I think the closest we're going to see of a domestically produced project for a miniatures game of a large scale would be GameZone's HeroQuest, domestically produced resin.
Domestically as in Spain? And it's not really a traditional resin, I have about a hundred of their new figures, it's more akin to Trollforge's spun-cast plastic.
Well, 864 boxes are shown in the picture. That's with no assumption that there are pallets behind the three on the right beside the center one partially in view. Going by the number of backer per pledge level, it seems like PB will be shipping 6500+ copies of the core box. If there are only three containers, they have to include more than 864 each. The picture says that's most of the core boxes in Container 1 ... which makes me think there must be at least two other pallets of 144 each not visible behind the visible pallets.
I think the closest we're going to see of a domestically produced project for a miniatures game of a large scale would be GameZone's HeroQuest, domestically produced resin.
Domestically as in Spain? And it's not really a traditional resin, I have about a hundred of their new figures, it's more akin to Trollforge's spun-cast plastic.
Domestically as in "same country as the company", I think (although in my case it would be domestically as in Spain ), although probably "same general continent" could be argued to be domestically for most practical purposes.
There's also everything Prodos is doing, the Wolsung minis...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: Well, 864 boxes are shown in the picture. That's with no assumption that there are pallets behind the three on the right beside the center one partially in view. Going by the number of backer per pledge level, it seems like PB will be shipping 6500+ copies of the core box. If there are only three containers, they have to include more than 864 each. The picture says that's most of the core boxes in Container 1 ... which makes me think there must be at least two other pallets of 144 each not visible behind the visible pallets.
Hm. Makes me think how they supposed that selling several hundred of those at Gen Con wasn't going to impact when the pledgers received theirs.
Well....this is good news. Now maybe some really dissatisfied backers will put up their core boxes for really cheap, then I might buy in. The models, as seen, have potential to look nice with a decent amount of work and care (even with the stupid amounts of parts). The game has potential (still not happy with LOS, but at least an official FAQ with what has been agreed on here would work). I shall continue to watch as things unfold.
I'm guessing that whole fan friend and Ninja Division flying over a couple of folks to help ship is not happening. It is the middle of the week so at best the fan friends will help on saturday only and ND is at PAX this week and John is going to China next week according to the update. Just as predicted by everyone but Palladium, it'll likely be just their normal crew shipping out orders.
If anyone here gets a shipping notification, let us know. I suspect that since most folks posting here have much bigger orders than me (both for the base pledge and add ons) that it may not be too likely to get a post soon.
Anyone located in the US have a Battle Cry or Showdown they would want to part with? I ended up with a Battle Cry but now have a few friends who didn't get to back at the time but are looking to go in together. Although I believe one of them is more interested in the models to use for Battletech than Robotech.
Manchu wrote: Is it based on how much you ordered or what your backer number is?
Both. It seems that they're doing the simplest orders first but they extract the info from the backerkit files based on backer number. My guess is they're doing simple orders first and then within those going by order of backer number. For the less popular smaller orders under the "sweet spot" of battlecry/blitzkrieg, it likely won't make much of a difference.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On an unrelated note, here is an interview with the wallet stolen down under the weather not his usual self guy mentioned in the gencon update.
Apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks! As an employee of palladium, he's actually giving people the choice of whether he'll be nice or an ass. Previously, if you didn't express a choice in the secret vote, they just counted it as the latter! Mystery solved!
Oh meant to tell you guys, PB did email me back in a very timely manner concerning the BattleFoam bag. They told me I could preorder it for 120 USD + S&H but they could not tell me when it would be available to ship. So I declined.
Manchu wrote: Oh meant to tell you guys, PB did email me back in a very timely manner concerning the BattleFoam bag. They told me I could preorder it for 120 USD + S&H but they could not tell me when it would be available to ship. So I declined.
$120 is still reasonable in my opinion. I photos from the updates showed it looks like a rebadged custom foam PACK 432. which is selling for $125 but you get custom Robotech Foams, and given the size of the Robotech models I think the cuttings can fit a wide varity of models from different games. A custom PACK432 costs $175.
The extra in shipping hurts but if your address is in the US I don't think it will cost too much.
I've got a PACK 720 from Battleform so I know the bag will be made to a high standard, the only downside for me was shipping 1 bag to Canada costs like $50US if I don't get caught by customs. I've mentioned it before in this thread but the bag is my most anticipated purchase, good quality bag with cheap price ($100 vs $120) and free shipping.
120 USD seems reasonable to me. I would have preordered it if they could give me a shipping date. I was happy that they were honest about not being able to give me a shipping date.
I have a Battlefoam bag already and I think it is very good quality.
Manchu wrote: Again, the All Quiet on the Martian Front miniatures are plastic and are manufactured in the US.
Do you have any links to the decision behind this? I took a look at their KS home page and couldn't find anything. Thanks.
EDIT: Not finding much about USA vs. China injection molding, other than warnings of hidden costs of overseas manufacturing (which backers are well aware of!). One company mentioned that labor is cheaper in China, so projects which also include pre-assembling and painting would be cheaper in China than the USA. But many miniature games do not require either and are still made in China. One plastic injection company has both USA and Chinese facilities, and another is a USA company that owns its Chinese plants. All Quiet has resin and metal as well as plastic, which is, afaik, not common among miniature games with plastic injection molding.
I thought that the stuff was coming in to palladium from multiple sources and they would have to do the packaging? If that's correct basically we are just seeing shrink wrapped palettes full of empty boxes that still need to be packed with the contents.
Do we have any shots of the piles of boxes that contain the other contents like sprues and books?
There should be palettes worth of these as well... and we have a picture of one box?
It's also worth noting that it say box #655 (or 635?) of 5,834 and that there's 3 sets per box, which going by the packaging is roughly 17,502 base sets coming in.
Edit: looking at the picture some more it may be possible that it says 9 sets per box. Which may be more accurate based on the size of the box vs the size of the base set boxes. If it's actually 9 sets per box, that's 52,506 base sets, woah.
Manchu wrote: Again, the All Quiet on the Martian Front miniatures are plastic and are manufactured in the US.
Do you have any links to the decision behind this? I took a look at their KS home page and couldn't find anything. Thanks.
EDIT: Not finding much about USA vs. China injection molding, other than warnings of hidden costs of overseas manufacturing (which backers are well aware of!). One company mentioned that labor is cheaper in China, so projects which also include pre-assembling and painting would be cheaper in China than the USA. But many miniature games do not require either and are still made in China. One plastic injection company has both USA and Chinese facilities, and another is a USA company that owns its Chinese plants. All Quiet has resin and metal as well as plastic, which is, afaik, not common among miniature games with plastic injection molding.
The other disadvantage of using a (new) US company (or any new company) is that they are not experience in what matters to war gamers, so you end up having to do loads more supervision etc
look at the goblins mantic produced when they first tried to move away from Renendra, the ended up with pretty horrible results,
Even WGF in china which is capable of producing some stunning stuff (Dreamforged and Kingdom Death as well as some of their own stuff) took a several years of making kits to get that good, and the plastic engineers still need supervising or they put sprue gates in places that a wargamer would not want them just because it's most efficient (like coming off a face)
ced1106 wrote: EDIT: Not finding much about USA vs. China injection molding, other than warnings of hidden costs of overseas manufacturing (which backers are well aware of!). One company mentioned that labor is cheaper in China, so projects which also include pre-assembling and painting would be cheaper in China than the USA. But many miniature games do not require either and are still made in China. One plastic injection company has both USA and Chinese facilities, and another is a USA company that owns its Chinese plants. All Quiet has resin and metal as well as plastic, which is, afaik, not common among miniature games with plastic injection molding.
I'm not an experiment on this but in my experience most believe the costs are cheaper because of labor. That lends to some of it, it isn't the full truth. One of the reasons costs is cheaper is because overseas has newer, better equipment vs the US which tends to buy 2nd hand equipment or a different type of industrial grade. The equipment is a lot less expensive there. Labor factors a lot into it but the equipment that they are used gives them multiple plastic options, sizes and options that the US doesn't typically have. There is nothing stopping US from purchasing the same Chinese equipment but then you have language barrier, warranty, repair and operation which tend to fall short in the umbrella that you would normally get with other equipment. For a consumer items it is less than a risk but for a business that makes money on it, unless they have a means to bridge those gaps, will bank on better quality equipment (in terms of support, warranty, language). Not only are we talking a cheaper labor, cheaper equipment, cheaper manufacturing methods because their equipment is newer but also cheaper plastic options because of it.
There are downfalls for that unfortunately. There isn't exactly a website or directory, unless you already have buyers or contractors there who know all the factories, the ins and outs. For example in Japan there are a lot of small family run manufacturing companies that have very unique skillsets. They have a few trade secrets that stay within the business but again are plague by there isn't a directory on this. Danny Choo, creator of the Mirai Smart Doll, is on an international board trying to correct that. Companies fall and become new companies under a different name, it seems, almost yearly. A company that you had a bad experience with can rebuild itself, infrastructure pretty quickly and unless you've been there seems like a new company. There are also the holidays, that is where most delays happen. For example Chinese New Years, you might as well count no work being done mid January/February as Chinese New Years can fall between January 21 to February 20 and it ends up being a long celebration. Depending on the region, there are a lot of holidays with most not being on a calendar anywhere. Unless you have an agent working for you, actually employed by you there vs a contractor then you may not find out about half the holidays. So days you expect work being done aren't being done. There are other issues but most tend to get outweighed by the amount a business can save in manufacturing. It really comes down to the quantity and time. Small runs tend to be cheaper overseas because they don't have large minimum numbers to make the runs more profitable, where in the US we X time + Y labor which translates in needing at least Z work to be profitable.
Don't be too fooled by companies and websites that say the exist both in USA and China. They tend to have a US sales office or representation which can help with customs. However almost all of them send their manufacturing to China. You would hope that means you get better representation because you have a US office to deal with but that also isn't always the case.
Manchu wrote: Again, the All Quiet on the Martian Front miniatures are plastic and are manufactured in the US.
Do you have any links to the decision behind this? I took a look at their KS home page and couldn't find anything. Thanks.
EDIT: Not finding much about USA vs. China injection molding, other than warnings of hidden costs of overseas manufacturing (which backers are well aware of!). One company mentioned that labor is cheaper in China, so projects which also include pre-assembling and painting would be cheaper in China than the USA. But many miniature games do not require either and are still made in China. One plastic injection company has both USA and Chinese facilities, and another is a USA company that owns its Chinese plants. All Quiet has resin and metal as well as plastic, which is, afaik, not common among miniature games with plastic injection molding.
Manchu wrote: Again, the All Quiet on the Martian Front miniatures are plastic and are manufactured in the US.
Do you have any links to the decision behind this? I took a look at their KS home page and couldn't find anything. Thanks./
Here's CEO Ernie's take:
Yes they are done in the US. In fact, now that we have these, I can tell everyone of something I am very proud of. All Quiet on the Martian Front, except for the bases (from Renedra) , the dice, and the bonus tape measure for the Kickstarter has ALL been Made in America.
Some said it couldn't be done but we did it.
That was a goal form the beginning but not an easy one to attain. I know for a fact that All Quiet has extended jobs for several folks.
Even with domestic manufacture, the plastic molding still delayed the initial wave by 5 months and Ernie had to switch companies mid-stream because the initial one wasn't getting it done. It can be done in the US, but from an efficiency standpoint it didn't seem to make any positive impact in the KS, at least for the initial process.
If you want "Made in USA" for personal reasons, that's your choice, but I wouldn't equate this to a business reason, other than attracting business from backers who share your view (not a bad idea) and willingness to take a loss (which many KS, anyway). That is, if you're using it as a "This project did it, why can't this other one do it" argument, I'd need a business reason for the decision. Itar's Workshop, makers of cast dungeon tiles, set his international shipping at $20, which was an obvious loss *because he wanted to*. Myth also had low international shipping of $13, as did Reaper's first Bones. But I don't think that because these projects chose to set low international shipping costs, that other projects should as well.
Now, with that being said, I found a business reason for a US company to manufacture domestically.
Ross Currie
US manufacturing has come down a lot in price over the last few years. I would say it depends on your product. For something like board/card games, there are specialty game makers in China that can crank them out quickly, that have great reviews from other KS creators, etc.
For me, Squishy Forts is pretty bulky (60cmx60cmx50cm for my small set), so a single unit of mine is about the same volume has like 50+ game boxes. Hence transport from China->US is expensive and wasteful ("muda", plus the lead times for me are insane.
I've just found a new US manufacturer in the last couple weeks who has experience producing similar products, and can do everything from design->build->store->ship, so there's a lot of cost savings just by having a single company handle all that
August 25 at 7:12pm · Edited · Like · 1
I've found articles about the current movement of manufacturing back to the US, but not *which* areas of manufacturing, so if anyone has found links, please post. The closest I've found is:"And unlike the low-end goods with thin profit margins produced in China and other developing nations (toys, shoes, consumer electronics, etc.), the expensive and complicated goods many American factories now produce -- medical equipment, computer chips, commercial and military jets and oil and gas equipment, to name a few -- require specialized skills." from http://www.ibtimes.com/analysis-renaissance-us-manufacturing-real-maybe-not-what-you-think-1552997
Also, "domestic drilling" (ahem) has been partially responsible for bringing back manufacturing to the US: "The boom in natural gas production in the U.S., largely driven by fracking and other new drilling techniques, has led to a 25% decrease in gas prices in the U.S., contrasted with a 138% increase in China, Boston Consulting found." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-returning-jobs-20140513-story.html#page=1
After hearing people complain about the lack of detail on the plastic models, I was wondering if anyone knows how the metal Max model compares in quality? In fact, what are the differences between the Max model and the standard VFs, other than the pose (if anyone has been able to see them both up close)? Just wondering if it's worth the high cost of buying one off ebay (I'm only interested in putting together and painting some VF-1s, not interested in the game or the rest of the models).
Interesting... I didn't notice that. I'll have to take a closer look. I didn't really examine him too closely due to the goofy pose and focused more on the miriya minis. The resins have a fair amount of flash on the larger pieces and my metal ones had a pitted surface but I don't think either were the fault of 3d printing.
I am pretty sure those are also relics from the 3d printing process.
It is really weird stuff though. This is the first time I have ever seen it on a miniature. I'm actually not sure what to do about it. I could sand it down, but man that is going to take forever.
Yeah, I can see it. If you want a quality paint job the prepwork is pretty intense on that fig. And the resin they used is more brittle than what I am used to.
Huh, that's very annoying. Thanks for posting the photos Swabby, they're very helpful. So has anyone been able to compare the rest of the detail with the plastic models? Right now the plastic models are looking like the way to go.
Swabby wrote: I am pretty sure those are also relics from the 3d printing process.
It is really weird stuff though. This is the first time I have ever seen it on a miniature. I'm actually not sure what to do about it. I could sand it down, but man that is going to take forever.
Yeah, those are layers of material from a 3d additive printer. It also shows they used a fairly low definition one, considering. Take a look at Paulson's prototypes to see the difference.
Jon cleans up intermediate masters, which is the right way of working. You generally can't just expect to cast straight off a print, unless it's from a very good (read frighteningly expensive) machine.
Edit; also his Zent pods were traditionally sculpted (and nicely too). Saved a lot of headaches with the curved surfaces.
winterdyne wrote: Jon cleans up intermediate masters, which is the right way of working. You generally can't just expect to cast straight off a print, unless it's from a very good (read frighteningly expensive) machine.
Edit; also his Zent pods were traditionally sculpted (and nicely too). Saved a lot of headaches with the curved surfaces.
Actually, I was thinking about the prints he did for his KS, not about his Robotech prototypes.
The current style of prints I'm using for Mecha Front typically don't require clean up, they are usually able to be molded immediately without further work. They tend to run about $300ish compared to the $50-$100 for the objet/shapeways style print that the Robotech models have been printed in. IMO it's another example of their "good enough" attitude and keeping everything as cheap as possible. (even when they don't need to cut corners) My old style prints were the same material they are using, but I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning the masters before molding.
Basic level prints are fine for checking details part thickness etc, but if you are using the prints to make promo models from or using them to help market your game you should at least take the time to clean them up.
Presentation of your product matters, it's not like with $1.4+ million they can't afford a couple hundred dollars to get decent prints for the promo masters. Even with a pittance of a budget I manage to get quality prints but the difference is that I care about how my products look and only being "meh, good enough" doesn't fly with me. I prefer for my models to look properly finished, whereas PB just wants to scrape by with the lowest minimum standard that people will tollerate.
Manchu wrote: Still strikes me as more a matter of ignorance/ineptitude rather than moral turpitude.
I'm not sure how being dumb or incompetent is any better than being morally bankrupt when the end result is still that the consumer gets a subpar product. One might argue it's even worse since they keep repeating their mistakes all the time
There's also the fact that they declared from the start that they'd be minimizing/avoiding 'newbie' mistakes through working with experienced modelers in Ninja Division.
Even if that relationship has soured, there are untold hundreds and thousands of individuals and companies they could bring onboard to help. Even if they're feeling flat out burned by the whole situation with ND, that doesn't mean they can just wing it on a project of this scope, and one in which they've admitted minimal experience or expertise.
They also had a lot of big talk about the quality of their product, and raked in a ton of money while doing so. "Eh, good enough" isn't something I want to hear or see the results of after giving them a sizable chunk of cash. The talked a good talk, the onus is on them to act in a professional manner, which includes consulting experts.
Forar wrote: There's also the fact that they declared from the start that they'd be minimizing/avoiding 'newbie' mistakes through working with experienced modelers in Ninja Division.
Even if that relationship has soured, there are untold hundreds and thousands of individuals and companies they could bring onboard to help. Even if they're feeling flat out burned by the whole situation with ND, that doesn't mean they can just wing it on a project of this scope, and one in which they've admitted minimal experience or expertise.
They also had a lot of big talk about the quality of their product, and raked in a ton of money while doing so. "Eh, good enough" isn't something I want to hear or see the results of after giving them a sizable chunk of cash. The talked a good talk, the onus is on them to act in a professional manner, which includes consulting experts.
I'm not going to bother rewatching the video, but did you notice that the original pitch page doesn't mention Harmony Gold as a bunch of nitpicking fascists that are such a source of problems (50% or so, with ND being the other 50%).
And Forar, keep in mind that ND talked a good talk. Not PB. The moment the project fell to PB's control was when everything started to flounder.
Manchu wrote: Still strikes me as more a matter of ignorance/ineptitude rather than moral turpitude.
Problem, I think, is that you can only justify that so many times. They should have wised up by now.
We're looking at an issue from the past.
Sining wrote: I'm not sure how being dumb or incompetent is any better than being morally bankrupt when the end result is still that the consumer gets a subpar product.
You really don't understand the difference?
Forar wrote: "Eh, good enough" isn't something I want to hear or see the results of after giving them a sizable chunk of cash.
"Good enough" is not something PB said; that is Jon Paulson criticizing PB. Keep a hold on reality, Forar.
Merijeek wrote: And Forar, keep in mind that ND talked a good talk. Not PB. The moment the project fell to PB's control was when everything started to flounder.
I'm not sure about the flounder part but I think you make a good point about ND. Unlike anyone at PB, Cadice is pretty good at PR (I remember him doing damage control around Tentacle Bento, for example) and I doubt there would be quite as much despondence if he was still managing communication with backers.
Sining wrote: I'm not sure how being dumb or incompetent is any better than being morally bankrupt when the end result is still that the consumer gets a subpar product.
You really don't understand the difference?
The difference is that the former can (and should be) learned from, the latter is unlikely to change. The former they should've learned from by now (IMO).
To be bluntly honest, there are no mistakes that PB have made that couldn't have been avoided easily with a few hours' research and proper thought. I have bugbears with poor project management (specifically in planning phases), stemming from my past in software development.
also, it depends on your definition of "Good Enough".
Paulson's definition equates in my mind to "Holy Cow, that's good!"
PB's definition equates to "Holy Cow-Pat, I did better than that on my first attempt at casting resin!"
PB have continually talked up their product whilst talking down anyone who has a valid criticism, or that they can blame for any failure - concerned backers get ignored or banned, "Customs only stop 15% of containers, so ours won't be stopped - hell, customs have done the dirty on us by wanting to inspect our container, so we won't be able to break our promise to the backers and sell before sending to them!"
Paulson does not need to talk up his product, it speaks for itself!
So I'm sorry if the possibility that PB are just dumb jerks that don't know the value of a dollar, and keep dropping the masters on the floor, and can't get a grown-up to assemble and paint a few models for them to use as demo-fodder or take some pictures of the professionally made and painted ones they have for publicity, does not excite me more than the fact that they may be money-grabbing donkey-caves that are doing the minimum they can to allow them to take the rest of the money and run.
From a start of over hyped quality, and almost immediate transfer to manufacturing, they could almost be guilty of offences under trades descriptions legislation. Not that anyone believed their promise of early delivery at the end of the campaign - unless you believed they meant early 2015.
All their efforts seem to have been on core boxes of IP base units, rules, etc. Why have they done nothing at all on the resin stuff that was promised? Things like the SDF-1 model, and the SDF-1 game tiles, which were stated to be resin products are not going to be worked on by the same people. They could have been worked on at the same time, but we have had no news at all on any of them. Wave 1 could easily have been "Core boxes, units that are also in the core boxes, and the first set of resin stuff." Knowing my luck, the SDF-1 would have been a wave 2 item anyway, but at least some people could have had more. In fact, if they'd had people working on the resin stuff, I bet we could have had wave 1 and wave 2 of the resin already given the limited number going out and the time frame involved.
I'm not trying to get into an "I can do better argument", I was pointing out that for a very minimal investment they could have gotten a much better quality of print to use as their masters. The 3d modeling on them is fine but it's knocked back in quality due to the printing quality. A few hours with sand paper or an extra $500 investment would have meant the promos would have been far superior model and created more buzz. It's not like they would be hurting their budget and with promo sales at Gen Con they'd make their money back on that immediately.
I look at the stuff which Ninja Division produces on their own and their sculpts are a quality product, so it's not their norm to take a step down in quality for promo and display pieces. That largely seems to be calls made from their partners PB/HG.
The "good enough" phrase is something people have been expressing on facebook and KS as a lot of people are less then impressed. (Not just my opinion alone) It may not be the worst thing ever, IMO it's "ok" as far as gaming stuff goes but its certainly nothing to shout about from the mountain tops.
Indeed. I reckon with a skilled modeller doing the assembly and painting a much better reception would have been had. As is they cut corners where it mattered more than they should have.
Manchu wrote: ["Good enough" is not something PB said; that is Jon Paulson criticizing PB. Keep a hold on reality, Forar.
I am perfectly aware that they haven't said it. I'm basing that on the results of what we're seeing in updates, from Gencon, from the unboxing videos, from BS beginning to build his figures, and more. They aren't saying it, but they sure seem to be showing it.
The general consensus has been 'the Zentraedi forces look pretty good, the RDF could use another revision or five" for half a year now, and time has not sweetened it.
Look at that Guardian and tell me somebody walked away knowing they'd done 'mouth watering' work. For all the talk of 'omg we don't want to compromise quality, it'll be done when it's done', it sure looks like some of those uncut corners have trim marks on them in the rush to make Gencon (so close guys, so close...).
Edit: and in working with a friend who has gone into business for herself, some of those choices remain absolutely baffling. My friend pays professional photographers to take quality shots of her products (Pertinent: my signature), for them it's "we got Wayne to grab a camera and snap some blurry pics and then the battery died oh well enjoy!" They continue to stumble at marketing their works, despite having been in business longer than my friend has been alive.
Delay of 8 months- good enough
Miniatures with 20 parts or more - good enough
Miniatures with seams - good enough
Miniatures with lines/ridges - good enough
Oh joy, I can't wait for what else is good enough -_- I hope my mouth has enough water
Not to throw conspiracy theories, but despite saying that shipping began nearly a week ago, I've yet to see anyone say they've actually gotten tracking information on a box yet.
Which is to say that we only have their word on it that things are shipping.
Until tracking info goes out, and/or people start chiming in to say they've received boxes, I remain skeptical.
Note: due to being at Fan Expo for most of the past week, my online presence has been pretty minimal. If anyone HAS posted such information, I'd be glad to hear it.
Sining wrote: Delay of 8 months- good enough
Miniatures with 20 parts or more - good enough
Miniatures with seams - good enough
Miniatures with lines/ridges - good enough
Oh joy, I can't wait for what else is good enough -_- I hope my mouth has enough water
paulson games wrote: I'm not trying to get into an "I can do better argument", I was pointing out that for a very minimal investment they could have gotten a much better quality of print to use as their masters. The 3d modeling on them is fine but it's knocked back in quality due to the printing quality. A few hours with sand paper or an extra $500 investment would have meant the promos would have been far superior model and created more buzz. It's not like they would be hurting their budget and with promo sales at Gen Con they'd make their money back on that immediately.
I look at the stuff which Ninja Division produces on their own and their sculpts are a quality product, so it's not their norm to take a step down in quality for promo and display pieces. That largely seems to be calls made from their partners PB/HG.
The "good enough" phrase is something people have been expressing on facebook and KS as a lot of people are less then impressed. (Not just my opinion alone) It may not be the worst thing ever, IMO it's "ok" as far as gaming stuff goes but its certainly nothing to shout about from the mountain tops.
so far as I can see, no argument here. I could have just as easily said "Dreamforge Games". All of us on this thread, especially those that also saw your own work, know that you can do better.
Agreed, that for minimal investment, PB's product could have looked so much better at Gencon, and that is really what should be compared here. What they're putting out against the "Mouth-Watering" quality we were promised in the KS, and product that was 45 days from manufacture. And considering that PB have been 'shouting from the mountaintops' about their 'high quality', 'mouth-watering' minis, well, it's obvious now that they have been making mountains out of mole-hills!
Yes, as an experienced modeller, I can correct the vast majority of the problems with this product - not even I can be bothered to customise them so that they are the multi-pose models that we were led to expect. It seems that PB should maybe have taken a leaf out of Bandai's book. Granted that the Patlabor models they produce are 1/35 scale and therefore much bigger, but they have clear, coloured translucent, and white opaque parts on the same sprue. These days in moulding, almost anything is possible. It's all a question of cost. PB has basically been asked "How good do you want to be today?" and answered "Meh!". It seems like they are content to get something as cheap as possible made, then they believe that it will be perceived as a quality product just because they keep shouting it out that it's "Totes Amazeballs" and trying to silence anyone who has the temerity to say otherwise.
I have generally been quiet about all this because I was never into it for the game. I have no stake in whether the rules even work or not, I just want some models of things from a series I still view with rose-tinted spectacles. I am in two minds as to trying to get my money back because I still want those models, I don't have to have them in a particular time frame - which in this case is a large slice of good fortune, and I am liking the idea that PB will lose out heavily on the postage - I backed at the basic "New Dawn" level, added all the other special characters, the SDF-1, and YF-4 add-ons, and am still only paying $8 postage to the UK. Ok, I am expecting the UK government and Royal Mail to add a large slice to what I pay, but that won't stop PB from losing out on my pledge - and I don't feel like letting them off lightly. If they want to refund my money and save a bit, that's "Good Enough" too!
If I do carry on and keep it, is there anyone in the UK willing to part with just 2 VF models? I only want the two so I can paint one up "As seen" in the Anime style and one as it would be in "Real Life".
Apparently one backer has received his box, as reported on the PB forums. He didn't note what he received, where he was, or what his backer number is, but at least it seems they are, in fact, going out.
Forar wrote: Apparently one backer has received his box, as reported on the PB forums. He didn't note what he received, where he was, or what his backer number is, but at least it seems they are, in fact, going out.
I will be far more interested to know when they start showing up at distributors.
A shipment from palladium came yesterday - it was the main boxed game, no add-ons, no extras at this point. My id was in the 180 thousands, for what that's worth.
I'm just waiting on a couple more tomahawks and raiders, then I'm done. Not sure whether I'll sell it off, or keep it. Seems like a lot of assembly that I might never get to.
+++edit - I received all of my pledge level, which was just the First Contact pledge, nothing else. My mistake.++++++
Cruentus wrote: A shipment from palladium came yesterday - it was the main boxed game, no add-ons, no extras at this point. My id was in the 180 thousands, for what that's worth.
I'm just waiting on a couple more tomahawks and raiders, then I'm done. Not sure whether I'll sell it off, or keep it. Seems like a lot of assembly that I might never get to.
Thanks for the update. Any broken bits? How is the packing in the box if any? Most importantly, did you get a shipping / tracking notification first from Palladium?
Cruentus wrote: A shipment from palladium came yesterday - it was the main boxed game, no add-ons, no extras at this point. My id was in the 180 thousands, for what that's worth.
I'm just waiting on a couple more tomahawks and raiders, then I'm done. Not sure whether I'll sell it off, or keep it. Seems like a lot of assembly that I might never get to.
What pledge level were you in for and if you were Battlecry as the vast majority of backers likely were did you only get the base box or did you get the additional figures from Wave 1 that should have been included with your pledge?
Manchu wrote: Still strikes me as more a matter of ignorance/ineptitude rather than moral turpitude.
Problem, I think, is that you can only justify that so many times. They should have wised up by now.
Wised up by now and gone back in time 13 months to have a better 3D print made for a limited Gencon release, gotcha.
Or, or... you know let the people they said would be doing it, do it instead of KS taking over ever thing. Man, it is sad thinking about what the models and rules could of been.
Manchu wrote: Sounds like frustrated speculation to me.
No it is based on the fact I owned ever RPGPB has put out. But, never used their system more then once because almost any other RPG system works better. For a RPG that's all good, not when it is a table top miniature game, it is even worse when they plan tournament play.
With how much personal exposition Kevin writes into his books I actually believe it may be possible for one of those criminal psychologist types to figure that out.
Manchu wrote: Buying book after book from a system you don't like means you know for a fact Kevin pushed out Cadice/ND?
The fluff is fun. As for ND if how they are treating RTTRPG makes you think they had alot to do with the design of the game, then there really isn't anything else to say .
I believe I went in at the lowest level for the basic game, and then added on some additional riflemen and warhammers (sorry for the battletechisms ).
The box arrived unshrinkwrapped. Inside were the loose sprues as in the pic. The dice, tokens, cards, etc. are all in little (non-resealeable) baggies.
There was a receipt that had 'starter box' marked as included, but everything else was '0's'. They certainly owe me more stuff, so I'm guessing its a partial 'first wave'. I'm hoping to get deeper into the box soon. I'll post more when I do.
The id# on my receipt was in the 180k range, I have no idea what my backer number is (I've seriously only followed this from the peanut gallery). Hope this helps.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Did a quick unpacking - its the complete basic game box. No extras included. The only extra was the extra 'standing' valkyrie that was included because they were cast with 2 to a sprue (which I think they told us about before).
It strikes me as weird to send a core box but not extra wave one stuff (as he noted ordering extra warhammers/riflemen:tomahawks/defenders).
Guess that kills any hopes I had of getting the T/D's from my Daedalus Attack add on.
Obnoxious and kind of strange to hold back that stuff from someone who would otherwise be done with wave one, if I'm not mistaken. Means saving a T/D pack (or more?) now only to pay for S&H a second time sending them later. It's short sighted.
I texted Jeff at PB. Only First Contacts, the main boxes have been sent out. So if this person ordered more if he PM's or posts his Name and Invoice # and/or backer kit # he should be able to look into it in the morning. Also a phone # would be nice so that maybe they can talk with each other and straighten out any confusion that exists. This could be a mistake, a problem with Kickstarter or any number of things.
warboss wrote: Did you get a shipping tracking email from them first?
Yes I did get the shipping tracking email from them, it arrived the following week after notification.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mike1975 wrote: I texted Jeff at PB. Only First Contacts, the main boxes have been sent out. So if this person ordered more if he PM's or posts his Name and Invoice # and/or backer kit # he should be able to look into it in the morning. Also a phone # would be nice so that maybe they can talk with each other and straighten out any confusion that exists. This could be a mistake, a problem with Kickstarter or any number of things.
Oh, I will follow up with them. My post was just to say it had arrived, and what I got, it wasn't a complaint or anything. I figured it was split shipped based upon what they had received from china/packed. I wasn't worried.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In looking at the kickstarter page, I had ordered First Contact. I received everything in the pledge level indicated on the kickstarter site, I just need to double check that I got the upgraded heads and the destroid command parts. Everything else in the unlocked bonuses was included.
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT: I did only order First Contact, with no other pledges. I confused the bonus destroids with ordering more. Palladium delivered my entire pledge: base game, plus the unlocked bonuses for First Contact. Nothing else is owed. EDIT
Mike1975 wrote: I texted Jeff at PB. Only First Contacts, the main boxes have been sent out. So if this person ordered more if he PM's or posts his Name and Invoice # and/or backer kit # he should be able to look into it in the morning. Also a phone # would be nice so that maybe they can talk with each other and straighten out any confusion that exists. This could be a mistake, a problem with Kickstarter or any number of things.
They're apparently still working on the sub $80 pledge levels as a guy posted in the comments that his early bird $70 level just got shipped today.
Swabby wrote: So it looks like there may be some truth to those who put in the most are getting screwed the hardest.
While I fit squarely into the same camp (have a remaining Reckless, shipping to Australia), I do think this is the best choice. Most product to the most backers in the shortest time, will generate the most buzz. Can't fault them for that, even if that still leaves some disappointed. They don't often make good choices, so I'll give them a pass on adequate ones.
However, as Forar pointed out on the KS Forums, there's also the possibility, that because this container was "GenCon bound", it had a higher percentage of non-BattleCry components, so they're getting out the stuff they have stock on.
Someone else mentioned the possibility that they may be waiting on the "Special Edition Print", something like the resin components should have been done six months ago. Again, pure speculation, but would be the keystone cops approach by Palladium that we've come to know and loathe.
Yeah, much as I hate being one of the orders that, despite being local and a low KS/Backerkit number, might get put off by a container or three, it does make some sense.
I could see them even changing things up a little if they got 2 containers at once and decided that they needed to fire off as much as possible and skipped to the showdowns and/or reckless+ orders, but considering their technophobia, I could just as easily see them setting a shipping list in stone and only wavering from it under the most extenuating of circumstances.
That said, if they're still working on those first ~200 orders after a full week (literal or business), they really need to step up their game.
Cypher-xv wrote: Glad to hear you got everything from wave one. Have you put any together yet?
Now there is a proper gamer / hobbiest question!
I like the cut of your jib sah!
<edit>Yes, progress reports, pictures... just get cracking so we can live through you until our stuff arrives...
Eesh. Nothing like a little pressure. I didn't put anything together yet, and its likely I won't get to them anytime soon. My Sedition Wars KS still sits unassembled in my closet (and that's way fewer parts). I'm mostly worried about the small nature of the parts that then create gaps to be filled and sanded. I tend to go abit overboard on mold lines and gaps with these kinds of kits, and I'm afraid that this will push me over the edge . And I was surprised at how small the models are (destroids, valkyries) in person. Its looking rather fiddly to get those arm/leg halves together. I had seen the metal pods and other minis at Adepticon a year or so ago, and they looked sizeable (and the plastic pods are bigger). The others seem small to me, but its likely that they're "in scale" to the pods, and thus, small. It could also be me.
I'll try to see if I can get a sprue shot or something against a 28mm miniature. Or maybe I'll try to take a sprue of something into work and assemble it tomorrow and post a pic of it tomorrow evening.
Here is a sprue shot of the destroid tomahawk (warhammer) alongside some of my older battletech miniatures (can't remember the company that put these out, oh, around 30 years ago). I still have the rules and scenario sheets for them too, for battletech. Sniff.
Now, I realized that the Robotech stuff would be smaller, and I think these scale to 1/72 scale. I also have a 1/144 dougram that is about the same height at the archer and crusader.
I think I'll take this sprue in and build one of the tomahawks. There are a couple of things that strike me off the bat. One is that the arms for the tomahawk in the assembly instructions show the shoulder/gun mounts as separate. In the sprue shot, you can see the gun/arm/shoulder have been combined. Two of the arms are "pointing" and two are at a 90 degree angle. I don't necessarily want pointing, so changing that will be a job.
I'll post the model tomorrow, but it'll be rough, with no gap filling, etc. Although I'll likely scrape/file/dryfit before gluing (i.e. I'll be careful). We'll see what it looks like.
TalonZahn wrote: So we basically have the same Pledge Level as 2xShowdown = 1 Reckless. Although my total Pledge was over $1000.00 in the end.
Where are you located?
I'm about a 12 hour drive from them.
I'm also over 1,000 - I'm in Orlando, FL. Sure, it's further away, but how much does that matter for domestic shipping when you're doing this much of it?
Someone probably enrolled me in the Jelly of The Month Club.
My wife changed the delivery until 5pm, as there appears to be something more important for her to do this morning than wait by the door for what may, or may not, be my Robotech toys.
Yes, even with two models on the sprue it's a lot of parts but it's not like Palladium is unique in this regard. Below is a comparison of a fairly well-done WW2 tank's sprue. While not every part is used, casual eyeballing tells me that specifically building the Panzer IV H would be about 26 pieces involved per tank. A kit of the same tank from another manufacturer that only produces the Pz4 H (the one shown below makes three different marks) clocks in at 20 parts per tank. Part count isn't really that out of sorts from my experience. It's that when you scale up to the model count that RRT uses versus the 15mm tanks which are typically no more than 20 models for most games that it's an issue. However, model count is a function of rules and player choice, not the models themselves.
Assuming they try to reach out to as many backers as possible, I doubt the Showdowns/Recklesses/bigger orders will be going out until container 3+, with some possible variance based on just how much is being wrapped up and shipped off again to the EU for internal distribution.
Note, as much as I recognize this being a reasonable approach, especially with so many people being a bit on the cranky side these days, I'm no happier than anyone else about my crew's 8 boxes probably not going out until October or November at this rate. But I recognize that it may be the case and why. The only saving grace I/we might have is being located a mere ~250 miles from them/on North America.
Here is a side by side of the destroid defender sprue (2 models per) next to a PSC 15mm german tank sprue.
I did assemble a destroid tomahawk today, and I'll post pics later when I get them off my camera. The Tomahawk (as I assembled it) was 19 or so parts for a 6mm model.
OK, here is the photo montage I took of the tomahawk. It took me about 40 minutes to assemble this, keeping in mind its the first time assembling this model. Now, I am a scale modeler and have been assembling plastic models for a long time. That being said, it doesn't look onerous.
Couple of things:
I used testor's liquid glue with brush applicator.
I did not wash the parts prior to assembly.
I had no joy with super glue.
Pros:
Little to no mold lines
Parts match up and go together fairly well
It'll pass the "2 foot test" when painted, I'm sure
Cons:
Small model pieces
Lots of half-pieces that probably could have been single bitz (legs, shoulder racks, etc.)
Gaps, many in hard to reach places (ie in recessed areas)
Have to make sure to scrape/shave before gluing
Legs and arms have little to no customizability (ie legs only attach to feet one way)
Hip joints are going to be a weak spot
Would require a bit of work to remove/fill gaps during assembly
Cruentus wrote: OK, here is the photo montage I took of the tomahawk. It took me about 40 minutes to assemble this, keeping in mind its the first time assembling this model. Now, I am a scale modeler and have been assembling plastic models for a long time. That being said, it doesn't look onerous.
Couple of things:
I used testor's liquid glue with brush applicator.
I did not wash the parts prior to assembly.
I had no joy with super glue.
Pros:
Little to no mold lines
Parts match up and go together fairly well
It'll pass the "2 foot test" when painted, I'm sure
Cons:
Small model pieces
Lots of half-pieces that probably could have been single bitz (legs, shoulder racks, etc.)
Gaps, many in hard to reach places (ie in recessed areas)
Have to make sure to scrape/shave before gluing
Legs and arms have little to no customizability (ie legs only attach to feet one way)
Hip joints are going to be a weak spot
Would require a bit of work to remove/fill gaps during assembly
Let me know if there are any more questions.
why do you have the legs on backwards ?
Also you know this model is made of ABS plastic, which does not react well to plastic glue over time right? so being a scale modeler i'm sure you used an ABS glue right?
Also you know this model is made of ABS plastic, which does not react well to plastic glue over time right? so being a scale modeler i'm sure you used an ABS glue right?
I'll double check the legs. I don't think I had them on backward according to the build instructions. If I do, that might explain some things I"ll also blame it on trying to build it quickly over my lunch break, yeah, that's it
Nope, didn't use ABS glue. Never used ABS for any of my scale models either, and haven't noticed any problems. Hmm.
Also you know this model is made of ABS plastic, which does not react well to plastic glue over time right? so being a scale modeler i'm sure you used an ABS glue right?
I'll double check the legs. I don't think I had them on backward according to the build instructions. If I do, that might explain some things I"ll also blame it on trying to build it quickly over my lunch break, yeah, that's it
Nope, didn't use ABS glue. Never used ABS for any of my scale models either, and haven't noticed any problems. Hmm.
Well most scale models are not made of ABS, check out LEGO and plastic glue reactions to it, since LEGO is made of ABS plastic.
Cruentus wrote: Yup, the legs were backward. I switched them around, they look much better, thanks for that.
I'll have to find some ABS glue, any suggestions? I don't want to have these buggers falling apart on me.
several companies make an ABS glue for ABS models, check your local modeling or craft store Tamiya is a good brand, also a product called Plastruct (never used it before), there is also stuff called MEK but it is very strong(smell). some say Testor's can be used on ABS but I've found that not to always be true, with the model getting pitted and falling apart after time.
Also was wondering if the legs were on backwards so he could see where he was
Probably because having a 6mm scale mini comprised of 20 pieces makes it harder to keep the finished model in mind during assembly, as you're a bit busy trying to figure out things like "exactly which half of which forearm is this 2mm bit of brown plastic supposed to be, anyway?".
Just a guess.
Also: I've been making, converting, and painting minis for a long time, and I never really know exactly which glue I'm gonna use for sure until the plastic is in my hands. Hoped these would handle testors, for simplicity sake, but I'll have to try a few different things on some bits of sprue before commiting to real assembly.
Cruentus, can you post a pic of the fixed model? I don't doubt the folks who found the mistake but I'm not keen enough to see it so far and would like to avoid doing the same.
So you're not supposed to use normal styrene model glue in these now?? I was planning on using the Testors model master glue I use on all my GW kits. I've never tried gluing Lego's though with it.
It is a type of styrene (that is what the S in ABS is) and a Google search on it and plastic glue shows people recommending using "normal" plastic glue on it. That confusion is why I asked. I've never heard of the longterm pitting mentioned above and that probably worries me most.
It is a type of styrene (that is what the S in ABS is) and a Google search on it and plastic glue shows people recommending using "normal" plastic glue on it. That confusion is why I asked. I've never heard of the longterm pitting mentioned above and that probably worries me most.
The problem is many people confuse ABS with Hard Plastic (like what GW uses), they are not the same material with different properties, ABS is a very new medium when it comes to miniature and rarely ever used, hazards with using like regular testors Glue on ABS over time is parts will fall off and material will become weaker and brittle, this is because of chemicals in the glue react differently with ABS then they would with other plastics, which is why we have specific glue for ABS plastics, trust me there is a reason for them, since if not needed why make it?
as it goes for a better understanding of certain glue reaction with ABS look up gluing LEGO since LEGO is made of ABS and should give you a better understanding of what glues to use and not use.
Also model glues like Testor's are a Poly-Styrene type of glue which is bad for ABS even though ABS is a type of Styrene, it is still not the same.
heres what one person said about using glue on LEGO:
Recently had to glue a lot of LEGO together for work.
•Acetone was too time consuming and did not offer a solid bond.
•Cyanoacrylate-based hobby glues with thick viscosity seemed the most effective. The only problem was, when immersed in water the clear LEGO windows fogged up. (No solution to that so far.) Zap a Gap hobby glue offered best results.
•ABS plumbing glue worked but was difficult to apply. And if too much was applied, plastic disfigured from the inside out.
•Cheap hobby glues all failed for strength, and many disfigured the pieces and were often not thick enough to offer piece manipulation before gluing your hands to it or running down your arm.
•Hot melt glue was messy beyond all hell. But worked better than silicone for sealing roofs.
•Selley's advanced quick grip (water based) worked, was strong but failed under water. Was also far too time consuming and messy.
•Also tried Parfix contact glue. Disfigured the pieces.
•Epoxy resin in self-mixing and hand-mixing varieties offered good strength, but was too costly for the job.
That's all I have tested so far, going back to Bunnings and Auto pro.
Last one I tried was a plastic welding glue for sheet plastic and acrylics. Melted pieces from the inside out. But once set, it was indestructible.
Here are the turned about legs. This time I tried Plastruct Weldene, which is a glue for Styrene. After reading the post above, I might either pull them apart, or leave them and see what happens. The glue doesn't seem to be sticking well, which could be the aforementioned incompatibility, or that there is still release agent or whatever on the plastic, since I didn't wash them before assembly.
The hip joints are very small pegs that go into a barely recessed spot on the legs, definitely a weak spot.
I think I'm done with trying to assemble these until I can hunt down some ABS glue. The Tamiya product mentioned sounds good, now I just need to source it.
And here is the relevant part: “Add the tools of the trade - we have had questions about what was needed to assemble basic kits - the plastic is really nice and glues well with both plastic cement and super glue (I used some simple miniature glue from PP) cutters, and a blade.”
So, either he has different plastic than we're getting, or he has no idea what he's talking about.
Cruentus wrote: Here is a side by side of the destroid defender sprue (2 models per) next to a PSC 15mm german tank sprue.
I did assemble a destroid tomahawk today, and I'll post pics later when I get them off my camera. The Tomahawk (as I assembled it) was 19 or so parts for a 6mm model.
More pics this evening
Seeing as you have a sprue of what I used to state the quality I wanted to see, how would you rate the RRT sprues compared with the PSC ones, in terms of detail, sharpness and ease of assembling?
Question. Where is it stated on the Kickstart page (or elsewhere) that it is ABS plastic?
EDIT: Nevermind, found it... I am blind sometimes lol
Automatically Appended Next Post: As far as glues go. Ambroid Proweld will work with ABS plastic.
Don't use the crappy brush that comes in the lid... remove it and just use a regular brush instead. I use a size 1 Round natural fiber brush. It works well. A smaller size brush will allow you to control application a bit better. I've been using liquid plastic glues for years, so I am pretty skilled in their use. Since they melt the plastic, it can also be used as a seam/gap sealer if the gap isn't too wide. Once the glue is thoroughly dry, you can scrape/file/sand to clean the welds.
The only real downside is that these types of glues tend to evaporate really quickly, so try not to leave the lid off for to long.
Cruentus wrote: Here are the turned about legs. This time I tried Plastruct Weldene, which is a glue for Styrene. After reading the post above, I might either pull them apart, or leave them and see what happens. The glue doesn't seem to be sticking well, which could be the aforementioned incompatibility, or that there is still release agent or whatever on the plastic, since I didn't wash them before assembly.
The hip joints are very small pegs that go into a barely recessed spot on the legs, definitely a weak spot.
I think I'm done with trying to assemble these until I can hunt down some ABS glue. The Tamiya product mentioned sounds good, now I just need to source it.
And here is the relevant part: “Add the tools of the trade - we have had questions about what was needed to assemble basic kits - the plastic is really nice and glues well with both plastic cement and super glue (I used some simple miniature glue from PP) cutters, and a blade.”
So, either he has different plastic than we're getting, or he has no idea what he's talking about.
The problem is most problems with certain plastic glues on ABS occur over time, the other big problem is while PB and ND say product is made with ABS it does not mean it is made with ABS, the best bet is trial and error, grab a couple sprue skeletons and try certain glues on them and see what works.
Quick question: Under my pledge manager it shows that I pledged 180 for battlecry, but only have the battlecry option there. I know when we were able to do the survey I selected the SDF-1 Resin kit (or so I thought). Does that not show up even if I selected it, or did I forget and now I'm boned?
Korias1004 wrote: Quick question: Under my pledge manager it shows that I pledged 180 for battlecry, but only have the battlecry option there. I know when we were able to do the survey I selected the SDF-1 Resin kit (or so I thought). Does that not show up even if I selected it, or did I forget and now I'm boned?
Korias1004 wrote: Quick question: Under my pledge manager it shows that I pledged 180 for battlecry, but only have the battlecry option there. I know when we were able to do the survey I selected the SDF-1 Resin kit (or so I thought). Does that not show up even if I selected it, or did I forget and now I'm boned?
Thanks
I ordered the sdf-1 myself and it shows on my backer kit. If you were only charged $180 then it looks like the site for whatever reason didn't count your add on.
Cruentus wrote: Yup, the legs were backward. I switched them around, they look much better, thanks for that.
I'll have to find some ABS glue, any suggestions? I don't want to have these buggers falling apart on me.
several companies make an ABS glue for ABS models, check your local modeling or craft store Tamiya is a good brand, also a product called Plastruct (never used it before), there is also stuff called MEK but it is very strong(smell). some say Testor's can be used on ABS but I've found that not to always be true, with the model getting pitted and falling apart after time.
Also was wondering if the legs were on backwards so he could see where he was
Note that if the hardware store has "MEK substitute" it's ethyl acetate, not MEK. Not quite as strong.
I prefer MEK because you can buy a quart for ten bucks and have it last you the year. Note that it is a liquid, and you'll need to use a natural hair brush to apply it.
Great news, everybody! They're shipping 200 orders a day... over in the mantic KS thread. Are we up to 200 orders in two weeks yet???
Spoiler:
.Mikes. wrote: Ronnie dropped by the Containment Protocol facebook group this morning and left this message in a discussion:
hi guys we are getting through about 200 orders per day (more if they are small, less if they are big - and some a VERY big) so we still have about 6 days more of orders - about 1000 left . I also have a pile of thank you notes to sign! We are getting through them but 5000 orders is taking a while! Thanks for your patience.
If you take a work day to be ten hours, that's one order completed every 3 minutes. Even if you consider that overtime will almost certainly be included, that's impressive.
An interesting post with an inside yet outside POV on what went wrong with TSR and D&D many years ago... I suspect a few things might ring a bell here.
If you find this article useful, please share it with your friends!
In the winter of 1997, I traveled to Lake Geneva Wisconsin on a secret mission. In the late fall, rumors of TSR's impending bankruptcy had created an opportunity to made a bold gamble that the business could be saved by an infusion of capital or an acquisition with a larger partner. After a hasty series of phone calls and late night strategy sessions, I found myself standing in the snow outside of 201 Sheridan Springs Road staring at a building bearing a sign that said "TSR, Incorporated".
Inside the building, I found a dead company.
In the halls that had produced the stuff of my childhood fantasies, and had fired my imagination and become unalterably intertwined with my own sense of self, I found echoes, empty desks, and the terrible depression of lost purpose.
The life story of a tree can be read by a careful examination of its rings. The life story of a corporation can be read by a careful examination of its financial records and corporate minutes.
I was granted unprecedented access to those records. I read the TSR corporate log book from the first page penned in haste by Gary Gygax to the most recent terse minutes dictated to a lawyer with no connection to hobby gaming. I was able to trace the meteoric rise of D&D as a business, the terrible failure to control costs that eventually allowed a total outsider to take control away from the founders, the slow and steady progress to rebuild the financial solvency of the company, and the sudden and dramatic failure of that business model. I read the euphoric copyright filings for the books of my lost summers: "Player's Handbook", "Fiend Folio", "Oriental Adventures". I read the contract between Gary and TSR where Gary was severed from contact with the company he had founded and the business he had nurtured and grown. I saw the clause where Gary, forced to the wall by ruthless legal tactics was reduced to insisting to the right to use his own name in future publishing endeavors, and to take and keep control of his personal D&D characters. I read the smudged photocopies produced by the original Dragonlance Team, a group of people who believed in a new idea for gaming that told a story across many different types of products. I saw concept artwork evolve from lizard men with armor to unmistakable draconians. I read Tracy Hickman's one page synopsis of the Dragonlance Story. I held the contract between Tracy and Margaret for the publication of the three Chronicles novels. I read the contract between Ed Greenwood and TSR to buy his own personal game world and transform it into the most developed game setting in history - the most detailed and explored fantasy world ever created.
And I read the details of the Random House distribution agreement; an agreement that TSR had used to support a failing business and hide the fact that TSR was rotten at the core. I read the entangling bank agreements that divided the copyright interests of the company as security against default, and realized that the desperate arrangements made to shore up the company's poor financial picture had so contaminated those rights that it might not be possible to extract Dungeons & Dragons from the clutches of lawyers and bankers and courts for years upon end. I read the severance agreements between the company and departed executives which paid them extraordinary sums for their silence. I noted the clauses, provisions, amendments and agreements that were piling up more debt by the hour in the form of interest charges, fees and penalties. I realized that the money paid in good faith by publishers and attendees for GenCon booths and entrance fees had been squandered and that the show itself could not be funded. I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.
I met staff members who were determined to continue to work, despite the knowledge that they might not get paid, might not even be able to get in to the building each day. I saw people who were working on the same manuscripts they'd been working on six months earlier, never knowing if they'd actually be able to produce the fruits of their labor. In the eyes of those people (many of whom I have come to know as friends and co workers), I saw defeat, desperation, and the certain knowledge that somehow, in some way, they had failed. The force of the human, personal pain in that building was nearly overwhelming - on several occasions I had to retreat to a bathroom to sit and compose myself so that my own tears would not further trouble those already tortured souls.
I ran hundreds of spreadsheets, determined to figure out what had to be done to save the company. I was convinced that if I could just move enough money from column A to column B, that everything would be ok. Surely, a company with such powerful brands and such a legacy of success could not simply cease to exist due to a few errors of judgment and a poor strategic plan?
I made several trips to TSR during the frenzied days of negotiation that resulted in the acquisition of the company by Wizards of the Coast. When I returned home from my first trip, I retreated to my home office; a place filled with bookshelves stacked with Dungeons & Dragons products. From the earliest games to the most recent campaign setting supplements - I owned, had read, and loved those products with a passion and intensity that I devoted to little else in my life. And I knew, despite my best efforts to tell myself otherwise, that the disaster I kept going back to in Wisconsin was the result of the products on those shelves.
When Peter put me in charge of the tabletop RPG business in 1998, he gave me one commission: Find out what went wrong, fix the business, save D&D. Vince also gave me a business condition that was easy to understand and quite direct. "God damnit, Dancey", he thundered at me from across the conference table: "Don't lose any more money!"
That became my core motivation. Save D&D. Don't lose money. Figure out what went wrong. Fix the problem.
Back into those financials I went. I walked again the long threads of decisions made by managers long gone; there are few roadmarks to tell us what was done and why in the years TSR did things like buy a needlepoint distributorship, or establish a west coast office at King Vedor's mansion. Why had a moderate success in collectable dice triggered a million unit order? Why did I still have stacks and stacks of 1st edition rulebooks in the warehouse? Why did TSR create not once, not twice, but nearly a dozen times a variation on the same, Tolkien inspired, eurocentric fantasy theme? Why had it constantly tried to create different games, poured money into marketing those games, only to realize that nobody was buying those games? Why, when it was so desperate for cash, had it invested in a million dollar license for content used by less than 10% of the marketplace? Why had a successful game line like Dragonlance been forcibly uprooted from its natural home in the D&D game and transplanted to a foreign and untested new game system? Why had the company funded the development of a science fiction game modeled on D&D - then not used the D&D game rules?
In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.
No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". TSR, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - TSR lead, everyone else followed.
In today's hypercompetitive market, that's an impossible mentality. At Wizards of the Coast, we pay close attention to the voice of the customer. We ask questions. We listen. We react. So, we spent a whole lot of time and money on a variety of surveys and studies to learn about the people who play role playing games. And, at every turn, we learned things that were not only surprising, they flew in the face of all the conventional wisdom we'd absorbed through years of professional game publishing.
We heard some things that are very, very hard for a company to hear. We heard that our customers felt like we didn't trust them. We heard that we produced material they felt was substandard, irrelevant, and broken. We heard that our stories were boring or out of date, or simply uninteresting. We heard the people felt that >we< were irrelevant.
I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf.
Amazingly, despite all those problems, and despite years of neglect, the D&D game itself remained, at the core, a viable business. Damaged; certainly. Ailing; certainly. But savable? Absolutely.
Our customers were telling us that 2e was too restrictive, limited their creativity, and wasn't "fun to play'? We can fix that. We can update the core rules to enable the expression of that creativity. We can demonstrate a commitment to supporting >your< stories. >Your< worlds. And we can make the game fun again.
Our customers were telling us that we produced too many products, and that the stuff we produced was of inferior quality? We can fix that. We can cut back on the number of products we release, and work hard to make sure that each and every book we publish is useful, interesting, and of high quality.
Our customers were telling us that we spent too much time on our own worlds, and not enough time on theirs? Ok - we can fix that. We can re-orient the business towards tools, towards examples, towards universal systems and rules that aren't dependent on owning a thousand dollars of unnecessary materials first.
Our customers were telling us that they prefer playing D&D nearly 2:1 over the next most popular game option? That's an important point of distinction. We can leverage that desire to help get them more people to play >with< by reducing the barriers to compatibility between the material we produce, and the material created by other companies.
Our customers told us they wanted a better support organization? We can pour money and resources into the RPGA and get it growing and supporting players like never before in the club's history. (10,000 paid members and rising, nearly 50,000 unpaid members - numbers currently skyrocketing).
Our customers were telling us that they want to create and distribute content based on our game? Fine - we can accommodate that interest and desire in a way that keeps both our customers and our lawyers happy.
Are we still listening? Yes, we absolutely are. If we hear you asking us for something we're not delivering, we'll deliver it. But we're not going to cater to the specific and unique needs of a minority if doing so will cause hardship to the majority. We're going to try and be responsible shepards of the D&D business, and that means saying "no" to things that we have shown to be damaging to the business and that aren't wanted or needed by most of our customers.
We listened when the customers told us that Alternity wasn't what they wanted in a science fiction game. We listened when customers told us that they didn't want the confusing, jargon filled world of Planescape. We listened when people told us that the Ravenloft concept was overshadowed by the products of a competitor. We listened to customers who told us that they want core materials, not world materials. That they buy DUNGEON magazine every two months at a rate twice that of our best selling stand-alone adventures.
We're not telling anyone what game to play. We are telling the market that we're going to actively encourage our players to stand up and demand that they be listened to, and that they become the center of the gaming industry - rather than the current publisher-centric model. Through the RPGA, the Open Gaming movement, the pages of Dragon Magazine, and all other venues available, we want to empower our customers to do what >they< want, to force us and our competitors to bend to >their< will, to make the products >they< want made.
I want to be judged on results, not rhetoric. I want to look back at my time at the helm of this business and feel that things got better, not worse. I want to know that my team made certain that the mistakes of the past wouldn't be the mistakes of the future. I want to know that we figured out what went wrong. That we fixed it. That we saved D&D. And that god damnit, we didn't lose money.
Thank you for listening,
Sincerely,
Ryan S. Dancey
VP, Wizards of the Coast
Brand Manager, Dungeons & Dragons
warboss wrote: Great news, everybody! They're shipping 200 orders a day... over in the mantic KS thread. Are we up to 200 orders in two weeks yet???
Spoiler:
.Mikes. wrote: Ronnie dropped by the Containment Protocol facebook group this morning and left this message in a discussion:
hi guys we are getting through about 200 orders per day (more if they are small, less if they are big - and some a VERY big) so we still have about 6 days more of orders - about 1000 left . I also have a pile of thank you notes to sign! We are getting through them but 5000 orders is taking a while! Thanks for your patience.
If you take a work day to be ten hours, that's one order completed every 3 minutes. Even if you consider that overtime will almost certainly be included, that's impressive.
An interesting post with an inside yet outside POV on what went wrong with TSR and D&D many years ago... I suspect a few things might ring a bell here.
If you find this article useful, please share it with your friends!
In the winter of 1997, I traveled to Lake Geneva Wisconsin on a secret mission. In the late fall, rumors of TSR's impending bankruptcy had created an opportunity to made a bold gamble that the business could be saved by an infusion of capital or an acquisition with a larger partner. After a hasty series of phone calls and late night strategy sessions, I found myself standing in the snow outside of 201 Sheridan Springs Road staring at a building bearing a sign that said "TSR, Incorporated".
Inside the building, I found a dead company.
In the halls that had produced the stuff of my childhood fantasies, and had fired my imagination and become unalterably intertwined with my own sense of self, I found echoes, empty desks, and the terrible depression of lost purpose.
The life story of a tree can be read by a careful examination of its rings. The life story of a corporation can be read by a careful examination of its financial records and corporate minutes.
I was granted unprecedented access to those records. I read the TSR corporate log book from the first page penned in haste by Gary Gygax to the most recent terse minutes dictated to a lawyer with no connection to hobby gaming. I was able to trace the meteoric rise of D&D as a business, the terrible failure to control costs that eventually allowed a total outsider to take control away from the founders, the slow and steady progress to rebuild the financial solvency of the company, and the sudden and dramatic failure of that business model. I read the euphoric copyright filings for the books of my lost summers: "Player's Handbook", "Fiend Folio", "Oriental Adventures". I read the contract between Gary and TSR where Gary was severed from contact with the company he had founded and the business he had nurtured and grown. I saw the clause where Gary, forced to the wall by ruthless legal tactics was reduced to insisting to the right to use his own name in future publishing endeavors, and to take and keep control of his personal D&D characters. I read the smudged photocopies produced by the original Dragonlance Team, a group of people who believed in a new idea for gaming that told a story across many different types of products. I saw concept artwork evolve from lizard men with armor to unmistakable draconians. I read Tracy Hickman's one page synopsis of the Dragonlance Story. I held the contract between Tracy and Margaret for the publication of the three Chronicles novels. I read the contract between Ed Greenwood and TSR to buy his own personal game world and transform it into the most developed game setting in history - the most detailed and explored fantasy world ever created.
And I read the details of the Random House distribution agreement; an agreement that TSR had used to support a failing business and hide the fact that TSR was rotten at the core. I read the entangling bank agreements that divided the copyright interests of the company as security against default, and realized that the desperate arrangements made to shore up the company's poor financial picture had so contaminated those rights that it might not be possible to extract Dungeons & Dragons from the clutches of lawyers and bankers and courts for years upon end. I read the severance agreements between the company and departed executives which paid them extraordinary sums for their silence. I noted the clauses, provisions, amendments and agreements that were piling up more debt by the hour in the form of interest charges, fees and penalties. I realized that the money paid in good faith by publishers and attendees for GenCon booths and entrance fees had been squandered and that the show itself could not be funded. I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.
I met staff members who were determined to continue to work, despite the knowledge that they might not get paid, might not even be able to get in to the building each day. I saw people who were working on the same manuscripts they'd been working on six months earlier, never knowing if they'd actually be able to produce the fruits of their labor. In the eyes of those people (many of whom I have come to know as friends and co workers), I saw defeat, desperation, and the certain knowledge that somehow, in some way, they had failed. The force of the human, personal pain in that building was nearly overwhelming - on several occasions I had to retreat to a bathroom to sit and compose myself so that my own tears would not further trouble those already tortured souls.
I ran hundreds of spreadsheets, determined to figure out what had to be done to save the company. I was convinced that if I could just move enough money from column A to column B, that everything would be ok. Surely, a company with such powerful brands and such a legacy of success could not simply cease to exist due to a few errors of judgment and a poor strategic plan?
I made several trips to TSR during the frenzied days of negotiation that resulted in the acquisition of the company by Wizards of the Coast. When I returned home from my first trip, I retreated to my home office; a place filled with bookshelves stacked with Dungeons & Dragons products. From the earliest games to the most recent campaign setting supplements - I owned, had read, and loved those products with a passion and intensity that I devoted to little else in my life. And I knew, despite my best efforts to tell myself otherwise, that the disaster I kept going back to in Wisconsin was the result of the products on those shelves.
When Peter put me in charge of the tabletop RPG business in 1998, he gave me one commission: Find out what went wrong, fix the business, save D&D. Vince also gave me a business condition that was easy to understand and quite direct. "God damnit, Dancey", he thundered at me from across the conference table: "Don't lose any more money!"
That became my core motivation. Save D&D. Don't lose money. Figure out what went wrong. Fix the problem.
Back into those financials I went. I walked again the long threads of decisions made by managers long gone; there are few roadmarks to tell us what was done and why in the years TSR did things like buy a needlepoint distributorship, or establish a west coast office at King Vedor's mansion. Why had a moderate success in collectable dice triggered a million unit order? Why did I still have stacks and stacks of 1st edition rulebooks in the warehouse? Why did TSR create not once, not twice, but nearly a dozen times a variation on the same, Tolkien inspired, eurocentric fantasy theme? Why had it constantly tried to create different games, poured money into marketing those games, only to realize that nobody was buying those games? Why, when it was so desperate for cash, had it invested in a million dollar license for content used by less than 10% of the marketplace? Why had a successful game line like Dragonlance been forcibly uprooted from its natural home in the D&D game and transplanted to a foreign and untested new game system? Why had the company funded the development of a science fiction game modeled on D&D - then not used the D&D game rules?
In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.
No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". TSR, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - TSR lead, everyone else followed.
In today's hypercompetitive market, that's an impossible mentality. At Wizards of the Coast, we pay close attention to the voice of the customer. We ask questions. We listen. We react. So, we spent a whole lot of time and money on a variety of surveys and studies to learn about the people who play role playing games. And, at every turn, we learned things that were not only surprising, they flew in the face of all the conventional wisdom we'd absorbed through years of professional game publishing.
We heard some things that are very, very hard for a company to hear. We heard that our customers felt like we didn't trust them. We heard that we produced material they felt was substandard, irrelevant, and broken. We heard that our stories were boring or out of date, or simply uninteresting. We heard the people felt that >we< were irrelevant.
I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf.
Amazingly, despite all those problems, and despite years of neglect, the D&D game itself remained, at the core, a viable business. Damaged; certainly. Ailing; certainly. But savable? Absolutely.
Our customers were telling us that 2e was too restrictive, limited their creativity, and wasn't "fun to play'? We can fix that. We can update the core rules to enable the expression of that creativity. We can demonstrate a commitment to supporting >your< stories. >Your< worlds. And we can make the game fun again.
Our customers were telling us that we produced too many products, and that the stuff we produced was of inferior quality? We can fix that. We can cut back on the number of products we release, and work hard to make sure that each and every book we publish is useful, interesting, and of high quality.
Our customers were telling us that we spent too much time on our own worlds, and not enough time on theirs? Ok - we can fix that. We can re-orient the business towards tools, towards examples, towards universal systems and rules that aren't dependent on owning a thousand dollars of unnecessary materials first.
Our customers were telling us that they prefer playing D&D nearly 2:1 over the next most popular game option? That's an important point of distinction. We can leverage that desire to help get them more people to play >with< by reducing the barriers to compatibility between the material we produce, and the material created by other companies.
Our customers told us they wanted a better support organization? We can pour money and resources into the RPGA and get it growing and supporting players like never before in the club's history. (10,000 paid members and rising, nearly 50,000 unpaid members - numbers currently skyrocketing).
Our customers were telling us that they want to create and distribute content based on our game? Fine - we can accommodate that interest and desire in a way that keeps both our customers and our lawyers happy.
Are we still listening? Yes, we absolutely are. If we hear you asking us for something we're not delivering, we'll deliver it. But we're not going to cater to the specific and unique needs of a minority if doing so will cause hardship to the majority. We're going to try and be responsible shepards of the D&D business, and that means saying "no" to things that we have shown to be damaging to the business and that aren't wanted or needed by most of our customers.
We listened when the customers told us that Alternity wasn't what they wanted in a science fiction game. We listened when customers told us that they didn't want the confusing, jargon filled world of Planescape. We listened when people told us that the Ravenloft concept was overshadowed by the products of a competitor. We listened to customers who told us that they want core materials, not world materials. That they buy DUNGEON magazine every two months at a rate twice that of our best selling stand-alone adventures.
We're not telling anyone what game to play. We are telling the market that we're going to actively encourage our players to stand up and demand that they be listened to, and that they become the center of the gaming industry - rather than the current publisher-centric model. Through the RPGA, the Open Gaming movement, the pages of Dragon Magazine, and all other venues available, we want to empower our customers to do what >they< want, to force us and our competitors to bend to >their< will, to make the products >they< want made.
I want to be judged on results, not rhetoric. I want to look back at my time at the helm of this business and feel that things got better, not worse. I want to know that my team made certain that the mistakes of the past wouldn't be the mistakes of the future. I want to know that we figured out what went wrong. That we fixed it. That we saved D&D. And that god damnit, we didn't lose money.
Thank you for listening,
Sincerely,
Ryan S. Dancey
VP, Wizards of the Coast
Brand Manager, Dungeons & Dragons
Pfft... TSR are light weights. WOTC marked down books from the late 1980s as worthless when palladium is making a killing selling books from that same era as modern up to date titles for their best selling RPGs 15 years AFTER that wotc knowitall made that statement! What wotc didn't know what they were talking about. What do they know with their millions of active players? You just need 200-300 hardcore players to buy 1-4 copies of each product mindlessly. That is how palladium has thrived since that small company WOTC that palladium sued in the early 1990's made the statement I quoted. Siembeida uber alles!
warboss wrote: Pfft... TSR are light weights. WOTC marked down books from the late 1980s as worthless when palladium is making a killing selling books from that same era as modern up to date titles for their best selling RPGs 15 years AFTER that wotc knowitall made that statement! What wotc didn't know what they were talking about. What do they know with their millions of active players? You just need 200-300 hardcore players to buy 1-4 copies of each product mindlessly. That is how palladium has thrived since that small company WOTC that palladium sued in the early 1990's made the statement I quoted. Siembeida uber alles!
Yup... before MTG came out. One of WOTC's first products was a book that had characters/monsters in it for multiple different game systems including Palladium's (which was one of the most popular ones in the industry at the time). Palladium's long held views on "you can't convert anything into or out of our system or we'll sue you!!!" kicked in and they sued. WOTC had to initially develop MTG under a separate company because they didn't want Palladium to get their greedy claws into it's rights as payment in case Palladium won.
Or, you know.. he can read the accurate details you linked instead of my swiss cheese memory recollection of it from many years ago! Ninja'd by an Google and Vitae!
warboss wrote: Yup... before MTG came out. One of WOTC's first products was a book that had characters/monsters in it for multiple different game systems including Palladium's (which was one of the most popular ones in the industry at the time). Palladium's long held views on "you can't convert anything into or out of our system or we'll sue you!!!" kicked in and they sued. WOTC had to initially develop MTG under a separate company because they didn't want Palladium to get their greedy claws into it's rights as payment in case Palladium won.
Or, you know.. he can read the accurate details you linked instead of my swiss cheese memory recollection of it from many years ago! Ninja'd by an Google and Vitae!
I don't know, I think of yours as being more to the point.
I'm a little surprised we haven't seen more Core boxes on the market yet. Especially with one going for $200.
Even if they go for half that, selling boxes for $100 only to get them again for $65 later is a pretty sweet deal. I suppose whether or not the several month (or more) wait just to make $30-40, plus the effort of shipping such a thing might outweigh ones desire, but the potential to double ones money would appeal to some at least.
Maybe the cores are still being worked on. Ugh.
I'm not expecting it, but man, they could really do to knock this weeks update out of the park at this point. Far too much dangling when they should be well underway.
Forar wrote: I'm a little surprised we haven't seen more Core boxes on the market yet. Especially with one going for $200.
Unless the single box does represent a significant portion and the few reports of orders shipped and received represent a good portion of what they've actually sent out. It is, I admit, a bit tin foil hat theory but that kind of thinking has in hindsight been much more predictive of Palladium's efforts and progress rather than any kind of logic.
If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Toss Max and/or Miyra into the Battlecry shipments.
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Toss Max and/or Miyra into the Battlecry shipments.
The first resin then metal because resin making is hard models? I doubt it. If you're asking for a free model or two, you'd have more luck with a plastic one not already included that they can have the factory pump out a few thousand of much easier like the vf-4. It was at least a "planned" possibility (if you can call the pre/during ks efforts actual planning as opposed to wishlisting). To answer Manchu's question, nkthing at this point beyond cyp's suggestion of a token two pack of models to pledgers at battlecry and up. If I were the evil overlord of palladium, I'd simply try to do better the next time and turn the current mess into one giant learning experience in the hopes of promising less and planning/delivering more during the next ks.
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Announce a complete and total overhaul of the Palladium RPG system. Alpha testing to begin just *after* the final Robotech shipments go out to the backers.
If PB wanted to let people know in a dramatic fashion that they were no longer slumbering in a stupor, relying on their past successes, I can't think of a better way than the above.
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Its a hard question to answer because I just cant picture myself as an owner of a company that would have let it come this far.
If for some reason I just inherited the company and was now in control I would do a full staff assessment, fire most of them and rebuild the brand name with new (quality) people.
The brand can still be strong (as evidenced by the $$$$ brought in by the KS), it just needs the right people and getting rid of the wrong people would send a clear indication of a 'clean slate' mentality to customers which I think would go a long way to getting a second chance from them.
Forar wrote: I'm a little surprised we haven't seen more Core boxes on the market yet. Especially with one going for $200.
Unless the single box does represent a significant portion and the few reports of orders shipped and received represent a good portion of what they've actually sent out. It is, I admit, a bit tin foil hat theory but that kind of thinking has in hindsight been much more predictive of Palladium's efforts and progress rather than any kind of logic.
1. I would publicly fire NMI from moderating the forums and post it on You-Tube.
2. I would then hire the best PR person I could possibly find.
3. I would do whatever that guy said and eat crow to show my prospective customers that I indeed did not despise them and really, genuinely care about their business.
I really believe that this would be a step in the right direction.
But frankly, it's not just about 'sweetening the deal'. It'd be about fixing communications. They do weekly updates (when Wayne isn't unavailable... note: fix that Wayne is the only person who can do updates) but they rarely say anything concrete. It always feels slimy, like they're trying to weasel word things. It is entirely possible to communicate with people in a fashion that gives actual info while also recognizing that international shipping is kind of a huge thing and takes a ton of stuff going right, and sometimes it starts going wrong.
When things go wrong, say so, explain what happened, what is being done to rectify them, and what will be done in the future to prevent such things from happening again.
Some extra figures would be nice, don't get me wrong, but some transparency and treating us like adults would go a long way to rebuilding their now well deserved reputation for delays and poor communications.
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Sining summed it up best with the insurmountable problem being the guy in charge.
But assuming Mango's hypothetical inheritance concept, here goes. In no particular order.
- Fire or reassign anyone in management positions. If they have an active creative role (writer, artist, editor, game design), they can keep that job (for now). - Re-evaluate the RPG lines, and assign someone to be responsible for each retained. Getting bogged down in minutiae seems to be one of Kevin's big mistakes. - Remove NMI, give instruction to the remaining Moderators. Get people in who are fans of the product, but not fanatical. Fanatics do more harm than good. Revamp the forums to remove anachronistic crap (like Help Save Palladium Books subforum being the third link, and other archaic/outdated/irrelevant Forums). Promote discussion. Don't have to read everything, but occasional drop-ins shouldn't be difficult. If you and your staff hate going on the Forums, why should anyone else? - Scrap the current release schedule. Completely. Work out which products are priorities, and work out a realistic timeframe for completion. Then tack on 3-4 months. Then commit, behind the scenes, to completing them. Do not start a new project until at least one current one is near completion (and by that, I mean art done, text done, just editing, layout, printing and shipping to go). - For work done by freelancers, sure, commission that work. But it doesn't get announced publicly until it hits "near completion" as specified above. - Completely revamp the online presence and attempt to shed the Luddite perception. Have easily accessible communication methods (specifically EMail). Reliance on phone/fax/snailmail just seems unproductive. - Regarding RRT, announce a new commitment to online communication, AND KEEP TOIT. Being silent for 3+ weeks, apologizing for the silence, then being silent for 3+ more weeks, is just bad. Remove the flowery rhetoric. Be more active with show, don't tell. If a hiccup happens, explain what, why, and how it'll be fixed. Basically, everything Forar said. You don't have to read every post. You don't have to spend days on it. But a commitment of an hour a week composing an Update that addresses things, isn't f'n difficult.
That'd be a start. It'd be a daunting task, not so much because of the work involved, but because so much of that work is backpeddling prior mistakes, rather than building from the ground up.
EDIT: Just some off the top quick fixes for RRT. Regarding the blast template, instead of "Ooops, our bad", "Wave 1 will come with the unpainted template, but we'll send out a correct one in Wave 2". Because, come on, it'll cost them bugger all. Regarding the current apparent (but unknown) delay in shipping out BattleCry's, if it's as Forar/Kendachi speculate, and they don't have BC kits, offer to send out First Contacts to the first X people to ask, and give them the balance of their BC's in Wave 2. Sure, that might look like a sucky deal, having to wait until Wave 2, but given some people might not get their Wave 1 orders until end of year or later, they might be willing to get their stuff earlier, without it really disrupting shipping. Because if the First Contacts are just waiting in the warehouse until Container 2 arrives, well... that's pointless. Sure, they're "jumping the queue, but if it's just changing those backers dates, without affecting the rest, I'd consider that a win. Sure, some people would be unhappy, but you're moving product to backers. And in the end, isn't that the point?
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Hand the keys over to Jon Paulson for robotech, burn the Internet site and all records of its existence, open new website with fan suggestion and polls to see which system to prioritize for revamp. Hire digital sculptor to design miniatures based of the lines.
I don't have a lot of experience with PB other than the Robotech Tactics issue, so I can only explain what I would do if I suddenly found myself running that.
First, apologize for the mishandling and treating my customer base like they were friends, rather than valued customers.
I would become very transparent with my decision making, and accept the feedback being given
I would open the forums up for feedback on gameplay, rules development, and expansion ideas.
I would be honest, and not appeal with the sympathy card and simply state things as they are and tell my customers what direction I was going after evaluating the situation.
Mainly just treating the people who keep me in business with what they deserve, more respect.
Manchu wrote: If you (any of you) owned PB, what would you (as the owner of PB, not as a frustrated customer complaining on the internet) do at this point to rehabilitate your relationship with your customers?
Say I suddenly owned PB.
First there would be much rejoicing since the prior owner's behavior would be the source of many complaints.
I would post some kind of "commitment" to my customers:
1) Straight talk: do what we say, say what we do.
2) Open up better dialogue with customers, start with dropping a questionnaire in with the kickstarter backer kits of what we would like to see as the next product AND any sent back got their choice of the Max or Miyra model sent to them.
3) Set some rule for myself to participate in the forums on occasion to let the fans know I am there and listening (as well as accessible).
4) List plans on how we will get our expertise in-house up for miniatures and commit to it further (plastic Rifts models coming up!).
5) Look at flogging our IP (Halloooo! Fantasy Flight Games! could we talk???). Computer/console/tablet games.
6) Review the staff, see if some of the past "issues" are from them as a personality or they were just taking orders.
7) Review publishing methods and modernize the layout process for the RPG systems. HEY! New editions with fixes and cleanups on EVERYTHING money in the bank and not have to create huge new stuff! Look at streamlining the RPG system without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
8) Commit to a Robotech tactics campaign package, I really think if an FFG made item, with counters and small models and modular maps a bit like Settlers of Catan in a nice pretty board-game like box, would be fantastic.
9) Look hard at making a competition package for local hobby stores (throw in when > $XXX of Robotech Tactics stuff is ordered for the first time).
10) Bit of an extension of "flogging the IP" but maybe licensing/endorsing with other companies for products of our IP (clothing, terrain builders, storage systems).
11) Set aside a space at corporate headquarters for gaming: be able to keep customers at hand, have them available. I could see dropping in and having "Beta test night" with free trinkets as bribes to play our half-baked ideas.
12) Commit to a more "genteel" means of protecting our IP: rather than a nasty takedown letter it would be "You are making use of material we think is ours. Please review and see if you agree and take steps. Give proper credit to Palladium intellectual property and anything you still want to use beyond that can be licensed or needs to be taken down. You have 30 days to make adjustments and we can discuss further. Thank-you for your cooperation." Then ugly lawyer stuff happens after...
... Gah! suddenly I seem to have many ideas.
Dialogue should have the tone of equals with a respect for the customer opinion.
Value for money and managing expectation would probably be the main focus of the new company.
7) Review publishing methods and modernize the layout process for the RPG systems. HEY! New editions with fixes and cleanups on EVERYTHING money in the bank and not have to create huge new stuff! Look at streamlining the RPG system without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
There's a great line in Shannon Appelcline's Designers & Dragons about Palladium where Kevin held on to doing physical paste-up (literally, printing columns of text, running them through a waxer, then aligning them on boards) because it was faster for him. I think they've finally upgraded (and the RRT rules I've seen pics of looks more modern) but doing manual pasteup for a 100+ page RPG seems like a painful process. Every change requires essentially re-doing a section. I'm guessing it was 'faster' because he could do it himself vs. micro-managing some poor designer, as setting up a basic two-column template in InDesign looks like a few hours work at best, and being able to change a word without having to grab a xacto has to be faster...
The book also mentions Palladium's general policy of not letting books go out of print whenever possible. Presumably there's an exception for some really outdated stuff and licensed works once the license expires, but I do wonder if this contributes to the general reluctance to upgrade the core RPG rules.
1. Go over the books, figure out whats going on with the finances.
2. Interview the staff, request self assessments, and conduct performance feedback sessions with dossiers/files on each employee. Let go where appropriate, and advertise for new positions where needed.
3. Close the doors on Palladium Books forever. There are just too many negative thoughts/feelings associated with anything that Palladium Books does. They are the example of what NOT to do in the gaming industry.
4. Liquidate remaining stock, pay off remaining debt
5. Start a new company- call it Phoenix Games or something and make no mention whatsoever of ANY connection at all to Palladium Games. Clean slate, fresh start.
6. During this entire process, encourage a more open dialogue with the Robotech Backers, find out what the shipping issues are with the game, and meet the current obligations as much as possible. A lot of people might not like this part, but I'd basically say "Sorry, we don't have the money to meet our obligations and are closing our doors."
7. Revamp the entire "Robotech RPG Tactics" game. Many of you have no idea how Robotech RPG plays... if you are a table top gamer, you will be disappointed. If you are an RPG'er, you will be saying "WTF is this?!". It's crap. Complete, stinking crap IMO.
8. Relaunch Robotech, and give free rules to those that already have the game.
9. If the financials support it from #1 above, revamp and re-release the RPG books/lines that make money, and say good bye to the ones that don't. Maybe look into re-writes of the rules.
I'm not educated in business law, but I think closing the doors and completely separating ones self from the old PB name might have some rather significant issues to be overcome with transferring the license to even work with RRT.
Now, obviously I see you mean that they should make a point of it being a new name, new games, new style of business to the public and retailers, but I know enough from working with our own releases, requests and stuff that goes past legal to know that shuttering the windows and locking the doors, even if figuratively, would probably be a bit of a nightmare of negotiations.
Look at it from HG's side; the person with your license just admitted their own name brand is so toxic it's actively detrimental to their sales. Is that really someone you want to retain access to your flagship IP?
Look at it from HG's side; the person with your license just admitted their own name brand is so toxic it's actively detrimental to their sales. Is that really someone you want to retain access to your flagship IP?
The phrase "two peas in a pod" comes instantly to mind.
Imagine a universe where somehow FFG got ahold of that license, and HG knew enough to shut up and wait to collect the cheques. Even that might be asking a bit much, but considering they've managed to walk whatever tightropes Lucasfilm, Disney, and whomever else might have them on and still pumped out quality products, quickly and often to ravenous demand, it's not impossible.
Not that I'm saying Robotech is a Star Wars sized IP, but it's obvious that some people can do the dance and do it well.
I get the feeling that with folks like Wayne and NMI around that nothing would change afterwards anyways. If there is enough internet in all of China for you to post stupid twitter updates, you can post a damn KS update as well!
Imagine a universe where somehow FFG got ahold of that license, and HG knew enough to shut up and wait to collect the cheques. Even that might be asking a bit much, but considering they've managed to walk whatever tightropes Lucasfilm, Disney, and whomever else might have them on and still pumped out quality products, quickly and often to ravenous demand, it's not impossible.
Not that I'm saying Robotech is a Star Wars sized IP, but it's obvious that some people can do the dance and do it well.
PB isn't doing them any favours in that regard.
I disagree, remember the PB has the RPG license, not a Miniatures gaming license so while a nice fantasy what you propose is just that.
Irrelevant to my statement. You said HG's own toxicity was just as big a problem. I pointed out that there are legal hoop jumping cluster-feths of IP's out there that companies work with just fine.
Forar wrote: I'm not educated in business law, but I think closing the doors and completely separating ones self from the old PB name might have some rather significant issues to be overcome with transferring the license to even work with RRT.
Now, obviously I see you mean that they should make a point of it being a new name, new games, new style of business to the public and retailers, but I know enough from working with our own releases, requests and stuff that goes past legal to know that shuttering the windows and locking the doors, even if figuratively, would probably be a bit of a nightmare of negotiations.
Look at it from HG's side; the person with your license just admitted their own name brand is so toxic it's actively detrimental to their sales. Is that really someone you want to retain access to your flagship IP?
Any company other than HG might care. HG doesn't give a damn as long as a check keeps rolling in.
Merijeek wrote: HG doesn't give a damn as long as a check keeps rolling in.
This right here. I mean, we're talking about a company that tried to sue the 3rd largest name in the toy industry for making something that kinda sorta resembled/evokes the look of something said toy company used to make that HG has the rights to.
Balance wrote: The book also mentions Palladium's general policy of not letting books go out of print whenever possible. Presumably there's an exception for some really outdated stuff and licensed works once the license expires, but I do wonder if this contributes to the general reluctance to upgrade the core RPG rules.
I wonder if Kev is aware of scanning in material through an OCR if he has no original electronic formatting.
Actually, I really do not want to know.
Balance wrote: The book also mentions Palladium's general policy of not letting books go out of print whenever possible. Presumably there's an exception for some really outdated stuff and licensed works once the license expires, but I do wonder if this contributes to the general reluctance to upgrade the core RPG rules.
I wonder if Kev is aware of scanning in material through an OCR if he has no original electronic formatting.
Actually, I really do not want to know.
Can someone explain to me what "The book also mentions Palladium's general policy of not letting books go out of print whenever possible. " means?
Like, why is that significant? Because he needs to keep his catalog at a certain minimum size for publishing purposes or what?
FYI, I was informed that the license for Robotech expired at PB, and recently HG went back to PB and asked them to renew it and gave them a good offer.
Nobody else wanted that license, nor pursued it. Though some of us are big fans, there aren't many of us, and the IP isn't large enough to keep a game alive very long.
Something to remember though folks, its a lot easier to be a coach on the couch than a coach on the sidelines. We can say how things should be, but we have no say in it, can't do anything to change it, and have to essentially take what we are given. We do not truly know what is going on, nor have enough information to make many assumptions. Some sure, but we aren't running game companies (yet, muhahaha!).
It stinks :(
I have gotten 6 regults together now, 1 quel-regult (HUGE PITA), 1 glaug, 2 defenders, the quel-gulnau, 2 battloids, and a fighter and guardian put together. Now I'm kinda tired of putting together models, and have over a dozen more *boxes* on the way, plus addons... this game is burning me out before I've even played it :(
The 1 thing I'd like to see now though, is a nice banner done up so I can post it in my local game stores to drum up support for the game. Heck, I could be running demos this weekend if I had one. Instead I'll probably go to the movies.
I'll call up PB next week though, see if I can talk to Kevin again and ask to pursue some of the things I proposed to him at Gencon he was open to at the time. That could re-inspire me... maybe.
Forar wrote: Irrelevant to my statement. You said HG's own toxicity was just as big a problem. I pointed out that there are legal hoop jumping cluster-feths of IP's out there that companies work with just fine.
Yeah, regardless, your assumption includes the idea that HG could license a straight up miniatures games. As it is this license might be splitting the hairs rather fine. I think HG say $ and decided it was worth the risk. Shoot, they have not brought in any real money in a while as it is with all their messing around with the License.
Yeah, regardless, your assumption includes the idea that HG could license a straight up miniatures games. As it is this license might be splitting the hairs rather fine. I think HG say $ and decided it was worth the risk. Shoot, they have not brought in any real money in a while as it is with all their messing around with the License.
Actually, Kevin specifically told me that RRT was *NOT* allowed to be, nor to refer to itself as, a miniatures game. I'm betting there is some crazy HG licensing thing involved.
Unrelated: I *LOVE* the ability to ignore users in this forum and never see their posts, this is the best forum software EVER! No longer do I have to see folks posting completely useless information (and insults) over and over and over again. I found my new favorite hangout! Death to the troll!
Yeah, regardless, your assumption includes the idea that HG could license a straight up miniatures games. As it is this license might be splitting the hairs rather fine. I think HG say $ and decided it was worth the risk. Shoot, they have not brought in any real money in a while as it is with all their messing around with the License.
Actually, Kevin specifically told me that RRT was *NOT* allowed to be, nor to refer to itself as, a miniatures game. I'm betting there is some crazy HG licensing thing involved.
Unrelated: I *LOVE* the ability to ignore users in this forum and never see their posts, this is the best forum software EVER! No longer do I have to see folks posting completely useless information (and insults) over and over and over again. I found my new favorite hangout! Death to the troll!
That is correct, hence the name Robotech RPG Tactics, the rules changed in the beginning to being so much like the RPG, the conversions of Characters coming from the RPG, and the units stats converted over from the RPG books. The illusion, if you will, had to be maintained.
It is my belief, though I have zero proof, that the reason the RRT "mecha" are basically tiny models is because they are, well, tiny models.
I think if PB had their way, the models would have been 4-8 pieces more like most miniature games. Nobody in their right mind wanted that many parts, many of which are freaking tiny, in a miniature game.
Soooo many of the parts simply had no reason to be split up/out.
I think HG saw the miniatures assembled, didn't realize the level of expertise required to put them together, and probably had ZERO experience with miniatures or even models to make a better assessment.
If these darned cool kickstarters could stop a while, I could replenish my funds and get more models of my own done up :(
Also, Mike appears to have caught whatever Lolafett on the comments has where he ignores the key points of a statement for what he simply wants to read.
Forar wrote: Or you could, y'know, show some self restraint...
Also, Mike appears to have caught whatever Lolafett on the comments has where he ignores the key points of a statement for what he simply wants to read.
Dude, you're better than that.
No, I just refuse to be drawn into the same old neverending game of twists and turns. If you are referring to the last bout of comments. Your point was that HG was Toxic and bad. I did not disagree.
You set an imaginary scenario with FFG taking RRT in hand. I said that the idea that some other company could have made tactics is false because you fail to accept/acknowledge/understand that while a mini game, RRT is licensed as an expansion of the RPG, it CANNOT be licensed as a Minis game. HG will not and cannot do that. BUT through the RPG idea Tactics has to come through PB. There is no other way.
So regardless oh how messed up the IP is, there IS literally no other way for a Robotech minis game to come to life and make $ without some serious hoops and no company would be willing to risk it for what is after all a niche game.
Do not fall into the trap that when someone disagrees they are closed minded or you will become just like Merijeek and a few others.
Cruentus wrote: Yup, the legs were backward. I switched them around, they look much better, thanks for that.
I'll have to find some ABS glue, any suggestions? I don't want to have these buggers falling apart on me.
Plastruct Plastic Weld is what I used on my old Starship Troopers models, which were very close to ABS. It says it will bond ABS as well, but IIRC, I had to coat both surfaces, wait a bit and then press together.
It held well enough that I was able to regularly toss my Arachnids off the table to show how strong the plastic was during demos.
Sining wrote: Am I missing something? Is there a reason why hg can not licence a mini game as mike seems to be implying
Because of the terms in the contract with PB I'd guess.
Is that really the case? Has mike seen the contract then cause he seems pretty certain hg won't do a minis game. Also if the issue is the contract with pb, then I have no idea why mike implies that
Pb was forced to use RPG in the game title when they can just wrote a new contract allowing them to make it a minis game
I think the there is more info to HG not being able to do a "miniatures" game than we have heard of.
Perhaps Dark Horse still has the robotech "miniatures" trademark or perhaps in that macross lawsuit HG lost in Japan they were prevented from doing any miniatures.
Kevin told me, to my face, that they were *NOT* allowed to refer to the game as a miniatures game or the models as miniatures because HG said so. It could have been some issue with the PB license I guess, but since HG asked PB to take the license back a few years ago when PB let it go I'm betting there is some major limitation with HG's license. I know they can't just do whatever they want with Macross.
We can guess all day long, but until somebody says something official that is all we can do :(
Bad_Syntax wrote: I think the there is more info to HG not being able to do a "miniatures" game than we have heard of.
Perhaps Dark Horse still has the robotech "miniatures" trademark or perhaps in that macross lawsuit HG lost in Japan they were prevented from doing any miniatures.
Kevin told me, to my face, that they were *NOT* allowed to refer to the game as a miniatures game or the models as miniatures because HG said so. It could have been some issue with the PB license I guess, but since HG asked PB to take the license back a few years ago when PB let it go I'm betting there is some major limitation with HG's license. I know they can't just do whatever they want with Macross.
We can guess all day long, but until somebody says something official that is all we can do :(
From what I understand that is correct. Calling it a minis game opens them up to all kinds of liability. Since PB has the RPG license the entire game was designed around the idea of using it as an expansion of the RPG, even though most people will not even consider that an option. Having the rules based off the RPG, damage system, unit stats, etc. is to ensure that there is a strong link between the RPG and RRT.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm kinda surprised that this appears to be a surprise to you all since this was something spoke of many times at the start of the KS and when the beta rules were released.
Forar wrote: So FFG doesn't call it a miniatures game in my purely fantasy world where there's an experienced company at the helm here.
ffs.
They could try but they'd be much more open to a lawsuit than Tactics. The Risk is likely too high for most companies to want to touch it, especially given past history. Tactics can prove it is an offshoot of the RPG. So your back to PB or nothing.
Because of the license not being attached to anything at all unlike PB and the RPG
Automatically Appended Next Post: Doing a minis game, saying it is something else, and not being able to prove it makes a BIG difference in a lawsuit vs. having a game with stats and rules taken directly from the RPG
This is notably a WHAT IF? scenario where presumably FFG would have some tidy little license to create the game in conjunction with HG.
For feth's sake, I'm not imagining a world where they 'go rogue' and just make one regardless of what HG says.
Man, you're better than this. Try to keep up.
IF FFG HAD A LICENSE FROM HG IN A FULLY LEGAL FASHION TO MAKE A GAME USING THE ROBOTECH IP, I THINK IT'D GO BETTER THAN THE CLUSTERFETH THAT HAS BEEN PB'S EFFORTS.
Balance wrote: The book also mentions Palladium's general policy of not letting books go out of print whenever possible. Presumably there's an exception for some really outdated stuff and licensed works once the license expires, but I do wonder if this contributes to the general reluctance to upgrade the core RPG rules.
I wonder if Kev is aware of scanning in material through an OCR if he has no original electronic formatting.
Actually, I really do not want to know.
Can someone explain to me what "The book also mentions Palladium's general policy of not letting books go out of print whenever possible. " means?
Like, why is that significant? Because he needs to keep his catalog at a certain minimum size for publishing purposes or what?
All material remains 'relevant' which limits designer's ability to innovate or advance the mechanics.
Consider D&D vs. RIFTS:
D&D is on version 5 (which is actually something like 10 depending on how you want to count). Rifts is still essentially at version 1, with some 'offshoots' like the Chaos Earth sub-setting. Robotech is essentially version 2, and that took losing and regaining the license! Today's D&D writing team doesn't have to consider the impact of a current book on the older material, or write to integrate with those rules. If you got a contract to write RIFTS: Your Home Town you'd be responsible for consistency with material dating back to 1990 that is still the core of the game.
Now, it should be said that PB is undeniably successful, for a specific definition of successful. They just do a lot of things that are against the 'accepted wisdom' of the rest of the industry and do (generally) tread water.
You assume HG would or does have the ability to do a Miniatures game license. From what I understand, they do not.
Automatically Appended Next Post: IF FFG HAD A LICENSE FROM HG IN A FULLY LEGAL FASHION TO MAKE A GAME USING THE ROBOTECH IP, I THINK IT'D GO BETTER THAN THE CLUSTERFETH THAT HAS BEEN PB'S EFFORTS.
DO I NEED TO DRAW THIS IN CRAYON?
But if you want to talk of imaginary things than yes FFG could license it and the SDF-1 could crash tomorrow on an Island we can rename Macross and this would all be moot.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sining wrote: Because you're not allowed to disagree with him?
Oh, he can disagree, but assuming that I'm as close minded as others because I do would be foolish. Just as me assuming your completely close minded would be.
He's giving a hypothetical scenario where it would be awesome if FFG could do this game. However, you're trying to throw what you think are real world scenarios of what would go wrong; of which a lot of legal information hasn't even BEEN verified, at him. Dude, just let him have his fantasy
IF FFG HAD A LICENSE FROM HG IN A FULLY LEGAL FASHION TO MAKE A GAME USING THE ROBOTECH IP, I THINK IT'D GO BETTER THAN THE CLUSTERFETH THAT HAS BEEN PB'S EFFORTS.
DO I NEED TO DRAW THIS IN CRAYON?
Let me see...
Do you work for Palladium Books? NOPE
Do you work for Harmony Gold? NOPE
Do you work for Fantasy Flight Games? NOPE
Do you own your own game company? NOPE
Do you even work for a game company? NOPE (I'm assuming this, so correct me if I'm wrong)
Do you have a box of Crayons? YUP (again, I'm assuming based on your own words)
What you think, about what company could have done this better, is an uninformed opinion.
Go start a KS, get $1.4M, and create your own miniature line, and do it successfully, on time.
At that point, and no earlier, will I and many others take anything you say in regards to this seriously Until that day, you just come across like... well, something not very nice, I don't want to flame you personally, as I know in real life you are NOT the same person you are on the internet.
Sining wrote: He's giving a hypothetical scenario where it would be awesome if FFG could do this game. However, you're trying to throw what you think are real world scenarios of what would go wrong; of which a lot of legal information hasn't even BEEN verified, at him. Dude, just let him have his fantasy
I actually think the whole attack wing/x-wing game system is horribly simplistic and silly, without even a hint of logic within it. It plays more like risk than world in flames. I like the miniatures, so I accept it, but I would *NOT* call FFG a company that is "good at creating games".
Heck, even the miniatures. They do look good, and are pre-painted, but look really close and they don't look as good anymore. Exception of the new corvette, it looks great though.
IF FFG HAD A LICENSE FROM HG IN A FULLY LEGAL FASHION TO MAKE A GAME USING THE ROBOTECH IP, I THINK IT'D GO BETTER THAN THE CLUSTERFETH THAT HAS BEEN PB'S EFFORTS.
DO I NEED TO DRAW THIS IN CRAYON?
Let me see...
Do you work for Palladium Books? NOPE Do you work for Harmony Gold? NOPE Do you work for Fantasy Flight Games? NOPE Do you own your own game company? NOPE Do you even work for a game company? NOPE (I'm assuming this, so correct me if I'm wrong) Do you have a box of Crayons? YUP (again, I'm assuming based on your own words)
What you think, about what company could have done this better, is an uninformed opinion.
Go start a KS, get $1.4M, and create your own miniature line, and do it successfully, on time.
At that point, and no earlier, will I and many others take anything you say in regards to this seriously Until that day, you just come across like... well, something not very nice, I don't want to flame you personally, as I know in real life you are NOT the same person you are on the internet.
6 posts on dakka and you're the 2nd person on my ignore list. That has to be a new record! You *REALLY* should take your own advice. BTW, you don't need to be a plumber or gastroenterologist to know what that steaming pile of smelly brown stuff on your doorstop is (which is the best way I can describe how Palladium has handled the post-Kickstarter period).
The conversation started about HG's own brand name being so toxic that it didn't matter that PB's was a steaming pile as well.
I postulated that, with a quality company at the helm instead, it might in fact be possible to overlook that issue, as long as they shut up and just collected piles of money while an awesome crew tackled the project. This was entirely intended as a wistful 'what if', which I feel was pretty clearly noted.
And then we got to lawsuits and 'can't do miniatures' and wow... wow.
For people so very emotionally attached to a sci-fi IP about giants from space attacking fighter jets that turn into robots, there is a shocking lack of ability to imagine stuff outside of reality going on in here between Mike and BS.
6 posts on dakka and you're the 2nd person on my ignore list. That has to be a new record! You *REALLY* should take your own advice. BTW, you don't need to be a plumber or gastroenterologist to know what that steaming pile of smelly brown stuff on your doorstop is (which is the best way I can describe how Palladium has handled the post-Kickstarter period).
YES! I should get an avatar or something for that!!! I mean, how cool is it to only need 6 posts!
Oh damn, I ignored somebody yesterday when I only had a couple posts. I didn't tell them though, that'd be trolling
Since he has like a bazillion posts, I guess saying "You suck, now I ignored you" is a cool way to get the last word in!
I wish that'd work in real life, I could think I'm the smartest person EVER because I always had the last word!
Woot.
I'm just tired of people passing judgement who don't know the whole story.
Heck, just passing judgement and spewing forth hate to anybody online is flat out stupid. I get caught up in it sometimes too, and when I catch myself I usually say "this is stupid, none of this matters one bit, none of these people even live near me and have ZERO impact in my life.... why not go do something more constructive?" and bugger off.
But having actually spoken with the PB guys in person, for a really long time, and insulting products to their face (which they took extremely well), they still let me go behind the scenes, take many pictures nobody else did, and even gave me a boxed set to demo for people.
They are not bad people, and if you choose to be rude (complaining is one thing, personal attacks is another completely) to them when they have never done anything to you personally, shows some hypocrisy at levels rarely seen outside of governments and fox news.
Bad_Syntax wrote: I actually think the whole attack wing/x-wing game system is horribly simplistic and silly, without even a hint of logic within it. It plays more like risk than world in flames. I like the miniatures, so I accept it, but I would *NOT* call FFG a company that is "good at creating games"..
No offense but while the xwing system itself is simplistic; which helped make it VERY very easy to pick up, the game is hardly like risk.Also, FFG seems to make games that are popular with quite a few people if the queues at Gencon for them and their demos are any indication, which may be a way of indicating that they indeed are good at creating games
Bad_Syntax wrote: I actually think the whole attack wing/x-wing game system is horribly simplistic and silly, without even a hint of logic within it. It plays more like risk than world in flames. I like the miniatures, so I accept it, but I would *NOT* call FFG a company that is "good at creating games"..
No offense but while the xwing system itself is simplistic; which helped make it VERY very easy to pick up, the game is hardly like risk.Also, FFG seems to make games that are popular with quite a few people if the queues at Gencon for them and their demos are any indication, which may be a way of indicating that they indeed are good at creating games
Oh sure, I totally agree, it is popular, and I do see how that is appealing to gamers today.
I'm probably just too old school. It didn't bother me to read a bunch of rules and have to use some tables to look stuff up. Gamers these days want simple+fast, instead of detailed+slow, and I'm still living in the past.
But sometimes, the quick and fun games are a nice change. However, I grow tired of them much faster and they don't have the life to me over games like SFB or Battletech.
Disclaimer: These are all just my opinions on it, and have no relevance to your own.
Bad_Syntax wrote: I actually think the whole attack wing/x-wing game system is horribly simplistic and silly, without even a hint of logic within it. It plays more like risk than world in flames. I like the miniatures, so I accept it, but I would *NOT* call FFG a company that is "good at creating games"..
No offense but while the xwing system itself is simplistic; which helped make it VERY very easy to pick up, the game is hardly like risk.Also, FFG seems to make games that are popular with quite a few people if the queues at Gencon for them and their demos are any indication, which may be a way of indicating that they indeed are good at creating games
I agree, the system, from what I have seen, looked like fun. The minis seemed to costly for my taste thought. Especially with RTT coming.
Mike1975 wrote: Alpha Strike had some MAJOR flaws with V1 that quickly needed to have an errata. The movement modifier always having effect being the primary culprit.
They came out with a Companion that fixes many of the "bugs" with v1.
I don't like the movement modifier either, it assumes units always move at their top speeds which doesn't happen in the tactical game. I think I had recommended -2 to it or something a while back.
I don't like the all-or-nothing damage either. My fix was to assume 7 on the missile hit table for your damage, then +/- the margin of success/failure of your to-hit roll to that to see actual damage done.
But Battletech is still played far more than Alpha Strike.
Yet one more thing the Battletech universe now has in it, making it the most complete game system *ever*. /end battletech plug
Heck, I am surprised how many games now that tape measures and counting are too hard for. Now you get really big squares, movement has been simplified to nothing, and the games are barely more than playing with green army men. I think in 20 they'll come out with some game called 'checkers', with almost no rules, everybody will be able to quickly pick it up, it'll be quick to play, and it'll take over gaming tables everywhere.
Yeah, Tal. The next update (tonight, tomorrow, whenever Wayne has the time) will hopefully have a lot to say.
I'm not expecting it. This is PB we're talking about here. But whether they talk about it or not, there *should* be a ton to say. Container 2, progress of shipping, the results of his trip, wave two, etc, etc, etc.
Mike1975 wrote: Alpha Strike had some MAJOR flaws with V1 that quickly needed to have an errata. The movement modifier always having effect being the primary culprit.
They came out with a Companion that fixes many of the "bugs" with v1.
I don't like the movement modifier either, it assumes units always move at their top speeds which doesn't happen in the tactical game. I think I had recommended -2 to it or something a while back.
I don't like the all-or-nothing damage either. My fix was to assume 7 on the missile hit table for your damage, then +/- the margin of success/failure of your to-hit roll to that to see actual damage done.
But Battletech is still played far more than Alpha Strike.
Yet one more thing the Battletech universe now has in it, making it the most complete game system *ever*. /end battletech plug
Heck, I am surprised how many games now that tape measures and counting are too hard for. Now you get really big squares, movement has been simplified to nothing, and the games are barely more than playing with green army men. I think in 20 they'll come out with some game called 'checkers', with almost no rules, everybody will be able to quickly pick it up, it'll be quick to play, and it'll take over gaming tables everywhere.
Yeah, the fix is optional, should have been in the original, lack of playtesting, but I have both books and have been looking at playing to compare to RTT.
Forar wrote: Yeah, Tal. The next update (tonight, tomorrow, whenever Wayne has the time) will hopefully have a lot to say.
I'm not expecting it. This is PB we're talking about here. But whether they talk about it or not, there *should* be a ton to say. Container 2, progress of shipping, the results of his trip, wave two, etc, etc, etc.
Forar, you should stop talking because you don't know what it is like to post on the internet! Have you ever posted an update to the series of tubes? If you've never communicated electronically like Palladium does now in the modern age then you don't know how difficult it is for them to not use a typewriter ribbon or copper wires. For all we know, Wayne may still be rejigging his internets after his trip from the ancient land of Chi'in. Until you've tweeted from that faraway land (and I'm not talking about Chinatown in Toronto!), you just have no right to comment about whether palladium should post!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mike1975 wrote: Well I can also postulate that the SDF-1 will appear tomorrow. It would have the same entrancing effect of your wistful FFG approach.
Don't be ridiculous, Mike. Everyone knows the Zor's ship crash landed years ago just like the cartoon said and caused the Bali Tsunami. The government has just been secretly hiding that fact and building 40ft tall veritechs in Argentina to combat the future alien threat. Some footage in spanish was leaked earlier this year but was taken down by a shadowy organization. I also have heard a rumor that the full scale mecha they're building have a smaller parts count than the Palladium ones and less seams.
Wait, let me fire up the wax paper machine so I can perfectly lay out two columns of solid gold in 140 characters and then have someone tweet it 'at' people.
Man, did you ever see the shenanigans that went over in regards to just having a general email account to send queries and issues to? I had, like, 3 people tell me it was being passed up the line but that their help desk system is totally just as good! Totally!
Forar, just leave Britney... I mean Kevin S. alone! Just because you post on the internet doesn't mean that you instantly know how to post on the internet about a $1.4 million dollar project. Jeez, everyone knows that common rules regarding two way communication and Will Wheaton's Law just get thrown out the window! There are secrets and stuff that apply. Duh! I just wish that FFG understood this as well but they can't. They're just a simple company raking in tons of money with top 5 games in much bigger IPs licensed from companies with an onerous reputation. They know nothing of the toils of folks at Palladium and those they deem to share their secrets of not doing common sense stuff with. It is clearly better to create a game that will be enjoyed for decades by the few minds gifted with the intelligence to understand their labrynthian rules than lower themselves down to the masses for the sake of being fun and a top seller. Shame on you, Forar, for suggesting otherwise!
My betters are speaking, and lo, I spoke out of turn. I shall know my place, and will remember it in the future.
Speculating about what might be has no place in discussion of a quarter century old anime about giants from space and transformable fighter jets. My flight of fancy got the best of me, and led me down a dark path.
I was lost, and you have found me. Truly, I was astray, and now that time has ended.
I have seen the light. The beautiful, glorious light.
Also it's good to know that the only way to ever present critique is to do it myself. brb, asking the boss for a million dollars and any connections we have in China. I'm not sure my budget covers it, but it's worth asking.
Mike1975 wrote: Well I can also postulate that the SDF-1 will appear tomorrow. It would have the same entrancing effect of your wistful FFG approach.
Don't be ridiculous, Mike. Everyone knows the Zor's ship crash landed years ago just like the cartoon said and caused the Bali Tsunami. The government has just been secretly hiding that fact and building 40ft tall veritechs in Argentina to combat the future alien threat. Some footage in spanish was leaked earlier this year but was taken down by a shadowy organization. I also have heard a rumor that the full scale mecha they're building have a smaller parts count than the Palladium ones and less seams.
Yeah, I knew that something was amiss. That lady in Area 51 was insistent that it was all absolutely true and that aliens landed. She forgot the 40 foot tall part.
Oh, they started another RRT forum since RobotechGameCenter.com died. We are looking at converting some Modern stuff over so that people can use their other 6mm stuff in RTT.
As for FFG, they were contacted at the start of the project (as well as several other large companies) but did not show interest for the RRT project. They had too much on their plate.
WilhelmRochRedDuke wrote: As for FFG, they were contacted at the start of the project (as well as several other large companies) but did not show interest for the RRT project. They had too much on their plate.
Wait, you mean the thing that two people just spent pages making fun of totally could have happened?!
bwahahahahahahahaha.
Whew.
That's awesome.
So, gents, the line to apologize forms to the left. No pushing or shoving, please.
WilhelmRochRedDuke wrote: As for FFG, they were contacted at the start of the project (as well as several other large companies) but did not show interest for the RRT project. They had too much on their plate.
Wait, you mean the thing that two people just spent pages making fun of totally could have happened?!
bwahahahahahahahaha.
Whew.
That's awesome.
So, gents, the line to apologize forms to the left. No pushing or shoving, please.
*sigh*
To dream of what could have been.
Oh I'll apologize for thinking that it could not happen legally but not for thinking that nobody would want to touch it due to legal concerns and the risk/return ratio being almost 1. PB having the License for the RPG and making the game rules and stats directly from the RPG would greatly mitigate that risk and improve the ratio significantly.
WRRD just said they specifically had too much on their plate and weren't interested. How you get 'my point about the legal concerns' stands from that post takes some truly impressive mental gymnastics.
Yeah, I'm sure FFG's team was super concerned about dealing with HG and the legal clusterfeth that it must be. Totally. Dealing with Lucasarts must be just a dream.
Note: I'm sure Lucasarts is staffed by awesome people, but between them and Disney do you seriously not think they have to watch their step and act with great caution too?
Damn man, HG have an itchy legal trigger finger and a tenuous grasp on a pile of things. It's not bloody Keyser Söze at the helm.
Hell, by that metric, Prodos working with Fox must require daily human sacrifices or something but here they are.
Description:
1-250Scale: This is a comparison of the 1/250 scale macross valkyries from the set a couple years back that are now WAY too expensive online.
30mmHexBase: This is a 30mm hex base, beats the circle if you ask me. I like the transparent ones, but you could just paint it or get a colored version.
ForTheEmperor1: A lowly space marine, looking a bit outgunned.
Frankenstein: Well that went together pretty darned well.
RegultFlyers: I couldn't get these suckers to stay on the base with blue tack, and one of them I screwed up the pose. I think the woosh thing they come with is FAR too tall.
Regults: You figure it out.
UEDF1: My UEDF stuff, notice the REF defender hiding in there? The valk feet don't look bad at all with a good pose.
VF-2SS: Macross II VF-2SS space fighters in a scale shot. A bit large, but still cool!
WorkArea2: All the stuff, minus the blue tack, that I used in the assembly (and a few drops of gorilla superglue)
Zentraedi: Overhead shot of all zentraedi in game (Miriya was a gencon extra) all put together, and what other stuff I had done)
Some notes: I got kind of happy finishing them, which is a good sign.... I think once I get used to them putting them together won't be so bad, just REALLY outta practice.
REALLY not happy with the swoosh mounts. The regult ones are *way* too tall IMO. I think I'll glue magnets to the bottom and use a magnetic flight stand, makes for easier storage too.
I put the antenna on the glaug in the wrong spot, I know, sorry. It is also broke. I also didn't glue the smallest piece on the scout, as it broke with the glaug antenna when I was trying to get it off the sprue.
Next will be the other valkyrie fighters, then the valkyrie guardians, then battloids, and last I'll do the 2 tomahawks (as they are my favorite!)
Forar wrote: WRRD just said they specifically had too much on their plate and weren't interested. How you get 'my point about the legal concerns' stands from that post takes some truly impressive mental gymnastics.
Yeah, I'm sure FFG's team was super concerned about dealing with HG and the legal clusterfeth that it must be. Totally. Dealing with Lucasarts must be just a dream.
Note: I'm sure Lucasarts is staffed by awesome people, but between them and Disney do you seriously not think they have to watch their step and act with great caution too?
Damn man, HG have an itchy legal trigger finger and a tenuous grasp on a pile of things. It's not bloody Keyser Söze at the helm.
Hell, by that metric, Prodos working with Fox must require daily human sacrifices or something but here they are.
Um.. have you never read between the lines or seen professionalism. If someone brings me something I would not touch with a 10 foot pole that does not mean that I immediately tell them so. By saying they have too much, which could be true, is a simple way of saying no thanks or hell no.
Lucas Arts is a very different IP with a lot less problems in it's past with toys and miniatures and probably has a cleaner bill of health with regards to licensing. Plus you cannot compare the popularity of Star Wars with Robotech. That's like comparing Transformers to the Go-bots.
So you can think as you wish but the fact does remain....most prudent companies would not have messed with Robotech even IF they wanted to, the risk is too high.
In the end I stick with my statement......most prudent companies would not have messed with Robotech even IF they wanted to, the risk is too high.
Mike1975 wrote: Um.. have you never read between the lines or seen professionalism. If someone brings me something I would not touch with a 10 foot pole that does not mean that I immediately tell them so. By saying they have too much, which could be true, is a simple way of saying no thanks or hell no.
Lucas Arts is a very different IP with a lot less problems in it's past with toys and miniatures and probably has a cleaner bill of health with regards to licensing. Plus you cannot compare the popularity of Star Wars with Robotech. That's like comparing Transformers to the Go-bots.
So you can think as you wish but the fact does remain....most prudent companies would not have messed with Robotech even IF they wanted to, the risk is too high.
In the end I stick with my statement......most prudent companies would not have messed with Robotech even IF they wanted to, the risk is too high.
Honestly, if FFG got approached and they decided not to do anything with Robotech, I bet it has more to do with efficient use of their resources than with anything else (risk? pfft. They're working with GW and Lucasarts. Any of those's legal departments would eat HG's raw). After all, anyone working in Robotech, any production line devoted to it, any resources poured into it, would mean that many people, production lines and resources diverted from other, more profitable endeavours. Like anything Star Wars at all, ever. Seriously, it wasn't even a contest.
Mike1975 wrote: Um.. have you never read between the lines or seen professionalism. If someone brings me something I would not touch with a 10 foot pole that does not mean that I immediately tell them so. By saying they have too much, which could be true, is a simple way of saying no thanks or hell no.
Lucas Arts is a very different IP with a lot less problems in it's past with toys and miniatures and probably has a cleaner bill of health with regards to licensing. Plus you cannot compare the popularity of Star Wars with Robotech. That's like comparing Transformers to the Go-bots.
So you can think as you wish but the fact does remain....most prudent companies would not have messed with Robotech even IF they wanted to, the risk is too high.
In the end I stick with my statement......most prudent companies would not have messed with Robotech even IF they wanted to, the risk is too high.
Honestly, if FFG got approached and they decided not to do anything with Robotech, I bet it has more to do with efficient use of their resources than with anything else (risk? pfft. They're working with GW and Lucasarts. Any of those's legal departments would eat HG's raw). After all, anyone working in Robotech, any production line devoted to it, any resources poured into it, would mean that many people, production lines and resources diverted from other, more profitable endeavours. Like anything Star Wars at all, ever. Seriously, it wasn't even a contest.
Admittedly FFG and Lucas Arts are a giant but there has never been anywhere near the problems of lawsuits as with Robotech. If it was my $ I'd do so really hard digging and thinking before investing in it.
Mike1975 wrote: Admittedly FFG and Lucas Arts are a giant but there has never been anywhere near the problems of lawsuits as with Robotech. If it was my $ I'd do so really hard digging and thinking before investing in it.
AFAIK, both Disney and GW's legal divisions are constantly monitoring... well, basically everything ins search of possible basis for lawsuits, but even if it wasn't so, I don't think this is a case of fear of legal repercussions (seriously, HG's success on defending Robotech's IP in the US has less to do with any capability of theirs and more to do with the japanese basically not giving a gak).
It is way simpler than that: expected ROI. Simply put, when compared with the licenses FFG already has, diverting resources to anything Robotech (and paying llicense fees) instead of just doing what they are doing with SW, Warhammer, 40k, et all, would be basically throwing good money after bad. They would be losing money there (from an accountant perspective, that is: their investments would return less benefit, so that's lost money).
I'm sure there are ebbs and flows throughout the world on what gets played. There are a dozen people that get together every couple weekends here in Dallas at just 1 store and play Battletech. There are at least 2 other groups I know of nearby with 6+ that also play all the time. None of them play alpha strike (and I've tried to get them to). Sometimes 40K players are in the game store, other times X-Wing (so I've heard). However, most of those Battletech folks are pretty die-hard and have been playing for many years, if not decades.
And if there is a single other rule set out there as complete as Battletech, please enlighten me. I have 7 linear feet of just the books for that game system. I can fight a battle with a soldier, up to a million man army, I can do battles in space, underwater, OR a vacuum, I have rules for building *everything*.
The only other game I know of that has ever even come close to that, was the Renegade Legion games with Prefect/Legionnaire/Leviathan/Centurion/Interceptor.
So please, somebody, tell me a system that is more complete than battletech is.
Bad_Syntax wrote: I'm sure there are ebbs and flows throughout the world on what gets played. There are a dozen people that get together every couple weekends here in Dallas at just 1 store and play Battletech. There are at least 2 other groups I know of nearby with 6+ that also play all the time. None of them play alpha strike (and I've tried to get them to). Sometimes 40K players are in the game store, other times X-Wing (so I've heard). However, most of those Battletech folks are pretty die-hard and have been playing for many years, if not decades.
And if there is a single other rule set out there as complete as Battletech, please enlighten me. I have 7 linear feet of just the books for that game system. I can fight a battle with a soldier, up to a million man army, I can do battles in space, underwater, OR a vacuum, I have rules for building *everything*.
The only other game I know of that has ever even come close to that, was the Renegade Legion games with Prefect/Legionnaire/Leviathan/Centurion/Interceptor.
So please, somebody, tell me a system that is more complete than battletech is.
That's perfect....and also the problem at time....there are so many rules to do so many things that Battletech games can take forever to play. Alpha Strike is a move in the right direction.
Joyboozer wrote: So the current consensus is that now it's not Palladiums fault as they had to polish a turd, the job nobody wanted?
Nope. For FFG, working in Robotech would be losing money. For Palladium, or any other company of the size, it would be their flag game. Completely different viewpoints.
So, they completely fumbled the release and development of their flag game?
I tried to stay away from this one for months as it began to feel like the anger was unreasonable but to return and find it's still going on?
Did they actually ignore all play test feedback from Mike until after printing the rule book?
So, why is it that the licensor (HG) could not grant the licensee (PB) a new license or an addendum to their current license granting them the ability to make a miniatures game, exactly?
Taarnak wrote: So, why is it that the licensor (HG) could not grant the licensee (PB) a new license or an addendum to their current license granting them the ability to make a miniatures game, exactly?
~Eric
Because Harmony Gold doesn't have exclusive rights to Macross stuff. In fact, they only have rights here in the US I think. In Japan they lost some suite and do not have rights. I remember reading some big discussion on that whole lawsuit thing, and its crazy complicated. More than any of us non-lawyer non-in-the-know types could try to pretend we understand.
That is just a guess.
Thing is, none of us know, all of us can assume we know about things until we are blue in the face, and all we are doing is wasting our time. This way madness lies, as there is nothing to be gained by this kind of discussion.
On another note, I took my Robotech stuff to show off at my local battletech club. Wasn't as much excitement as I hoped, but they were open to playing a demo. I did plop that Glaug on the board and quickly saw that it wasn't actually all that big compared to the recent IWM mecha miniatures. In fact, there are some that are still yet bigger. The Regults and UEDF stuff will all work fine in battletech games too, or RRT could be converted to Alpha Strike if you didn't like RRT rules.
I still thin the Heavy Gear/Silhouette 2nd Edition rules were far better suited to anime stuff though, and have always wished DP9 pursued the Robotech license :( (instead they went all stupid with blitz, now their IP is crap IMO).
Because Harmony Gold doesn't have exclusive rights to Macross stuff. In fact, they only have rights here in the US I think. In Japan they lost some suite and do not have rights. I remember reading some big discussion on that whole lawsuit thing, and its crazy complicated. More than any of us non-lawyer non-in-the-know types could try to pretend we understand.
If HG has the ability to license an RPG, then surely they have the ability to license a miniatures game, right? PB is still a US company, so I don't see what difference US vs ROW rights would have.
Not a lawyer, and I don't have all the facts. I do suspect that it has more to do with PB's practices and non-adaptive ways than with HG's ability to create/add a miniatures game license.
Because Harmony Gold doesn't have exclusive rights to Macross stuff. In fact, they only have rights here in the US I think. In Japan they lost some suite and do not have rights. I remember reading some big discussion on that whole lawsuit thing, and its crazy complicated. More than any of us non-lawyer non-in-the-know types could try to pretend we understand.
If HG has the ability to license an RPG, then surely they have the ability to license a miniatures game, right? PB is still a US company, so I don't see what difference US vs ROW rights would have.
Not a lawyer, and I don't have all the facts. I do suspect that it has more to do with PB's practices and non-adaptive ways than with HG's ability to create/add a miniatures game license.
~Eric
The setting of Robotech is marginally different than the source anime, as such it is a different story done in the imagination, and easier to mass market. There may already be a Macross Miniatures wargame out, as such the similar models could cause issues when treating it as a war game, but as an addition to the RPG might not cause the same issue.
Just a guess, legalize is so convoluted as to be a pain for those without the education in navigating it.
So please, somebody, tell me a system that is more complete than battletech is.
That's perfect....and also the problem at time....there are so many rules to do so many things that Battletech games can take forever to play. Alpha Strike is a move in the right direction.
Also it divides the limited pool of players.
"Anyone for a game of Alpha Strike 2055?"
"Oh, I only like classic 2025....maybe frank might have a 2055 army set up?"
Frank - "Nah I bought dark age tonight"
The other thing is having such a 'complete universe' with a million books is that it is so overwhelming for a new player that there are no new players. The people who play BT are the people who have played for 20 years because newbies get bombarded with lore, different ages and types of play and just go 'stuff it XXX game is just so much easier'
Dont get me wrong, I like BT and started in the early 90's but it needs to have a universe wipe and start again. Even the introductary box set isnt set in the actual current timeline so if someone wanted to play the 'current age' game the mechs from the box set are useless.
If HG has the ability to license an RPG, then surely they have the ability to license a miniatures game, right? PB is still a US company, so I don't see what difference US vs ROW rights would have.
Not a lawyer, and I don't have all the facts. I do suspect that it has more to do with PB's practices and non-adaptive ways than with HG's ability to create/add a miniatures game license.
Not necessarily. *most* of the time *most* western nations (and Japan, but NOT China) respect IP/copyright laws of other western nations. However, every now and then a company can win a lawsuit in 1 country and be allowed to do something, when in another country or the RotW they are not allowed to.
As we have ZERO real information why, and only conjecture, the best information I am aware of on this was the RPG license holder, Kevin, telling me to my face that HG could not and would not allow PB to "Take the reigns" so to speak, and had final say on *everything*, even if it was against what PB wanted to do.
IP/Copyright law is a disgrace to humanity. It should never be transferable out of the human that creates it, it looses integrity and becomes corrupted as soon as some company like Disney decides they want to keep a copyright on Mickey Mouse decades after the original creator is dead.
Not necessarily. *most* of the time *most* western nations (and Japan, but NOT China) respect IP/copyright laws of other western nations. However, every now and then a company can win a lawsuit in 1 country and be allowed to do something, when in another country or the RotW they are not allowed to.
As we have ZERO real information why, and only conjecture, the best information I am aware of on this was the RPG license holder, Kevin, telling me to my face that HG could not and would not allow PB to "Take the reigns" so to speak, and had final say on *everything*, even if it was against what PB wanted to do.
IP/Copyright law is a disgrace to humanity. It should never be transferable out of the human that creates it, it looses integrity and becomes corrupted as soon as some company like Disney decides they want to keep a copyright on Mickey Mouse decades after the original creator is dead.
You have the quotes in your reply backwards.
I get that there is some cooperation between countries with respect to IP. Really though, that has nothing to do with the situation here. HG appear to be the de facto rights holder with respect to the Robotech property within the US. This, of course, is what allows them to create a license for said property. In PB's case, the license is for use in an RPG. Without knowing more, I can see no reason whatsoever (and I doubt one exists) that HG cannot expand PB's license to include a miniatures game. They have licensed (a) video game(s).
What Kevin said to you sounds more like pre-staging an excuse or fall guy to me. Many licensors seem to be the same way (Lucas/Disney & GW) and yet other companies seem to be able to navigate those barriers just fine (FFG).
I'm no fan of IP Law and they direction it is taking either, but that seems wildly off topic, even for this subset of the main thread topic.
Essentially, the whole IP thing is not very clear cut, and its nuts. Only lawyers (and not internet couch lawyers) can really understand what is going on here.
Thing is, we simply have to accept what we are given, and the reasons we are given. We don't have to like them, nor even believe them, but we all have to accept them. Gotta come to peace with that or just get all mad over a game when you probably have many others on your shelves unplayed.
Essentially, the whole IP thing is not very clear cut, and its nuts. Only lawyers (and not internet couch lawyers) can really understand what is going on here.
FASA and it's entanglements with HG over mech designs in Battletech have absolutely nothing in common with PB creating a miniatures game vs an RPG "expansion". FASA used the mech designs without clear license to do so. HG has the right and ability to grant PB a clear and clean license to use the Robotech IP in a miniatures game, from all evidence.
IP law and it's interpretations are very labyrinthine and complex. I still have yet to see anything that suggests that IP law has anything to do with this question though.
Also, you basically called me too stupid to understand the situation. Which I don't particularly appreciate, especially on the heels of your completely unrelated examples.
Thing is, we simply have to accept what we are given, and the reasons we are given. We don't have to like them, nor even believe them, but we all have to accept them. Gotta come to peace with that or just get all mad over a game when you probably have many others on your shelves unplayed.
We have to do no such thing. I may have to accept that I will only get those reasons or, more likely, nothing at all. However given the somewhat...colorful, history of PB, I almost certainly won't believe a thing they say.
Also, you basically called me too stupid to understand the situation. Which I don't particularly appreciate, especially on the heels of your completely unrelated examples.
Noooo, I said you didn't know the details, as you aren't an IP lawyer, nor do you have access to all of the legal documents around the whole macross/HG thing, nor do you have access to the internal workings of Harmony Gold/Palladium/Ninja Division.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but just throwing out wild accusations because you believe its true isn't very useful to anybody. I was told by the person *mostly* in charge of this whole fiasco, and he said HG was placing serious limits on what they could do and how they could do it. There could be some licensing thing between PB/HG, or who knows maybe Kevin lied to my face.
But at least I did get *some* information from somebody "in the know", which is more than you have presented here so far.
But I think you'll be hard pressed to find anybody, PB included, that think this KS hasn't been mismanaged in many ways. It isn't like this KS is unique either, MANY others are the same way. So what is the point in bringing up all the flaws over and over and over again? What does that achieve? Actually, what does complaining in anybody's life really achieve? Actions achieve things, not complaining. Heck, the great creator "The Oatmeal" even cracked a pretty good joke about it:
You will be much happier when you get your stuff. Though its a pain to assemble, every other miniatures based KS I've done (a lot) aside from Zombicide has had considerable assembly as well, and at least I haven't had to put the RRT parts in hot water to make them fit. Now that I'm done with the zentraedi, and nearly done with model #10 of 20 for the UEDF, I am quite excited to try and run a demo next weekend for folks. The decades of waiting for these products is at hand, and I will finally be able to do what I wanted to for so long. I can't wait for other people to start painting them up so I can see the great paint schemes, better modeling abilities, and cool scratch building they do. I feel like what I got was very much worth the money. I got most of the battletech unseen for under $2 each, and at most under $4, that is just awesome and I hope the game really takes off.
Taarnak wrote: We have to do no such thing. I may have to accept that I will only get those reasons or, more likely, nothing at all. However given the somewhat...colorful, history of PB, I almost certainly won't believe a thing they say.
Ok, you don't accept it, everybody is entitled to their opinion. So what do you hope to accomplish in this forum by telling us?
Bad_Syntax wrote: The decades of waiting for these products is at hand
Did Kevin tell you that's how long shipping to backers will take?
Hehe, nope.
But he did say the 4th container would "fulfill all the KS orders for wave 1", and the last update mentioned a 5th (though he wasn't aware of their status, that was Wayne's job).
I would really hope everybody gets their wave 1 by the end of the year. Wave 2 though, if I had to pull a date out of my butt, I'd say summer of 2015. Just a heads up, the last date I pulled out of my butt was Dec 2013, when I said "they had the month right, but the wrong year!". I like to think I was joking, but I am pretty sure it was just my ability to foretell the future coming to fruition.
bbl, going to buy a lottery ticket because it is time for the numbers 01-02-03-04-05-06-07-08 to be selected.
Also, you basically called me too stupid to understand the situation. Which I don't particularly appreciate, especially on the heels of your completely unrelated examples.
Noooo, I said you didn't know the details, as you aren't an IP lawyer, nor do you have access to all of the legal documents around the whole macross/HG thing, nor do you have access to the internal workings of Harmony Gold/Palladium/Ninja Division.
You are back pedaling. You clearly intended, if not outright insult, then to make yourself look clever at my expense.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but just throwing out wild accusations because you believe its true isn't very useful to anybody. I was told by the person *mostly* in charge of this whole fiasco, and he said HG was placing serious limits on what they could do and how they could do it. There could be some licensing thing between PB/HG, or who knows maybe Kevin lied to my face.
Nope. Not wrong. I know nothing of the particulars of HG's or PB's business practices,nor of the licenses and agreements between the two. Which would be why I asked my initial question:
"So, why is it that the licensor (HG) could not grant the licensee (PB) a new license or an addendum to their current license granting them the ability to make a miniatures game, exactly?"
I believe it was Mike1975 that initially suggested that it was not possible for PB to make this a standalone miniatures game and instead were forced to make it as an expansion to the RPG. Given what information we do have (HG owns rights to Robotech in US but not ROW, HG has granted PB a license to make a Robotech RPG) that assertion seems ridiculous. I was looking for more information on why it might be true.
But at least I did get *some* information from somebody "in the know", which is more than you have presented here so far.
I never presented anything here ever. I merely asked a question. One which you have offered no answer to but danced around in various ways doing your absolute best to paint PB in the most positive light possible.
I did voice my doubts and suspicions about the reasons for the trials and tribulations suffered by the Robotech miniatures game so far.
But I think you'll be hard pressed to find anybody, PB included, that think this KS hasn't been mismanaged in many ways. It isn't like this KS is unique either, MANY others are the same way. So what is the point in bringing up all the flaws over and over and over again? What does that achieve? Actually, what does complaining in anybody's life really achieve? Actions achieve things, not complaining. Heck, the great creator "The Oatmeal" even cracked a pretty good joke about it:
Other Kickstsrters have nothing to do with this one. Also, we have PB's prior behavior towards crowd funded products to consider ("Crisis of Treachery!").
The flaws are there. Not talking about them won't make them go away, which is unfortunate for some.
Ah, another veiled insult/attempt to look clever. I'm sensing a pattern forming...
You will be much happier when you get your stuff. Though its a pain to assemble, every other miniatures based KS I've done (a lot) aside from Zombicide has had considerable assembly as well, and at least I haven't had to put the RRT parts in hot water to make them fit. Now that I'm done with the zentraedi, and nearly done with model #10 of 20 for the UEDF, I am quite excited to try and run a demo next weekend for folks. The decades of waiting for these products is at hand, and I will finally be able to do what I wanted to for so long. I can't wait for other people to start painting them up so I can see the great paint schemes, better modeling abilities, and cool scratch building they do. I feel like what I got was very much worth the money. I got most of the battletech unseen for under $2 each, and at most under $4, that is just awesome and I hope the game really takes off.
I will be happier when I get my stuff true. Despite my better judgement I allowed my friends' enthusiasm push me into pledging for this Kickstarter. Luckily I have Gruntz rules to fall back on because so far the RRT rules are a train wreck.
I'm glad you have your stuff and happy for you that you are so enthusiastic about it. Hopefully you can get a good group going.
Taarnak wrote: We have to do no such thing. I may have to accept that I will only get those reasons or, more likely, nothing at all. However given the somewhat...colorful, history of PB, I almost certainly won't believe a thing they say.
Ok, you don't accept it, everybody is entitled to their opinion. So what do you hope to accomplish in this forum by telling us?
Right back at you: What did you hope to accomplish? Why bother to tell everyone your opinion?
In a good example of how complex things are, you can see it in this thread where the issue gets confused. However, even without being a lawyer there's a bit of clarity to be brought to the "Japan issue" at least.
From my reading on the topic (and I find the Kotaku summary to be a decent read), it appears that Robotech and the first story arc of Macross are fine. The Japanese court case established that Tatsunoko Production, who HG got their license from, is the rightful owner of the animation used for both Robotech and Macross and that they could also grant the international distribution/merchandising rights to the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series which HG purchased. That's pretty much a settled issue and, as far as Robotech is really concerned, HG appears to be free-and-clear on that particular point.
Where HG has sailed into legal murky waters is that they claim the entire Macross series is their's to distribute, and on this point the Japanese courts do not agree. Tatsunoko only had merchandising rights to Super Dimension Fortress Macross, not the whole franchise. HG could end up in a legal bind if Studio Nue or Big West ever assert their IP rights in the US, but it wouldn't be that their ability to grant Robotech licenses would be invalidated. I can see where there's a risk they might go bankrupt from court costs and/or penalties if they lost, but in the strict confines of Robotech everything seems to be above board.
So I'm with those wondering why it HAD to be an expansion of the RPG and couldn't be a "miniatures game"; there's always plenty of twists and turns but I'd like documented evidence and not just the word of someone who is quite willing to break promises as regards release dates, shipping order, and the like. Being "in the know" and being someone "who tells the truth" aren't quite the same thing. Granted, looking at the parties involved I doubt such evidence would be easily accessible, if it exists.
On an unrelated note, the models look okay actually. Not "mouth-watering", not awesome...I'd be hesitant to even throw the word "good" in there, but they are certainly passable. It's not what the backers were promised perhaps and they have certainly taken too long in getting here, but they're not total crap from what I can see of the unpainted ones. Just crap in comparison to what was promised (see also: reference to them being an unreliable source above).
As much as I enjoy watching a good e-peen competition over who's right this one has gotten a bit stale. It has nothing to do with the FASA lawsuit/ruling.
PB can only make an RPG game due to how their license works out, hence why the miniatures are being billed as "game accessories" for their RPG not as a miniatures game. There are other holders to the Robotech license that have the rights to toys and models which a proper miniatures game would fall under. Typically when a company issues out multiple license options there is a non compete clause included to prevent the holders from stepping on each others toes by offering too similar of products.
Being that the miniatures are plastic and pretty much follow the same breakdowns as their larger model counterparts it could potentially be seen as a competing product for the companies that hold the model rights, it oculd also been seen as a competing product if a company held the rights to games aka board games. That's why there's a lot of very careful and specific wordage in how they are marketing their product as it fits within a very narrow criteria.
Because of the way the license is worded and game rights being held by other sources there's currently no way in which somebody could produce a miniatures game. (that wasn't associated with the license holder or PB's RPG) How the rights are divided is fairly complex due to there being several different holders involved and several of which are in a holding pattern due to pending/potential movie deals.
(This isn't speculation, it's direct info from Tommy Yune at HG)
Wow... That's the best type to trolling I have ever read! Bad_Syntax is already being all polite and forward and still gets flamed. kinda like seeing a boxer knocked down but still gets punched in the nuts by the opponent.
Anyways, its unlikely we will get any definite 'proof' of the coincequense of creating a Robotech minitures game because those involved are smart enough to go around it. Bad_Syntax's link are the rare examples of companies who didn't see the mindfield ahead and got blown up. If you can't take no for an answer maybe you should create the miniture game and see what happens?
paulson games wrote: As much as I enjoy watching a good e-peen competition over who's right this one has gotten a bit stale. It has nothing to do with the FASA lawsuit/ruling.
PB can only make an RPG game due to how their license works out, hence why the miniatures are being billed as "game accessories" for their RPG not as a miniatures game. There are other holders to the Robotech license that have the rights to toys and models which a proper miniatures game would fall under. Typically when a company issues out multiple license options there is a non compete clause included to prevent the holders from stepping on each others toes by offering too similar of products.
Being that the miniatures are plastic and pretty much follow the same breakdowns as their larger model counterparts it could potentially be seen as a competing product for the companies that hold the model rights, it oculd also been seen as a competing product if a company held the rights to games aka board games. That's why there's a lot of very careful and specific wordage in how they are marketing their product as it fits within a very narrow criteria.
Because of the way the license is worded and game rights being held by other sources there's currently no way in which somebody could produce a miniatures game. (that wasn't associated with the license holder or PB's RPG)
Well stated. Thank you for the clarification to reduce the murkiness that people like to throw on things.
Because of the way the license is worded and game rights being held by other sources there's currently no way in which somebody could produce a miniatures game. (that wasn't associated with the license holder or PB's RPG) How the rights are divided is fairly complex due to there being several different holders involved and several of which are in a holding pattern due to pending/potential movie deals.
(This isn't speculation, it's direct info from Tommy Yune at HG)
But how does this square with WRRDs post a few pages back about how FFG was first approached to do RRT.
I doubt it would have changed anything, they would have had to work under Palladium just like how things are structured with Ninja Division, then Harmony Gold gets all final say on the product. From my understanding it wouldn't have been possible for them to work directly with HG because of how the lisc shakes down, so anyone wanting to make a game type product would have had to go through PB for the RPG angle or contacted whoever has the Robotech game rights and worked through them.
I can't really speculate about FFG not having availability, not wanting risk, or not wanting to work in a 3 tiered approval chain of death. I do know the owner of FFG did sit through my demo at Adepticon back in 2012 and checked out all my prototype models (back before I was dropped from the project) and he had very positive comments for the work I'd been doing. I care not to guess as to his mindset about the rest of the project, but who knows maybe he didn't like Kevin or the way PB ran things and it was his way of politely rejecting it, but then again working on Xwing and a bunch of other games is pretty dang huge task and has had plenty to keep them busy with?
But one thing to note is that the miniatures community is fairly small and tight knit. Most of the company owners all know each other on a first name basis, you dump on the wrong person and word travels quickly and bad press will close a lot of doors fast.
paulson games wrote: I doubt it would have changed anything, they would have had to work under Palladium just like how things are structured with Ninja Division, then Harmony Gold gets all final say on the product. From my understanding it wouldn't have been possible for them to work directly with HG because of how the lisc shakes down, so anyone wanting to make a game type product would have had to go through PB for the RPG angle or contacted whoever has the Robotech game rights and worked through them.
I can't really speculate about FFG not having availability, not wanting risk, or not wanting to work in a 3 tiered approval chain of death. I do know the owner of FFG did sit through my demo at Adepticon back in 2012 and checked out all my prototype models back before I was dropped from the project and he had very positive comments for the work I'd been doing. I care not to guess as to his mindset about the rest of the project, but who knows maybe he didn't like Kevin or the way PB ran things and it was his way of politely rejecting it, but then again working on Xwing and a bunch of other games is pretty dang huge task and has had plenty to keep them busy with?
But one thing to note is that the miniatures community is fairly small and tight knit. Most of the company owners all know each other on a first name basis, you dump on the wrong person and word travels quickly and bad press will close a lot of doors fast.
Which jives with what I understood of the situation. Thanks
Anyone else get the feeling after reading the comments page that the odds of ever playing this game with a normal person are going to be incredibly slim?
I think it would be absolutely hilarious if these huge complaints got an influx of cash in their bank account as PB said "Well, since you were so unhappy here is a full refund".
They would then complain that they got the refund, because they'd have to pay full price now. Many of them now say they are just going to sell it when they get it, though I suspect that is mostly just threats.
I will be getting a few folks in my battletech group to play a demo *hopefully* next weekend, they are pretty close to "normal", well, as far as gamers go.
Bad_Syntax wrote: I think it would be absolutely hilarious if these huge complaints got an influx of cash in their bank account as PB said "Well, since you were so unhappy here is a full refund".
I know of 2 people (directly) that have asked for refunds. The answer they got was "we're not offering refunds".
Other poster over here managed to get a full refund from the credit card company, though.
Joyboozer wrote: Anyone else get the feeling after reading the comments page that the odds of ever playing this game with a normal person are going to be incredibly slim?
A friend of mine who isn't a table-top gamer was excited about this when the Kickstarter was announced. AFAIK, he bought into it, though I've never confirmed for certain. I've been meaning to check with him to see whether he did invest, and what his opinion on the initial product releases are.
Joyboozer wrote: Anyone else get the feeling after reading the comments page that the odds of ever playing this game with a normal person are going to be incredibly slim?
"In the wild?" Yeah, I'd be wary of playing this in a tournament or convention setting.
Against anyone? I backed with 2 other people, and we have another 4 that are interested in playing with us using our models, so with 7+ potential players, it may well happen for me.
People without a solid group to start with? Might be kind of screwed. Especially since the refrain is an oft repeated 'just don't play with players like that!' In a small enough pool, that can rapidly become "just don't play".
Oh well, we're about to enter Week 3 of "Shipping out core boxes, heh, we've totally started shipping...".
Some day they'll send out a battle cry, and lo, there will be much rejoicing.
People without a solid group to start with? Might be kind of screwed. Especially since the refrain is an oft repeated 'just don't play with players like that!' In a small enough pool, that can rapidly become "just don't play".
That would be my case. I tried hard to stump for the game during the KS but the best I got from the rather large Battletech crowd was a "Thanks but we'll see how it turns out." In the intervening year, it has become a long running joke they rib me with when they see me, asking if I've gotten my October delivery of mouth watering models. On the bright side, I may be able to say yes this October one year late! :(
Bad_Syntax wrote: I think it would be absolutely hilarious if these huge complaints got an influx of cash in their bank account as PB said "Well, since you were so unhappy here is a full refund".
I know of 2 people (directly) that have asked for refunds. The answer they got was "we're not offering refunds".
Other poster over here managed to get a full refund from the credit card company, though.
And yet Cthulhu Wars, a project for near the same amount of money, and nearly as late, has offered them. Hmm.
Bad_Syntax wrote: I think it would be absolutely hilarious if these huge complaints got an influx of cash in their bank account as PB
Are you saying the lack of refunds until now would be because of PBs habit of not doing something until after the damage has been done, it's taken them this long to figure out how to do it, or they'd do it and not communicate the fact? Which ineptitude are yo making light of?
), although probably "same general continent" could be argued to be domestically for most practical purposes.
, plus the lead times for me are insane.
).
I didn't put anything together yet, and its likely I won't get to them anytime soon. My Sedition Wars 
![[Disk]](/dakkaforum/templates/default/images/icon_disk.gif){kind=icon}
