If fraud is still the word for taking money under false pretences, they did.
Mouth-watering detail is MIA, product that was "98%" ready is not available 3 years later, and PB are about as "hands off" as a kleptomaniac. That should be enough false pretences for anyone.
Rick again you of all people with your so called "legal expertise" know full well words mean things and technicalities will end things right quick if not accurate so you know what ypu can do with your "technicality"
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ct that i dont dispute.
Using improper terms especially with these clowns will only help them not the backers.
jaymz wrote: Rick again you of all people with your so called "legal expertise" know full well words mean things and technicalities will end things right quick if not accurate so you know what ypu can do with your "technicality"
you keep saying that, but not once did I say I was approaching this from a legal aspect, as to technicalities you should know from your armchair lawyering it is all about reasonable doubt and what the jury believes, law has nothing to do with it, its all about the jury.
Talizvar wrote: Saw a person providing links to the PB Rifts cards on the Savage Worlds: Rifts KS.
I mentioned the RRT backer issues and to "try" not to send money directly to PB.
Usual comments to not "wreck people's fun" and "this KS has nothing to do with it", then I reminded them the items are NOT KS but PB's "me too!" product.
It boils down to views of "that is your problem, don't make it mine"... fair enough I guess.
Makes me hesitant to bother with the impending board game.
I suspect with miniatures involved it will launch in a similar fashion to RRT.
I think Palladium had found the perfect niche for their work ethic: fan-boys will ignore and do many things to get what they covet.
"It is like you want them to close their doors or something, then you would NEVER get your stuff."
That is the point if they cannot keep a consumer agreement: they DESERVE to be shut down for coercing money from me and keeping it without the agreed compensation.
I really don't want to see anyone else get taken for a ride, but these guys who say "not our problem" or "you should have known better" or any other phrase that basically means that they don't care that their favorite company ripped people off, I do hope they sign up for "Carmen's" ks.
Especially the guys that say we should be happy our money went to keeping PB in business and that is our reward.
Those guys should go all in on the ks, so they can fund our wave 2 and then sit for years waiting for their stuff.
jaymz wrote: Rick again you of all people with your so called "legal expertise" know full well words mean things and technicalities will end things right quick if not accurate so you know what ypu can do with your "technicality"
you keep saying that, but not once did I say I was approaching this from a legal aspect, as to technicalities you should know from your armchair lawyering it is all about reasonable doubt and what the jury believes, law has nothing to do with it, its all about the jury.
Rick, you should check one of these out. I think you will find them useful.
n815e wrote: I really don't want to see anyone else get taken for a ride, but these guys who say "not our problem" or "you should have known better" or any other phrase that basically means that they don't care that their favorite company ripped people off, I do hope they sign up for "Carmen's" ks.
Especially the guys that say we should be happy our money went to keeping PB in business and that is our reward.
Those guys should go all in on the ks, so they can fund our wave 2 and then sit for years waiting for their stuff.
A really petty part of me is in total agreement with this.
It was rather hard to try to appeal to the more balanced people while having the selfish reply with drivel.
These would be the same people who would cry to all who would listen of being hard done by if it did not work out... selfish hypocrisy does not sit well with me.
While I am on the topic, I guess we wait till the weekly no information update from PB.
Many say wave2 will never happen, I have this sneaking suspicion wave 2 will come out in some five years or so.
Shipping costs however will be "updated" at an inflated amount to (no good word for this) blackmail? / coerce? / bilk... hey! "Bilk" is correct!!!... to BILK money from us one more time to get wave 2 one part models made of melted crayons.
And still ypu miss the point rick. It is highly unlikely this case would be by jury.
You want to clsim technicality go for it. You want to claim coersion to create doubt go for it. As soon as it is shown you chose to give them money the only doubt will be your caee having ligitimacy. PB doesnt deserve this kind of stupidly simple mistake to help them in any future court proceedings. Dont help them. Be correct and accurate in every single possible aspect with facts not "technicalities"
Basically it's the same situation as RRT was at the start: supposedly done by someone else, PB is approving party.
Same as the start: Do your research on the background of the company.
At that time, I was aware of PB's reputation for delays, but was misled to think ND would do the bulk of the work, since it laid mostly outside of PB's traditional domain. In mitigation, there wasn't AFAIK an earlier, similar KS.
For the Rifts boardgame, all I am willing to say to potential backers is that there is now a precedence for non-completion in RRT that they have to consider. At the end of the day, it's their money, I can only objectively state the facts as they happened for their considerations.
Heck I might even toss a dollar their way just to be able to have popcorn rights if things turn the RRT way.
jaymz wrote: And still ypu miss the point rick. It is highly unlikely this case would be by jury.
You want to clsim technicality go for it. You want to claim coersion to create doubt go for it. As soon as it is shown you chose to give them money the only doubt will be your caee having ligitimacy. PB doesnt deserve this kind of stupidly simple mistake to help them in any future court proceedings. Dont help them. Be correct and accurate in every single possible aspect with facts not "technicalities"
oh if the case had gone to court I would not go for coercion, since there are so many avenues PB is guilty of, but I repeat where do you get taking this case to court? its all about being facetious, and the only way this case would not go to jury is if it is settled in arbitration.
jaymz wrote: I am just i trying to be accurate. Too many people will actually think coersion if talked about enougb. Thus technicality or not dont do it.
I don't think anyone was taking coercion seriously except for you, we were making fun, you just had to spoil it.
If fraud is still the word for taking money under false pretences, they did.
Mouth-watering detail is MIA, product that was "98%" ready is not available 3 years later, and PB are about as "hands off" as a kleptomaniac. That should be enough false pretences for anyone.
Blah blah blah. Clearly you aren't taking into account Kickstarter fairy dust.
"Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner by use of intimidation or threats or some other form of pressure or force."
The KS campaign explicitly was not 'a threat that it won't get made if we don't do it'. That level of negativity was never even glanced at, and it funded in 3 fething hours or so as I recall. Ninja Division's messaging was quite consistent through that month; it'll be great, looks good, plays well, models are coming along, oh look here's another teaser, ooooh we passed another stretch goal! WOOOOOOOO!'
Yeah, I'm fuzzy on things from 3 years ago too, but can we stop doubling down on this 'well technically...' twisting words and meanings into pretzels to avoid having to simply say 'okay, it wasn't literal coercion, but it was misdirection and a false representation of how far they were along' and we can all agree and high five on that.
PB has done plenty of shady, underhanded, stupid, questionable, and ridiculous things (as a starting point) without having to make things up, or (verbally) force square pegs into round holes. What next, do we declare they murdered a guy? Oh, maybe it wasn't murder murder, but like a murder... etc.
And I'm self aware enough to recognize that I'm in fact contributing to the problem, but for feth's sake can we (and by we I mean Rick) just admit to being wrong once in a while instead of arguing minutia?
It's not the end of the world to be wrong, mistaken, incorrect, etc. The apparent need to never be wrong is just toxic. It's up there with un-ironic hyperbolic statements for things that make discourse on this topic (and specifically on the KS comments and in this thread) unnecessarily frustrating at times.
"Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner by use of intimidation or threats or some other form of pressure or force."
The KS campaign explicitly was not 'a threat that it won't get made if we don't do it'. That level of negativity was never even glanced at, and it funded in 3 fething hours or so as I recall. Ninja Division's messaging was quite consistent through that month; it'll be great, looks good, plays well, models are coming along, oh look here's another teaser, ooooh we passed another stretch goal! WOOOOOOOO!'
Yeah, I'm fuzzy on things from 3 years ago too, but can we stop doubling down on this 'well technically...' twisting words and meanings into pretzels to avoid having to simply say 'okay, it wasn't literal coercion, but it was misdirection and a false representation of how far they were along' and we can all agree and high five on that.
PB has done plenty of shady, underhanded, stupid, questionable, and ridiculous things (as a starting point) without having to make things up, or (verbally) force square pegs into round holes. What next, do we declare they murdered a guy? Oh, maybe it wasn't murder murder, but like a murder... etc.
And I'm self aware enough to recognize that I'm in fact contributing to the problem, but for feth's sake can we (and by we I mean Rick) just admit to being wrong once in a while instead of arguing minutia?
It's not the end of the world to be wrong, mistaken, incorrect, etc. The apparent need to never be wrong is just toxic. It's up there with un-ironic hyperbolic statements for things that make discourse on this topic (and specifically on the KS comments and in this thread) unnecessarily frustrating at times.
Prepare to lose more, Mike, because the gamer goggles interview with master sleazeball Siembieda is up.
I'll be live blogging the pertinent parts as I watch.
1) The reason for the delay is reducing the piece count. The same rinse, lather, repeat excuse we've been given now for about 16 months or so since Adepticon 2015. Gamer Goggles response? "There are other silly things too."
2) Kevin really wants to get the project out in 2017. It's been "long enough" and he has to "make some sort of decision on wave 2". Kevin keeps alluding to a process that can significantly lower the piece count because quotes he got reducing parts from 24 to 18 per mecha weren't enough apparently despite two years since wave 1 was intended to premiere at gencon. Gamer Goggles response? "gamers don't realize" how long it takes and he goes on an apologist excuse on behalf of Kevin almost as long as Kevin's own excuse.
3) They don't want to show us progress because things may change. "People don't understand" according to Kevin. His 98% done quote was based on having a render and then *BAM* the chinese (his words) would just make the mould. "BOOM!" (sic) I'm awaiting a bada bing next. He's been talking with Robert from Dream Pod 9 about kickstarter problems... of course heavy gear is "only" almost a year late unlike almost 3 years for Robotech. Gamer Goggles response? "Knuckle up, people." @ the backers/viewers. Then he lies about the Heavy Gear Drake having 150+ pieces as justification for Robotech gamers having no reason to complain. Btw, here's the Drake's parts pic from the official store with by my quick count just over 40 pieces (about 6-8 of which you won't use since they're weapon options for three different mutually exclusive loadouts on a model roughly 3x the height of a destroid). I don't think Lemke can count.
Spoiler:
4) Palladium will do their "darndest" to rebuild trust with the gaming community and to try and communicate more and to get more support material out. In other words, everything they promised and FAILED in their great restart of communication last year verbally copy pasted into this year's interview. Gamer Goggles response? Proceed to the next question.
5) Palladium doesn't communicate any details because they don't want people getting their hopes up (mission accomplished! hopes couldn't be any lower!) or upset (abort! abort!). Gamer Goggles response? It's a bad idea to talk about what might be. Yay... Nods heads... lets move to other games.
RRT part of the interview seems to end about the 14 minute mark.
6) Roach has been working on the scenario book according to Kevin for 6 months but according to roach for a year and a half. "We have been doing stuff!" says Kevin. They focused on RPG books earlier this year... that's the spin. The cold hard facts is that their "focus" on getting out over 6 rpg books in as many months resulted in a single book to show for 6 months worth of supposed effort.
7) Rifts Boardgame will supposedly be ready to go and be in the stores four months after funding because Carmen has learned from robotech fumbles. Lol, sound familiar? 98% done, ready to go into manufacturing in about 40 days.. yet here we are three years later and palladium still hasn't made a decision on half the stuff. Gamer Goggles respone? "You can hire me!" to Kevin.
And that seems to be an appropriate and suitable end to the fawning interview. Gotta say... called it about Gamer Goggles!
Let's leave the physical commentary out. I'm sure more than one of the readers here in the thread has man boobs (looking down at my chest unfortuantely). There is plenty of commentary comedy gold in just the chummy attitude toward Kevin contrasted with the contempt for fellow backers.
I love how they are tweaking molds to reduce parts count......but DON'T have a MANUFACTURER chosen. Let that percolate for a bit......a little longer..........
How are you adjusting parts count, when you haven't even picked a manufacturer yet? Where is there any back and forth about parts count from a manufacturer, when you still haven't selected one? Who is adjusting the models when there isn't a company to cut the 3D renders into molds?
The chance of 2017 is out the window, they haven't picked a manufacturer, so there is no way the back and forth to reduce parts count is done.
I suppose if you're the optimistic sort then they've done a stellar job in reducing the parts count... to 1! via the paper game pieces for wave 2 to show for two years worth of "effort" and something that a fan could probably put together in a weekend. And if they were making that stuff on their own dime then it wouldn't be as big of an issue but they're not; we funded what would be wave 2 plastic minis for delivery in 2013, not coloring book paper cutouts consolation products for 2016.
No worries, Forar.. I can now unsuscribe from that channel again after dropping some thumbs down on various videos. The screen cap that youtube automatically generated seems to sum up the video for all anyways. Matt Lemke staring vapidly off in the distance while Kevin illustrates how he is has robotech backers by the balls and is squeezing them for all they're worth.
warboss wrote: No worries, Forar.. I can now unsuscribe from that channel again after dropping some thumbs down on various videos. The screen cap that youtube automatically generated seems to sum up the video for all anyways. Matt Lemke staring vapidly off in the distance while Kevin illustrates how he is has robotech backers by the balls and is squeezing them for all they're worth.
I didn't see that in the initial pass, but when I scrolled back up, yes, it's a great summation of the screencap.
I'll add to Forar's thanks for doing that. Because I'm not sure I could have got through it, given the "information" that was forthcoming.
Well, what we did learn from that video is that if successfully funded rifts boardgame backers will have their product in hand before we have wave 2 if the timeline sticks.
Swabby wrote: Well, what we did learn from that video is that if successfully funded rifts boardgame backers will have their product in hand before we have wave 2 if the timeline sticks.
warboss wrote: Let's leave the physical commentary out. I'm sure more than one of the readers here in the thread has man boobs (looking down at my chest unfortuantely). There is plenty of commentary comedy gold in just the chummy attitude toward Kevin contrasted with the contempt for fellow backers.
Oh no, you misunderstand, I was referring to the way he appears to have decided to keep wearing both shoulder straps despite doing an interview and sitting down. I can only assume he was hoping to attract some attention from Kevin.
3rd thanks to Warboss.
That interview went pretty much as expected.
To be fair, my own "hard hitting" questions were... difficult to pull off.
If you get in his face on something he bolts (got to go!, oops! got a presentation to do...).
I had seen a gentleman do a proper "hard questioning" and barely got 10 seconds into it.
So yeah, he was pretty much doomed good or poor interview skills not withstanding.
Not a fan of the guy's methods: seems too "touchy-feely" than getting into facts.
Makes his videos painful to watch for me.
Takes all kinds to make the world go round I guess.
Likely. You get folks here who own companies that talk about dakka being toxic but strangely those companies seems to always be the ones that have the most problems that screw over customers like Prodos for instance. The fact that they can't just unilaterally delete valid criticism and actually have to go through a third party to determine that validity (unlike their facebook pages and their own forums) apparently makes it toxic. I do admit that this thread is shamefully negativeTM but this project has largely been a systematic repeated string of failures (with the average quality wave 1 products shipping being a 3-4 month reprieve before the lies and disappointment began anew).
I just bought a Quel-Quallie model on eBay. Looking forward to building it and using it in games. The scale is off, but it should serve our purposes well. I have taken the rules for it and put it on the templates to match with all the other Stat cards. So if anyone else has one they can use the rules as well if they don't already have them in the normal format.Here is the link:
I just realized.. they say the delay because they heard customers wanted reduced piece count...
So why are they not hearing we just want our stuff for the past three years?
Genoside07 wrote: I just realized.. they say the delay because they heard customers wanted reduced piece count...
So why are they not hearing we just want our stuff for the past three years?
because that excuse does not work for their stall tactics.
Genoside07 wrote: I just realized.. they say the delay because they heard customers wanted reduced piece count...
So why are they not hearing we just want our stuff for the past three years?
Because the runner hasn't got there yet?
Because Kev hasn't talked to each and every backer about it? [Something he finds impossible as he can't find out where "RoW" is in the states.]
warboss wrote: Thanks for the many thanks.
@Talivar: What was his excuse in running away after 10 seconds? Hopefully you got it on video.
That was back during the 2015 Anime North.
I had just got there and Kevin and this guy started talking and I was not in the mindset of acting like a reporter.
It was rather shocking how it went south so quick: I may not remember it well, it went something like "So what is taking you so long to finish RRT?" in a rather snarky voice (I remember thinking "uh-oh" just hearing the tone).
Good direct question but no regard to presentation...
Kevin went from neutral to "A rude question does not deserve an answer!!" (Something to that effect... not 100% of exact words but pretty sure of the meaning) and stomped off.
I was impressed how he started with a half smile to beet red and a raised voice.
My own "hard hitting" interview during Anime North 2016 I had to start with "I was a fan of Rifts from when it first came out." (which is true).
Then rattled off a bunch of books and details to give the signs of the "true fan" (I had said the "Weapon Compendium was awesome, which to me is true.).
I think I had every Rift book up to "Wormwood" and dropped it after that.
That got Kevin's attention and about 15 minutes of his time (also Wayne's).
No gentle or otherwise questioning could get anything useful for wave 2 info.
I perform audits on-site and with suppliers as part of my duties so I am used to questioning... he would give you a "pained apologetic" face but little else.
He is a truly tough one to question: if you are nice he could happily spend all day with you, he gets into vague language when you hit something he decides he will not answer and there is that threat that at any time you get too pushy he will go into a rage.
The main impression I got with little facts to back them was Wayne had looked into a bunch of processes (seemed to know a few things about mold/casting processes) and potential suppliers and Kevin is sitting on the decision and possibly the report that remains unread: he knew squat.
I pretty much chalked-up each of those experiences as pointless but you asked!
Yeah that was abput the same as my experience at anime north 2013.
Say goid things he is your best friend. Start talking not so good things hus demeanor changes and he suddenly has to be somewhere.
That was after i played a demo of rrt with carmen (this was just after the ks was funded) in which repeatedly forgot to mention rules during my turns that would have benefitted me but never seemed to forget any rules that benefitted him.....
Thanks for the clarifications (even if they're not surprising given the subject). Did carmen at least give you the Palladium option of being a dick like they did at gencon robotech booth demos last year? Maybe he just genconpoll'ed your answer automatically as YES? On the plus side, I suppose getting the rules right when it suits him still puts him above NMI knowledge base.
I am now unsure which is worse:
Knowledge used for evil or lack of knowledge used for evil.
Well, the good thing is the fanbase is largely demoing the game, PB's folks have moved-on.
Alpharius wrote: That's a lot of Robotech there!
Is that your voice speaking in that video?
yes sounds weird on video
I will never hear... er, "read" your posts the same again!
I like the accent.
I don't care what you say anymore: there is an obvious joy to your voice with presenting all those models, you are nowhere near as bitter as I thought.
Thanks so much for sharing. Oh, and it is all painted and consistent, a ton of work, very well done.
Alpharius wrote: That's a lot of Robotech there!
Is that your voice speaking in that video?
yes sounds weird on video
I will never hear... er, "read" your posts the same again!
I like the accent.
I don't care what you say anymore: there is an obvious joy to your voice with presenting all those models, you are nowhere near as bitter as I thought.
Thanks so much for sharing. Oh, and it is all painted and consistent, a ton of work, very well done.
My wife made a video of me and her, last Christmas if you saw it you would not believe it is me. (oopsie left out a comma), my Wife still lives.
That Rifts boardgame has got my juices churning for a Robotech boardgame using the RRT miniatures.
- Each player runs either a VT squad or a Destroid squad. You can upgrade survivors with XP from defeated enemies
- Two main areas: SDF-1 exterior (maybe as a Castle Panic "Range" setup) and Macross City interior (a street-gridded system?)
- Goal is to get the SDF-1 back to Earth. Maybe an add-on for the time on Earth, the space battle above Earth and "Reconstruction Blues" era.
- Two game phases: Battle & Downtime. Battle is self-explanitary; draw a card that explains the set-up and objectives. Downtime allows the characters to acquire subplots that can be converted to XP ("Fall in Love", "Pilot Duel", "Promotion", "VT Super upgrade available" etc.) or spend XP to upgrade skills/abilities/repair team/bolster SDF-1 defenses, etc.
Considering it took over 15 years for the outdated rifts setting to get ported over to a working, modern ruleset, I'm going with sometime after 2028 given their previous lickety split fast response time to a pressing issue.
Stormonu wrote: That Rifts boardgame has got my juices churning for a Robotech boardgame using the RRT miniatures.
- Each player runs either a VT squad or a Destroid squad. You can upgrade survivors with XP from defeated enemies
- Two main areas: SDF-1 exterior (maybe as a Castle Panic "Range" setup) and Macross City interior (a street-gridded system?)
- Goal is to get the SDF-1 back to Earth. Maybe an add-on for the time on Earth, the space battle above Earth and "Reconstruction Blues" era.
- Two game phases: Battle & Downtime. Battle is self-explanitary; draw a card that explains the set-up and objectives. Downtime allows the characters to acquire subplots that can be converted to XP ("Fall in Love", "Pilot Duel", "Promotion", "VT Super upgrade available" etc.) or spend XP to upgrade skills/abilities/repair team/bolster SDF-1 defenses, etc.
That's interesting, that's more the direction this game should have taken with additional maps, scenarios and units released as expansions. I wonder who owns the boardgames rights to Robotech. Years ago I drew up some rules for a 4x version of Robotech using Zors power matrix as the mcguffin the different races were looking for.
Stormonu wrote: That Rifts boardgame has got my juices churning for a Robotech boardgame using the RRT miniatures.
- Each player runs either a VT squad or a Destroid squad. You can upgrade survivors with XP from defeated enemies
- Two main areas: SDF-1 exterior (maybe as a Castle Panic "Range" setup) and Macross City interior (a street-gridded system?)
- Goal is to get the SDF-1 back to Earth. Maybe an add-on for the time on Earth, the space battle above Earth and "Reconstruction Blues" era.
- Two game phases: Battle & Downtime. Battle is self-explanitary; draw a card that explains the set-up and objectives. Downtime allows the characters to acquire subplots that can be converted to XP ("Fall in Love", "Pilot Duel", "Promotion", "VT Super upgrade available" etc.) or spend XP to upgrade skills/abilities/repair team/bolster SDF-1 defenses, etc.
Ha!
Sorry, I had a vision of Zombicide where pods keep coming in and you play your Veritech hero.
Talizvar wrote: I would suggest putting the forum for those links in your signature. Gotta stay on topic (what little we have) you know...
Seconded. That link was just randomness. ____
Edit - it's OK to announce new edition, but a bare link is not nearly so helpful as saying "There is a new edition of Nodal Wars for those who want alternate rules for their RRT minis".
Mike1975 wrote: Funny how it goes to share as needed to share as little as possible to just don't share at all.......
Oh don't be that way.
The work you are doing is great, just that announcing your progress is off-topic.
Oddly, maybe others see this too, your announcements are a painful reminder you are "done" with Robotech and you are advertising an alternative that others may not be willing to switch to just yet. Your participation here has been largely these announcements which is being rather stingy.
It is not irritation, I dunno, many are so used to you giving an inside look of where Robotech is going so when you post it is "What cool thing about Robotech does Mike have to say?" then it is "Oh yeah, his game he is working on.".
Managing expectation I guess? I suggested adding to your signature, that is why I keep viewing them on in my Dakka options since many point to their blogs there.
Mike1975 wrote: Funny how it goes to share as needed to share as little as possible to just don't share at all.......
Oh don't be that way.
The work you are doing is great, just that announcing your progress is off-topic.
Oddly, maybe others see this too, your announcements are a painful reminder you are "done" with Robotech and you are advertising an alternative that others may not be willing to switch to just yet. Your participation here has been largely these announcements which is being rather stingy.
It is not irritation, I dunno, many are so used to you giving an inside look of where Robotech is going so when you post it is "What cool thing about Robotech does Mike have to say?" then it is "Oh yeah, his game he is working on.".
Managing expectation I guess? I suggested adding to your signature, that is why I keep viewing them on in my Dakka options since many point to their blogs there.
I dunno man. ONE line with a link stating that I finished some Zentraedi stuff vs a sidebar conversation on Rifts?
Mike1975 wrote: I dunno man. ONE line with a link stating that I finished some Zentraedi stuff vs a sidebar conversation on Rifts?
But that's fine........
Hehe... point well taken.
If your "friends" can't treat you badly, who can?
Stormonu wrote: That Rifts boardgame has got my juices churning for a Robotech boardgame using the RRT miniatures.
- Each player runs either a VT squad or a Destroid squad. You can upgrade survivors with XP from defeated enemies
- Two main areas: SDF-1 exterior (maybe as a Castle Panic "Range" setup) and Macross City interior (a street-gridded system?)
- Goal is to get the SDF-1 back to Earth. Maybe an add-on for the time on Earth, the space battle above Earth and "Reconstruction Blues" era.
- Two game phases: Battle & Downtime. Battle is self-explanitary; draw a card that explains the set-up and objectives. Downtime allows the characters to acquire subplots that can be converted to XP ("Fall in Love", "Pilot Duel", "Promotion", "VT Super upgrade available" etc.) or spend XP to upgrade skills/abilities/repair team/bolster SDF-1 defenses, etc.
That's interesting, that's more the direction this game should have taken with additional maps, scenarios and units released as expansions. I wonder who owns the boardgames rights to Robotech. Years ago I drew up some rules for a 4x version of Robotech using Zors power matrix as the mcguffin the different races were looking for.
there is currently no boardgame rights for Robotech, nor could HG even issue one, right now they are under court order to not issue any new rights, they can reissue current ones, but no new ones.
I dunno man. ONE line with a link stating that I finished some Zentraedi stuff vs a sidebar conversation on Rifts?
But that's fine........
I have no issue with you posting the occasional blurb update and link (as long as followup discussion of said update occurs at that link) but to call the above a "sidebar conversation on Rifts" is very inaccurate. The rifts portion of the discussion is half of the first sentence and then the rest of the post and the ensuing discussion is about how to turn robotech tactics into a board game. To quote both you and Matt Lemke, if your fweelings are hurt, knuckle up even if Swabby is baiting you (instead of reporting a post he feels is inappropriate).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: That Rifts boardgame has got my juices churning for a Robotech boardgame using the RRT miniatures.
- Each player runs either a VT squad or a Destroid squad. You can upgrade survivors with XP from defeated enemies
- Two main areas: SDF-1 exterior (maybe as a Castle Panic "Range" setup) and Macross City interior (a street-gridded system?)
- Goal is to get the SDF-1 back to Earth. Maybe an add-on for the time on Earth, the space battle above Earth and "Reconstruction Blues" era.
- Two game phases: Battle & Downtime. Battle is self-explanitary; draw a card that explains the set-up and objectives. Downtime allows the characters to acquire subplots that can be converted to XP ("Fall in Love", "Pilot Duel", "Promotion", "VT Super upgrade available" etc.) or spend XP to upgrade skills/abilities/repair team/bolster SDF-1 defenses, etc.
It wouldn't take much to turn RRT into a minis-centric boardgame especially if you're using the DZC tiles (whether paper or plastic). Just divide movement up into 12" blocks (rounding up) and require squads to be in the same 12" grid (with an upper total model limit per square of course). You end up with something like the AT-43, DUST, and Deadzone "board games". If you're referring more to a 4x style game that's a different story.
Mike1975 wrote: Funny how it goes to share as needed to share as little as possible to just don't share at all.......
I'm sad to see that seems to be case. I guess people are so burned with this KS they don't even want to consider getting any use out of what they have bought.
Mike1975 wrote: Funny how it goes to share as needed to share as little as possible to just don't share at all.......
I'm sad to see that seems to be case. I guess people are so burned with this KS they don't even want to consider getting any use out of what they have bought.
I am it keeps me busy.
in fact got me some more Super parts molded up and some more Bioroids molded up to make more.
Mike1975 wrote: Funny how it goes to share as needed to share as little as possible to just don't share at all.......
I'm sad to see that seems to be case. I guess people are so burned with this KS they don't even want to consider getting any use out of what they have bought.
There are plenty of rulesets that can be used as alternatives to RRTs official rules, none of the creators of those rulesets post about them here because they are all off topic or non robotech related. Nodal wars has nothing to do with robotech and is a multi verse style game.
Rifts discussion on the other hand is on topic because of the context involved. The kickstarters are totally relevant to the discussion about this kickstarter due to the various details and palladiums involvement.
Why not take the off topic discussion of whether nodal wars is off topic (pro tip: it is because there was previous red text mod warning about exactly that a week or two ago) to the nodal wars thread? That sounds like a great idea. The nodal wars thread gets some bumps and you guys bicker till the cows come home. It's a win for everyone!
warboss wrote: Why not take the off topic discussion of whether nodal wars is off topic (pro tip: it is because there was previous red text mod warning about exactly that a week or two ago) to the nodal wars thread? That sounds like a great idea. The nodal wars thread gets some bumps and you guys bicker till the cows come home. It's a win for everyone!
Merijeek wrote: So, who wants to guess the month and year of PB's final update on the Kickstarter?
I'm guessing April, 2017.
It's hard to put a specific date, but I'm more than willing to put a specific timeframe.
So my pick is six weeks after the retirement or passing of Kevin Siembeda.
Because I honestly think he'll never admit failure, and that there's a better than even chance PB will ever complete the project. That they'll drag it out with vague promises that don't mean anything. And it'll only be when he's gone, will whoever is left to pick up the scraps, will have to deal with the fallout.
It is possible it might happen earlier, but that'll depend on Kevin getting fairly concrete information that allows him to claim the passing of a certain statute of limitations.
I mean, at the moment, FTC regulations are being heavily violated, but they haven't been challenged with regard Kickstarter. So it remains a huge fething grey area. But if that does get sorted out, I don't doubt for a moment that Kevin will exercise any and every capacity to bail on this thing, if he can get out with his finances unscathed. He won't give a gak about a hit to his reputation, because really, does it look like he gives a gak about his reputation?
As morbid as it sounds I too believe that the final update will come with Kevin's passing, but I believe it will just be whatever lame excuse "soonami" update happened before the end, not that they updated us with news on the project.
I think the real plan is to just string us along till we stop paying attention and are well past any statute of limitations. I do not think it is even intentional, just an underlying hope that if it is put off long enough to will all go away or fix itself.
When Kevin leaves PB, he will probably leave it to Wayne. And since Kevin never gave an ounce of actual responsibility to anyone, nobody will have a clue what to do and it will be run out of business entirely.
When Kevin leaves PB, he will probably leave it to Wayne. And since Kevin never gave an ounce of actual responsibility to anyone, nobody will have a clue what to do and it will be run out of business entirely.
I suspect Palladium will bring out Kevin's name of a corpse ater he leaves whenever they want to energize the remaining fanboys into spending some quick cash just like Harmony Gold does with Carl Macek. It'll be the tabletop gaming industry equivalent of Weekend at Bernie's.
Well to be fair, I guess it is all about the Kickstarter aftermath.
Some make their own rules to take their miniatures and play with no dependence on PB.
Some tried the legal assault on PB with unknown results and then just went into mad amounts of model building.
Some are obtaining / making models rather than wait for PB.
Some are waiting, patiently, any day now, for PB to do what they keep promising.
Some lurk various sites, forums and venues to ensure PB's "good name" is mud.
It is all good therapy I guess.
All kept in check by an indulgent mod who has to slap us down on occasion for our own good.
I can start:
I used to be a Palladium product buyer but I sought help and feel better now.
I used to be an RPG player so long ago... it may be the cause of what made me weak and sent me down this dark path.
I was drawn in by the cool name of "Ninja Division" and thought "how bad could it be?".
I stand before you all truly humbled by how bad a company can be with customers and vow "Never again!".
Amen!
I came into Palladium via TMNT and the Robotech RPG. Learned from TMNT how bad their rules truly were (we had 1st level characters who punked Shredder). I stopped buying the Robotech books after the Sentinels series failed ... I think that was around the time they let the Robotech RPG license expire (at least, our FLGS never got in any PB books after the Sentinel book). *Shrug*, I collect game books even if the rules are bad - they're usually at least good for general information and inspiration.
Funny thing is, when 3E D&D came out and Palladium didn't jump on the bandwagon, I thought they went out of business.
I guess I could only wish.
When the RRT Kickstarter showed up, I found out they had re-released the RPG books and decided to buy copies, and have those now. They're better compiled than the old books, but I'll be damned if I use the rule system - I'd considered using doing it with Savage World rules (and I thought the SW Rifts might help with converting, but I backed away instead).
If PB hadn't screwed the pooch, they could have gotten a some $2-5K out of me by now, instead of a measly $200 or so. AND I would have pulled in a few friends and acquaintances who would have spent a good bit of money as well.
Now, I just tell them the company went out of business and their stuff wasn't that good to start with.
Yeah, I hear that Storm. My friends and I threw a fairly considerable amount at Malifaux, and that's a reasonably 'cost effective' minis game (in that a crew can be built over time without breaking the bank, and even collecting an entire faction isn't a fraction as bad as I hear from WH/40K players).
With nostalgia backing us, I can't fathom what sort of money we would've put down over the years had the release schedule been something other than a joke. A bit more user friendliness in the models would've helped as well, and PB stepping up to support the game in a less grudging manner certainly wouldn't hurt, but now I'm just wishing for unicorns.
Funny you should mention 3E though. They have a sticky on their forum that's over a decade old regarding no D20 conversions for PB stuff.
I mean, Pathfinder certainly shows that flavours of "D20" hold appeal, but I think that ship has sailed there, gents.
Of course it's even funnier that they allegedly spent about 6 years hashing out the details of the Savage Worlds conversion for Rifts, but didn't stop to ponder how they'd handle fan conversions along those lines.
"UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
Wayne will be making PDFs of the Wave 2 cards soon. We have a telephone call to discuss manufacturing options next week and are waiting for a quote from someone else. The positive Gen Con feedback about Robotech® RPG Tactics™ still has us energized. Here are some additional Gen Con photos."
Merijeek wrote: So, who wants to guess the month and year of PB's final update on the Kickstarter?
I'm guessing April, 2017.
It's hard to put a specific date, but I'm more than willing to put a specific timeframe.
So my pick is six weeks after the retirement or passing of Kevin Siembeda.
Because I honestly think he'll never admit failure, and that there's a better than even chance PB will ever complete the project. That they'll drag it out with vague promises that don't mean anything. And it'll only be when he's gone, will whoever is left to pick up the scraps, will have to deal with the fallout.
Hey now. I'm not saying that they will ever admit failure.
I'm saying that's when they'll do their last update, even if the contents of said update boils down to "Soon(tm)".
With all due respect, those aren't my favorite parts of the update I just got in my mailbox.
Others are anxious to see more movement and material items for Wave 2 of Robotech RPG TacticsTM - as we are.
See guys! They're anxious to see progress as well just like backers. Now... if only one of the two groups actually had the power to make that progress instead of just treading water on half the rewards for 3 years.... if only....
Also
Our trial run of 150 decks are nearly sold out in just two weeks since Gen Con, and an order for more has already been submitted so we do not run out of stock.
So their trial run that includes what they sold at gencon and the weeks since is less than 150 decks. While I'm hesitant/too lazy to actually count it up, I suspect that amounts to roughly one deck sold for each time Kevin mentioned them over the past month or two since announcing them. Anyone else think that if he found that out he'd spend the whole day "working" on selling more by repeating the full name of the product constantly in darkened bathroom mirror? In any case, the rumor of prioritizing a new dollar store ancillary POD product for at most 150 people over a $1.4+ million project for 5,000+ people is now officially confirmed.
So their trial run that includes what they sold at gencon and the weeks since is less than 150 decks. While I'm hesitant/too lazy to actually count it up, I suspect that amounts to roughly one deck sold for each time Kevin mentioned them over the past month or two since announcing them. Anyone else think that if he found that out he'd spend the whole day "working" on selling more by repeating the full name of the product constantly in darkened bathroom mirror? In any case, the rumor of prioritizing a new dollar store ancillary POD product for at most 150 people over a $1.4+ million project for 5,000+ people is now officially confirmed.
They have 4,100 SW Rifts backers (adding up to 1/3 the money pulled in by RRT...), and Rifts uses card decks for initiative. Yet it took them over a month to sell 150... that's less than 3% buy-in. Let them go ahead an make more poker cards - I'll bet it takes MONTHS for them to move them all and it can add into what drives them bankrupt finally.
They have 4,100 SW Rifts backers (adding up to 1/3 the money pulled in by RRT...), and Rifts uses card decks for initiative. Yet it took them over a month to sell 150... that's less than 3% buy-in. Let them go ahead an make more poker cards - I'll bet it takes MONTHS for them to move them all and it can add into what drives them bankrupt finally.
While that is in the realm of possibilty, it involves them risking their own money. I'm guessing the more realistic scenario is crowdfunding some deluxe SW Rifts trading cards. It'll fund 300% over its initial goal of 150 (450 backers! wow!) and palladium will print after a sizeable delay 1,500 decks (to account for the massive demand they'll generate despite the delay). The only catch is that they were forced to split the printing into waves due to the Nevadans screwing them over so the decks only have hearts and clubs with diamonds and spades coming a few months later in wave 2. Unfortunately, years later, palladium will still be unable to find someone capable of printing the mouthwateringly crisp diamond shapes they demand for their discerning customers so backers will have to make due. In the meantime, Wayne will be putting those spare dead stock retail poker cards on his bicycle so that it makes that thwap-thwap-thwap noise as he goes in for work. He is of course testing their durability and reliability under constant use so it counts as progress in fulfilling the rewards as well. What happens if you need on of the missing cards? No worries, Palladium will be working really hard even on Labor Day to put out a pdf to clarify the situation within a few years. In the meantime they suggest you buy a xmas in April extended deadline grab bag and preorder the exciting upcoming expansion to the card deck, Tom and Carmen's revolutionary new parallelogramTM suit!
You forgot to mention the cards will be numbered from 1-9 (instead of like those inferior decks that start the numbering with 2!) and the Jack, Queen, King and Ace will be replaced with original O.C.C.'s like Bootlicker, Narcissist, Banhammerer and Lord of RPG's. Each card will be lovingly made from missing refrigerator art, transferred to 1980's era paper bags that are hand-cut by the staff at Palladium.
And there will be no Jokers in the deck, because frankly they forgot about them.
What? No one laid low by con crud? Shame, they could have milked that for a few months of inactivity.
Only 150 decks? What happened all their fan friends run out of money? They probably could have printed up 1500 for the same cost and had plenty left over for grab bag fodder.
As an aside, anyone play Scythe? I swear you could retheme it post Force of Arms and it would totally work.
150 decks in 2 weeks or so? and hes saying it like it is hot cakes selling? guess he never saw the Exploding Kittens card decks, or the cards against Humanity decks? or even your average deck of playing cards all of which manage to do those kind of sales in minutes, not weeks. and he says his cards are popular? man I wish I knew what kind of drugs he was on, now those would sell like hotcakes.
Between June 5th and August 10th, there were 34 deleted comments on the main Kickstarter comments page.
An impressive half of which were by our very own Merijeek.
I'm guessing that Meri managed to get reported for a couple and whoever got tasked with cleaning up the section decided to go back over the last few months of his activity and clear out a bunch (it's not every comment he made in that time frame). I wonder how many of the remainder were directly reported as well, and how many were just caught while the house cleaning was underway.
Most of the others are singles or pairs of removed comments by users (some names I'm not at all surprised to see on the list either).
17 comments removed from the latest update, which only has ~200'ish (it's actually 204 at time of posting, but who knows where it'll end up if they just leave this as the update to stand for this quarter or whatever). Nearly 10% of our discourse was considered unacceptable (also hi again, Meri).
It is bizarro world to me that kickstarter has no problem with a project languishing in development hell with the backers money for years, but they do have a problem with the manner the backers vent their frustration.
This whole experience has kind of soured my desire to continue crowdfunding.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, did anyone ever actually look at these paper models that PB released? They are like full on folding models, not just a picture in a stand. I am now totally baffled at the waste in resources making these.
You don't think they'll eventually go all "Whelp, we're outta money, we tried hard, but at least you've got these swanky paper pieces, right? You're welcome, and good bye all!", do you?
I don't think they will ever actually say it, but I think that is kind of the inevitable result and the paper models are the guilt sacrifice.
What kind of blows my mind is that they also released wave 1 paper models. I don't get it. Why release paper standies for models that you are actively trying to sell?
Swabby wrote: It is bizarro world to me that kickstarter has no problem with a project languishing in development hell with the backers money for years, but they do have a problem with the manner the backers vent their frustration.
This whole experience has kind of soured my desire to continue crowdfunding.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, did anyone ever actually look at these paper models that PB released? They are like full on folding models, not just a picture in a stand. I am now totally baffled at the waste in resources making these.
Wow, I'm strangely impressed. I figured they would just be flat standees. I wonder what papercraft site they had a fan-friend copy those off of? (You know fulll well no one at PB would have the skill to do these, nor would they have paid any money for something they turn around and give out for free).
Alpharius wrote: You don't think they'll eventually go all "Whelp, we're outta money, we tried hard, but at least you've got these swanky paper pieces, right? You're welcome, and good bye all!", do you?
After he is ready to retire/die and cashes out/sells off the IPs leaving the company a dead shell with no assets, maybe. Before then? Nah. Palladium/Kevin Siembieda is very overprotective legally. It's why he trademarks EVERYTHING he thinks of because he thinks everyone is watching him as some sort of a trendsetter. In the late 90's or early 2000's, he tried to trademark the work Necron for gaming purposes. He didn't even do a basic web search to see if a bigger company already used the term (obviously GW for at least 5 years at that time as it was already a 2nd and 3rd edition faction). He had to redo a book because the Necrons were his major galactic villain in it. He also goes after/sends cease and desist letters to fansites that post conversions because he thinks he's liable for it. While I could see that possibly if he hosted them on HIS company site or with some stretching allowed them on his forum as fan posts but to go after third party independent websites because of that? Nah, that's all Siembieda. I don't see him admitting ANYTHING until it won't potentially in his mind cost him a cent.
Uh, am I looking at the wrong thing? Most of those are 2D, the only 3D'ish ones I'm seeing in the preview pages are the Fighters (which just have the sides and top down view on a rectangle by the looks of it). Maybe the MAC-II, from glancing at a thumbnail preview at least.
Battloids and Guardians are both 2D, and the latter are in profile meaning judging LoS to them in a head to head setup could be tricky.
Stormonu wrote: Haven't they been claiming cards/PDF's of Wave 2 for over 6 months?
And didn't we see Nesbit showing off his printed cards (from Mike's files) a few weeks back?
They have 4,100 SW Rifts backers (adding up to 1/3 the money pulled in by RRT...), and Rifts uses card decks for initiative. Yet it took them over a month to sell 150... that's less than 3% buy-in. Let them go ahead an make more poker cards - I'll bet it takes MONTHS for them to move them all and it can add into what drives them bankrupt finally.
Exactly. Its Nesbet BTW, but you are right on your points. All they shoukd have to do is UPLOAD the damned files :/
In most other games I've seen that use paper minis (whether official published ones or shameful gencon trick games by unscrupulous GM's), you just turn the paper towards the shooter until it's perpendicular to determine LOS and then put it back to the original facing. Of course, with palladium's meagre two years worth of efforts resulting in those, you'd have to additionally house rule it so.
Forar wrote: 17 comments removed from the latest update, which only has ~200'ish (it's actually 204 at time of posting, but who knows where it'll end up if they just leave this as the update to stand for this quarter or whatever). Nearly 10% of our discourse was considered unacceptable (also hi again, Meri).
Some of us will never achieve fame, and so must settle for infamy.
Forar wrote: 17 comments removed from the latest update, which only has ~200'ish (it's actually 204 at time of posting, but who knows where it'll end up if they just leave this as the update to stand for this quarter or whatever). Nearly 10% of our discourse was considered unacceptable (also hi again, Meri).
Some of us will never achieve fame, and so must settle for infamy.
If you and Forar are developing mirror universe versions of yourselves, I suggest changing your names to Merjerk and Furor and growing a goatee beard on your avatars. If you're going dark side, you go full dark side.
Daaaaamn, I just hit the motherload of papercraft - a very happy thing for me BTW. Am I crazy that the paper models shown here are more mouth-watering than the plastic models PB foisted upon us?
I'm going to have to try out the YF-4 myself; one of the models I've been really wanting to get my hands on.
Lot of the stuff is the wrong scale, but rescaling RRT or rescaling the models themselves shouldn't be a difficult thing. And they have the super parts as add-ons to the VT models...
P.S.: Sorry on getting the name wrong, Nesbet - did the same thing to Forar for a while.
<Edit> Fudge - just downloaded PB's offering. The MAC II is semi 3D, but Forar is right, the rest is 2D stand-ups :(
Swabby wrote: Sorry if I got your hopes up. I just saw the monster and thought they were all like that.
No problem - it did get me to look for Macross/Robotech papercraft, and what I found there has me delighted - just printed the YF-4 model out, and I have a week's vacation to work on putting it together (and it will probably take that time plus some, but hey - I'll be happy as a clam).
I admit to being easily amused, but I can't stop chuckling that the fairly-new super-cool UEDF paper standees are all copyrighted in 2015. Even with it's most charitable time of saying they put that on December 31, 2015 (since back-dating copyrights is not particularly bright even by PB standards), it was still over half a year to upload a file.
I know that their ineptitude is legend, but to leave such an obvious reminder of how atrociously bad they are at getting things out the door is just...well that's just fantastic. For somewhat alternate meanings of that word, anyway.
Alpharius wrote: You don't think they'll eventually go all "Whelp, we're outta money, we tried hard, but at least you've got these swanky paper pieces, right? You're welcome, and good bye all!", do you?
No, because then they would be legally obligated per the KS contract to show where all of that money went, and there would be people itching to go after them for illegal conversion of funds (i.e. money unreasonably spent on non-KS activities). If proven, that *is* prima facie evidence fraud, and could be used to force damages and (preferably) jail time.
Hey Mike, in those files there's a Zent Officer Pod that changes into what looks like a YF-4 fighter - is that actually from one of the Macross series or PB books? I don't remember seeing it in anything I've run across.
Same with the Robotech Masters file - there's some half-battlepod things I don't recognize there. Where did they come from? They look like Long artwork.
Alpharius wrote: You don't think they'll eventually go all "Whelp, we're outta money, we tried hard, but at least you've got these swanky paper pieces, right? You're welcome, and good bye all!", do you?
No, because then they would be legally obligated per the KS contract to show where all of that money went, and there would be people itching to go after them for illegal conversion of funds (i.e. money unreasonably spent on non-KS activities). If proven, that *is* prima facie evidence fraud, and could be used to force damages and (preferably) jail time.
If you think people are pissed now, ...
\
How many KS have been forced to turn over their books so far?
Stormonu wrote: Hey Mike, in those files there's a Zent Officer Pod that changes into what looks like a YF-4 fighter - is that actually from one of the Macross series or PB books? I don't remember seeing it in anything I've run across.
That would be the Neo Glaug or the Variable Glaug, which are basically the same concept. They were designed for the videogames, and appear in two of them: the PS1 Macross Pluss game from 2000 and the Dreamcast Macross M3 game from 2001. It's a very cool design, all told, fully variable (it has a battloid form, too) and even regular zentran and UNS variants:
Stormonu wrote: Hey Mike, in those files there's a Zent Officer Pod that changes into what looks like a YF-4 fighter - is that actually from one of the Macross series or PB books? I don't remember seeing it in anything I've run across.
Same with the Robotech Masters file - there's some half-battlepod things I don't recognize there. Where did they come from? They look like Long artwork.
Albertorius is right on the Glaug thing. I made these in 2013 after the KS and used all the units I thought would be needed or fun to use. The scouts are a bit too big but overall the scale is pretty close.
Oh for the love of Petey... SW:R has now added the Rifts cards to the backer manager.
You too can flog PB trinkets if you rent their IP!
Why oh why could not RRT have been rented out?
Hard to rain on their parade when it is going quite well there for delivery.
I suppose the key words for avoidance of PB projects is "...they are doing the heavy lifting.".
The one thing you can count on more than PB greed, is their laziness:
Meanwhile back at PB headquarters (warning, work of fiction... or is it?):
"So let me get this straight, I sign here, you sell our stuff and send us the money... I don't have to do anything else?"
"The silly fool has to work with backers... guess who got the better end of this deal!"
Well, I guess the lights in the warehouse get to stay on a little longer.
Okay guys, I have a game coming up and thus far I have one Malcontent heavy destroyed squadron. The game is capped at 200 points, 100 point squads with no special cards allowed.
Any advice for a second squad? I am thinking artillery. Trying to put together a malcontent faction army without the wave two models feels like suicide.
Talizvar wrote: Oh for the love of Petey... SW:R has now added the Rifts cards to the backer manager.
You too can flog PB trinkets if you rent their IP!
That Kevin is right on the ball! After the success of *count'em* almost 150 dollar store card decks sold in over a month including at the biggest US tabletop gaming convention, he smells the money! All $1,500 of it! Can you imagine how quick he'd be and excited to work on a project that earned multiple orders of magnitude more?!? like say around $1,500,000 roughly?
Talizvar, the only reason I backed this thing was because they did rent the IP out to ninja division. I can't tell you how big of a blow it was when ND dropped out.
Swabby wrote: Okay guys, I have a game coming up and thus far I have one Malcontent heavy destroyed squadron. The game is capped at 200 points, 100 point squads with no special cards allowed.
Any advice for a second squad? I am thinking artillery. Trying to put together a malcontent faction army without the wave two models feels like suicide.
Swabby, IMHO, Air Defense Squadron> Artillery Support Squadron, because, moar missiles, moar miniatures [that die just as fast] and moar command points
With the 30 pts remaining I would pay for a Glaug as support for that unit and maybe the 5 pts upgrade for the Defender. Or a Queadluun Rau if you have the model Blast rule for those 5 pts could be crap, but also worth if your enemy is going for horde (no idea if you are facing zents or uedf)
18 command points could be enough for the lack of mobility of your army. Just make sure that your Glaug don't die too quickly to use the 2 of them as hammer with the anvil of destroids. My 2 cents
Swabby wrote: Talizvar, the only reason I backed this thing was because they did rent the IP out to ninja division. I can't tell you how big of a blow it was when ND dropped out.
As we have found out: there is a big difference of "here is an IP, go forth and pay royalties" than to be the "hired help" of one of their projects.
In all honesty the ND involvement suckered me in too because I figures PB would not know enough to mess around... I had not counted on how far ignorance and a need for control can go.
Swabby wrote: Talizvar, the only reason I backed this thing was because they did rent the IP out to ninja division. I can't tell you how big of a blow it was when ND dropped out.
Ninja Division running it also got me to join... But Kevin saw big $$$$$ and was easier to cut out Ninja Division..
I am sure he thought... how hard could this be???.. I can get it made cheap in china and pocket the rest..
More animation cells for me...
You notice in the Gen Con pictures... the crowd around the shop area is the same people in the group shot...
"Everyone walk around and look like customers for the picture"
Swabby wrote: Okay guys, I have a game coming up and thus far I have one Malcontent heavy destroyed squadron. The game is capped at 200 points, 100 point squads with no special cards allowed.
Any advice for a second squad? I am thinking artillery. Trying to put together a malcontent faction army without the wave two models feels like suicide.
Swabby, IMHO, Air Defense Squadron> Artillery Support Squadron, because, moar missiles, moar miniatures [that die just as fast] and moar command points
With the 30 pts remaining I would pay for a Glaug as support for that unit and maybe the 5 pts upgrade for the Defender. Or a Queadluun Rau if you have the model Blast rule for those 5 pts could be crap, but also worth if your enemy is going for horde (no idea if you are facing zents or uedf)
18 command points could be enough for the lack of mobility of your army. Just make sure that your Glaug don't die too quickly to use the 2 of them as hammer with the anvil of destroids.
My 2 cents
I super appreciate this man, and I also have no idea who I am fighting, should make it more fun. lol
Swabby wrote: I super appreciate this man, and I also have no idea who I am fighting, should make it more fun. lol
Not a problem! Just please take some pics and report a little how the game went, alright? Haven't played in weeks and I'm starting to miss it baaadly LOL
Talizvar wrote: As we have found out: there is a big difference of "here is an IP, go forth and pay royalties" than to be the "hired help" of one of their projects.
In all honesty the ND involvement suckered me in too because I figures PB would not know enough to mess around... I had not counted on how far ignorance and a need for control can go.
Not a problem! Just please take some pics and report a little how the game went, alright? Haven't played in weeks and I'm starting to miss it baaadly LOL
Agreed. I haven't played in a while either. My kid is in soccer, and one of the players I play with hasn't been able to play on Saturdays since his hours at his job changed. So I haven't played as often as I did before. I'm hoping to play this saturday, but we'll see.
Quick question, does a extra box of veritech fighters have different cards and playing ability? Or does it just give you more fighters to play with and go along with the starter box?
Swabby wrote: True, but I generally relate clearance sales with dead games.
Very true... but at least it's one more person/company not saddled with a dead game if they don't restock if this truly is a clearance. Palladium's dastardly plan to corner the market on this dead now will then be one step closer to fruition! :(
For those of you tracking problematic Kickstarters, the ill-starred Dust: Operation Babylon Kickstarter has just posted an update that the last of the deliverables have been handled off by Paolo's company to Battlefront for fulfillment. That marks 2 years, 2+ months of various shades of public laundry.
Relevancy to this thread? "Hey, at least it's not like the RRT Kickstarter." Well done Palladium, setting new standards in the industry.
Tagony wrote: Quick question, does a extra box of veritech fighters have different cards and playing ability? Or does it just give you more fighters to play with and go along with the starter box?
It is just extra veritechs that you can make a squad with or add to one. More points!
Nesbet, Early October, and I didn't ask. This will be my first public game, I am used to random matchups in public games so asking didn't even cross my mind.
Tagony wrote: Quick question, does a extra box of veritech fighters have different cards and playing ability? Or does it just give you more fighters to play with and go along with the starter box?
Nothing unique that I know of, it's not like X-Wing where the Core and X-Wing/TIE Expansions had different cards.
Which means that if you're thinking of getting ~3 expansions worth of things found in the core box, it's probably more cost efficient to just get another core box.
Edit: what were you looking to buy in specific? I've got some excess left over still and maybe we can work something out.
My extras consist of: 4 VTs (all modes of course), 1 Command Pod set, and 1 Artillery Pod set.
Ok thanks guys! Oh I was going to pop on the 55 dollar version at miniature market and get an extra set of veritechs if it came with different pilots or something. They sold out before I could get home though, so back to ebay.
Haha glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that. It is terrible man. This is not the treatment of the IP that the 10 year old in me coughed up money for.
I have a hunch Palladium has a sizeable cache they'd love to get rid of. Given that they gush over selling <150 packs of poker cards, you realky have to wonder how few Robotech items they actually sell to never brag.
RTT stock being heavily discounted costs Palladium nothing. They could sell RTT starter boxes at $15 a pop to distributors and still make a profit, given how they didn't spend their own money on it.
Man that they try to make these drive thru RPG cards seem like a favor pisses me off. I am still missing a card, and we still have to print it. Putting this up only cost them the time to make/upload it.
"This is the Malcontents Regult Support Squad Support Card for Robotech® RPG Tactics™. This card was meant to appear in the Artillery Battlepods expansion pack, but was accidentally omitted from the first printing, so we're providing it here free of charge. For more information, or to purchase Robotech® RPG Tactics™, please visit www.palladiumbooks.com.”
Swabby wrote: Nesbet, Early October, and I didn't ask. This will be my first public game, I am used to random matchups in public games so asking didn't even cross my mind.
LOL. I'm definitely going to try your 200 pts list before you!! xDD
And regarding the cards, you could assume that PB sucks and do as I did to use proxies, shapeways models and such with the missing wave 2 cards
Probably because they're building the minis with tweezers? WTF? Who builds plastic models with tweezers?
I put the reviews up on MM.
So you're confirming that you built those things with tweezers? There are only a couple parts that one might have used tweezers on, both being antennas on the recon pod. Otherwise, how does that not make it harder?
And regarding the cards, you could assume that PB sucks and do as I did to use proxies, shapeways models and such with the missing wave 2 cards
you see the video I posted here?
Yeah sure. Cool lots of models. Painted! (such a shame to have so many unpainted models -.- )
That's why I said regarding the cards to Swabby> Mike original PB wave 2 cards, go to a publicity store, make them print them etc etc
PS: Quite funny to have you voice now on record in our minds when reading your posts xD
It just sucks how bad recordings sound compared how we use to hear our own voices right?
John Prins wrote: RTT stock being heavily discounted costs Palladium nothing. They could sell RTT starter boxes at $15 a pop to distributors and still make a profit, given how they didn't spend their own money on it.
Well, unless the store never buys more and people buy from the heavily discounted stock instead of directly from PB, of course. Then it cost them additional sales.
John Prins wrote: RTT stock being heavily discounted costs Palladium nothing. They could sell RTT starter boxes at $15 a pop to distributors and still make a profit, given how they didn't spend their own money on it.
Well, unless the store never buys more and people buy from the heavily discounted stock instead of directly from PB, of course. Then it cost them additional sales.
How can it cost PB additional sales when it's not selling? You can't get lower than zero sales. And the reason it's not selling is that it's not complete. People don't want battles between red-shirts, they want the heroes of the show. They're waiting on Rick, Roy, Khyron, and Miria to lead their forces, but they have been MIA for about 3 years now. How would you play WH40K without a captain, or at least a Sgt in each squad, or a command squad. That's how you are trying to play RRT without those models, unless you are OK with 'print yourself' paper standees [and in which case, why not use that for all the forces, convert them over to a better ruleset and play that. But wait, that means you are no longer playing RRT at all, so PB doesn't get any sales then either.
How long can PB keep urinating on our legs and tell us it's raining?
Swabby wrote: Man that they try to make these drive thru RPG cards seem like a favor pisses me off. I am still missing a card, and we still have to print it. Putting this up only cost them the time to make/upload it.
"This is the Malcontents Regult Support Squad Support Card for Robotech® RPG Tactics™. This card was meant to appear in the Artillery Battlepods expansion pack, but was accidentally omitted from the first printing, so we're providing it here free of charge. For more information, or to purchase Robotech® RPG Tactics™, please visit www.palladiumbooks.com.”
*Head meets desk*
This one?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just tell me what ones you want.....
jaymz wrote: Well theyve been doing it 30+ years now so.....10 more or so until kevin retires?
I don't think so... my guess he will keep doing what he is doing until he dies or goes bankrupt..
In either case, what will be left of the company to save? Rifts is no longer the go to game of teenage
boys.. GTA is... If someone stepped in today with total power over the company to fix the problems..
it would be years down the road and millions more spent.
I suppose the logical choice if he wants to retire would be to sell off the IP to Savage Worlds assuming they can meet his price. For the SW creator, I suppose the decision on that would be based on whether or not they already fulfilled the demand with their successful KS. If the demand was largely nostalgia based and the crowdfunding scratched that itch, they won't see big retail sales past the initial launch (there are always folks who missed out on the kickstarter whether because they couldn't pledge or didn't hear about it in time). If it doesn't attract new fans, it probably wouldn't be worth it for them (see Robotech).
I think you guys misunderstood me about the cards. The lack of a physical card means that regardless of the source of the digital copy you still have to print it, and while a small cost and inconvenience to make one it still should have been in the box, especially because they are the only official source for point values.
I told them Pre-Wave 1 that the boxes should have Force Orgs for everything in them but it was too late since things were already close to printing, at least that is what I was told. I even designed a few different Force Orgs to be shared after the fact as free downloads.
I think what they did with the unit stats in the books was right but it should have also included a poster or small booklet with the Force Orgs. I attached one that I did that I like. Not super cool looking or professional but it shows all the costs and all the upgrades.
1: if Kevin thought he would lose his company thru a lawsuit and have to declare bankruptcy, he would most likely before that sell his IP's and current stock to say Wayne for a mere pittance, this way he will not lose his Rifts or other IP's, it would also void his deal with KS (see All Quiet on the Martian Front).
2: best way to avoid the above scenario is if a class action is started file an injunction to freeze all assets PB owns until such time as suit is done.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Probably because they're building the minis with tweezers? WTF? Who builds plastic models with tweezers?
Umm..... <raises hand>
72nd scale Dragon tank models warrant a particular amount of dexterity my fingers are unable to do (They have acid etched parts!!)..
It also keeps my digits out of the way when I hit the model with glue.
I use this glue for pretty much anything but it likes to wick everywhere:
I HATE fingerprints on models.
AND these:
Plus I use these:
I have some family in the medical profession so I justify them.
jaymz wrote: Well theyve been doing it 30+ years now so.....10 more or so until kevin retires?
I don't think so... my guess he will keep doing what he is doing until he dies or goes bankrupt..
In either case, what will be left of the company to save? Rifts is no longer the go to game of teenage
boys.. GTA is... If someone stepped in today with total power over the company to fix the problems..
it would be years down the road and millions more spent.
I was referring to him pissing on your leg and telling you it's raining.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Probably because they're building the minis with tweezers? WTF? Who builds plastic models with tweezers?
Umm..... <raises hand>
72nd scale Dragon tank models warrant a particular amount of dexterity my fingers are unable to do (They have acid etched parts!!)..
It also keeps my digits out of the way when I hit the model with glue.
I use this glue for pretty much anything but it likes to wick everywhere:
I HATE fingerprints on models.
AND these:
Plus I use these:
I have some family in the medical profession so I justify them.
yeah I have dozens of tweezers I use for small parts, and decals and so forth.
So, I'm continuing to argue with them (and accomplishing nothing, obviously) here's Kickstarter's official opinion on this one.
"You can read more about what we expect from creators in situations like these in our Terms of Use: http://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4. In short, if a creator is unable to complete their project as promised, they must post an update addressing the work they did and what went wrong, and return any remaining funds to backers. From the last update that Palladium Books posted, it looks like they are working on fulfilling rewards:
Merijeek wrote: Note: I looked through all 54 pages of the MM clearance and I don't recall seeing a single Star Wars Armada item.
Possible I missed them, of course.
Try the back to school sale.
That's where I looked. Like I said, I went through all 54 pages, some of which contained items that were sold out, so that's not it. It's possible I missed them, but probably not.
JohnHwangDD wrote: It's amusing that nobody here has a fething clue what "tweezers" are...
John, no need to be mean.
Forceps (plural forceps or forcipes) are a handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects. Forceps are used when fingers are too large to grasp small objects or when many objects need to be held at one time while the hands are used to perform a task. The term 'forceps' is used almost exclusively within the medical field. Outside medicine, people usually refer to forceps as tweezers, tongs, pliers, clips or clamps.
Merijeek wrote: Note: I looked through all 54 pages of the MM clearance and I don't recall seeing a single Star Wars Armada item.
Possible I missed them, of course.
Try the back to school sale.
That's where I looked. Like I said, I went through all 54 pages, some of which contained items that were sold out, so that's not it. It's possible I missed them, but probably not.
That's okay, they are still there, waiting for you to not find them.
JohnHwangDD wrote: It's amusing that nobody here has a fething clue what "tweezers" are...
Sorry, I had mistaken that those were obvious and that my "other" implements of tiny assembly warranted pictures.
Yep, checked my post... pretty sure I had not included those other items under "tweezers".
I am kinda shocked you assume we are that clueless yet we participate in a hobby that deals with tiny things...
<edit>BTW: I never thought of forceps as actual tweezers... dad as a vet and mom a nurse... never heard them called anything else but Wikipedia seems happy enough to say they mean either-or. Hmmm... looks like John is half-right.
JohnHwangDD wrote: FWIW, I have never heard forceps referred to as "tweezers", nor would I ever use them for modeling work.
I would agree with your first statement: anyone with a medical background would never call forceps tweezers.
When you are used to using them, they are like a smaller set of hands: that is your preference.
I can thread a needle with those things and other great party pleasing feats of dexterity.
<edit> Ah yes... on topic... and a couple RRT models were put together using them.
John Prins wrote: RTT stock being heavily discounted costs Palladium nothing. They could sell RTT starter boxes at $15 a pop to distributors and still make a profit, given how they didn't spend their own money on it.
Well, unless the store never buys more and people buy from the heavily discounted stock instead of directly from PB, of course. Then it cost them additional sales.
My point is they could sell it for ballast and it would still turn them a (small) profit. I'll bet Palladium is still hawking starter boxes 20 years from now. It's eating inventory space, but as long as they didn't move to a bigger building for RTT and haven't run out of space for other stuff (b/c Rifts sells huge volumes? unlikely), Kev can sell them for occasional pocket change for a long, long time.
Most distributors value their shelf space a bit more (some retailers, too). Remember that guy finding RRT stuff in a dumpster dive? It won't be in retail hands forever. Probably in 1-2 years Kev will have the only source of RTT minis aside from maybe E-bay, FWIW. It's the way Kev seems to think, given how Rifts has never really updated its look, or rules, since its original publishing. Good 20 years ago? Still great!
John Prins wrote: I'll bet Palladium is still hawking starter boxes 20 years from now. It's eating inventory space, but as long as they didn't move to a bigger building for RTT and haven't run out of space for other stuff (b/c Rifts sells huge volumes? unlikely), Kev can sell them for occasional pocket change for a long, long time.
I suspect Kevin will not treat RRT any different than the RPG stuff: do a huge run of it and sell for years. Makes some twisted sense: initial setup costs a fortune but the run time is peanuts. Probably why Rifts never saw an update: <Kevin eyeballs stack> "Nope, got 600+ copies still in the pile from the 1000 two years ago..." (dodged the bullet for another good three years or so...).
John Prins wrote: My point is they could sell it for ballast and it would still turn them a (small) profit. I'll bet Palladium is still hawking starter boxes 20 years from now. It's eating inventory space, but as long as they didn't move to a bigger building for RTT and haven't run out of space for other stuff (b/c Rifts sells huge volumes? unlikely), Kev can sell them for occasional pocket change for a long, long time.
My point was more on the line that if the store is doing that there's approximately 98% as accounted by PB chances that they will ever place a restock order, unless the Ragnarok comes and Wave 2 is finally released, coupled with the fact that for PB that's money they already got and already spent, but that will reduce (yes, even more) any chances of they selling more boxes afterwards. I agree completely with the rest, though.
Most distributors value their shelf space a bit more (some retailers, too). Remember that guy finding RRT stuff in a dumpster dive? It won't be in retail hands forever. Probably in 1-2 years Kev will have the only source of RTT minis aside from maybe E-bay, FWIW. It's the way Kev seems to think, given how Rifts has never really updated its look, or rules, since its original publishing. Good 20 years ago? Still great!
The dumpster diving video was hilarious and sad at the same time. So much squandered potential...
John Prins wrote: I'll bet Palladium is still hawking starter boxes 20 years from now. It's eating inventory space, but as long as they didn't move to a bigger building for RTT and haven't run out of space for other stuff (b/c Rifts sells huge volumes? unlikely), Kev can sell them for occasional pocket change for a long, long time.
I suspect Kevin will not treat RRT any different than the RPG stuff: do a huge run of it and sell for years. Makes some twisted sense: initial setup costs a fortune but the run time is peanuts. Probably why Rifts never saw an update: <Kevin eyeballs stack> "Nope, got 600+ copies still in the pile from the 1000 two years ago..." (dodged the bullet for another good three years or so...).
Yeah, because having a lot of money "invested" in mostly unmoving stock is a great idea, dontchanow.
actually its that stock of product which forces Kevin to not change the Rifts game at all, since if he did update it or change it all that stock is worthless.
That Armada starter box is looking awesome... $55? Nice!
Tempted to buy moar fighters as well... the games got insane when we started spamming those.
Still me hates the Luke-you-got-no-shields-Skywalker.
Well, at least RRT stuff is going out of stock like crazy!
That is a sign of success in PB's eyes right?
Asterios wrote: actually its that stock of product which forces Kevin to not change the Rifts game at all, since if he did update it or change it all that stock is worthless.
I hadn't thought of that, though I do honestly think Kevin can't be bothered to improve his 'perfect' system. Thing is, he's not making any real new buyers. Slowly selling out a few thousand books is worth a lot less then selling thousands of copies of a new edition plus easy updates of old material for that new system (i.e. monetize existing customers a second time).
Stupid question, does each Mecha in a unit have to pay upgrade points listed on the card to take the upgrade or does paying the price give all the mecha in the unit of that type the upgrade?
It has been way too long since I even thought about the rules :(
Edit: Nevermind I figured it out. Man why don't they just have a "build your army" section in the rules. If you were curious, all the mecha get the upgrade.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Found this retrospective while looking for Malcontent dice alternatives:
Mike1975 wrote: If PB had gotten on the ball on the dice instead of simply shutting them down they could have made some $........
Possibly... You needn't fear for Palladium's finances though as apparently they're just rollin' in the cashmoney from all those 150 poker decks they've almost sold out of this year and the dice bags from last year. Plus there are the residuals from the RIFTStm pencils and coffee mugs as well.
Mike1975 wrote: If they made toilet paper with images on it they could make a fortune.......
That would be a wonderful opportunity to introduce the PB staff to their fan-friends.
No fan friend worth their salt would want to touch any part of Kevin with something like paper that breaks the skin on skin contact with such a legend. Clearly this is more for casual fans and haters like us. If they put Kevin's face on each square, I might actually buy some to use myself! In the meantime, I'll have to use my normal store bought TP which has the entirety of the last 5 months of palladium's demonstrable wave 2 progress printed on each and every square as well as the missing restarted communication that they just *wish* they could show us when Palladium switches to silent running mode for months at a time.
We are 98% cerain Siembieda will consider handing over Wave 2 to Rogue Heroes LLC.
(This new outfit reportedly has been tapped to manage the new Kickstarter campaign for the new Rifts boardgame.)
However, we still are claiming a 2020 release...
I dont know how to react to this. Maybe laughing at that 98% would be a good choice to start?
Conrad Turner wrote: Warboss, that sounds painful. Could be dangerous too, I'd not let that sort of vacuum anywhere near me!
From what the various Gencon and Anime North attendees have told us, Kevin's dulcet fatherly appearance and calming gibberish words printed on TP may be exactly what is needed to soothe potential butthurt amongst backers. YMMV of course but I think it has the potential to be almost as big of a hit as the poker cards!
Nesbet wrote: on other news while waiting for PBWU...
On facebook, Robotech Miniatures posted:
We are 98% cerain Siembieda will consider handing over Wave 2 to Rogue Heroes LLC.
(This new outfit reportedly has been tapped to manage the new Kickstarter campaign for the new Rifts boardgame.)
However, we still are claiming a 2020 release...
I dont know how to react to this. Maybe laughing at that 98% would be a good choice to start?
:-)
Isn't Robotech Miniatures the same group that the admin was making up wild rumors about the game and PB, then getting angry when people called him on it?
Oh, did the Robotech Miniatures guy change his tune?
I remember when the page was called something else a couple years ago. He was always a bit of a donkey cave, but I recall some ongoing gun battles of stupidity over him making substantial claims and desiring some corroborating evidence, or something to that effect.
Plus his habit of posting other people's stuff without attribution (which he seems to have finally rectified) always annoyed me.
I don't recall him having anything nearly this negative an attitude. Before I got banned from the page (and frankly I'm no more of a jerk here than I was there, he just didn't like being challenged on some of his gak) I seem to recall him being far more cheerleader'y. I wonder when that change happened?
Nesbet wrote: on other news while waiting for PBWU...
On facebook, Robotech Miniatures posted:
We are 98% cerain Siembieda will consider handing over Wave 2 to Rogue Heroes LLC. (This new outfit reportedly has been tapped to manage the new Kickstarter campaign for the new Rifts boardgame.)
However, we still are claiming a 2020 release...
I dont know how to react to this. Maybe laughing at that 98% would be a good choice to start?
You probably shouldn't react to it as its a very wishy washy non-committal statement. I could say I'm 98% certain that Nesbet will consider never touching or even looking at another Robotech model, picture, or statement ever again. You'd say no to that, right? Well, by virtue of saying "no" you considered it for just a fraction of a second and came to a very quick conclusion so therefore my statement is now correct. Since you're a regular poster but might suddenly lose the internet during an earthquake or something god forbid happens to you and not see this statement, the last 2% covers that eventuality. Kevin Siembieda has "considered" alot of options according to his empty and fruitless "updates" over the past two years since wave 1 came out and we have nothing significant to show for it. About the only thing he hasn't considered is doing the right thing and offering full refunds on undelivered rewards (without any creative accounting on their part) for those who want out of this neverending farce.
Kevin hands the project over to Carmen's company officially.
Carmen runs the Rifts Board Game kickstarter, which just so happens to include minis.
Tries to work out a factory slot large enough for both wave 2 and whatever run of stuff they need for Rifts.
What if part of the snags is finding a production run that is worth a manufacturer's time? Wave 2 is considerably smaller than Wave 1 (in terms of raw figure count and figures per mold).
Plus, it adds some plausible deniability regarding mixing the funds from the two projects. Instead of worrying about paying to ship RRT over, they're paying to ship 'assorted minis from both campaigns at once'! Efficiency! Obfuscation! Efficiency Through Obfuscation!
Not something I'm seriously mulling over, just something that struck me as funny while catching up on the thread. We've joked repeatedly about PB using this new campaign to help pay for wave two, this is just kind of building on that thought as a possibility were PB to announce such a shift.
I mean, I find it hard to believe that their experiences with minis thus far has been remotely positive enough for them to be eager to worry about it again... but shifting it all over to Rouge Heroes (as some guy on the Robotech Miniatures page called it, Red Heroes yay!) and Carmen becoming their 'minis arm', I guess I could see that.
Swabby wrote: The gallery of personalities that we have all been exposed to for extended periods of time because of this kickstarter debacle is pretty amusing.
I had totally forgotten about the person we are talking about. Wasn't his name Steve?
I hope not...That's my name.
Anyway, I am happy with the game's rules, as a first edition, it still needs a few tweaks. The farce of the miniatures being soooooooooooooo(there isn't enough o's to complete this, come back next week and I'd still be typing o's) late, is what ticks me off.
I have too many unanswered rules questions to claim happiness with them. We are on like year 4 now and I still don't have a definitive answer on if you can punch an aircraft or not.
The entire palladium rules forum is full of unanswered questions.
Seriously? What about hover, leap and so on? No more Regult-kicks-to-down-flies?
Jokes aside, really? So you CANNOT get in base contact to a VF with a Regult for example?
And, it's Friday! (Or saturday, whatever) :
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
The PDFs of Wave 2 cards will be posted on DriveThruRPG.com at a rate of 2 a day until they are ALL posted and available to you over the next several weeks.
Wayne and I had a promising discussion with a gentleman if we decide to go one way with manufacturing, and we are waiting on a quote for another. We think the latter is even more promising. We also met with our UPS rep to try to establish UPS as an additional international shipper for all our products, for both individuals placing orders and freight. They claim to be highly competitive. We’ll find out in the weeks ahead.
There was a multipage heated conversation on the topic when the rules came out with no real resolution... so it was decided to submit a question to Palladium over a year and a half ago. I don't believe they ever responded. Mike, was that part of the 10 questions you submitted to them when you were still in their good graces and they in your's?
Well, the RRT rules have been out long enough that most other companies would be working on releasing a v 2.0 by now (or at least a 1.5 update). But seriously, I don't think there's been enough shared play for all the kinks and possible solutions to have have been shaken out of the current game. And, well - it's a dead games anyway.
2 cards a day for the Wave 2 stuff? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Are they just that lazy?
My guess is that they're finally now working on it for the first time in over a year since they were submitted and that's the pace that Wayne or whoever can go at in order to get whatever approvals he needs.
Mike, can you take a look and see if there is any difference between your versions with official robotech graphics and the ones supposedly coming out now? Or did they just click a "save file as: PDF" drop down menu?
warboss wrote: There was a multipage heated conversation on the topic when the rules came out with no real resolution... so it was decided to submit a question to Palladium over a year and a half ago. I don't believe they ever responded. Mike, was that part of the 10 questions you submitted to them when you were still in their good graces and they in your's?
That IS the correct answer but after so long darned if I can remember where it came from. Just ask whatever other rules questions you have. I'll try to remember the answer. I've been focused on Nodal Wars and don't want to confuse the answers from what the official ones are and what I did with my own rules to fix the issues.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Well, the RRT rules have been out long enough that most other companies would be working on releasing a v 2.0 by now (or at least a 1.5 update). But seriously, I don't think there's been enough shared play for all the kinks and possible solutions to have have been shaken out of the current game. And, well - it's a dead games anyway.
2 cards a day for the Wave 2 stuff? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Are they just that lazy?
Lol, that's why I'm working on Nodal Wars. Rules are pretty much solid but I need playtesters to help out. PB is like a snow snail riding on the slime trail of a slower snail, every now and then they bump into the snail they are following and call it progress.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: My guess is that they're finally now working on it for the first time in over a year since they were submitted and that's the pace that Wayne or whoever can go at in order to get whatever approvals he needs.
Mike, can you take a look and see if there is any difference between your versions with official robotech graphics and the ones supposedly coming out now? Or did they just click a "save file as: PDF" drop down menu?
What exactly do you want me to compare Warboss? The stat cards?
Swabby wrote: It isn't in the rulebook anywhere that I can find at all.
The HTH thing and aircraft? No, it is in the errata....or rather I thought it was. I just looked. Jaymz is correct but they never posted it officially. You could point this out to Thomas Roache and he can ask Wayne to update the errata.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think it was that the answer was supposedly "self evident" and that errata was not needed. Like I said, it has been a long time.
@Mike: Yup, the stat cards. I was just curious if they bothered to change anything in the year+ since they were supposed to come out with them and you had your hands on them.
Nesbet wrote: Seriously? What about hover, leap and so on? No more Regult-kicks-to-down-flies?
Jokes aside, really? So you CANNOT get in base contact to a VF with a Regult for example?
.
Well technicly unless you "land" the vf then no you vant actually have base to base contact. At least that was the last I heard on the matter before told them to feth off and it makes sense to me so take that as you will.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Swabby wrote: Jaymz where in the rules does it say that?
It doesnt. Thats the last i heard on the matter before telling wayne et al to feth off.
Was reading this from the Palladium Books Weekly Update...
"The two Rifts® Poker Decks have been selling like lightning, with a restock order arriving the morning right after we sold out the initial run of 150 decks!"
This tells me exactly what condition the company is in..
Rift decks sale for about $12, normal manufacture cost average about a third of the sale price.
To keep math simple lets say each deck should cost $4 each to produce based on sale price
That means 4 x 150 = $600
If a company can only afford to spend $600 on a new product.. where do you think the kickstarter 1.4 million is? long gone...
And wave 2 will only happen if they get a large influx of money...because injection molds for plastic sprues are not cheap
warboss wrote: @Mike: Yup, the stat cards. I was just curious if they bothered to change anything in the year+ since they were supposed to come out with them and you had your hands on them.
I think they might have changed the errors I pointed out on the Super VTs and the Missile Upgrade error....and that is it.
Nesbet wrote: on other news while waiting for PBWU...
On facebook, Robotech Miniatures posted:
We are 98% cerain Siembieda will consider handing over Wave 2 to Rogue Heroes LLC.
(This new outfit reportedly has been tapped to manage the new Kickstarter campaign for the new Rifts boardgame.)
However, we still are claiming a 2020 release...
I dont know how to react to this. Maybe laughing at that 98% would be a good choice to start?
just checked that group out, think i've seen it before, probably since I've been banned from posting there, but scrolling thru his posts, it looks like he is a very misguided fan friend of PB's, also notice he posted that dumpster diving video as fake, which I doubt many places are tossing the game boxs like that, i do believe the video is factual since the poster does have many videos of dumpster dives on his site. also noticed he posts others work but none of his own.
as to the guy PB is talking too i'm thinking a certain Russian.
Nesbet wrote: on other news while waiting for PBWU...
On facebook, Robotech Miniatures posted:
We are 98% cerain Siembieda will consider handing over Wave 2 to Rogue Heroes LLC.
(This new outfit reportedly has been tapped to manage the new Kickstarter campaign for the new Rifts boardgame.)
However, we still are claiming a 2020 release...
I dont know how to react to this. Maybe laughing at that 98% would be a good choice to start?
just checked that group out, think i've seen it before, probably since I've been banned from posting there, but scrolling thru his posts, it looks like he is a very misguided fan friend of PB's, also notice he posted that dumpster diving video as fake, which I doubt many places are tossing the game boxs like that, i do believe the video is factual since the poster does have many videos of dumpster dives on his site. also noticed he posts others work but none of his own.
as to the guy PB is talking too i'm thinking a certain Russian.
The admin is indeed a fan but I really dislike the stupid term Fan-Friend. I think we do each other a great disservice with these labels. He has indeed put out things before as if they were facts directly from PB that I have had to correct. Take what you find there with a grain of salt. This is the internet after all.
While the use of the term fan friend is obviously voluntary amongst the playerbase, the origin of the term is iirc directly from Kevin Siembieda. It's only taken on a negative connotation due to its inherent absurdity.
Genoside07 wrote: This tells me exactly what condition the company is in.. Rift decks sale for about $12, normal manufacture cost average about a third of the sale price. To keep math simple lets say each deck should cost $4 each to produce based on sale price That means 4 x 150 = $600 If a company can only afford to spend $600 on a new product.. where do you think the kickstarter 1.4 million is? long gone... And wave 2 will only happen if they get a large influx of money...because injection molds for plastic sprues are not cheap
Ugh. Not that I'm eager to defend PB in any way, but there are other ways of looking at it.
Maybe they just wanted a reasonably sized initial run to gauge interest? I'm guessing 150 was an economy of scale break point for whomever they worked with. I've got some challenge coins being made for a group I'm in, and getting 10 made was about 3/4 the cost of getting 100 made, so we got 100. There's further savings at 150, 200, 250, etc, and over 1700 members in the group (with many who expressed interest looking for 2-5+ apiece), but while I *could* have gotten them even cheaper per unit, I decided to keep it a reasonable size to start off, and go from there (basically around the demand level, but not so many that I risked ending up with dozens left over). Picking a reasonable run size and then following up in a few weeks/months/quarters with another run (in this case, they were instantly restocking, so I guess either the turn around time is rapid or they sold more strongly than they anticipated).
Yes, making maybe a grand of profit isn't exactly something to be crowing about (let alone be the first bolded point to make in a newsletter), but surely it's better to see them showing restraint than going with their 'gut' feeling of presumably needing ten thousands decks to meet demand. That kind of overconfidence is how some of us assume they got into trouble with buying up massive piles of wave one product to sell (I still would want to see the EoS breakpoints, and books showing who exactly paid for what, before I would fully buy in myself, but that's neither here nor there).
A reasonable run showing reasonable restraint isn't something I can really fault them for, even with their legion of faults lined up in rows.
I may be wrong but I believe they mentioned they were using the drive thru RPG print on demand service for the cards rather than the traditional printing they do for their books that requires larger print runs to be economical.
Another thing just occurred to me; the 150 decks, would that be 75 of each? Because that'd be even less cost effective for a print run. So those profit margins might even be smaller.
The site I randomly checked out was charging like $6 per unit for 100-250 packs, sub 100 orders were even worse. I know they work a lot with DTRPG, but unless they're getting some kind of sweetheart deal, I can't imagine they're massive profit margins in play.
It's still profitable enough as long as they only sell it direct IMO. If they decided to put it through the normal retail channel with two additional middlemen taking a cut (distributor and stores), I'd expect them to go with the larger print runs though a more traditional service instead of POD.
Mike1975 wrote: The admin is indeed a fan but I really dislike the stupid term Fan-Friend. I think we do each other a great disservice with these labels.
It is indeed a disservice, which is one of the reasons there is still a ton of toxic angst in this community, because quite a few of the people who have now seen the light were slapping the complainer label around on anyone that spoke out earlier on. People dug their heels in on using fan-friend during an onslaught of pretty foul rhetoric from the PB supporters.
Oh, nonsense. It wasn't PB supporters that started making the community toxic, it started with Rick, Jorel and Merijeek making the ks comments a hostile place for everyone.
n815e wrote: Oh, nonsense. It wasn't PB supporters that started making the community toxic, it started with Rick, Jorel and Merijeek making the ks comments a hostile place for everyone.
actually I stated the facts as I saw them which have mostly been true.
Rick, let's be honest, no attempt to insult you here.
Hindsight still doesn't support the majority of your claims, rumors or accusations. Just because, over time, PB has failed us and more people have become unhappy with this, did not make you right or excuse your behavior.
You are one of the people that created a community that, instead of being mutually supporting, is divisive and uninviting. That is not an accomplishment to be proud of.
You have certainly toned down the over-the-top conspiracies and hostility, while proving to be an enthusiastic hobbiest.
You don't get to pat yourself on the back for "being right", though.
n815e wrote: Oh, nonsense. It wasn't PB supporters that started making the community toxic, it started with Rick, Jorel and Merijeek making the ks comments a hostile place for everyone.
Eh, limo drivers from Canada were way more instrumental in destroying the kickstarter comments than any of those guys.
n815e wrote: Rick, let's be honest, no attempt to insult you here.
Hindsight still doesn't support the majority of your claims, rumors or accusations. Just because, over time, PB has failed us and more people have become unhappy with this, did not make you right or excuse your behavior.
You are one of the people that created a community that, instead of being mutually supporting, is divisive and uninviting. That is not an accomplishment to be proud of.
You have certainly toned down the over-the-top conspiracies and hostility, while proving to be an enthusiastic hobbiest.
You don't get to pat yourself on the back for "being right", though.
but what it comes down to is I was right, when PB said the models had to be done that way I said no they could be done different and with just as much detail if not more and more poseability, lets face it n815e you are trying to shift the blame on me, when it was you who defended PB even though the evidence suggested you and PB were wrong and or lying, it was you that created the nasty atmosphere anyone tried asking about our stuff, it was you who defended PB and saying you were a hardcore gamer, even though you showed no evidence of your RRT minis, it was you who called those of us who saw thru PB's lies nothing but liars and jokes, and yet we were right and are still being proven right, so place the blame where it belongs on PB and you.
n815e wrote: Oh, nonsense. It wasn't PB supporters that started making the community toxic, it started with Rick, Jorel and Merijeek making the ks comments a hostile place for everyone.
While Rick is guilty of many of the sins from a particular very bad Brad Pitt movie (and maybe even cried during wave 1 shipment "What's in the baaaaax?!?"), he didn't make the community toxic but rather just made it more toxic (as did many others including myself frankly). The root of that toxicity though is the years long stream of lies from Palladium. After Palladium was caught with their pants down a few times in a row early on (the delay in the pledge manager for months, the art contest that took a year to "judge" and had one winner instead of several, the complete lack of progress pics despite production scheduled within 40 days, etc), the trend long established in decades of RPG industry work was obvious to long time fans of the IP and THAT is when the community turned toxic and others only exacerbated what was already there. It died down for a few months after wave 1 finally arrived but Palladium yet again doubled down on stupidity, laziness, greed, and lies causing yet another outbreak of toxicity. In the end, Rick may exacerbate and revel in the toxicity but the root cause of the bad attitudes surrounding the discussion of this mostly failed project (as a whole, not just delivery of rewards) has always been Palladium.
I really do hate how divided the community is though. You guys are supposed to be the dudes I am hanging out with while pushing miniatures around and talking about Minmei's finer points with, not looking over some imaginary line and slinging mud at.
In a lot of ways the community for this kickstarter has come to resemble the Macross/Robotech divide..
Ha, the on-topic keeps returning to how can anything else be done to motivate PB to finish what they started.
Unfortunately, neither carrot nor stick seems to work and throwing more money at PB would carry no guarantees it goes where it is supposed to.
The comments of "Give PB a chance to make it right." tends to lead to a strong temptation to flame replies.
I think plenty of that has been given over the years.
What sticks in my craw is me being stupid and spending an extra couple hundred dollars in the backerkit on wave2 stuff after the KS closed.
If I had not done that, I could have let it go.
Working on getting Wave2 models through other means and I will pretty much have the game I wanted.
That is what the "White Knights" have been saying "Don't you want the game?".
It was a very positive thing to see Rick's models and anyone else's for that matter.
Those various 3D artists out there are awesome to give us something, seeing the shortfall and the demand.
That is another positive thing to see.
I honestly see PB as a consumer problem and any efforts to at least warn of their unethical practices is a public service.
I am quite happy to have had the opportunity to get to know the various backers ( yes even Rick ) and the curious throughout this project especially since Robotech is a bit of a niche interest.
Plus, this sucked me into the joys of International shipping so I am getting better at that.
I have said all this stuff before right? As you were.
Can anyone think of another miniature wargame that has been as dramatically impacted by 3d printing as this one?
I actually think it is kind of an interesting case study just because of the timing. When this kickstarter first launched people were still talking about 3d printing as kind of a far off thing, now I have an SLA printer (that was also a kickstarter project that started and fullfilled before this one) in my house that I can easily download and print the missing sculpts for.
I often wonder if Palladium is even truly aware of how much of the IP is out there now in 3d files or just from 3d printing outlets.
They have no clue what is available, or they would have thrown a dozen C&D takedowns at those folks.
There are times I wish I had the money to do the Robotech RPG/RRT license myself, but then I realize *I* would have to be the one to deal with the legal spaghetti around the IP. After the way FASA got burned, I'd rather stay out of the whole mess.
Also, speaking of FASA, I imagine Battletech has also been affected by both 3rd party miniature makers and 3D printers.
I see it as things coming full circle. When I approached PB about doing Robotech I was proposing that it use 3d printed models that would be used as masters and that the production pieces would be metal. That idea was thrown out in the quest for plastics, which was a much more complicated road and even further outside their realm of experience. They had worked with metal before with Rifts miniatures back in the 90's so they had at least some limited experience in that, but producing something in plastic, dealing with china, and the logistics of production outside the US were all things they had no background in and has cost the project dearly.
They later realized (and rather painfully) some of the issues these caused and were exploring options to do metals with GHQ as a solution to righting the KS direction, which is where things should have originally started had they not been blinded by the dollar signs that plastics seemed to promised.
I find it particularly amusing as since approaching GHQ they have also been working with several of the same 3d artists I originally would have used and they are just now (finally) starting to use the same printing company that I've been using since before the idea for RRT even hit Kevin's desk (2010). One might make the case that they could have saved themselves 5 years of headache *if* they'd bothered to listen to the advice they were being handed at the beginning, but what would I know.
3D has been "the next stage" in the evolution of minis for some time, while it will never completely replace hand sculpting it has so many advantages over traditional sculpting that it's already taken over the majority of new miniature design at least for the creation of the masters (and plastic mold engineering) The last 8 years or so has been where (knowledgable) people have caught onto the potential of what 3d can offer the industry, some of the slower companies are still dragging behind but as they say; the future is now.
In the last four-five years 3d has really entrenched itself as the new backbone for miniature design. This is due largely to advances in the printing tech which make the prints more detailed than before and there have also been advances in the casting process allowing for them to use prints easier with vulcanized molds, there have also been new refinements with using 3d to create molds for plastic injection. (slide core for example) Most of these have been around for a little while bit but it's taken time for the industry to experiment with them and put them to proper use. Now that they've become a "proven" process it's largely taking over as the preferred procedure for most companies. (privateer and GW were very fast to pick up on new 3d advances for sculpting)
Now almost every miniatures kickstarter is using 3d renders to promote their game concepts and as their source for creating their master models. PB has been very far behind the curve when it comes to anything developed since 1990 and that's been the largest impact and limitation on the KS, they are very out of their element.
Because PB had no background in wargames Carmen is/was their resident "expert" when it came to wargames and he was giving Kevin some absolutely terrible advice, now he's also their "boardgame expert" so I have no faith in whatever the Rifts boardgame eventually shapes up to be. (which has been on the slow burner since at least 2009) Its a shame as I like the recently previewed miniature sculpt that Ben did but I really don't think they can handle producing anything beyond their RPGs and convention trinkets.
All I know is that the RRT rules as written burned me on every name in the book, even Cavatore.
Regardless of intent or how deep the involvement goes, anyone that willingly put their name in that book deserves a lifelong boycott, so I completely agree with you in regards to the rift boardgame.
I like to say. WHAT THE HELL HAPPEN TO THIS RRTKS!! I' am sorry for the large caps I had to get it out my system. I like to know what went wrong this game. Why did ND leave after the KS? I read a post on RRTKS forum from J Baker about his thoughts what happen like ND sending out app for demo and painter for RTT during the KS but stop taking afterword. Well I think we all know that falling out between ND and PB. I think the money of this KS made PB blind with greed and push ND out. Its funning that SWR KS is not bad as I think because PB is not messing it up so far. Oh man I need blow some steam. Later
Swabby wrote: All I know is that the RRT rules as written burned me on every name in the book, even Cavatore.
Regardless of intent or how deep the involvement goes, anyone that willingly put their name in that book deserves a lifelong boycott, so I completely agree with you in regards to the rift boardgame.
I guess that's me too then. I think they put my name in there somewhere.
DEZOAT wrote: I like to say. WHAT THE HELL HAPPEN TO THIS RRTKS!! I' am sorry for the large caps I had to get it out my system. I like to know what went wrong this game. Why did ND leave after the KS? I read a post on RRTKS forum from J Baker about his thoughts what happen like ND sending out app for demo and painter for RTT during the KS but stop taking afterword. Well I think we all know that falling out between ND and PB. I think the money of this KS made PB blind with greed and push ND out. Its funning that SWR KS is not bad as I think because PB is not messing it up so far. Oh man I need blow some steam. Later
IIRC Alpharius updated the first post with a timeline Forar created about a month back or so.
Swabby wrote: Can anyone think of another miniature wargame that has been as dramatically impacted by 3d printing as this one?
I actually think it is kind of an interesting case study just because of the timing. When this kickstarter first launched people were still talking about 3d printing as kind of a far off thing, now I have an SLA printer (that was also a kickstarter project that started and fullfilled before this one) in my house that I can easily download and print the missing sculpts for.
I often wonder if Palladium is even truly aware of how much of the IP is out there now in 3d files or just from 3d printing outlets.
actually SWAT and STAW have both been effected by 3D modeling, as to the IP infringements out there HG has to pick and choose its battles well since they take a major loss here in the US they will lose control of the IP outright, and way things are shaping it up just takes a gutsy company to snake the IP away from HG (well the vehicles and such, not character designs)
paulson games wrote: In the last four-five years 3d has really entrenched itself as the new backbone for miniature design. This is due largely to advances in the printing tech which make the prints more detailed than before and there have also been advances in the casting process allowing for them to use prints easier with vulcanized molds, there have also been new refinements with using 3d to create molds for plastic injection. (slide core for example) Most of these have been around for a little while bit but it's taken time for the industry to experiment with them and put them to proper use. Now that they've become a "proven" process it's largely taking over as the preferred procedure for most companies. (privateer and GW were very fast to pick up on new 3d advances for sculpting)
Now almost every miniatures kickstarter is using 3d renders to promote their game concepts and as their source for creating their master models. PB has been very far behind the curve when it comes to anything developed since 1990 and that's been the largest impact and limitation on the KS, they are very out of their element.
.
what is this 3D printing you speak of ? never heard of it as it goes 3D printing has made miniature designs available to the masses instead of the few companies that make miniature molds and such.
Swabby wrote: All I know is that the RRT rules as written burned me on every name in the book, even Cavatore.
Regardless of intent or how deep the involvement goes, anyone that willingly put their name in that book deserves a lifelong boycott, so I completely agree with you in regards to the rift boardgame.
I guess that's me too then. I think they put my name in there somewhere.
(being good now that I'm caught up and don't want to get yelled at)
Let's all be nice and think happy thoughts about delivery. I seem to recall that was going to fix everything back in early 2014. Clap everyone! CLAP!!!!!!!!!!!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Swabby wrote: All I know is that the RRT rules as written burned me on every name in the book, even Cavatore.
Regardless of intent or how deep the involvement goes, anyone that willingly put their name in that book deserves a lifelong boycott, so I completely agree with you in regards to the rift boardgame.
Calvatore was also involved with AQMF. He might be a name to avoid at this point...
For a while, game development was turning into the tabletop version of rap videos with various upcoming games dropping gaming celebrity names just because they paid them to read the rules once prior to launching on kickstarter. Alessio was one of the most frequent with his fingers seemingly in nearly every high profile project but only during the crowdfunding.
Morgan Vening wrote: Let's see how long they can keep doing what they promised. Cause it's not like they ever over promise and under deliver.
Keep expectations low enough and you can please anyone with mediocre results!
The secret to a successful marriage, PB's MO, or both? You decide!
Am I correct that with the admission that they have not selected a final manufacturer yet, assuming they're not pulling a materials shift to PVC "plastic" (which while technically correct does not correspond with the HIPS most are expecting), translates to an earliest fulfillment of late 2017, if not 2018?
n815e wrote: Remember when Kevin said he was going to do multiple updates a week all year?
That lasted an entire week.
His new year resolutions must be freaking insane.
Well, I shall continue my vigil for more cards. At least we can compare what Mike provided and see if there is a single change anywhere... which I am doubting.
Krinsath wrote: Am I correct that with the admission that they have not selected a final manufacturer yet, assuming they're not pulling a materials shift to PVC "plastic" (which while technically correct does not correspond with the HIPS most are expecting), translates to an earliest fulfillment of late 2017, if not 2018?
Wave 1 consisted of 11 figures across... 9 sprues I think? They had a post/comment/update/something about paying for molds in late (December'ish?) 2013, went to production in mid 2014 (June), had core boxes in the warehouse around August, and were shipping Battle Cry tiers in October (North America took like a month or two? RoW took like half a year longer to complete because reasons?).
There was the customs fiasco that snarled things up with the original cores, but since that was just an attempt to sell early at Gencon, not actual fulfillment ('core only' backers make up a tiny portion of the whole) it's not something I'm really counting on.
Basically, yes, IF they end up working with a group that can manage the same production schedule or better, and shipping is as snarled or less, and having ~2 dozen figures (and ~1 dozen more resin bits) to do up molds for, punch out, package, ship, and begin to deliver, by the very standards of their previous work, it is theoretically possible to actually deliver in 2017.
BUT (and I can already see 'the usual suspects' itching to reply) there are a loooooot of asterisks and caveats here. Things like the molds actually all getting made and the test sprues turning out right or in need of minimal changing, Chinese New Year, getting a factory slot when they need it, actually having (or being able to acquire; through existing resources, traditional loans, fire sales/grab bags, whatever) the finances to pay for it all up front, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
We can spend ten pages coming up with the million different ways they CAN and PROBABLY WILL screw it up.
But IN THEORY, it's not impossible for it to happen. Wave 1 happened. Wave two is bigger in terms of number of aspects to it, but there's also less to punch out per figure (the vast majority of backers will get considerably more VT's and Battlepods than they did FPA's or MAC-II's).
The steel they purchased way back when to create the molds has oxidised! Palladium Books are currently looking for a manufacturer who can cast miniatures in rusty steel, creating another incompatibility issue!
Sure, they're not particularly useful (It's the stat cards for the Armored Valk A and J), rather than formation/upgrade cards, but it's a start.
Let's see how long they can keep doing what they promised. Cause it's not like they ever over promise and under deliver.
Remember when Kevin said he was going to do multiple updates a week all year?
That lasted an entire week.
Yup. That's what I was referencing. I was gonna hyperlink that in, but I forgot.
And Talizvar, that WAS his New Year's Resolution. As N8 pointed out, it lasted a week. Three in one week, one in the next, two two weeks after that, and then one each over the following two weeks. And nothing since early April.
But on to today's "promise". They've put two new cards up, so they haven't had it all fall to crap yet (I'd have owed someone a dollar if they'd bet me that would have happened).
But of course, in true Palladium fashion, instead of continuing with the Armored Valk stat cards from yesterday, and putting up the Squad/Squadron cards, so people who are actually interested can actually play with these in a game, they've gone and done the Zentradi Light and Heavy Infantry Stat Cards. And while these are nice, unless I'm mistaken, all this information is available in the book.
I mean, it's better than nothing, and it'll be OK once it's all out. But that's assuming they follow through, and deliver on everything they've promised. If they only put up the Stat Cards before this promise fizzles out, with no ability to play any of the units they've put up, that'll be peak Palladium.
Morgan Vening wrote: I mean, it's better than nothing, and it'll be OK once it's all out. But that's assuming they follow through, and deliver on everything they've promised. If they only put up the Stat Cards before this promise fizzles out, with no ability to play any of the units they've put up, that'll be peak Palladium.
I would just like all the cards out so Battlescribe / Armybuilder can be updated for the "complete" game and let us worry about having the physical units... only us crazy bunch would be using it anyway.
Are there therapists for people with "completionist" mental issues?
What used to be a non-issue in day to day life is a real problem dealing with PB.
Talizvar you are not alone there. The game is not ready as it stands and we need all the unit cards so we can get point costs. It drives me nuts that this information has not been released years later.
you do realize PB is only drawing this out so they can tell any inquiries see we did something this week, we put out stuff. they draw it out to buy them time instead of putting them all out at once.
Swabby wrote: Talizvar you are not alone there. The game is not ready as it stands and we need all the unit cards so we can get point costs. It drives me nuts that this information has not been released years later.
Morgan Vening wrote: I mean, it's better than nothing, and it'll be OK once it's all out. But that's assuming they follow through, and deliver on everything they've promised. If they only put up the Stat Cards before this promise fizzles out, with no ability to play any of the units they've put up, that'll be peak Palladium.
I would just like all the cards out so Battlescribe / Armybuilder can be updated for the "complete" game and let us worry about having the physical units... only us crazy bunch would be using it anyway.
Are there therapists for people with "completionist" mental issues?
What used to be a non-issue in day to day life is a real problem dealing with PB.
I know what you mean. Used to be a completionist, but Wizkid's Mechwarrior (and D&D 4E) broke me of that. I am a much happier (?) person these days; there's still the urge to "catch 'em all", but I don't obsess over not having some piece anymore.
So, you mean he is claiming that the Chinese have sat on their duffs for 2-3 years, only getting up for 2 reasons, produced nothing, and have come up with a perfect copy of wave 2.
Well that's just great, but I'm not sending them any money until I get my stuff.
n815e wrote: The Robotech Miniatures guy is back, this time claiming (as usual, without proof) that Chinese knock-offs of Wave 2 can be found.
actually that is nothing new, albeit sending the items to another factory is new, the way many of the cheap factories do it, is they print product for the customer during the day and product for black market sales at night.
Swabby wrote: The amount of conspiracy theorising going on surrounding this kickstarter is starting to reach crazy town levels.
sad thing is most of the conspiracies surrounding this project are not far off of the actual truth it seems.
n815e wrote:The Robotech Miniatures guy is back, this time claiming (as usual, without proof) that Chinese knock-offs of Wave 2 can be found.
Why am I somewhat excited by this?
But the break from reality is that molds got done??
True to reality is PB not willing to pay for them.
Conrad Turner wrote:So, you mean he is claiming that the Chinese have sat on their duffs for 2-3 years, only getting up for 2 reasons, produced nothing, and have come up with a perfect copy of wave 2.
Well that's just great, but I'm not sending them any money until I get my stuff.
Again, I easily see the Chinese making the molds, not being paid and thinking "might as well put them to good use.".
Swabby wrote:The amount of conspiracy theorising going on surrounding this kickstarter is starting to reach crazy town levels.
Well, when the behavior of a company tends to defy reason: anything is possible.
@n815e: Where is this guy posting their "rumor"?
It is worth a little of my time exploring this possibility, trolling or not.
Heck, if the 3D models were thrown around for quotes, some company may have decided to use them... it is China after all.
IF the Chinese have moulds, they paid for them out of their own pocket as PB are *still* trying to reduce the part count and have not had time to lock that down, cut the moulds, and run anything more than a test run through them. [and past experience tells me they don't have a snowball's chance of having got that far in the process]
Hell yes, if physical moulds HAVE been made, I can see that happening, but can you honestly say that you have enough confidence that PB have got that far in?
OK, presuming that there are bootleg copies of the MAC-II Monster floating around, where is one? Because I've not seen it, and would appreciate some proof of this.
He posted it on Facebook, accompanied by a blurry picture of a storefront that is plastered with model kit posters. Nothing to substantiate any of his claims is actually presented.
"...the problem is he (Siembieda) wont put a pointman over there to keep an eye on things.
Years of experience in dealing with the Chinese tells me this is what likely went down when they were over there in 2014:
Once the company concierge had dropped off PBs project manager at the airport, the designs were already being copied, then sent to a sister factory in the next province over operated by a shell corporation.
This is normal with the Chinese.
Its sort of a grey area that many North American companies choose to accept because the labor costs are so cheap.
Most US companies look the other way when it comes to the potential "side effects", and Palladium is no different.
Cash is King as they say.
Before the plane even left the tarmac, those designs were already being reviewed by unknown third parties and sent to a CAD tech.
Its about thoroughness.
Say what you will about Paulo Parente, the reason why his stuff comes out looking so damn good, and the reason it gets finished and SHIPS is because he is PRESENT.
PB cant say that.
To get this thing in order they need a relay man LIVING there, literally!
LIVING in the factory... to keep an eye on the workers and quality control like Paulo did when he first started DUST, ...while he was still refining his manufacturing process.
He already knew he couldnt trust them by emailing everyday from Europe or wherever he was before he got to China.
It was the smartest thing he could have ever done for his line.
You want wave 2?
Well, Im pretty sure you dont have to go much farther than Macau.
I have lived in China and its not something I would do again.
But, If I WAS living there again and happened to be in Macau, or filthy dirty Shanghai, or even Hong Kong, I am confident I could spot pirated Ninja Division designs fairly quickly.
Yes, in true 1/285 RRT scale.
History and logic tell me that many of Wave 2 are likely already available now aside from maybe 2 or 3 of the ones that are still in concept.
The Kicker?
These minis have probably been available for YEARS.
Way before North America ever got/gets them and YEARS after the Kickstarter campaign concluded.
That includes the dice, stat cards and everything else that you would have got in the original boxed set too...
The Chinese have been playing Palladium for years with their smoke and mirrors.
I had thought an American company of their size was a little more business savvy than this!"
-Anonymous Hong Kong toy distributor's reaction to Palladiums decision last year to retreat from talks regarding a possible GHQ manufacturing partnership.
Except PB has allegedly been 'trimming the parts count' for years now. Given their need to self-promote and make everything seem huge and grand, I have sincere doubts that they paid for the wave 2 molds, had them cut, didn't say anything (substantial progress like that would've been a big deal), didn't follow up on actually getting the figures made, and then the factory they're working with took things that aren't supposed to exist yet and just started punching out copies of it for distribution.
I totally expect there to be all kinds of knock offs and copies of the older toys out there, but the idea that PB could get within spitting distance of finishing wave 2 while remaining utterly silent about it is insane.
Forar wrote: I totally expect there to be all kinds of knock offs and copies of the older toys out there, but the idea that PB could get within spitting distance of finishing wave 2 while remaining utterly silent about it is insane.
Basically, that guy is full of gak.
Yeah, after reading that mess, I agree it is a bit much.
Ah well, a guy can dream can't he?
"...the problem is he (Siembieda) wont put a pointman over there to keep an eye on things.
Years of experience in dealing with the Chinese tells me this is what likely went down when they were over there in 2014:
Once the company concierge had dropped off PBs project manager at the airport, the designs were already being copied, then sent to a sister factory in the next province over operated by a shell corporation.
This is normal with the Chinese.
Its sort of a grey area that many North American companies choose to accept because the labor costs are so cheap.
Most US companies look the other way when it comes to the potential "side effects", and Palladium is no different.
Cash is King as they say.
Before the plane even left the tarmac, those designs were already being reviewed by unknown third parties and sent to a CAD tech.
Its about thoroughness.
Say what you will about Paulo Parente, the reason why his stuff comes out looking so damn good, and the reason it gets finished and SHIPS is because he is PRESENT.
PB cant say that.
To get this thing in order they need a relay man LIVING there, literally!
LIVING in the factory... to keep an eye on the workers and quality control like Paulo did when he first started DUST, ...while he was still refining his manufacturing process.
He already knew he couldnt trust them by emailing everyday from Europe or wherever he was before he got to China.
It was the smartest thing he could have ever done for his line.
You want wave 2?
Well, Im pretty sure you dont have to go much farther than Macau.
I have lived in China and its not something I would do again.
But, If I WAS living there again and happened to be in Macau, or filthy dirty Shanghai, or even Hong Kong, I am confident I could spot pirated Ninja Division designs fairly quickly.
Yes, in true 1/285 RRT scale.
History and logic tell me that many of Wave 2 are likely already available now aside from maybe 2 or 3 of the ones that are still in concept.
The Kicker?
These minis have probably been available for YEARS.
Way before North America ever got/gets them and YEARS after the Kickstarter campaign concluded.
That includes the dice, stat cards and everything else that you would have got in the original boxed set too...
The Chinese have been playing Palladium for years with their smoke and mirrors.
I had thought an American company of their size was a little more business savvy than this!"
-Anonymous Hong Kong toy distributor's reaction to Palladiums decision last year to retreat from talks regarding a possible GHQ manufacturing partnership.
Except PB has allegedly been 'trimming the parts count' for years now. Given their need to self-promote and make everything seem huge and grand, I have sincere doubts that they paid for the wave 2 molds, had them cut, didn't say anything (substantial progress like that would've been a big deal), didn't follow up on actually getting the figures made, and then the factory they're working with took things that aren't supposed to exist yet and just started punching out copies of it for distribution.
I totally expect there to be all kinds of knock offs and copies of the older toys out there, but the idea that PB could get within spitting distance of finishing wave 2 while remaining utterly silent about it is insane.
Basically, that guy is full of gak.
well yes and no, if the Chinese have the designs then that is most likely to happen, they will see an opening PB left open, but did they do it? no evidence as of yet that has been done.
I vaguely recall that one of his posts made it to BoW or similar site, where he "quoted" Wayne (it was fabricated) about production.
I'm actually pretty amazed that anyone believes any of his posts, at this point. But based on the reactions, they seem to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: He responded to his own post about Chinese bootlegged RRT models by linking to a Shapeways Super VT and writing "here ya go fellas!.
I vaguely recall that one of his posts made it to BoW or similar site, where he "quoted" Wayne (it was fabricated) about production.
I'm actually pretty amazed that anyone believes any of his posts, at this point. But based on the reactions, they seem to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: He responded to his own post about Chinese bootlegged RRT models by linking to a Shapeways Super VT and writing "here ya go fellas!.
It's fine to wish, but push rumor, especially thin ones as truth is pretty bad.
I vaguely recall that one of his posts made it to BoW or similar site, where he "quoted" Wayne (it was fabricated) about production.
I'm actually pretty amazed that anyone believes any of his posts, at this point. But based on the reactions, they seem to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: He responded to his own post about Chinese bootlegged RRT models by linking to a Shapeways Super VT and writing "here ya go fellas!.
It's fine to wish, but push rumor, especially thin ones as truth is pretty bad.
Day 3, two more cards up. We'll see if they can keep it up.
Of course, they're still just stat cards (AValk S and D), which is all information that can be found in the book, and doesn't help people actually use the Wave 2 paper standees (or those that sourced elsewhere), in a game.
And given that the 1A, 1J, 1S and 1D are all for the most part identical, it's arguably the least amount of work they could do.
I'd also like to point out something I only noticed today. The copyright tag at the bottom is 2014. Which, for a company that is usually ALL OVER protecting it's rights to an obscene level, implies (but doesn't prove) that these things have been lying around PBHQ untouched for 2 years. Which is in itself an indictment on this clusterfeth of a company.
Morgan Vening wrote: Day 3, two more cards up. We'll see if they can keep it up.
Of course, they're still just stat cards (AValk S and D), which is all information that can be found in the book, and doesn't help people actually use the Wave 2 paper standees (or those that sourced elsewhere), in a game.
And given that the 1A, 1J, 1S and 1D are all for the most part identical, it's arguably the least amount of work they could do.
I'd also like to point out something I only noticed today. The copyright tag at the bottom is 2014. Which, for a company that is usually ALL OVER protecting it's rights to an obscene level, implies (but doesn't prove) that these things have been lying around PBHQ untouched for 2 years. Which is in itself an indictment on this clusterfeth of a company.
Yeh, I noticed they do that in their books too. Two years between Kevin's dated forward and the publication or artwork date.
Which you would think would indicate Wave 2 would be next year, but......
The funny thing about his statement is he lists three places in China.. Two are right beside each other... Macau and Hong Kong..
Plus.. having actually traveled there a number of times.. Macau is more like Las Vegas / resort town instead of a manufacturing area..
Sounds like he is getting his information from a documentary about china from the 1980s..
Plus why are the counterfeiters going after a dead licence and obscure scale model.. and not Disney or coke..
Yes.. there is counterfeit items can be found in china.. but since the last decade the Chinese government has really cut back on allowing it
and more foreign corporations have stores that sale the official product.
Back to topic... My personal feeling is..1.4 million is gone spent on digging Palladium out of a hole it was in..
There will never be a wave 2 and people are lucky to find a game of RRT being played in their area, now or ever..
This game if done right has so much potential.. additional lines like Invid war.. etc..
instead it was taken over by a group of people that didn't have the first clue on what they where doing and after
three years of learning.. now the money is gone..
Macross is a live license in Japan / Asia, and the new Mac Delta stuff would be nice to counterfeit for. However, it's not like anybody would have needed anything from Palladium to make their counterfeit items from. It is entirely possible that some counterfeit Macross goods were found based upon Gashapon or candy kits, and someone may have stolen the Robotech labeling to skirt Japanese Macross trademarks.
But I'd need to see a photo of the actual item claimed for sale.
Short of a photo of an actual RRT item, it's just more lies and smoke and mirrors and BS.
too be honest with the way PB has lied to us and misled us there are times I want to just say feth it and sell off all my Robotech miniatures. PB has really burned me on Robotech.
Morgan Vening wrote: Day 3, two more cards up. We'll see if they can keep it up.
Of course, they're still just stat cards (AValk S and D), which is all information that can be found in the book, and doesn't help people actually use the Wave 2 paper standees (or those that sourced elsewhere), in a game.
And given that the 1A, 1J, 1S and 1D are all for the most part identical, it's arguably the least amount of work they could do.
I'd also like to point out something I only noticed today. The copyright tag at the bottom is 2014. Which, for a company that is usually ALL OVER protecting it's rights to an obscene level, implies (but doesn't prove) that these things have been lying around PBHQ untouched for 2 years. Which is in itself an indictment on this clusterfeth of a company.
That would be because, as i said previously, the cards were already done as of may 2014. Hell mike has had them since then. That is what he used to know the points forbhis custom ones and they were sent to all play testers as along with the print ready version of the rules. Lacadaisical is an understatement.
I totally expect there to be all kinds of knock offs and copies of the older toys out there, but the idea that PB could get within spitting distance of finishing wave 2 while remaining utterly silent about it is insane.
Basically, that guy is full of gak.
Most likely. Extremely most likely.
However, how close is close? Ten more molds that they put down 20% good faith money (the other 80% to be generated by Wave One sales), and they still owe the other 80%. The "reducing parts count" is clearly a load of gak - I mean come on, they could make them single piece figures if they really wanted to and reduce them all the way down to a single piece in a way of giving a all the "not real fan whiners" the finger. Seriously, give me one good reason that it would take YEARS to reduce parts count.
Thing is, what if there is only one step to finishing this whole farce? If that step is giving the company holding their molds hostage their 80%, they may as well be sitting on the moon for all the chance PB has of getting their hands on them.
So, don't think of it as "only one step", think of it as "A pile of money Kevin Simbieda will never be able to provide".
Asterios wrote: too be honest with the way PB has lied to us and misled us there are times I want to just say feth it and sell off all my Robotech miniatures. PB has really burned me on Robotech.
Don't let them do it to you man. One fan to another, these guys had nothing whatsoever to do with what you and I fell in love with. Don't let them ruin that for you. I don't know what got you in this, but my childhood memories are worth way more than anything palladium can do to soil them.
Asterios wrote: too be honest with the way PB has lied to us and misled us there are times I want to just say feth it and sell off all my Robotech miniatures. PB has really burned me on Robotech.
Don't let them do it to you man. One fan to another, these guys had nothing whatsoever to do with what you and I fell in love with. Don't let them ruin that for you. I don't know what got you in this, but my childhood memories are worth way more than anything palladium can do to soil them.
before this fiasco the only dealings I ever had with Palladium was their Robotech RPG books, never really played the game since found the rules lacking, but still got all the books just for the fact they were Robotech, and then when i saw this fiasco I thought wow they are still around and Robotech miniatures cool, so got a bunch and several years later still waiting on half of them.
meanwhile with nothing new coming out from PB i'm getting burned out and thinking I could probably work on Dropzone Commander, there is a play group and the company does support the game.
Well, you build models (albeit slowly), paint them and you have something to look at.
You get a bunch done (eventually) and you can play something.
Get a few destroids and you could maybe include a few into your Battletech collection.
Look into shapeways and see if some wave 2 stuff is to be had.
Doing these things feels better.
You can enjoy Robotech and just treat PB keeping your money as a different matter to address.
I have found interest in the game is in direct proportion to how much further I get painting the miniatures.
I am especially interested in the "book" of scenarios since that is what I typically create in order to entice people to play a new game.
The "reducing parts count" is clearly a load of gak - I mean come on, they could make them single piece figures if they really wanted to and reduce them all the way down to a single piece in a way of giving a all the "not real fan whiners" the finger. Seriously, give me one good reason that it would take YEARS to reduce parts count.
You know what's the most... weird is the best word I have for this. Weird thing about the parts reduction?
RRT is marketed as a RPG supplement, not a full-on wargame, most likely because of licensing restrictions. I'm ok with playing with that song and dance just to get some form of miniatures on the market.
The odd thing is, the most relevant RPG miniature supplement game that has been in the market, is the D&D Miniatures game back a decade or so, and the various current RPG supplement miniatures, which are mostly one-piece miniatures -- and some come pre-painted to boot. And serve the purpose well enough. Done properly, one-piece mecha miniatures would be easy enough for the hobbyist to convert, and if you put enough variation in the pose, more than enough to satisfying a good portion of the target audience.
Talizvar wrote: Well, you build models (albeit slowly), paint them and you have something to look at.
You get a bunch done (eventually) and you can play something.
Get a few destroids and you could maybe include a few into your Battletech collection.
Look into shapeways and see if some wave 2 stuff is to be had.
Doing these things feels better.
You can enjoy Robotech and just treat PB keeping your money as a different matter to address.
I have found interest in the game is in direct proportion to how much further I get painting the miniatures.
I am especially interested in the "book" of scenarios since that is what I typically create in order to entice people to play a new game.
problem is have you seen that video I posted? I have a few of the minis done, also I have wave 2 gak I did myself and other generations too.
doing these things did not make me feel better, it just reminded me that I wasted time and money on a failed project from a failed company who essentially stole from me, they made promises they broke. all the people by me who got into the game quit and do not want to play the game, and nobody wants to play the game.
in fact here is my video again in case you missed it:
![[Disk]](/dakkaforum/templates/default/images/icon_disk.gif){kind=icon}
<raises hand>
as it goes 3D printing has made miniature designs available to the masses instead of the few companies that make miniature molds and such.
