the raw numbers, you lose sight of the enormity of the reality. It's been the better part of 48 weeks since the last significant update. It's been almost 30 weeks since the "full breakdown" thing. Plug in any number of hours that you would consider the minimum for PB staff to be "constantly working on the project", per week, and look at the aggregate time, and it's astounding they've got nothing to show. Some of this stuff is long term. But the cards, like you said, is a couple days work at MOST. Likely much less. And possibly, already done. But they're sitting on it for *reasons*.
But I guess they know what they're doing. I guess they figure they're at bottom, so why dribble it out? Keep everything until you can knock it out of the park. After all, they've got the relaunch coming "soon". I think they're banking on most people forgiving them once everything lands. Either that, or they're keeping it in reserve until forced to show movement to stave off legal challenges. "See, FTC? We just released the cardboard standees! We're showing progress!".
CaptKaruthors wrote: Why don't they just post them then? WTF? If the work is done. Release it! I know many people that would like to have the official cards because they are scratch building Lancers, Gnerls, etc. and would like play these units with official cards. Idiots. Uploading something to the web takes very little time. This could have been done months ago. OR should have been done immediately when they were completed.
Because then you use those, and go buy an alternative for the non-existent models.
Then Kevin doesn't get the money.
So, really, to do so would be to steal from Kevin.
Because then you use those, and go buy an alternative for the non-existent models.
Then Kevin doesn't get the money.
So, really, to do so would be to steal from Kevin.
That's nonsense. He already has the money. He should release them to the backers at the very least...then put them up on DrivethruRPG.com for a small fee to the public. Now he gets some money from the people that didn't back the Kickstarter...and gets to claim forward progress. That's win-win for PB. Doing nothing gains nothing..and people will make their own anyways. Net gain for PB? Nothing. If they are completed...they should release them. Period.
CaptKaruthors wrote: I know that they have. I just don't get why PB would sit on the completed cards when they could have saved themselves the headache and just put them all up on DrivethruRPG.com.
I suppose they thought it was better to gather all the smaller projects that folks were doing free for them, waste an entire year doing almost nothing publicly, and then release something cummulatively bigger to add to their own likely meagre efforts for the relaunch of the game they don't deserve.
Because then you use those, and go buy an alternative for the non-existent models.
Then Kevin doesn't get the money.
So, really, to do so would be to steal from Kevin.
That's nonsense. He already has the money. He should release them to the backers at the very least...then put them up on DrivethruRPG.com for a small fee to the public. Now he gets some money from the people that didn't back the Kickstarter...and gets to claim forward progress. That's win-win for PB. Doing nothing gains nothing..and people will make their own anyways. Net gain for PB? Nothing. If they are completed...they should release them. Period.
Well sure. You've already paid for the miniatures. Guess what? Means you don't count.
OTHER people, who haven't paid for the miniatures. Are they going to not use an alternative for the weeks days months year multiple years they had access to cards but no game pieces? Of course not. And if those people find alternatives, they might not go ahead and spend money on Mouthwatering Palladium Books Miniatures(tm) when they've already got something.
), and they're going to get a truckload of product out this year (because again, famous for doing so. 
).
