Mike said:
((That being said, waiting a whole year for wave 2 with nothing in between would be stupid so you can blame me if you like but I've sent suggestions numerous times to PB on a scenario book, new sub-factions, and Advanced Rules to fill in some of the interim. I still think that is a good idea. It also gives us something more to work with but it needs to be done right. More crap will just make things worse.))
It's not a bad idea. It's just we don't know if he's using "our" money to fund these side projects. The man just had his art stolen or lost and now he's seriously considering letting his fan friends fund the next OH while those same gullible people still have to pay for a hotel room and a ticket. Karma, life, whatever you want to call it keeps kicking him in the jewels and we're all paying for it. With all this in mind I'm not confident at all with how he's handling "our" money. He should let us know what's being done with it. Other kickstarters have been able to do it.
I like the Roll with Impact optional rule though. I think you might see it soon.
Agreed on the buildings. They need to be WAAYY tougher.
Stealing the Initiative works well later on when the enemy is reduced to a single commander so that he only gets one die to steal it back. Otherwise I agree. Many times it is wasted.
Cypher-xv wrote: It's not a bad idea. It's just we don't know if he's using "our" money to fund these side projects. The man just had his art stolen or lost and now he's seriously considering letting his fan friends fund the next OH while those same gullible people still have to pay for a hotel room and a ticket. Karma, life, whatever you want to call it keeps kicking him in the jewels and we're all paying for it. With all this in mind I'm not confident at all with how he's handling "our" money. He should let us know what's being done with it. Other kickstarters have been able to do it.
Oh, I totally understand that. I think Karma in this case is self-made.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saw that link too. Interesting to see what happens....
Mike1975 wrote: When you roll, damage rounds down to a min of 1, not up.
We found in the original bit in the book about dice rolling that when you get a fraction you are to round-up.
Is there a note in weapon damage somewhere that says different?
I would have appreciated that correction last night.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Friendlies DO NOT block LOS and can provide hard cover. Keep you Glaug behind Pods and you VF-1J's behind some VF-1A's....
Let us just say, we got into a third round scrum and there was not blocking much.
My opponent got greedy and did an extra move on Glaug to try to finish off my Tomahawk (it was REALLY irritating him) so I had many shots at missing the darn thing when shooting back.
Let us say on the other hand with the VF-1J, pod shoots building, building goes boom, VF-1J flapping in the breeze with clear shot from two missile pods.
Much ugliness ensues.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Dodge and Anti-Missile has always been against the entire volley BUT you need to roll against the highest attack roll.
Originally I did it where if you had 2 missiles that rolled a 6 and another a 7 and you rolled a 6 to dodge you managed to dodge the 2 sixes. I thought it worked better. The rules are an all or nothing affair but it is against the entire volley.
I think I was clear I understood you roll once against a volley <edit> dodge, anti-missile.
What adds to drama is at least 4 missiles must hit or it is no longer "inescapable" so we are tempted to fire MOAHR missiles, Glaugs become a one-shot missile package.
It seems to end the missile exchange rather rapidly with extreme overkill... very epic looking.
Then phase two of shooting the heck out of each other.
Then the pod "kickline" becomes felt in the nether regions. Didn't get into that enough to figure out if that is all ok or we want to do something about it.
<edit> Other option is to switch to jet mode and fly off like a pansy.
I do try to keep in mind the RAW and play it where possible but must admit these small tweaks just feel more fun.
Thanks for chiming in Mike, you have played so many versions that I welcome anything you feel should not be touched vs any changes you felt were better.
Nothing will happen. Rick will go on about lawsuits like he did for a year straight, Lolafett will try to refute every line he wrote via his own TL;DR posts, and a few more folks will talk about doing it... and nothing will happen in the end. Even if people do post complaints, it'll be months before they likely do anything. Even after the folks in michigan do finally read the complaints, they will likely just file it under "whenever we get to it" once they realize it's about tiny plastic toys. I do agree that if there is fate involved then palladium has earned every bit of bad luck they encounter. Unfortunately, we're along for the ride with our money until they ship wave 2.
I appreciate it. I like to use house rules on some things and work to change others with PB as I can. It's one reason to help them with the rules. I got some influence albeit not much.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: Nothing will happen. Rick will go on about lawsuits like he did for a year straight, Lolafett will try to refute every line he wrote via his own TL;DR posts, and a few more folks will talk about doing it... and nothing will happen in the end. Even if people do post complaints, it'll be months before they likely do anything. Even after the folks in michigan do finally read the complaints, they will likely just file it under "whenever we get to it" once they realize it's about tiny plastic toys. I do agree that if there is fate involved then palladium has earned every bit of bad luck they encounter. Unfortunately, we're along for the ride with our money until they ship wave 2.
In a sense I hope that part of what you say is true. I hope the complaints being moved up raises PB's awareness but I agree, at the end of the day it will likely change nothing at all.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I never liked the Kickline tactic. When a pod is within 12 inches it can sit still. Fire the Heavy Particle cannons with an additional +1 and fire the secondary guns for free with the Focus Fire trait. Unless you are worried about getting shot back, go for the kill.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think the no die roll with Roll with Impact was done to speed things up a bit.
I must admit, these various side projects seem like one more scheme for PB to make more money now.
I suspect Wave 2 is progressively looking more like lost money to them so the indefinite push-out is being toyed with (as we have seen in the past).
The only thing to keep them honest is they would not like to close the door to KS forever so something has to look like an end to it.
The funds draining away faster than anticipated is a definite possibility, but if they in any way think that would preclude them from delivering: I promise to make them "my hobby" to see one way or another that their selfish choices are not forgotten or swept under the carpet. As long as they are doing their job: we are ok... for now.
Mike:
It will be nice to see if they tweak a few rules and see if they can make the experience a little tighter.
I know we all have our various expectations of rules.
Oddly, I would say the building MDC is the most broken element, the rest I could live with if needed, what I outlined as house rules just made it that tiny bit more fun.
All: Anyone else get ANY games in yet? Comments? Suggestions? Might as well speak up as we wait with baited breath for the Wave 2 madness to hit... whenever that is.
The problem is that they're not being seen that way and it is 100% because of conscious choices by Palladium. They have CHOSEN not to keep pledgers properly informed to the true progress (or more likely lack of) regarding Wave 2 so the public focus ONLY on nicknacks and the annoucement of a revision of the rules (and second hand reports of how they're "unhappy" with what they themselves worked on) only a few weeks after some pledgers finally got theirs. I know I'm preaching to the choir here but it just smacks of desperation. If we were truely and honestly kept up to date with the progress of each wave 2 step, I think more folks would be understanding of Palladium's desire to make money in the meantime as well as focus on other things in their wave 2 downtime. As it is, we have just the lies, misdirections, and broken promises as a basis to form the continuing opinions.
warboss wrote: As it is, we have just the lies, misdirections, and broken promises as a basis to form the continuing opinions.
Look on the bright side - you won't have to worry about being lied to or any broken promises with Wayne on 'vacation' next week. There won't be any update. Apparently no one else at Palladium understands how the copy & paste function works to produce an update. Must be Wayne's exclusive domain. He's probably the only one that knows how to spell 'soon', 'sooner', or 'soonest' too....
Does anyone know of a website where you can set up a poll and blatantly manipulate the results? I'd like to start an online petition for palladium to buckle down and focus on wave 2 without any interuptions. I've decided to adopt the namesake's tried and true method of counting non-votes as support so I need a site where I can start it at 5,342 "yes" responses without pressing the response button that many times.
There's a new update. It says, basically, "Holy gak we are desperate for cash. Please buy some stuff sight unseen. Note that we are being generous and letting you give us money over the Internets, instead of forcing you to come to a convention to give us money."
Crap.. a new update with them offering even more stuff EXCEPT what was already paid for. I'm fast running out of time and need to dredge up my kick starter password as I haven't logged in for months.
This is just a brief update to touch base with you and make sure you know you are not forgotten. Far from it. We’ve been working on a number of things for Robotech® RPG Tactics™. Wave 2, of course, but also some things to keep you excited about RRT until the next Wave is unleashed.
Our focus for the next few months is going to be heavily on Robotech® RPG Tactics™. We want to see RRT Wave Two released by the end of the year, but we have a number of other things coming sooner that we think will please our Robotech® Kickstarter backers and all our supporters very much. Things that are being made here in the US and will not take much time away from our energy to get Wave Two into your hands.
Kevin had a good talk with Harmony Gold USA just last week and they have green-lighted our plans. We are hammering out the final details right now and will be in a position to start revealing details the first week of June, 2015.
One such bit of news is 3 new Robotech® RPG Tactics™ convention exclusives — ALL of which will be offered to our Kickstarter backers online via Backerkit. This way you do not have to be at the convention or wait in line to get these items, you can get them from the comfort of your home. The new exclusives are: Miriya in a Super Veritech Guardian mode, Breetai in heavy armor, and Grell in male power armor (along with a Malcontent card). We are likely to also re-offer Max and Miriya this way as we continue to get requests for them (they are out of stock at the moment). Details to follow in two weeks.
We are doing this (and more) to keep the enthusiasm for Robotech® RPG Tactics™ boiling and to provide a taste of what’s coming. We believe in Robotech® RPG Tactics™, have big plans, and intend to support it heavily as we deliver the mecha and fighting forces of all eras of Robotech®. And we’re listening to you and your suggestions to make this game everything you might want. Details to follow.
Of related interest . . .
we are working to get Robotech® Expeditionary Force Marines™ finished and to the printer in time for a Gen Con (or sooner) release.
The RRT Tournament at the Palladium Open House went very well thanks to the efforts of Patrick “Jake” Jakubowski, who lost his voice Friday night, but still managed to run a dynamic tournament event. Several people brought with them some impressive Robotech® ship models. Winners liked the trophies and were surprised by the prizes given out. It was a fun event.
Much, much more to follow."
So it's basically just what they linked before, along with a heads up to the backers about 3 new convention models and possible access to 2 of the old ones.
It doesn't matter. He'll be in heavy armor according to that update which I can't recall him ever wearing in the show (if I forgot a scene, feel free to correct me on that). He'll just be a bigger infantry guy.
Cypher-xv wrote: Even on PB's FB page there getting a lot of flack for their lack of honesty. I can't blame them.
People giving the flack or PB finding honesty is bad business in their eyes?
Am I a bad person avoiding Facebook?
Oddly, I would have no issues with my real name associated with my comments.
Cypher-xv wrote: Even on PB's FB page there getting a lot of flack for their lack of honesty. I can't blame them.
People giving the flack or PB finding honesty is bad business in their eyes?
Am I a bad person avoiding Facebook?
Oddly, I would have no issues with my real name associated with my comments.
I was too honest with how I feel we've been treated and called into question his integrity several times. So now that he figured out you can ban people I got the boot.LoL
Cypher-xv wrote: Even on PB's FB page there getting a lot of flack for their lack of honesty. I can't blame them.
People giving the flack or PB finding honesty is bad business in their eyes?
Am I a bad person avoiding Facebook?
Oddly, I would have no issues with my real name associated with my comments.
I was too honest with how I feel we've been treated and called into question his integrity several times. So now that he figured out you can ban people I got the boot.LoL
What? You were banned from Palladium's Facebook or forum page?
Welcome to the world of (palladium) precrime! . Are you guys really being banned on the official forums for stuff you say in the is comments? Or are you getting trumped up "trolling" charges on the forums instead?
Our Dakka mods I am sure are perplexed of such a large thread with a thin veneer of civility.
I can't speak for all of them, but I certainly am!
At this point, due to the rather...draconian nature of PB's own board and Facebook page, I guess this thread is serving as an outlet for a lot of stuff that would normally go to those places?
Talizvar wrote: Well, the KS comments are the last bastion of anything goes, as demonstrated by the regulars.
Our Dakka mods I am sure are perplexed of such a large thread with a thin veneer of civility.
BTW: I think I had been "pre" banned at the PB site.
Is it bad to use the same name as here?
Depends. If you're new to the PB Forums, your first couple of posts won't go through until a moderator checks them. Apparently it's an anti-spam feature. After a couple of "approved" posts, you no longer get held up.
Of course, given the nature of the moderators over there, I wouldn't be surprised if they've tagged names of certain people for higher levels of scrutiny. As Warboss intimated, you don't need to do anything wrong to get punted. You just need to give out the "vibe" that you're not a fanboi, and anything even remotely hostile gets you disciplined (warnings, then bans). If you're a flunky though, you can be quite hostile in defense of failures and still retain posting capability. Cause what's the point of the moderators having power, if they can't abuse it in the name of their once and future Ding.
MangoMadness wrote: I wonder what theycwouod do if you overloaded their forum with extreme positivity.
Every statement 7s 'the most awesome thing i have ever read' anything the mods say is 'genius'.
Would they boot you for extreme sarcasm?
Someone did that for a while (Forar? Cypher?) a year ago or more where they just kept posting that Palladium is the most awesomestly awesome game in the world and commented on every stupid thing they did sarcastically in that particularly cultist fan friend tone. I don't recall if there were any reprecussions though other than locked threads.
Our Dakka mods I am sure are perplexed of such a large thread with a thin veneer of civility.
I can't speak for all of them, but I certainly am!
At this point, due to the rather...draconian nature of PB's own board and Facebook page, I guess this thread is serving as an outlet for a lot of stuff that would normally go to those places?
I really enjoyed Robotech as a kid and this game feels like the show. It is fast-paced, things explode and may die quickly.
Command Points really make the system hum. They are vital to avoid damage, to make extra attacks or steal your opponent’s activation. Many of the starting Zentraedi forces do not contribute CPs. So the Zentraedi player needs to keep their leader units safe so they can provide much needed support.
The rules are pretty streamlined once you are used to the abilities and flow of the game. The ruleset has enough depth without a ton of extra complexity. The combat round is a quick, back and forth affair that makes sense. Still you might need some rules clarification so check out this living FAQ.
I also really like you can measure thins before you act. I really don’t like war games that require you to commit to a move only to find it is out of range. Getting to measure first is great.
There are some things to be aware of though. First it is a lot of work to get all the miniatures assembled. Then you will probably want to paint them. You almost need to just to tell different units apart. And for units that are posed and painted the same you might need another way to differentiate them. There are decals but they seem tiny and intimidating.
Missiles seem over-powered. Having anti-missile weaponry helps but they can put out a bunch of damage at once. This is accurate to the show but can be tough in the game.
I wish the starter box had more variety of Zentraedi units. The squadrons of Regults work fine but having some different units would be cool. The UEDF has a lot more options for builds right out of the box. FYI to build a 300 point army you need more than the starter. It has enough units to build to mid-sized armies but know you’ll need more.
Robotech RPG Tactics is a fun, tactical miniatures game. It has many modes of play and fans of the show will enjoy its faithfulness to the series. But it is a lot of work just to play. If you are a board gamer and are used to having pre-assembled and pre-painted miniatures you might want to pass on this. Or at least look around at some of the blogs and videos showing you what it takes to play this game. If you are a miniatures war gamer it probably depends on your love for the subject matter. If you and some friends really like Robotech pick this up you’ll enjoy it and can divide some of the work.
Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 6 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6
Thanks Alpharious, I would agree the review is pretty accurate in all points. Their scoring does not seem to take into account amount of build time / skill needed to get to play. I find that is the #1 barrier to entry from anyone I talked to. It is almost a mistake to show a Veritech and mention 20 parts.
On the moderator end of things, I can understand the difference of a third party hosted discussion vs. one that is trying to sell a product. It is just rather shocking how anything less than a thumbs-up is actively discouraged by PB. Maelstrom is too well run to challenge overly as a comparison.
I've been painting up some tau and the "update" on robotech wave 2 got me thinking about the two in comparison (at least their sizes). When you're working at a bigger scale like 28mm, things that are visually impressive for minis are sometimes hard to visually translate. I found some online size comparison pics (so I can't verify if the original image resizes are 100% correct) and tried to match up the "human" models. I pasted the tau mecha size comparison image twice into the pic on the left 1/4 of the way down (above the MAC II) and on the bottom right near the Alpha Veritech. The biggest tau mech in normal 40k (the riptide) is the size of an REF destroid (the ones that are about 2/3 the size of the models we have). The standard crisis suit (which is bigger than almost all the TAGs in infinity) is somewhere between a bioroid and a cyclone. It's weird how the stuff scales together. I'm curious how the 40k titans like the brand new warlord titan fit in. I'm guessing the warlord is roughly the size of a zentraedi mecha.
I was looking at the open house pictures from PB.
Seemed kinda sad, bunch of old guys like me, no kids visible in attendance.
Not many people to speak of.
The big ships were awesome to see.
It just seems despite the 5000 backers, not much is going on.
I am hearing the crickets chirping.
Why do I feel this game will eventually go in the same corner as my Cyberpunk RPG and Bridge Commander game.
Rather sad, anyone other than these guys could have made this into something special for even those who did not grow up with the show.
I am a bit of a completionist so this drawing out of releases and PB's notorious financial boggles are a bit of a worry.
Just some random musings (which I'm probably wrong on):
Looking back at update #156, there is a picture of crates marked "Main Box". There is 3 per crate, and 5824 crates. That's 17,472 core game boxes created for Wave 1. Of those, 6,684 for reserved for backers. That means, not counting anyone who sought a refund, they have 10,788 core sets to get rid of - not counting who knows how many add-on boxes. Personally, I'd be surprised if more than half (5,000) of those boxes went out to retail stores. If productions costs are right at 50% (which have got to be MUCH lower), it's pretty obvious they blew through the funds on getting Wave 1 out the door (at 50%, that would be $873,163.20 for core boxes - not likely that high, I think).
Compare that to what Kevin said in the last e-mail murmur that one of their typical book runs is in the 300-600 print range. Their typical book sells for $15-20, so that's about $4,500 to $12,000 net from a book run, which might give them somewhere between $2,250 - $6,000 profit (if their lucky). Unfortunately, I don't know how long it takes them to go through a print run, but I gander it's 3-6 months at best. So, from a single book they're possibly making between $375 - $2,000 a month per "new" book. I imagine that books that are 6+ months old sell only a handful of copies apiece ... don't have any idea what their sell rate is, but assuming between 1-5 copies per title, we're looking at 196 titles @ $15-20 each ($2,940 - $19,600 net total, $1,470 - $9,800 profit at 50%).
Finally, in the last murmur where Kevin mentions crowdfunding the next OH, it sounds like there were about 70 people in attendance. My local Hubcon is about that size and that's 2/3ths the size of my graduating High School class from 86' in Mississippi! At $60 a head (when prices went up), that means they raked in somewhere around $4,200 (probably less) net. And they only do this once every three years or so.
Why do I mention all this? Well, if the cost of the figures for Wave 2 are anywhere near the costs for Wave 1 (assuming they blew the $1.4M wad on the first run), look at what sort of skyscraper Palladium is looking at to acquire the funds to pay for it. If my seat-of-the-pants calculations are anywhere close, PB is looking at 147+ months (12 years, 3 months) to rebuild the capital to produce Wave 2 from its "day to day" sales.
If anyone has some better/closer numbers on what PB earns, I'd certainly like to hear it, because those numbers above certainly do not inspire confidence for PB completing Wave 2.
Stormonu wrote: Just some random musings (which I'm probably wrong on):
Looking back at update #156, there is a picture of crates marked "Main Box". There is 3 per crate, and 5824 crates. That's 17,472 core game boxes created for Wave 1. Of those, 6,684 for reserved for backers. That means, not counting anyone who sought a refund, they have 10,788 core sets to get rid of - not counting who knows how many add-on boxes. Personally, I'd be surprised if more than half (5,000) of those boxes went out to retail stores. If productions costs are right at 50% (which have got to be MUCH lower), it's pretty obvious they blew through the funds on getting Wave 1 out the door (at 50%, that would be $873,163.20 for core boxes - not likely that high, I think).
Compare that to what Kevin said in the last e-mail murmur that one of their typical book runs is in the 300-600 print range. Their typical book sells for $15-20, so that's about $4,500 to $12,000 net from a book run, which might give them somewhere between $2,250 - $6,000 profit (if their lucky). Unfortunately, I don't know how long it takes them to go through a print run, but I gander it's 3-6 months at best. So, from a single book they're possibly making between $375 - $2,000 a month per "new" book. I imagine that books that are 6+ months old sell only a handful of copies apiece ... don't have any idea what their sell rate is, but assuming between 1-5 copies per title, we're looking at 196 titles @ $15-20 each ($2,940 - $19,600 net total, $1,470 - $9,800 profit at 50%).
Finally, in the last murmur where Kevin mentions crowdfunding the next OH, it sounds like there were about 70 people in attendance. My local Hubcon is about that size and that's 2/3ths the size of my graduating High School class from 86' in Mississippi! At $60 a head (when prices went up), that means they raked in somewhere around $4,200 (probably less) net. And they only do this once every three years or so.
Why do I mention all this? Well, if the cost of the figures for Wave 2 are anywhere near the costs for Wave 1 (assuming they blew the $1.4M wad on the first run), look at what sort of skyscraper Palladium is looking at to acquire the funds to pay for it. If my seat-of-the-pants calculations are anywhere close, PB is looking at 147+ months (12 years, 3 months) to rebuild the capital to produce Wave 2 from its "day to day" sales.
If anyone has some better/closer numbers on what PB earns, I'd certainly like to hear it, because those numbers above certainly do not inspire confidence for PB completing Wave 2.
If say your anywhere close to being right, then that might help explain why they've been ducking their heads in the sand. Kevin thought this was going to sell out, but due to so much bad press it's not happening. If Kevin came out and told the truth (for once, am I right :p) that he blew through most of the rrt money on wave one and doesn't have enough for wave two because of it that would be the end of PB. The backers would go nuts (understandably so) and there'd be another financial crises for Kevin due to people suing (Rick) Kevin. Sadly I've thought for a long time that's what's happened with the money. If that were the case is he using rrt money to fund the models produced by GHQ? If so this could be a Hail Mary for him to get more money from the gullible to pay for wave two.
Time for KS #2, to get more money for wave 1. A KS by KS.
In all honesty, I don't think PB has blown the entire wad of cash but I can't imagine things are good for them considering I know shipping costs have increased quite a bit since then and they have to do TWO waves. Must be eating up a fair chunk of money for the international backers
Sining wrote: Time for KS #2, to get more money for wave 1. A KS by KS.
In all honesty, I don't think PB has blown the entire wad of cash but I can't imagine things are good for them considering I know shipping costs have increased quite a bit since then and they have to do TWO waves. Must be eating up a fair chunk of money for the international backers
It's the bed they made, though, so now they have to try and sleep on it. Can't say I'm able to muster much sympathy.
Stormonu wrote: Just some random musings (which I'm probably wrong on):
Looking back at update #156, there is a picture of crates marked "Main Box". There is 3 per crate, and 5824 crates. That's 17,472 core game boxes created for Wave 1. Of those, 6,684 for reserved for backers. That means, not counting anyone who sought a refund, they have 10,788 core sets to get rid of - not counting who knows how many add-on boxes. Personally, I'd be surprised if more than half (5,000) of those boxes went out to retail stores. If productions costs are right at 50% (which have got to be MUCH lower), it's pretty obvious they blew through the funds on getting Wave 1 out the door (at 50%, that would be $873,163.20 for core boxes - not likely that high, I think).
I think that number is way off. I wouldn't be surprised if the price point was less than 15% per box, less than 25% including freight shipping to Michigan, if not lower. Given that depending on the distributor terms, PB would be selling to them for between 40-50% of retail, and then the distributors selling to the retailer for 50-60% of retail, anything less than 30% in production costs would not return profit (as you've also got developmental time). You do bring up a good point though, and it's a couple of questions I'd like to (but know I will never) see addressed.
What was the cost of the production run of the backer rewards? What was the additional cost* of the production run of the retail amount? Were Kickstarter funds used to pay for the second sum? Were the shipping costs similarly paid for as a lump sum out of KS funds, or were they split proportionally?
* Production isn't a linear progression. Typically, the first X costs a certain amount, then subsequent numbers cost less. For example, the first 1000 might cost $30 per box. The next 4000 might cost $25 per box. The next 5000 might cost $20 per box, etc.
Stormonu wrote: If anyone has some better/closer numbers on what PB earns, I'd certainly like to hear it, because those numbers above certainly do not inspire confidence for PB completing Wave 2.
You're also right on that if they've spent significantly into, let alone all of the funding from the KS, you're right to be concerned over Wave 2. It'll be interesting to see if KevCo show any significant PHYSICAL progress of where Wave 2 sits, week after next. If they refuse to show (or have none to show) any PPP's or test sprues, and it's just words, or even a few digital sculpts (given ND's statement that they were all done months ago), I'd think December is a pipe-dream, and there'd be a small, but not irrelevant chance that the project will fail.
We'll know at GenCon for sure though. If they have nothing new to show (beyond the same PPP's we've seen for over a year), other than maybe these three new promo figures, given that the game will have been out for 8 months, it'll be a critical sign. I'd expect nearly any other company to have new product for sale. Not even having something to point at and go "soon(TM)", would be a bad sign.
Stormonu: I think you might have hit the nail on the head.
I knew something was bugging me when I saw all those boxes in the PB warehouse at their openhouse.
It is VERY easy to see PB being unable to budget appropriately to figure out what Wave 2 would cost to produce.
It is VERY easy to see PB getting greedy and wanting a lot of product for retail sale and not figuring out an appropriate point to stop.
Q: So it makes sense that if most of the planning stages are done what is the holdup?
A: Too much capital held in retail product.
I feel like an idiot to not see this coming, it makes too much sense with their behavior. I wonder who decided how big the retail run should be and if any budgeting was a consideration.
"Gee, shucks folks, we spent the wad on wave one retail and we don't know when we will have the money to get Wave 2 going, so we suggest you buy as much of our stuff you can!"
Worst part is we all received "something" so they can claim we have no right to complain, my problem is I bought a fair bit of stuff on the KS manager that are all contained in Wave 2.
So at what point can I get my money back on a product that may take years to ever see (if at all)?
I can also see why they are trying to position well for another KS: it wont be the first time the second KS helps pay for the unfinished first one.
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Albertorius wrote: It's the bed they made, though, so now they have to try and sleep on it. Can't say I'm able to muster much sympathy.
The really irritating part is they will try and possibly succeed in not having to face the consequences of their bad decisions.
Historically they rarely do.
Then they tell some sob story and ask for handouts.
I have a suspicion I may have to teach them how to make a home-brew spin-caster for this next "Wave 1-1/2" if even those models are to be made.
I may have to chip in some low-melt metal as well.
Possibly make the molds.
And get the models printed or sculpt by hand.
Any bets on how hopeless they are going to be with this?
They also make Rifts pencils which were introduced years ago with the multiweek fanfare extravanganza that the dice bag just got (both of which easily eclipse the wave 2 coverage by far). Basically, if you can either find it in a gas station store "business" section or other companies give it away for free, Palladium will spend days designing something that you can create in minutes and then spend weeks advertising it.
Alpharius wrote: But at 332 pages in, and Wave 2 nowhere in sight?
I can't imagine the places we'll go in here...
Oh, the places we are going to go from here if any of this is true.
I will have to refer to the forum rules more than a few times to keep from being banned.
Can I at least make a few comments about Kevin S.'s dubious lineage?
Physical violence is not socially or legally acceptable.
Pursuit of legal claims seem rather dubious and would only tank any remaining funds they may have to finish the KS.
What is particularly irritating is it also seems to be inappropriate to get all this worked-up over "man-dollies".
What was the cost of the production run of the backer rewards? What was the additional cost* of the production run of the retail amount? Were Kickstarter funds used to pay for the second sum? Were the shipping costs similarly paid for as a lump sum out of KS funds, or were they split proportionally?
While I don't think that the design and kickstarter fulfillment costs of wave 1 ate up most of the budget despite the massive delays and wasteful advertising, I do wholeheartedly think they spend a ton of the KS money to produce the retail models as well instead of earmarking it for wave 2. I'm sure they expected massive sales due to the KS's level of success and with only the 100% sunshine feedback they get/allow probably expected it to continue. Do I have any inside knowledge of actual sales figures? No. Am I biased due to being a disgruntled KS backer? Probably. But I'm also looking at my local scene as well as informally polling my friends. No one I've talked to about it (whether backer or not) has bought anything since it was released at retail. YMMV of course.
We'll know at GenCon for sure though. If they have nothing new to show (beyond the same PPP's we've seen for over a year), other than maybe these three new promo figures, given that the game will have been out for 8 months, it'll be a critical sign. I'd expect nearly any other company to have new product for sale. Not even having something to point at and go "soon(TM)", would be a bad sign.
I do agree that this upcoming gencon will be the necessary big litmus test to make a "metacritic" style initial score for the game combined with the experience posted online from other events (like Adepticon, the open house, origins). Could things change after that? Possibly, but it is unlikely.
In the end, I do think that Palladium will keep their promise and deliver something of similar quality to wave 1 in wave 2. I do think as well though that they'll use the retail sales to fund it instead which will further delay the full delivery to backers and we'll likely get the 6 month shipping roll out starting sometime early next year. Even if they get the products in 2015, I fully expect them to flagrantly break their wave 2 promise of "backers first" (remember, the vote was specifically for gencon and wave 1) without even bothering to "ask" after the fact this time.
Talizvar wrote: What is particularly irritating is it also seems to be inappropriate to get all this worked-up over "man-dollies".
The way I see it, it's entirely appropriate to get worked up over a company taking funding for a product (any product) in the amounts per person they did and seem to handle it so incompetently.
Whether it's the most worthy thing in the world or a pile of poop in a box (...), when the average person hands over nearly $300 (and many people gave significantly more) on promises of a project being 'almost done' and such immense confidence, it's not unreasonable to be frustrated and annoyed at this point.
warboss wrote: In the end, I do think that Palladium will keep their promise and deliver something of similar quality to wave 1 in wave 2. I do think as well though that they'll use the retail sales to fund it instead which will further delay the full delivery to backers and we'll likely get the 6 month shipping roll out starting sometime early next year. Even if they get the products in 2015, I fully expect them to flagrantly break their wave 2 promise of "backers first" (remember, the vote was specifically for gencon and wave 1) without even bothering to "ask" after the fact this time.
This is where in my opinion you are "actually" being an optimist.
My suspicion is that sales of retail product will be a trickle.
Other PB product will continue to decline in sales and they will lean on RRT for operating money.
The big splash of all this extra PB "trinket" releases are recognition of needing the funds to meet commitments.
I fully expect some funding campaign will be trotted out one way or another and payment for Wave 2 shipping I "bet" will be demanded when / if the time comes.
I also expect Wave 2 product will be simultaneous release to retail (with slight favoritism to retail) since I suspect they would be financially tapped-out at that point.
I fully expect Wave 2 to be targeted just before Gencon 2016 about a month before to be sure they do not miss it. (<edit> good luck to them...)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forar wrote: Whether it's the most worthy thing in the world or a pile of poop in a box (...), when the average person hands over nearly $300 (and many people gave significantly more) on promises of a project being 'almost done' and such immense confidence, it's not unreasonable to be frustrated and annoyed at this point.
You are too kind, but do not give any justification for me to get even further on my high horse: it is not pretty.
I want my wave 2 "poop in a box" so I can get on in my life ignoring PB and hold a little party when they close their doors (was that out loud??).
@Talizvar: Lol, who pee'd in your half glass full? You were one of the relatively happy folks in the thread going back a month or two ago. You were making models with loud music and booze, running demos, and making up house rules to your heart's content just a few pages back.. and now you're calling a grouch like me an optimist!
What was the cost of the production run of the backer rewards? What was the additional cost* of the production run of the retail amount? Were Kickstarter funds used to pay for the second sum?
Oh, absolutely. The idea of KS isn't to squeak by just enough cash to fulfill the backer rewards. What would be the point? And don't give me some horsegak about "making dreams come true" because that applies to about 5% of the KS projects out there at this point.
The problem here is they, apparently, aren't selling. Combined with a company of people who can't plan beyond the next few weeks (I'm being generous there) and who probably didn't even get as sophisticated as a spreadsheet when it came to cost projection and planning.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Don't consider it getting worked up over "man-dollies", consider it getting worked up over "fraud" and "lies".
warboss wrote: @Talizvar: Lol, who pee'd in your half glass full? You were one of the relatively happy folks in the thread going back a month or two ago. You were making models with loud music and booze, running demos, and making up house rules to your heart's content just a few pages back.. and now you're calling a grouch like me an optimist!
Ever hear of "denial"?
Trying to distract myself over how offended I am with their garbage "customer service", I am feeling "serviced" all right, just not in a nice way.
Also when you have one of those "ah-ha!" moments and realizing up to 98%!!! of what PB is up to, has been a negative attitude adjustment.
I like to throw a little humor into the angry tirade because it allows some perspective and hope for constructive bits in my ravings.
The anger is real however.
Much like the PB "pre-ban" I am considering my "pre-anger" of when PB tries to explain why I will not get my additional orders and how they still feel they should hold my money since they may get at Wave 2 at around the time of the "heat-death" of the universe.
How the end of the universe will happen is still up in the air considering there's still more we don't know.
I just saw on the comments section how he just got a response to an email he sent six months ago about getting a refund. This was PB's reply :
......
No kidding, those dots were it.
In other news Wayne just instagramed that he's heading out on his cruise. The way things have run these last two years I don't blame him. He messaged :
Cypher-xv wrote: How the end of the universe will happen is still up in the air considering there's still more we don't know.
I just saw on the comments section how he just got a response to an email he sent six months ago about getting a refund. This was PB's reply :
......
No kidding, those dots were it.
In other news Wayne just instagramed that he's heading out on his cruise. The way things have run these last two years I don't blame him. He messaged :
Going on a cruise, what can go wrong?
Wave two is already on track to be missing for longer than the SS Minnow. I'm sure the Skipper Kevin can handle Giligan Wayne going away from Palladium's port for a bit.
What's there to jump on? Dude deserves down time like anyone else.
Does it highlight the absurdity of a group of writers struggling to write anything without his aid? Sure.
But I can't fault a guy for taking a week to himself. I doubt they get remotely the paid vacation one would expect from working with a company for as long as some of their people have.
Hell, I've been with my corporation nearly 14 years and I probably get more paid time off than they do.
14-16 hours a day! Kevin is going to drop dead from all that work. One can hope right?
That's too mean spirited for me. I just wish he'd sell the company to someone who has had a good idea this millenium.
Also, he says he worked on robotech. ZOMG! Maybe he spent an hour adding some more TM R C in the next weekly update to protect his IP from infringement or my next best favorite thing... dice cups to follow up on the Robotech DicebagTM.
MangoMadness wrote: lets assume the bank is a little bare and they can only produce a partial wave 2.
What single item from wave 2 would generate the most sales to help fund the rest of wave 2.
Is there a stand out 'x' model which would generate the most sales?
From what's still left?
Regular sized, from the Spacy I'd say the two main VF variants, the Super and Armored Valks. For the zents, mainly the power armors, particularly the female ones.
And then there's the Monster, which I could certainly see selling widely.
How does Kevin fill that time?
I write procedures bigger than most of his publications and more frequently.
Adding descriptions take huge time?
I am pretty sure many of these can be copy / pasted from whatever publication each "work" was first shown in.
To not have the weekly update is just a great excuse since "the main guy" is on vacation, as if any given person would matter.
Yeah, worked for a guy like him.
It is like a matter of pride of being in before anyone and the last to leave.
Irrelevant how effective they are with their time, they just point to the ridiculous hours as unassailable on "effort".
Sometimes I stayed later to see if he would give-up and go home... nope, he even got a little upset with me and asked if I was planning on "having a life".
Even worse, show up before he does... they HATE that, it is like you got the drop on them.
Did that once and I think he showed up at work at 6:00am for a week to make sure I did not get in ahead of him.
Actually decided he should be the only one with a key and the alarm code since it was "unnecessary" for the rest of us, problem solved.
Funny stuff, you just can't make up these things.
In regards to the "single item" would most be wanted for Wave 2:
We are assuming they are broke.
I would assume these would go straight to retail for a shot at solvency.
Only problem will be if they choose to go with a full cargo container (most cost effective) or have to go with some go-between at anywhere between $2 to $67 for a cubic meter depending on mass from China (never mind, overland freight, insurance, brokerage fees).
It would be dire before they get into shipping from China without a full container because they would be losing even more money.
I "think" it would be easier in their eyes to produce much product locally to sell and hope their stock keeps selling long enough to achieve some critical mass they can get Wave 2 through whatever final stages it needs. Not looking good.
This is like watching Chef Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares with that "Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale" episode.
Like watching a car crash.
Anyway, if interested:
Spoiler:
The "lesson" is no matter how well intentioned and with expert good advice, people will still prefer to do it their way to the point of self destruction.
I just want my stuff before PB goes back into that hand to mouth limbo they had been living in for the last couple decades.
Eadartri wrote: How do you find the quality of miniatures in Robotech RPG Tactics. Is the now available edition the same as the Kickstarter edition?
It's the same.
In other news it seems Jeff Burke was let go from palladium. It might be (might) that he was the rude employee that was spoken about in the yelp review. For those who don't recall Jeff did the paint guide in the back of the book.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit: it seems like Kevin hired someone new to replace Jeff.
Well, seeing as how he was hired to do the work on Robotech, and near as can be told the progress on Robotech has come to a complete stand still...why would you want to keep paying him?
There is no visible progress, and the guy who was hired to specifically work on this project was canned.
The inferences are getting easier and easier to draw.
And the Yelp review referred to the owner, not the employee.
I now it seems like nothing's happening with rrt, but someone new was just hired so I wouldn't be surprised if this had anything to do with the missing art.
Eadartri wrote: How do you find the quality of miniatures in Robotech RPG Tactics. Is the now available edition the same as the Kickstarter edition?
It's the same.
In other news it seems Jeff Burke was let go from palladium. It might be (might) that he was the rude employee that was spoken about in the yelp review. For those who don't recall Jeff did the paint guide in the back of the book.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit: it seems like Kevin hired someone new to replace Jeff.
Jeff might just be the one Kevin thought was stealing from him, too...
Eadartri wrote: How do you find the quality of miniatures in Robotech RPG Tactics. Is the now available edition the same as the Kickstarter edition?
It's the same.
In other news it seems Jeff Burke was let go from palladium. It might be (might) that he was the rude employee that was spoken about in the yelp review. For those who don't recall Jeff did the paint guide in the back of the book.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit: it seems like Kevin hired someone new to replace Jeff.
Where is all this employment info coming from originally? Is there somewhere announcing the new hire ("Palladium congratulates blah blah") or firing (some twitter feed "I'm gone!") or this basically gossip?
Merijeek wrote: New guy makes a run straight for the oh-so-valuable Simbieda collectibles?
I don't buy it.
I'm still going with "crap got stolen in CoT (v1.0) and Kevin just noticed".
Emphases on "Kevin thought", here. Coming from a guy who thinks he can do no wrong and a history of consistently thinking everything is another one's fault and that everyone is out to get him.
stanman wrote: With Jeff gone that means Kevin can be even more hands on with Robotech. Can't wait.
Like Kevin Siembieda's expert touch? I guess we'll know if he picked up the slack personally if the "advanced" rulebook has genius ideas like a d100 chart of random gak no one cares about without actually explaining (because rules are for chumps!) how exactly to get a percentile result with a d6. Or they cut and paste same chained random insanity rules they've used for 30 years into a minis game.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Merijeek wrote: What's the point of peons if you can't blame them for failures?
You can use them to look magnanamous by thanking them periodically for worthless stuff before you fire them for putting out equally worthless stuff.
I'll check tonight (both in old books and the newest one I have which is the Robotech RPG). I didn't know that it was on there. Sounds like a remnant of the early 1980's when homosexuality was still listed officially in a way as a disorder (in DSM III). Considering the early 1980's is when palladium developed that chart and their rules and they're still using both largely unchanged, it is possible. I suspect thought that they changed it sometime in the 1990s. We never used those charts anyways. Who the hell wants to randomly roll to see if your character is insane?
I was looking at the Robotech RPG book (current version) a few days back while watching paint dry on some models and found an interestingly named chapter. Only Palladium would have to name a chapter "It's fun and easy to roll up a Character!" to try to convince themselves and others that the opposite still isn't true.
Certainly. We had a game where one of our party decided to steal some valuables off a corpse.
That led to all of us getting a new (random) insanity every night until we managed to make things right. The insanity lasted sundown to sunup. Eventually we had half the party tied up at night when sundown hit in case we had people go psychotic.
Leading to such brilliant exchanges as:
"Ben, do I get to play this?"
"Yes"
"I TRY TO WRIGGLE OUT OF MY PANTS!"
Anyway, the reason I asked on the homosexuality thing was because any company not operating with an 80's technology base would have easily wiped that paragraph and moved on with no issue. I'm sure PB kept it much longer than anyone else would have because, you know, they think that computers are too futuristic.
The table was in my old TMNT book but the later edition had a new table glued over the same spot. Somebody literally cut and pasted a new table into each book as you could still see the old table underneath if you had it in strong light.
During one round of character creation I rolled results of having a gay pedophile, which I was like hell no I'm not going to play that, my GM was like "the rolls stick that's your character, sorry bro". So very first thing in the game I had my character do is shoot himself in the head with a .45 ACP. Because of the crappy SDC & hit point system It took four shots.
Oh look at that... time to roll up a new character, jerk. (to the GM) He wised up and from that point on wards we ignored the insanity tables for any character creation unless it was an NPC.
To keep the idiocy down we made it where SDC was, basically, D20 Subdual damage while HP were actual lethal damage. Because none of us could figure out how boxing or judo would teach you how to take a bullet.
Fun RPG times, why oh why did I give my semi-complete PB collection to my Brother?
Top of 80's complete anyway.
The game would so benefit from my spreadsheet skills now.
I really liked much of their stuff, yeah insanity I backed away and avoided BUT used modified tables for the "Crazies" because that was actually part of playing those non-juicer play alikes.
I think my favorite type of character was "Null psychic" I think it was?
A super strong psionic in strong magical denial: like permanent anti-magic casting / shield / bubble so bad he does not know he has powers.
"It was all done with mirrors and a smoke machine!".
I had a ton of fun with that.
The resident Wizard hated me (in-game!) but kicked serious butt when he got away from me. I got to keep asking:" what is it you really do again? By my observations you are pretty much useless or insane."
Good times...
Talizvar wrote: [..] Funny stuff, you just can't make up these things. [..]
One bad thing about folks like that is how their behavior is so off the wall as to appear completely made-up no matter how many similar anecdotes you can relate to outsiders. It seriously sucks when you try to relate your experiences so others can avoid their own negative interactions only to be told to stop making up stories about the individual in question because those things cannot possibly be true.
Talizvar wrote: [..] I think my favorite type of character was "Null psychic" I think it was? A super strong psionic in strong magical denial: like permanent anti-magic casting / shield / bubble so bad he does not know he has powers. "It was all done with mirrors and a smoke machine!". I had a ton of fun with that. The resident Wizard hated me (in-game!) but kicked serious butt when he got away from me. I got to keep asking:" what is it you really do again? By my observations you are pretty much useless or insane." Good times...
Possibly the Nega-Pshychic from Beyond the Supernatural(?), but yeah, something along those lines. Always interesting to play or be in a group with a personality a lot more grounded than the typical RPGmurderhobos.
As far as the non-informational PB informational updates go, I am strongly reminded of the D.I.P. joke from the Knight & Day movie (loosely along the lines of): - "They're going to dip me? Dip me in what?" "Disinformation protocol - they'll use words like safe. Secure. Stabilize. If they say these words don't go anywhere with them, because when they use repetitions they actually mean the opposite." - "So if they tell me they're going to take me somewhere safe, they're going to kill me?" "Yes, or lock you away someplace where you'll wish you were dead."
Only with "Coming Soon" & "Can't say more now." & "14 hour days." & "etc etc etc" as the DIP words or phrases....
World Book 12: Psyscape is one of my favourites. It sounds like he was either playing a Nega-Psychic or a Psi-Nullifier. Off hand I believe they both had a similar ability to disrupt magic within a certain radius (and anything targeted at them)? I'd have to pull out my book for the specifics.
Beyond supernatural seems the correct sourcebook.
I was not much into the worldbooks but did like Wormwood.
Yeah, we pretty much used any character class and used the Rifts setting.
I think they decided I was to be an MDC "creature" to further my delusion that everything was one big hoax and my "immunity" was proof.
I think I only was that way in defense but could not do "super" things since that would conflict with my view of the world.
It was one of the stranger but fun characters I had played.
The battle with the "animatronic" dragon was epic.
It was like a Scooby Doo episode.
So despite big nasty warts, you can find fun in a PB game when it eventually gets published.
Considering how the mods at pb move any thread about rrt I'm pleasantly surprised this one hasn't been moved. Positive or negative if it's about rrt it gets moved right away. Silly
Cypher-xv wrote: Considering how the mods at pb move any thread about rrt I'm pleasantly surprised this one hasn't been moved. Positive or negative if it's about rrt it gets moved right away. Silly
I suspect it has to do with them knowing that Palladium has screwed up so many ways so many times regardless of their propaganda to the contrary and accusations of trolling when posts simply list the facts. The reality is that a robotech thread can go honest/negative at a moment's notice and NMI knows it.
It is usually easier to give the message "we hear you" and let the possible fixes be bounced around and keep the FAQ going.
Working on a new rule book and calling it "advanced rules" is an opportunity, firm up a few irritating bits and then throw in some "fun" value added stuff so people don't feel like they are paying for your mistakes.
It would be helpful if they could get some infantry / vehicle rules in and they could do some GHQ release they keep threatening. Just don't pull a ND with them and all will be well. If they are having the financial problems we suspect it may actually help matters a bit.
Speaking of infantry, anyone know any good scale "people" to get? I only seem to get hits for "Z" scale which is around 1:200 and a smattering of 1:220 which is closer. Since I saw that "Mars Base" battle on a blog and the "Lisa Hayes" objective I have been looking around.
http://robotechwargaming.blogspot.ca/2014/12/the-12th-day-of-khyron-pick-up-lt-hayes.html
You could use Epic 40k infantry since that was 6mm as well but obviously you won't get civilians though (not sure if those are the people you're talking about or if it's soliders).
If you're looking for civilians, my best guess (and the search that I did to get the above) was looking for 6mm WW2 infantry and civilians. The historical wargaming niche is likely your best bet.
Yeah, when you're talking about 'people' who are 8-9mm tall instead of 6mm tall, it's basically going to be impossible to judge at a distance for most people.
Even if you mix in a variety of different scales, that'd just give you a more realistic variation in people's heights.
Considering the 'average' range in people's heights varies by over half a foot, with more extreme outliers in the 3 foot difference range, plus kids and other factors, being too much of a purist on such things always struck me as a little weird.
Forar wrote: Considering the 'average' range in people's heights varies by over half a foot, with more extreme outliers in the 3 foot difference range, plus kids and other factors, being too much of a purist on such things always struck me as a little weird.
So what are you saying? My mistake is I got a bunch of "proper" 6mm vehicles so the Z scale looked a bit odd next to them.
220 I would be happy with.
The more "heroic" shapes may be necessary for survival of the model in general.
The "C in C" civilians in Solar Empire Marines look about the best though hard to give the impression of the thin figures of Lisa or Minmay but will do for any old guy.
Funny how in many forums X-com comes up but I am just imagining some scenario of trying to save / airlift out civilians from a Zent. raid.
Can drop them off near shelters: I could see having some 20 stands littered about and between shooting at each other and grabbing / attacking civilians it could get interesting.
Only way it would work is with structures at 4X the MDC however.
Wonder what MDC a car would be to hide behind?
Anyway, just further thoughts on how to expand the fun of the game, would be nice to see in some "advanced" rulebook... I will write my memoirs later.
Thanks all! Most of these links I have seen before but a few there I never, ever heard of and glad to be pointed to them.
What is even funnier is having miniatures pointed to at websites I HAD looked for civilians and found nothing: some of them are nasty to search.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh yeah, almost forgot:
W.A.V.E.2.!.!.!.!
JohnHwangDD wrote: 6mm scale is 1/285 or 1/288 scale, so my large collection of Ogre Miniatures should work along with Epic 40k??
I should get out the camera.
"Large" collection of Ogre miniatures? Oh the jealousy I feel now.
I suddenly want to write conversion rules for an Ogre and see it cave Imperial Guard face... it would be "Epic"! Similar(ish) scale for Battletech, I am trying to keep to 28mm and 6mm scale at the time... getting into 15 or 10 will just make my hobby habit all the more extreme.
"Should get out the camera"? Don't make me beg.
I had a very happy childhood playing Ogre, I liked playing the forces trying to take that thing out.
It always was a tough puzzle but I got good at it.
Just got the weekly update from Palladium... and totally not a spoiler alert.... there is no wave 2 info. In fact, the recent fashion trends at the Palladium office were discussed more than the 2/3 of sculpts remaining in the $1.4 million RRPGT project. I'm not kidding.
Ignore it and it will go away.
Along with any needed sales of their RRT overstock.
Idiots.
No disappointment here.
Probably hanging their hat on these new developments to get them out of the fire.
I foresee a good couple months of nothing.
warboss wrote: Just got the weekly update from Palladium... and totally not a spoiler alert.... there is no wave 2 info. In fact, the recent fashion trends at the Palladium office were discussed more than the 2/3 of sculpts remaining in the $1.4 million RRPGT project. I'm not kidding.
To be fair, he did say before the Open House that there'd pretty much be nothing said on RRT until the first week of June. Now, I expected that to mean there'd be little information at all, with Wayne on holiday and according to some reports, Jeff being donkeyed. But given he's been pretty verbose, the lack of information is definitely "Why?".
I do find the blatant pushing of trinkets to be more than a little scuzzy. Especially the pushing of the RPE's of Robotech Marines and Rifts Coalition as collectibles. I'm not sure what the size of a preview print run is, but 128 seems a bit high (by several orders of magnitude*). Given that the books are incomplete, and being charged almost full retail, it just seems to scream "We want the rabid fans to buy this twice! Please! Buy this twice!". Either PB are in serious financial straits, or Kevin is the contemporary world version of Discworld's Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. Neither is a particularly good look.
Yeah, when you're talking about 'people' who are 8-9mm tall instead of 6mm tall, it's basically going to be impossible to judge at a distance for most people.
I collect 6mm and the difference between 6mm Heroics and Ross, which measure up to about 5mm and 6mm Baccus, which stand about 8mm tall, is noticeable.
It is like saying the difference between 30mm and 45mm is minor because people come in different heights.
It is especially notable when you put outsized humans next to 1/285 or 1/300 vehicles and buildings. Even 1/300 vehicles look small next to 1/285.
But, as I wrote, if it isn't something you care too much about, then z scale may work for you.
Lined up side by side on a 2d plane beside a ruler? Sure.
From 1-3+ feet away on a game table?
Please.
I mean hell, those things are blown up to, what, ten times actual size? Let's look at a quick and dirty 'close to real life size'MSPaint job.
Yeah, at a distance I really couldn't be bothered to worry that one figure is 7mm and the other is 6.
Plus, it's a bit disingenuous to compare different companies works. Obviously some are accentuating certain proportions, presumably in part because that stuff is pretty damned small. Damn, the hafts on those halbard'ish weapons must be a good foot thick, omg my immersions are ruined!
Morgan Vening wrote: To be fair, he did say before the Open House that there'd pretty much be nothing said on RRT until the first week of June. Now, I expected that to mean there'd be little information at all, with Wayne on holiday and according to some reports, Jeff being donkeyed. But given he's been pretty verbose, the lack of information is definitely "Why?".
I know they full out admitted that they'd be completely worthless till the beginning of June but it still sucks to see them give an hour by hour rundown of the open house, Kathy's partial recipe for potato salad, and the current fashion trends around the office while for months prior to the admission of their uselessness they gave us less real info than any of that. I seriously just want this ks fulfilled so that I can likely only think about it once every few months in a "too bad..." sort of way.
Well, finally managed to sell away my RRT core box. Now I'm just left with the extras and the freebies to sell away somehow. Would have been easier if they actually put them in boxes instead of bare sprues.
I am finding that the 1st wave units are not enough for any extended replay value.
I am leaning more on terrain and scenarios to keep it interesting.
Luckily, I had not put together any area effect missile launching units yet so I can draw things out further.
Stay tuned for various complaints of how those work... I suspect comments of OTT or "oh the humanity!".
When playing Malifaux, my friends and I would also try offbeat points values, often lower than normal. I find it interesting to see what choices are made when working within limits. Having enough points to field everything isn't nearly as fascinating for me.
Plus they may lead to slightly quicker games, so more opportunities to start over and try again with a new variation. How about 280 points instead of 300? 150 points using Support cards only (no squads, basically a half sized game)? Stuff like that.
Luckily there's only 5 days left in the campaign.
Though if this continues to escalate, I'm envisioning them covering 90% of the site by Wednesday afternoon.
"Thank you for your patience as we have heavily promoted this on Dakka "
Well, they do run the site, so if you can't make use of that power what is the point?
We just are all sour grapes due to the kickstarter we backed here... bitter, bitter, people.
Oh, I don't mind. I was a bit confused at first when I saw the giant image creeping up the page, but quickly realized what it was.
Either way, presumably it won't be around for long. I'm backing them for a buck in a show of support and hope their final days are a solid explosion of people and cash.
Talizvar wrote: I am finding that the 1st wave units are not enough for any extended replay value.
I am leaning more on terrain and scenarios to keep it interesting.
I mean hell, those things are blown up to, what, ten times actual size? Let's look at a quick and dirty 'close to real life size'MSPaint job.
They have sufficient detail to paint them well and make them recognizable on the table. It seems that you don't have any experience with 6mm.
Oh, look, chainmail.
Yeah, at a distance I really couldn't be bothered to worry that one figure is 7mm and the other is 6.
For you, sure. You don't represent everyone and there is a difference that can be seen. Just because you don't care does not mean that others don't.
Plus, it's a bit disingenuous to compare different companies works. Obviously some are accentuating certain proportions, presumably in part because that stuff is pretty damned small. Damn, the hafts on those halbard'ish weapons must be a good foot thick, omg my immersions are ruined!
Disingenuous? What was I being disingenuous about? In which way was I lacking in sincerity or candor? How was I trying to deceive?
Comparing different manufacturers that sell the same scale of models is incredibly helpful to anyone but you, apparently. I have never met someone that collected models in a scale that did not want to know how models from different manufacturers compare to each other in order to make informed choices on which to buy for compatibility.
Some more real life paint jobs of what you seem to think are indistinguishable lumps of lead.
This whole discussion started with people asking if a slightly different scale would be a big deal. I do think it's silly to put two figures half a millimeter different in height side by side, blow up the image to 'need a magnifying glass to achieve the same in real life' levels, and proclaim that a mighty difference. Maybe if you have 20/10 vision. And are 6 inches from them.
Also, z-scale figures. They are 1/200, but if you aren't picky then that is close enough.
I've never said that 6mm people couldn't be detailed, or well painted, so I'm not quite sure how this all went off the rails, but you're arguing a point I've never made.
Though if this continues to escalate, I'm envisioning them covering 90% of the site by Wednesday afternoon.
The owner of the site posted about an opt out from the ads. Click the little x in the top left of the TOP banner ad and it hides the pics on both the top and bottom. I don't know if that works with multiple windows, logouts, etc but it got rid of the huge pics for me. I appreciate them having an opt out for it.
edit: Just logged out and it kept the preference. The way I see it, they could have been spamming ads the entire month but chose not to. As a dakka frequent freeloader (no DCM status), I have no issues with them ramping up the ads for the closing day or two of their KS.
I do, however, think it's silly to put two figures half a millimeter different in height side by side, blow up the image to 'need a magnifying glass to achieve the same in real life' levels, and proclaim that a mighty difference.
The difference between a model that is 5mm and 6mm is a 20% increase in height and size of equipment. 20% is not a small difference. A 6mm compared to a 9mm is 50% increase is size and bulk. If you think that there is no big deal to have 8-9 foot tall humans mucking about your table, then that's fine. But it's not insignificant or un-noticed. Particularly if you've also got smaller models on your table as well.
I, personally, have no problem with people putting z-scale on their own tables. I wouldn't do it, myself. I also wouldn't buy models from ranges that have significant size differences as they do look funny together.
8mm model next to a 1/300 King Tiger. That, my friend, does not look right...
Even GHQ's infantry has suffered scale creep and if you visit their forums there were a lot of dissatisfied customers because their American Airborne tower over their other infantry.
Forar wrote: This whole discussion started with people asking if a slightly different scale would be a big deal. I do think it's silly to put two figures half a millimeter different in height side by side, blow up the image to 'need a magnifying glass to achieve the same in real life' levels, and proclaim that a mighty difference.
It's not "half a millimeter" - it's 2 or 3 mm out of 6 mm. It's the difference between 5' shorty and supertall 8' giant.
Bite your tongue! Next you would say I have to "forge the narrative" to keep the game alive.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @n815e: okay I know Forar has done the equivalent of saying the Mona Lisa is some dame with a smirk to you.
We could talk about 40k 's 28mm being the same as the Lord of The Rings line.
I think the nasty bit was on what is "good enough".
Can always tell we are on a hobby topic when someone makes light of an element of the hobby someone else feels is important and they get excited.
My criteria got upped because I got proper 1:285 scale vehicles so a guy being taller than the bus would be a giveaway.
Plus the Veritechs are fairly thin so heroic scale figures alongside them would look poor.
I think that is why I posted the link: the "Lisa" model looked quite nice.
Thanks for pointing out some nice looking stuff.
Warboss: Wayne may not come back after seeing what a happy life is like.
It is probably really a layoff until they can get the money to grease the wheels of RRTW2 to get it back on the road.
Update: Hazzah! The bigger FLGS in my area sold 5 box sets in the last week.
Now if I can only find these people in 6 months time when they are done building.
Now buy 50 more... no, Kevin would just get more retail sets made and we would be no better off.
I wonder if they pay rent for storing the tooling.
Quick! Check Ali Babba and see if anything is being printed on the sly by the China manufacturer!
Quick! Check Ali Babba and see if anything is being printed on the sly by the China manufacturer!
I dunno about China, but these Japanese guys make these awesome knock-offs called Macross...
This is the elephant in the room we keep touching on:
When PB says "Models are hard guys!" we wonder how they are lacking for inspiration.
Just this search in google: "macross model kits" was more than enough to give the impression there is more than a little bit of product out there on this subject.
But guys! Reinventing the wheel to make such mouthwateri g minis is hard! It takes years to resize a 1/200 kit to 1/285! Then there are the difficult weeks where you cut and paste colors for painting guides and the long lonely nights inserting all the TM R C onto the box art assets. Life at Palladium isn't just photoshopped ducks, cruises, and cut and paste "updates", dontchyaknow?!
warboss wrote: But guys! Reinventing the wheel to make such mouthwateri g minis is hard! It takes years to resize a 1/200 kit to 1/285! Then there are the difficult weeks where you cut and paste colors for painting guides and the long lonely nights inserting all the TM R C onto the box art assets. Life at Palladium isn't just photoshopped ducks, cruises, and cut and paste "updates", dontchyaknow?!
You know, there are programs that can spit out a randomized list as a "thought of the day".
I think we have enough key phrases and words to fill a year's worth based on PB missives.
I could list them like above... but I am 98% sure it will just add to that "haters are gonna hate" thing I keep toying with.
I am now painting X-wing Armada fighters at the moment, take that one PB!
I would rather paint something as small as a fly than look at your product at the moment.
warboss wrote: If you were painting normal x-wing, you could actually field them against the Robotech stuff as they're nominally the same scale.
I'm sorry, but according to an FFG article X-Wing is 1/270 scale, making it ~5% larger than it should be, which is clearly an utterly immersion breaking experience and you should be fired from a cannon into the sun for making it.
Heaven forbid you include a Corvette or a Transport! Google says that some dedicated folks have done the math more around a 1/390 scale! Immersions! BROKEN! SHATTERED! Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!! Oh god a game as popular as X-Wing has mixed scales making certain things roughly two thirds their appropriate size, surely it shall fail as the player base won't stand for this outrage!
>.>
:-P
Oh well, we're presumably 4-6 days away from The Big RRT(tm) Info Drop(c) Of Destiny(r), so that'll be interesting.
The big difference being that people know from direct experience how big people and trucks and tanks actually are in the real world. When the scale is off by 10% or more, it's pretty obvious. In the real world, having a person stand as tall as a MBT or military truck is ridiculous.
In Star Wars, it's not nearly as obvious how big things are, given that they are usually backgrounded against the vacuum of space, or other non-scale objects. Having a giant ship somewhat less giant, while still dwarfing fighter craft, is not obviously an issue to someone who doesn't have the stats handy.
But you go on with the nonsense about scale not mattering.
JohnHwangDD wrote: But you go on with the nonsense about scale not mattering.
Got into many discussions on how painted vs painted does not matter and defend the right not to paint to the death!
I could get into the lively discussion of the scale of the fighters is SW: Armada, just don't ruin my experience trying to paint the darn things.
Just remember when they release a proper Star Destroyer make sure you try to fit the Blockade Runner in that bottom opening.
I want to relive my classic SW experiences.
The Attack Wing Borg Cube will have nothing on that bad boy.
So, will PB give me a reason to continue working on RRT or shall it hit the shelf of shame until it becomes shiny again?
The suspected "out of money" problem will lead to the "good news!" we want to sell you more stuff while you wear the golden handcuffs with this KS.
There will be pictures probably of a sculpt because the classic methods are known and cost less.
Gotta love a captive audience.
If you want your money back, expect to spend more money.
We will be inducted in the forever hall of Valhalla as "fan/friends" which is located somewhere near Kevin's lost artwork and where all the unmatched socks go.
Guys guys guys I hear not all WH40K stuff is perfectly in scale either! Man they are going to have so much egg on their faces when people realize that!
:-P
Also it's amazing how butthurt people can get over a little humour.
And I'm not the kind of person that normally uses "butthurt".
That said, joking aside, I wonder if in hindsight FFG would've just gone with 1/390 Fighters and had smaller figures while remaining in scale with the larger ships?
If I actually cared I suppose I could Shapeways some 1/390 X-Wings and put them side by side (or more easily just MS paint some to the correct scale), but I'm not really that invested in the matter. Plus it might ruin my friend's already tenuous OCD based grasp on reality.
Alpharius wrote: To steal a phrase from one of Dakka's most iconic posters...
...the thread is the most shamefully negative thread on all of Dakka Dakka!
Hooray, we're the best at something! :-D
Honestly I think this is just the calm before the storm.
Believe it or not, I'm hoping Palladium manages to not collectively step on their own wangs with this thing, but unless it ends with "oh yeah, Wave Two starts shipping tonight" or something massive like that, it's going to be hard to reach the 'mic drop' levels of awesome that 3+ months of teasing requires. I fear they've set themselves up for failure. Again.
Especially since we presumably already know most of the 'the really big super seeeekrit stuff' with GHQ.
Announcing KS2 would probably backfire spectacularly. Even breathing it would go over poorly.
But I've long held to be a guy who gives credit where credit is due.
They just haven't garnered any since the 5 piece renders were given 3 months ago.
Believe it or not, I'm hoping Palladium manages to not collectively step on their own wangs with this thing, but unless it ends with "oh yeah, Wave Two starts shipping tonight" or something massive like that, it's going to be hard to reach the 'mic drop' levels of awesome that 3+ months of teasing requires. I fear they've set themselves up for failure. Again.
Especially since we presumably already know most of the 'the really big super seeeekrit stuff' with GHQ.
Announcing KS2 would probably backfire spectacularly. Even breathing it would go over poorly.
But I've long held to be a guy who gives credit where credit is due.
They just haven't garnered any since the 5 piece renders were given 2.5 months ago.
I believe you and despite my pessimissim I'm in the same "I hope they don't screw up again" boat. It's frankly in OUR best interests if they don't so it really is a win win for all if they don't take L foot piece 1 glue it to R foot piece 2... dammit! why don't they label the sprue parts!... I mean L foot piece 2 and insert it into mouth parts 1, 2, and 3 right before kicking us with it in the the battloid nose cone pieces 1 and 2. I'm a robotech fanboy at heart and I went to their forums this weekend for the first time in a week and saw a thread on the upcoming marine book. The idea of REF destroids, the return of modern battlepods, and even new cyclones (hopefully not as ridiculously game breaking both figuratively and literally) got me a bit excited despite the utter clunkyness of the RPG (which I've been looking through again while painting tau). I'm just back to where I was years ago before the kickstarter gave me some hope in that I know without a doubt that Palladium is a grade A bunch of cocky screw ups. The 2 months where I hoped otherwise was a nice break though.
Honestly I think this is just the calm before the storm.
If there's one thing that Simbieda has mastered, it's the response to the old riddle, "How do you keep an idiot in suspense?"
Are you calling 5,000+ people idiots? :(
Hey, I'm one of them. I can't wait to see what the big massive awesome June 1stish outcome will be.
Will it be disappointing or massively disappointing? Or will there be an unavoidable delay that will turn "June 1st big news" into "July-ish big news that totally won't be delayed again!" ?
No, I don't think they'll delay till July. They'll post something this week no matter what is going on behind the scenes even if their "big news" is something incredibly stupid (RobotechTM dice cup!) or something most folks who keep up with the (lack of)progress know about like the 6mm tanks and such.
Alpharius wrote: To steal a phrase from one of Dakka's most iconic posters...
...the thread is the most shamefully negative thread on all of Dakka Dakka!
Please warn us if we become "insufferably negative" and we can try to steer a more hopeful course.
I think there is nothing considered shameful in it however, it is a rather brazen and bold negativity in the face of narcissism!
I think I would be lost without this thread before some closure could reached (or to be had at all).
At least we have one of the more indulgent long suffering mods monitoring.
A backer perchance?
Or unable to look away from a car crash.
Anyway, yes, I hope the next announcement will be of eyewatering positivity to get me out of my negative funk.
will be in a position to start revealing them the week of June 1, 2015
Which given their old update timeline and ongoing Newsletter timeline, means Friday or Saturday evening.
It's not impossible that'll get changed up, it's happened before, but those are the 'technically correct' style interpretation I'm going with for now until they get something posted.
Believe it or not, I'm hoping Palladium manages to not collectively step on their own wangs with this thing,
Sorry, I believe you may be referring to their other end, which they have been dragging throughout this KS.
With our luck, it will be a campaign tie-in to the World of Synnibar.
In reality, they're probably moving forward with the Invid KS. If they skip Southern Cross, that'll be the real tell they're hurting for money to complete the current KS.
...and when the big super secret, awesome, fantabulous, ultra spectacular spectacular update is finally revealed this will be the glorious picture the backers will see to calm them down.
I just wanted to post a quick note to say that yes, we did promise a big update this week, and yes, it is coming. Maybe Friday evening, but more likely Saturday. It's largely written but needs to be edited, and more importantly, some of the mechanics of offering convention exclusives to you guys - just you guys, and not the whole internet - are still being worked out. We're almost there, just doing some testing of the system, but we want it up and running properly before we spill all the details.
So yeah, I'm posting an update that basically just says the update isn't ready yet. Better than keeping you completely in the dark though, right?
Merijeek wrote: I wonder if they could do an update with whatever big crap is coming, and then do another one trying to sell people crap?
Nah. Updates are expensive.
No time... I believe there are still 4.3 hours unaccounted for in the Open House 6 part 4,000 word update series to write about as well as Rifts themed stress balls and socks to design.
The big, 19 page, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Update is written. It needs to be edited and we need to finalize a few important details before we post it on Friday evening or Saturday. I think our RRT Kickstarter backers will find it informative and exciting.
So, it's 19 pages long.
Which also means that we learned more about it on their newsletter (that it's 19 pages long, and coming soon) than we did in the pre-update update (that it's coming soon).
:-P
The material officially writes itself at this point.
From the latest weekly update... surprisingly not 98% recycled on the parts I actually care about:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
The big, 19 page, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Update is written. It needs to be edited and we need to finalize a few important details before we post it on Friday evening or Saturday. I think our RRT Kickstarter backers will find it informative and exciting.
SOLD OUT! Robotech®: The Expeditionary Force Marines™ “RAW” Preview Edition
Sorry, but this sneak preview is SOLD OUT! There were only 128 copies printed and they went fast.
UPDATE: Robotech®: The Expeditionary Force Marines™ – July release
Harmony Gold is reviewing and approving the various chapters of the manuscript even as you read this. Artwork has been assigned and artists are working away. A July 2015 release!
If that truely is 19 pages (and not in freshman college triple spaced size 30 font count) of actual thought out material posted whether pics or text, I will be impressed. I'm also suprised that the latest RPG book is assigned a July date when it apparently had no art just a month ago. It's a book that has been coming soonTM for about 7 years in all forms and at least 3 years in its current almost done just need to do *fill in here* form.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ninja'd by that cookie eating canadian!
warboss wrote: From the latest weekly update... surprisingly not 98% recycled on the parts I actually care about:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
The big, 19 page, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Update is written. It needs to be edited and we need to finalize a few important details before we post it on Friday evening or Saturday. I think our RRT Kickstarter backers will find it informative and exciting.
SOLD OUT! Robotech®: The Expeditionary Force Marines™ “RAW” Preview Edition
Sorry, but this sneak preview is SOLD OUT! There were only 128 copies printed and they went fast.
UPDATE: Robotech®: The Expeditionary Force Marines™ – July release
Harmony Gold is reviewing and approving the various chapters of the manuscript even as you read this. Artwork has been assigned and artists are working away. A July 2015 release!
If that truely is 19 pages (and not in freshman college triple spaced size 30 font count) of actual thought out material posted whether pics or text, I will be impressed. I'm also suprised that the latest RPG book is assigned a July date when it apparently had no art just a month ago. It's a book that has been coming soonTM for about 7 years in all forms and at least 3 years in its current almost done just need to do *fill in here* form.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ninja'd by that cookie eating canadian!
19 pages has my attention. If it's as detailed as the Open House, maybe we'll get some answers. I have a suspicion that it is instead sale ads and pics though.
I'm not surprised on the REFM book. From what I gather on the description, it will be recycled art from the Invid, Sentinels, Shadow Chronicles and REF Field Guide. Perhaps with a couple "new" pictures that were commissioned 3-5 years ago and have been waiting for Kevin to rewrite his freelancer's draft.
You guys are forgetting the small factoid that they have said the 19 page update still needs to be edited,
so we go from
"The resulting information we can now divulge in this update is as follows. All character models are soon to be complete, everything finished by next Friday. Resin components such as the SDF-1 have been worked on from the start and are now in our warehouse ready to ship as soon as everything else catches up with them. The rulebook has been completely re-written by the best in the business and will be included free with every pledge. We understend thet our backers are worried about incurring extra charges, and that our funds are all used up. This is not the case as we invested wisely and paid for everything up-front so there are no additional fees excepy postage - which we are not going to pass on to the backers. We hope you all are happy with what we are doing."
To
"Information follows soon."
Oh the anticipated three lines of facts and the 98% filler is going to pain me.
Why oh why send a note of "we got a ton'o stuff but are editing it for a day or two"? Just publish the darn thing without the preamble: it is just weird how they do things.
It is sounding suspiciously like the "Crisis of Treachery" missive: they wouldn't write something this big typically without being paid. Prepare to feast your eyes on the "Crisis of Cash" beg love letter to fan-friends.
Star Wars Armada got my cash lately... no money for you!
Just like GW, PB will cease to matter to me with each passing day BUT I will get my remaining product OR my money OR my pound of flesh out of you guys one way or another.
The nerve of these guys, convention only models that get them in trouble, then hey you KS guys now we will sell only to you and not internets!!! Until of course we need more money...
Talizvar wrote: Oh the anticipated three lines of facts and the 98% filler is going to pain me.
Why oh why send a note of "we got a ton'o stuff but are editing it for a day or two"? Just publish the darn thing without the preamble: it is just weird how they do things.
It is sounding suspiciously like the "Crisis of Treachery" missive: they wouldn't write something this big typically without being paid. Prepare to feast your eyes on the "Crisis of Cash" beg love letter to fan-friends.
Star Wars Armada got my cash lately... no money for you!
Just like GW, PB will cease to matter to me with each passing day BUT I will get my remaining product OR my money OR my pound of flesh out of you guys one way or another.
The nerve of these guys, convention only models that get them in trouble, then hey you KS guys now we will sell only to you and not internets!!! Until of course we need more money...
Yes the new call sign of this KS: W2orSTFU(tm).
I know we're not supposed to be "Fixed that for you", but your callsign does not meet PB IP standards. It should be:
This is why it takes so long; do you have any idea how long it takes them to go through the character map and find the proper symbols? I mean sure, they could just use shortcuts to insert them, but the LAST time they used shortcuts in their model design, the backers got mad so they don't use shortcuts anymore. Hence it takes a long time to add in everything, but it's worth it because you guys mean THAT much to them. They're listening to the feedback that shortcuts are bad, so this is reality that the backers clearly wanted.
All those trademark symbols are just to try to remind people they have intellectual property that might be worth something.
They are just beginning to realize other people are better at developing/selling "their stuff" than they can.
So yeah, after getting out past the two year mark, they do have to be more careful in what they say since people do have a good case for going back to their credit card company and saying they did not receive all they had purchased.
I personally have a good case for all that extra stuff I asked for in the backer manager which were all wave 2 of course. Some people threaten legal action: way too dramatic, credit card claim will do. If I hear one more time "it is not a purchase!"... sorry, the premise for handing over money was for what was offered especially AFTER when the KS funded so it was a purchase.
Anyway, I just cannot wait to see what our KS overlords have to say!
Some potential shoes waiting to drop (even if they're couched in sunshine straight from the horse's ass):
1) They have no more money and need cash to ship out or produce wave 2. That's the obvious one that we've been discussing. They need to wait till who knows when until wave 1 and knickknack sales pay for that because they spent all the money they should have saved for wave 2 on retail stock of wave 1 instead that hasn't sold so far. Or worse yet, they want more money right away up front to fulfill their existing obligations instead of spending their own.
2) The business relationship with Ninja Division is over and they've gone with someone else for wave 2 and beyond necessitating an even further delay. The minis will look different for wave 2 and beyond. The rules will also be incompatible from this point out as ND had some rights to those initial ones. If you want to play your existing minis against someone with a future set, you'll have to rebuy the rules you got less than a year agao ala the DUST tactics/warfare/whatever mess.
3) Despite public statements to the contrary in various interviews, the scale of the models will change with further games. I'm ok with a scale shift of 10-30% as long as the macross stuff is still bigger at a 4ft glance personally but the discussion on terrain scales would indicate variant views on that.
4) They've decided to prioritze other things officially and publicly instead of unofficially and underhandedly. This means that wave 2 is indefinitely on hold for undisclosed reasons and they're focusing completely on work for the NEXT kickstarter instead which you, the valued KS#1 pledger, can pay for.
5) Palladium is filing for bankruptcy. They just want to be absolved of their debts and obligations. It's everyone else's fault and not theirs. Plus someone stole Kevin's doodles from the 1970's that clearly were priceless despite him hawking them on ebay for less than the price of a 40k mini for years.
Any other negative possiblities that I've missed?
There are of course positive things they could post as well (wave 2 is early and will ship by gencon!, limited edition minis free for backers!, etc) but it's been proven over the past two years that it is better to prepare for the WORST with palladium and to set your expectations very low.
@warboss: Yes, I had been leaning toward your item #1 the most which will dovetail into item #4 which when they get no bites, item #5 will happen in some 5 years or so. It seems to make the most logical sense for all the progress we saw a while back for wave2 to stall so completely (if they had something good to say they would have).
I say this with 98% certainty with eye-watering anticipation.
Kevin doesn't macro according to the (extrapolation of the) Bill Coffin expose. He instead is more likely to connect the alt and three number keys necessary for each symbol via glued popsicle sticks so that he can press one frankenkey to add them each in. This of course ends up turning his keyboard into a post-apocolyptic wooden mess of a contraption and leaves him unable to spell words with the letters C R TM together like victimizer or excrement. Wayne then needs to spend hours editing out all the extra letters and numbers from his posts, press releases, police reports, and internal memos.
Luckily, Kevin (aka "the Thomas Edison of Michigan") has devised a radical new idea for a keyboard layout that will solve all potential issues. Just like with ultra successful Robotech Tactics, the work on this project is also 98% done and he is ready to go into production within 40 days once he finds a financial backer.
Talizvar wrote: @warboss: Yes, I had been leaning toward your item #1 the most which will dovetail into item #4 which when they get no bites, item #5 will happen in some 5 years or so. It seems to make the most logical sense for all the progress we saw a while back for wave2 to stall so completely (if they had something good to say they would have).
I say this with 98% certainty with eye-watering anticipation.
Or they just drop Wave Two and say "Wave Two isn't happening. Kickstarter isn't a store. There is nothing you can do about it. But thanks for funding our NG books that were a huge hole in our budget. Send $5 and an SASE and we'll send you a Rifts(c)(r)(tm) pencil"
Merijeek wrote: Or they just drop Wave Two and say "Wave Two isn't happening. Kickstarter isn't a store. There is nothing you can do about it. But thanks for funding our NG books that were a huge hole in our budget. Send $5 and an SASE and we'll send you a Rifts(c)(r)(tm) pencil"
That would at least bring closure and my money recovery plan/hobby/cunning-plan will spring into action.
Which would all be paid back from pocket change dropped during the open house requiring $40 in shipping.
So, Saturday release then?
We can then hear further claims of 25 hour work days?
It really would be nice to not be greeted by another large document of fail from PB.
Lets hope they can dig deep.
warboss wrote: Some potential shoes waiting to drop (even if they're couched in sunshine straight from the horse's ass):
FWIW, my FLGS has basically sold their Wave 1 stuff. There were multiple RRT boxed sets and several expansion sets on Black Friday. Last month, there were only a handful of expansions. The good thing is that it sold. The bad thing is that there wasn't that much of it, and it doesn't look like they restocking.
It's pretty clear that ND is basically done with PBRRT. I can't imagine that PB can afford to have another set of whatnots sculpted, but I could definitely see them trying to make the rules like RIFTS for minis. Ugh. Talk about putting a nail in something...
I don't care what they do for other stuff, but I do hope they find a way to deliver Wave 2, whether they KS for some other profit-making project or who knows what.
I do believe that PB is in yet another cash crunch, and that doesn't sit well with me. Fortunately, it's not for a lot, but come on...
Legit or not, that'd probably bring the wolves down on litigation.
And whether or not Rick (Hi Rick!) would have a leg to stand on, I can't imagine they have the funds to find a protracted legal battle.
It's basically the RRT suicide pact.
Either they deliver (mouth watering 98% omg everyone loves them!) something, or they get bogged down in bullgak.
Note, I am not suggesting this is ideal in any way, and totally recognize that a lot of donkey caves have suggested similar things. I'm not threatening legal action, nor am I suggesting it.
I'm merely pointing out that admitting wave two is 'vaporware' would be the last straw on *someone* pulling that trigger.
Looks like no update for friday as there is only 5 minutes left in the day for the time zone Michigan is in. I'm hitting the sack so good night guys and gals. I hope we'll get the megaversal update to end all updates tomorrow and it's we're all basking in the glow of all that sunshine and rainbows.
If the pledge were in my name, and PB outright cancelled Wave 2, I'd pick up the phone to my CC company and force a partial chargeback based on the non-delivered portion of my pledge.
Those CC chargebacks got BF moving the Dust KS, and they'll get PB moving on Wave 2.
Heck, we could even go after their D&B rating to hammer their commercial credit, but that's some hardball stuff there.
in general, updates and newsletters usually land in the evening, so if they're good to their word (*snort*), it'll be sometime in roughly the next 12 hours.
And by 'it', I mean either the update or the apology that the update isn't ready for various reasons beyond their control.
Alpharius wrote: 19 page updates don't appear overnight - or even over a fortnight!
How about a paragraph of new, tangible info or a single pic of the remaining 2/3 of sculpts over 3 months? The last time we got new info on the remaining rewards was in February. We've gotten empty promises and year old copy/pastes only (except for a single sentance about a possible november date) about the remaining product since which is odd considering that they've been at two major events during that time where they could have shared info in person as well as via the KS update system.
Alpharius wrote: Yeah, that's a lot of Fortnights without any new, meaningful info.
I was initially of the opinion that there was no way they were out of money and couldn't pay for and deliver Wave 2.
Now...who knows?
If there's a big push for people to buy lots of new exclusives?
My guess is that they spent the money on retail wave 1 product stock expecting it to recoup their investment and more potentially after the general release. I don't have any numbers or frankly even an inkling of credible rumor of their actual finances but the general objective scant data we have isn't great. The big events that they had tournies at (Adepticon and their biannual open house) had on average 50% participation. They haven't appeared on the ICV minis list though whether they're just barely cut off it at number 6 best selling minis or way down at number 666 just before AT-43 is anyone's guess. I don't see much coverage on the game at indy sites although admittedly I'm a facebook luddite so can't comment on the wealth or lack of coverage there. The little info that we've gotten publicly about ancillary robotech projects in the months since is that they're trying to develop and sell other stuff like dice bags, long languishing RPG books, and minis that were NOT included nor paid for explicitly during the KS. Their partner for the project has pretty much been silent for almost a year since last gencon. I really don't know what to expect from this mythical 19 page update including how much of that is copy paste old text and image filler, super large fonts, and TM R C trademark icons. I just know that if you've consistently predicted the worst of palladium (short of commiting actual fraud) then you've been spot on for two years. YMMV.
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Cyporiean wrote: Maybe they can't afford to put out updates either
If they can afford to photoshop a duck into an update on their site, they can afford to post a paragraph and pic on an upcoming project. And, no, I'm not kidding about the duck. Although it may have been a goose... dunno for sure at this point. It was a water fowl of some sort though.
MangoMadness wrote: Looking at the openhouse pics, I wonder how many those tRRT pallets of stock are still sitting there.
Would have been funny for someone who attended to do a bit of a clandestine stocktake and count the remaining stock
It'd be hard to make even an educated guess as to stock excess. We simply don't know how many they ordered. If there's 20 pallets left, but they got in 300 for retail, that's not that many. If there's 15 left, but they only got in 30, that's a crapload.
They could also have gotten a replenishment in that time. Normally, this'd be something that a company might crow over, but given PB have made a mis-step at pretty much every turn during the post-campaign, I wouldn't expect anything there.
The one thing I do know, is they're really milking the crap out of the timetable. It's past 9pm Palladium Time on Saturday, and nothing yet.
I am a backer and really want to know what is going on too.. I was very excited when this first showed up, I had bought a bunch of Robotech and TMNT books back in the day. But hadn't dealt with palladium in the last decade; so I didn't know how well they kept to schedule or what kind of company they had become. Anything compared to GW cant be that bad.
I backed the kickstarter and the drama began... I understand about delays.. I work in the manufacture field, but I know it doesn't take 2 years to make something that "was almost done" at the time of the kickstarter. I got bad heart burn when they wanted to sale Robotech stuff at Gen Con before the shipped anything to backers; Plus backers going could not pick up the game if they were able too. Like most here I feel like they took my money and spent it on what they wanted.. not on what I was buying from them.
When I go into McDonald and order a burger; I don't expect them to tell me they bought a toaster with the money I gave them and I need to wait until they sale a few toasted sandwichs before they can buy the meat for my burger..
Genoside07 wrote: I am a backer and really want to know what is going on too.
Apparently not much is going on tonight despite the revised update schedule but there is still an hour left (that I'll be sleeping through). History is repeating itself and we'll be lucky if we get the fabled 19 page update tomorrow on the final day of the "week of the June 1st" as originally pledged prior to the Thursday revision to Friday/Saturday, just like with the Nov/Dec 2013 delivery date I mean maybe october because we're just that good that turned out to be Nov 2014 for most backers for only a 1/3 of the sculpts.
Am I petty if I would happily trade my Wave2 if they go out of business?
If they continue their former zombie status Wave2 will never be forgiven.
Next we will be to blame for being mean and for missed deadlines and they will say even less from here-on.
Idiots.
I know of no other business that wants to have a future do this. This literally is their last "hurrah", could you see another KS from them not being laughed at? Who is making these new figures for them and who would dare buy them "coming soon, pre-pay now or miss out!!".
Probably realized legal aid does not work weekends.
Kevin is probably at the climax of his rewrite and gloating over all the "hard work" overtime he is doing because he cares so much <vomit... heave....choke>.
You do realize this is a grown man writing this?
I have blacklisted suppliers 3X more competent than these guys.
Bah! There are much better childhood toys to pursue and reclaiming money for closure is looking the viable option.
At this point, if we get notification they're starting another KS for product, I'm considering legal action. At the very least, something that would require them to open the books to the backers to show what happened to the KS monies and where the project actually stands.
At best, something that drown their company in legal fees.
And... it's kinda painful to start. Let's just say they're retelling the story from the beginning, including how pivotal Palladium was to the burgeoning Anime market with Robotech on VHS....
Edit: oh god it's not an update it's a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome retelling of the entire fething saga... I'm 3/4 down the page and we haven't even begun on wave 2...
Here, enjoy.
Spoiler:
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Update – June 6, 2015
By Kevin Siembieda
As you know, we have been wanting and needing to post this massive Update for weeks. I realized it was something that needed to be done back in April. But as always, there is so much to do all the time.
Attending AdeptiCon, hosting a Robotech® RPG Tactics™ tournament at the Palladium Open House and talking with more and more of our Kickstarter backers, and wargamers in general, especially over the last 6-8 months, has helped to crystallize a number of plans we’ve been kicking around for awhile.
One is to restart the conversation about Robotech® RPG Tactics™ with our Kickstarter backers. And that’s exactly what this post is all about. I apologize for the length of this Update, but there is a lot to talk about, both past and present. And I hope I answered many of the questions that have been circulating for a while.
It is rare that I ever wish I could hit a reset button and do something all over again. Differently. Better. The Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Kickstarter and the related RRT launch is one such time I wish we could get a do-over.
There is no “reset button” or “do-over” that can undo everything and let us start again, back to 2013, with the knowledge we have today. But we can start again, with you, if you’ll let us.
I’ll go into the specifics of the news and developments with Robotech® RPG Tactics™, upcoming products, and the future for this game line in a moment, but the bottom line is: We simply were not prepared for the full scope and magnitude of such a large and successful Kickstarter, nor manufacturing in China. The learning curve has been considerable and has contributed to some of the delays, while other delays have been to do the game right. Palladium is getting up to speed and, of course, intends to fulfill this Kickstarter, as well as do so much more.
We were lost the woods for a while when we started this venture. We were full of ideas and good intentions, but with scarcely a clue about the magnitude of the undertaking awaiting us. We were smart enough from the beginning to know that we’d need some expert help. Someone with experience with Kickstarters, sculpting, and making this type of game, which is why we joined forces with Ninja Division (the creative people behind Soda Pop Miniatures and Cipher Studios).
Who is Palladium Books®?
We’ve only recently come to realize that many of you from the wargaming community don’t really know much, if anything, about Palladium Books. That became evident with some of the wild speculation about us and the future of the RRT product line. Again, this is something we probably should have realized, but we did not.
Palladium Books has been a force in the role-playing market for more than three decades, but we didn’t think about the fact that many of our Kickstarter backers may never have heard of us. After all, the role-playing game and tabletop wargame game markets do not have a lot of crossover. That has changed and continues to change in recent years, but the fact is, for many of you, Palladium Books is a blank slate. An unknown quantity.
Please allow me introduce ourselves. Palladium Books is an established company. Not some fly-by-night startup. We have been creating and publishing role-playing games since 1981. That’s 34 years, folks, and we have no intention of going away.
Our two biggest licensed RPGs have been Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Robotech®. Our biggest and best selling RPG is Rifts®, and it has even been optioned for development into a live action motion picture. We don’t know if that will ever happen as the IP has been sitting in development hell for 13 years, but we remain hopeful.
I’m going to focus on Palladium’s history with Robotech® because that’s what’s important to most of you. Palladium released The Robotech® RPG waaaay back in 1986. We worked to get this license because we were ALL big fans of the Robotech® animated TV series. The guys writing the novels used our books for reference. Many of us at Palladium collected the Bandai toys and model kits, Robotech® books and, well . . . everything we could find for Robotech®. We acquired the license because we loved the property.
The Robotech® RPG (1986) was an instant smash hit. Sourcebooks followed. We’d also release Robotech® II: The Sentinels® RPG (1987) and the Macross® II RPG (1992). In 1989, I knew fans wanted Robotech® on VHS videocassettes. When LIVE Entertainment dropped the ball by editing the episodes of Macross they had released, and earned the ire of fans everywhere, they contacted Palladium Books and generously offered us the rights to release Robotech® on VHS tapes, uncut. I jumped at the opportunity even though nobody else saw the market potential. As a dyed-in-the-wool Robotech® fan, I knew other fans were dying for Robotech® to be done right on VHS. My distributors and advisers were not so sure. This was back in the day when “Japanamation” was a new concept and anime in the English language was a rare thing. I took the plunge anyway. Of our 72 distributors back in the day, only ONE placed an order. And it was for something like 26 copies. Things looked bleak.
I came up with a new strategy and went to a direct mail campaign with ads in Dragon Magazine and other print mediums. (The Internet was just in its infancy in 1989.) The demand was immediate and tremendous. Within 6 weeks, Palladium had distributors begging for Robotech® on VHS videocassettes. The release of the beloved Robotech® animated series on VHS was a huge success for Palladium.
Palladium Books® was the first company to offer the entire Robotech® series on videotape in North America, including the three episodes of Robotech® II: The Sentinels®. We topped the “anime” best seller charts with every release. At one point we had eight of the top 10 slots. Back then, people considered us a pioneer in bringing “anime” to North America. For a very short while, I guess we were pivotal to those early days. The thing is, we did it because we loved the Robotech® TV show and knew our fellow fans wanted it.
We would have continued to sell the tapes except that the mastermind behind Robotech®, Carl Macek and his company, Streamline Entertainment, outbid us. Carl also had plans to get Robotech® back into television syndication which trumped anything Palladium could offer. Sadly, his attempts to re-syndicate the show were very limited and short-lived.
For many years, Palladium Books was at the forefront of helping to keep Robotech® available to fans. We let the Robotech® license go after 15 years (2001), because we felt we had done what we could with it, at the time, and because we could not support the plans to abandon the original Robotech® anime in favor of exclusively focusing on the ill-fated Robotech® 3000, which was the intention of the powers that be at Harmony Gold at that time. Robotech® 3000 was supposed to be a new Robotech® animated series, but it never happened. Some years later we found ourselves missing Robotech®. When the opportunity arose for us to reacquire the Robotech® license (2007) under a new regime at Harmony Gold USA, Inc. – guys who were fans themselves and who loved the entire series – we again jumped at the chance.
For us, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ isn’t just about the potential money we might make, this is a dream job. It’s the culmination of everything we could ever want. This is a passion. We want this game to be freakin’ awesome. We want to wow and woo you. We want Robotech® RPG Tactics™ to be a great experience.
We are the very same guys who did the Robotech® role-playing games and brought you the Robotech® series on VHS videocassettes when no one else even realized there was a market for such products. We love Robotech®. We want to make great Robotech® products to share with all our fellow Robotech® fanatics around the world! The Macross Saga portion of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ (RRT) is just the beginning. Just as we did with the original games and videotapes, we intend to bring you every aspect and era of Robotech® for the RRT game line! If you saw it in the TV show, we want to provide it as a game piece for Robotech® RPG Tactics™. After all, every new mecha, vehicle and combat unit adds to your gaming experience and broadens the scope of combat!
And we are just getting started.
We haven’t talked about our passion or plans for the future, because we haven’t even satisfied our current commitments with RRT Wave 2, though we are getting there.
We didn’t share with you who Palladium is or our history with Robotech®, because it just didn’t dawn on us to do so. We just sorta figured everyone knew who we were. I know, stupid, but we didn’t think of it. And once the Kickstarter had ended with such a resounding success, we found ourselves on a runaway train and hanging on for dear life. And not just on a train ride. Think of the old Westerns or that moment in Indiana Jones where he’s fighting on that speeding truck and trying not to fall to his doom. That was us and RRT after the Kickstarter. Read on for the gory details.
The Advent of Robotech® RPG Tactics™
It is our love of Robotech® and the desire to bring it to fans in new and exciting ways that prompted us to create Robotech® RPG Tactics™.
The ideas started to percolate in the beginning of 2012, after I found out Harmony Gold was open to letting Palladium do game pieces for our existing RPG game license.
In 2012, my original plan was to only make game pieces to sell as an add-on to the existing role-playing game market. Research is 90% of everything in business, so we started to quietly talk with fans to find out whether they had any interest in Robotech® game pieces. They did. That led us to recognize the growing excitement for tabletop games and wargames, and we started to consider releasing the game pieces as part of a bigger, new Robotech® game. I also had Thomas Roache, Carmen Bellaire and others pitching us on the idea of creating an entirely new game that placed an emphasis on the use of the game pieces as well as offering them to the existing RPG player base and collectors. The more I researched and talked with fans, distributors and industry people, the more excited I became about all of it.
I felt we needed to keep the game pieces simple and easy to put together. No more than 8-10 parts, especially if we were to make the new Robotech® game and pieces appealing to a wide audience. I even rejected one potential partner, early on, because he insisted that to make the mecha highly detailed – the way fans insisted they wanted – the pieces would have to have 16-20 parts. That to me was not acceptable. Turns out he was right, especially via the manufacturing method we ended up using. I wish I had stuck to my guns on that small piece count and simplicity, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
First, I want to thank Thomas Roache for his persistence and passion that opened my eyes to the possibilities. Honestly, I don’t know if Robotech® RPG Tactics™ would exist if it were not for Tom and his efforts to rally an online movement for Palladium to even consider something like this. It was also Tom who first suggested Palladium talk to Soda Pop Miniatures/Ninja Division about working with us to make the game pieces and it was Ninja Division, Tom and Carmen Bellaire who helped convince us that doing a new game would be the way to go with this project. Tom’s insights and suggestions continue to this very day. Since then we’ve added other fan consultants, guys like Bad_Syntax, Mike Arnold, David Chase Murphy, and many, many others who have offered constructive suggestions and help. That number would grow to immense proportions after the Kickstarter as we would have an army of fans to bounce ideas off on and get suggestions from. I always make a point to speak with dozens of backers and fans at every convention. Everyone we have spoken with has been a huge help. And that dialogue will continue, hopefully on an even larger scale as we move forward to expand the Robotech® universe.
We thought we had all our bases covered. And we did. But only to a point. The thing is, when you are new to something – something massive – and go into it blind, you don’t even necessarily know the right questions to ask or what you should be doing. You have just leaped off the proverbial cliff and have no idea how far the drop is or what you are going to land in. We thought we did. But we didn’t.
What we all knew for sure is that we had a lot to familiarize ourselves with and master, but we had no idea how huge of an amount that was, nor the vast scope of related things we’d also need to learn. It was immense and overwhelming at times. Ninja Division was there to help and we could NOT have done this without them. But they had their own projects to launch and manage, and other commitments to deal with. We understand that, but it meant there were times where we could have used more input. Other times we were scrambling to take care of whatever the new challenges were, and sometimes while learning exactly how do that.
As it turned out, none of us at Palladium Books nor Ninja Division were truly prepared for EVERYTHING to come.
Here’s just one simple example. The first container of RRT games is about to ship from China in July of 2014. As in, it will be ready to ship in 10 days. We are happy as can be. We assumed Ninja Division would handle the importing as Palladium has NO experience in this whatsoever and had informed them of this. Or if not ND, the Manufacturing Broker that Ninja Division brought in on this project. So we were left dazed and scrambling, again, when the Ninjas told us, “Sorry, you need to deal with this directly and on your own. We can’t help you, because we don’t know this stuff either and you need to take care of all the paperwork, we can’t do it for you.” They couldn’t recommend a broker, either; presumably because this end of the business was new to them too. When we asked ND if the Manufacturing Broker could handle it for us, they said, no. We later learned that the company could have done it, but apparently ND didn’t know that at the time.
Palladium had absolutely no knowledge about overseas shipping, export or import. Nothing about the paperwork. Nothing about the cost. Nothing about . . . well, any aspect of overseas shipping. (The Ninjas had given us an estimated cost for shipping, but the real costs would be more than double that estimate.) Suddenly, we have 10 days to find a shipping broker and figure all of this out. The first few days go toward reaching out to people we know and seeing if they could refer an import broker. We pick the one that appears on the list of two companies we know and trust, and give them a call. They turn out to be quite understanding, patient and helpful. They explain the process, help us figure out the “codes” and “classifications” of the “goods” being imported, help us fill out the paperwork, and the whole nine yards.
Of course, nothing is easy. Here are the highlights of things we learned about shipping when we had to deal with the importing of RRT: Palletize the shipment at the factory in China or in the States? Become aware that only certain types of pallets can be used and they need a certificate showing they have been treated against various types of insects to pass US Customs. Having that document is a must. Being lost in the woods, we don’t realize that the shipment must be made ready on a particular day, and that the factory or our broker must arrange for the shipment to be trucked from the factory to the docks (an additional cost), and do so by a certain time on that particular day so it can be loaded onto the scheduled ship. And that shipment must be scheduled for that specific vessel 2-3 weeks in advance. If there is a delay at the factory and you miss the scheduled ship, add a week or two (sometimes longer) till the next container ship is available. And then there may be port charges for cargo that sits at port for more than a few days. Assuming your shipment gets to the port on time, you are okay, except the vessel may be behind schedule one to several days, or is delayed at port after being loaded for one to several days. Once out to sea, it’s 3-4 weeks before it arrives.
When the ship arrives at a US port it does NOT automatically pull up to a dock and start to unload. It has to wait for a dock to open up and get clearance to proceed to dock. That’s normally 1-3 days. Then you have to wait a few days for it to clear US Customs without being tagged for inspection. Our first shipment got tagged, which is why we could not start shipping to backers as early as we had planned, nor have any product at the 2014 Gen Con Indy. If tagged for Customs inspection – which being a first time importer from China, we were – you are looking at another “5-7 business days” before it is cleared. (Our container was cleared, no problems, after six or seven days, plus the weekend when it just sat.) After passing US Customs, the shipment waits another few days before it can be picked up by truck and delivered to Palladium in Westland, Michigan. Or a few days to deliver it by truck to the train depot for delivery by train to the Detroit terminal, and then picked up by a truck and delivered to the Palladium warehouse. Delivery by train is a couple thousand dollars less expensive (multiply that by 10 containers and it’s a considerable savings), but it adds an extra 4-6 days vs truck. In an effort to expedite shipping to our Kickstarter backers, we had the first few shipments trucked to us. Once a truck is scheduled, you are stuck with it, even if there are delays at port. And, btw, you might be charged for cargo sitting in port even if the delay is not your fault. The “work slowdown” and subsequent strike at ports across the USA would make matters even more complicated, causing horrendous delays throughout the shipping of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. It was a nightmare, and from what we heard, we missed the worst delays that came later. Wow. And then one container got put on the train, made it to Detroit, and then got put back on the train and sent all over the place, starting with Chicago and ending up in Mexico – yes, Mexico – before it finally arrived at Palladium! Wild and completely out of our control.
Out of the blue, we had to become fluent with all of this, and more, the hard way. And that’s just to receive the product from China. Shipping from the Palladium warehouse across North America and around the world was a whole other animal. And a whole other batch of things to put into place, master and manage. At this point, Wayne and Julius know a lot more about logistics and shipping than they ever imagined. But again, I digress.
And that’s on top of all the things we had to handle with regard to the actual RRT game design, writing, packaging, 3D sculpting, mold making, engineering, manufacturing, advertising and managing the Kickstarter. Whew. Ninja Division was there to show us the ropes and handle the key components, but there were mountains of material for Palladium to review, corrections and changes to be made, things to catch and other work to be done before final approvals. That’s why I used importing of goods as an example, above, because it sounds simple, and compared to some of the other demands and challenges, it was.
The birth of Robotech® RPG Tactics™
When we embarked on this journey (early 2012 and long before we announced any plans), we knew we wanted to take Robotech® in a dynamic, new direction with game pieces for role-players, wargamers and collectors alike. The more we discussed the possibilities with Palladium game designer Carmen Bellaire, Thomas Roache and others, the more we gravitated toward doing a completely new, kick-ass game. Something epic in scope that included beautifully detailed game pieces that would delight Robotech® fans. We quietly began researching and exploring all possibilities. We listened to fans and began conceptualizing what needed to be done.
As Robotech® fans ourselves, and after several months of research, we had a very good idea of what fans wanted and what we wanted to do. Of course, we listened to the fans. They wanted 1/285 scale, highly detailed game pieces. Sounded good to us. Harmony Gold concurred. The trick was the actual execution.
That’s where Ninja Division came in. We spoke with a number of people as we moved forward to make Robotech® game pieces, but after speaking with John Cadice of Soda Pop Miniatures (and soon after, Kai, David and other members of the team that would become Ninja Division), we felt we had found the right group of people to make this game happen. They were supremely confident, smart, and self-professed Robotech® fans eager to embrace a project like this. The quality of the products they had produced themselves and in concert with other game publishers was excellent. Super Dungeon Explore was a hot new release at the time, Helldorado was another, and Relic Knights was being developed and looked fabulous. Both Carmen Bellaire and Tom Roache were ecstatic over the choice to work with these guys to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™. Everyone we spoke to, including distributors and industry people, agreed that Soda Pop Miniatures and Cipher Studios were the right choice to team up with. These guys certainly had the anime style down. Everyone seemed to have positive feedback about these “impressive new guys.” We liked them and liked what they had to say. They explained they had the knowledge, the experience and were ready to start work immediately. We just had to trust them. We did, so we took the plunge.
It was on!
Ninja Division got to work. Palladium Books ponied up $40,000 to get the ball rolling. It was a risk, because if the Kickstarter flopped, we’d be screwed. ND got the 3D sculptors sculpting, the game design and writing into development, key art and packaging into production, and other pre-production elements rockin’ and rollin’. Lacking experience with 3D sculpting and manufacturing in China, Palladium felt it wise to leave most of the technical decisions up to Ninja Division, with Palladium approving sculpts, artwork, packaging, etc., before it would be sent to Harmony Gold for final approval. The game rules we developed together, as we had very strong ideas about what the game needed to be, and what Robotech® fans wanted.
The Kickstarter
The guys at Ninja Division had the technical knowhow, the connections and the people to help Palladium make this product, now all we needed was the money to do it. And that was a problem.
When we started to get serious about Robotech® RPG Tactics™, talks naturally segued into how do we afford all this? Ninja Division estimated the cost to be between $550,000 and $900,000 to make the game and expansion packs we all wanted to see made. And not just enough to provide to the Kickstarter backers, but enough to get the game into the retail market. That was an impossible amount of money for Palladium. “Not if you launch it via Kickstarter.” That was what everybody was telling us, the Ninjas included. All of them were right.
It was my friend Jolly Blackburn, creator of Knights of the Dinner Table, who first told me about Kickstarter and that I should look into it. A couple weeks later, out of the blue, Carmen Bellaire began ranting about the value of Kickstarter and that it was something Palladium needed to look into. This was before Robotech® RPG Tactics™ was even an idea.
Carmen was the first to restart the Kickstarter conversation, saying we should fund the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ project via Kickstarter. That it would be easy. Tom Roache concurred. We were hesitant. It sounded great, but we knew it had to be a lot more demanding and difficult than it sounded. And it had to be done right to be successful.
Doing a Kickstarter and needing that amount of money was scary. Exciting, but scary. And Palladium had NO experience in doing one or knowing how to handle it.
Enter Ninja Division. At the time, Soda Pop Miniatures and Cipher Studios had done something like eight Kickstarters between them, and had the experience we lacked in all areas. The Ninjas said they could handle the Kickstarter 100%, from start to finish. From the graphics, writing and the video presentation, to the stretch goals and Q&A. This was a huge relief, as we knew nothing about doing a Kickstarter. We let the Ninjas run with it, sat back and watched in awe. Of course, we made some suggestions and did some editing, but this was Ninja Division’s show. We trusted their expertise and what needed to be done. And look as the result, wow. The Kickstarter was a tremendous success and there was much rejoicing.
But nothing is easy. I had big concerns about costs all around. I badly wanted to include additional shipping fees in the Kickstarter. Something that almost everyone does today, but back then, we were strongly advised not to. We were told that nobody (back then) charged shipping and that if we charged a shipping fee in addition to the backer pledge levels, it would severely reduce the chances of a successful Kickstarter. This was the subject of many discussions. I finally acquiesced, but it would be something that would haunt us later, as shipping worldwide would be in the neighborhood of $150,000 all by itself. Just for Wave One! Yeah, shipping is brutal, especially with the advent of “dimensional weight” – the larger the package, regardless of weight, the more it costs. The Ninjas said they factored shipping into the pledge levels, but final costs would be greater than their estimates across the board.
Remember that runaway train I spoke of early? When the Kickstarter ended, that train took off with us on it, and it immediately started to rocket out of control.
First, not knowing anything about Kickstarters, we did not realize the real job of managing a Kickstarter begins AFTER the Kickstarter is funded. We thought that when Ninja Division said it would handle the Kickstarter from start to finish, that they would be handling everything. Again, we didn’t know what “everything” entailed.
As it turned out, they meant “finish” as a successful funding. Again, not knowing exactly what’s involved and with miscommunication by both parties, Palladium did not realize it would be our responsibility to handle the thousands of emails and questions that would follow the successful funding of the Kickstarter. Remember, we were still figuring out and learning everything about Kickstarters, including establishing the BackerKit storefront to manage the pledges of our 5,000+ backers, among many other things. Consequently, something like six weeks went by without Palladium answering a single question or email on the Kickstarter page. It was only when one of the Ninjas reached out to Palladium, asking why were we ignoring the backers on the Kickstarter page, and the discussion that followed, that we at Palladium realized it was our job to manage the page. We jumped right on it, but by then, backers were frustrated and we had a thousand plus emails to answer, plus regular posts and updates to make. Like I said, it was crazy as that express train was rocketing down the tracks with more unexpected challenges and surprises to come.
Second, we discovered we were not “98% done” and ready for manufacturing. This was a huge surprise, the details and depths of which we did not come to fully understand till some months after we had missed our 2013 Fall Release. I’ve caught a lot of flack for saying we were 98% done, but that’s what we thought. All of us.
Our past experience was the old school method of making game pieces in which once you have your sculpts – in this case, the 3D renders – you make your mold and you start spitting out and packaging pieces. 98% of the 3D sculpts were done. The rules, done. The artwork, done. Final book layout easy, breezy and something that should be done in a matter of days; a no-brainer. Game card designs, mostly finished. When we launched and finished the Kickstarter, we truly thought we were 98% DONE. Here’s something you’ll laugh at, when we first estimated a November 2013 release, we actually thought we were being cautious. There was no doubt in our minds at Palladium that Robotech® RPG Tactics™ would ship that Fall. December at the latest. We spent money on ads saying as much.
Boy, were we wrong.
It turns out the type of manufacturing we’re doing is fairly new to the hobby game industry. There are serious conversion and incompatibility issues in converting the 3D models done by the sculptors to what needs to be done in China to make the molds and go into manufacturing. This is not just something Palladium and Ninja Division ran into, it’s true for EVERYONE using this type of manufacturing process. Only we didn’t know that at the time. Neither did Ninja Division, who were only starting to get the picture after the Kickstarter ended and they sent the first digital files over. (Or if they did, they didn’t realize the conversion process would be as arduous.) It would take Palladium months to grasp exactly what the situation was. Mainly because at that time, we weren’t directly involved in the conversations with the factory and the Manufacturing Broker. As the seemingly inexplicable delays went on, it seemed insane to us. How could someone not have made a conversion program for these incompatible files (3D sculpts versus what the manufacturer/factory needs)? However, we have since had this confirmed by the folks at Dust and several other game companies that this is, indeed, the case, and there is no way around it at the present time. Crazy, right?
As I understand it, the engineers in China have to completely rebuild, and recreate EACH 3D file, using the 3D sculpts as a base from which to start, and even that is mainly just reference for the pose. They have to, in effect, completely redesign a completely new digital model to manufacturing specifications. To complicate matters further, the engineers in China have to adjust the 3D sculpts further to take into consideration the manufacturing process and the types of metal molds that are required. That makes certain undercuts and details impossible, and requires different approaches and more numerous pieces to make the detailed game pieces all of us Robotech® fans wanted.
This created a tremendous amount of additional work and delays complicated by the language barrier and the way things are done in China. The increase in the number of pieces, and more tiny parts than any of us expected, has become something of an issue as well. Making some mecha more of a pain in the neck to build than others. That said, the mecha in Robotech® RPG Tactics™ look gorgeous when built and even more gorgeous when beautifully painted. We have seen hundreds of amazing finished pieces. And even the perceived level of difficulty and time to build them are a matter of debate depending on the level of experience and temperament of the model builder/gamer. A lot of people seem to think the Destroids are a bitch. Then I talk to someone with an army of painted Veritechs and Destroids who tell me it wasn’t that bad. Such is the nature of this hobby. I know a couple of people, for example, who could cobble Destroids together in 20-30 minutes and they look great. But both of the guys that I personally know, are either experienced model builders or experienced wargamers.
I’m personally disappointed by the large number of parts, because it makes the point of entry difficult for gamers new to this hobby. It’s even worse for collectors who just want a cool mecha to slap together in five minutes and put on their shelf. I understand that, because I’m one of those guys. Though I’m an artist, I’m not great at building or painting what amounts to tiny model kits. I’m that collector or gamer who is disappointed by the complexity and work required to build these pieces. I would need someone to build (and paint) them for me and that becomes expensive very quickly. Though, man, do they look great painted. Palladium and Ninja Division went this route because we were trying to please you and provide you with the product we thought you wanted.
To make a long story short, we thought we were on top of things. We thought Robotech® RPG Tactics™ would be ready to ship by the Fall of 2013, only six months after the Kickstarter. The problem was, we didn’t know as much as we thought. And that included Ninja Division when it came to all the ins-and-outs of manufacturing in China, 3D file conversions and the amount of time required for all of it. The commitments to the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Kickstarter are truly massive, with a tremendous number of moving parts, as Ninja Division puts it, and it all takes time to coordinate to make it right. We hate that it is all taking so long, but we have never stopped working on trying to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ something great.
There are many other things I could discuss, but they would take up another 20 pages and are all water under the bridge. We’re all about moving forward, unleashing RRT Wave Two and doing much more with Robotech® RPG Tactics™ to broaden the scope of the game and options for fun.
Palladium Books is committed to the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ game line, not just as a Kickstarter project, but as a long term, continuing game line that will become epic as we proceed. The massive undertaking and our lack of experience have delayed some parts of our planned releases, but Palladium remains committed to this great property and the RRT game line. It’s just going to take longer to fully launch. We’ll need your support and time to nurture and grow it. Once Wave Two is released, we can continue to expand the Macross setting as well as doing the other Robotech® generations of settings and factions, and we believe the momentum will surge and we should be able to keep building upon all aspects of the game. A great game.
Wow, we hit the character limit for Kickstarter Update posts, so this will have to be split into two. Please continue on to the next Update.
I want my wave 2 "poop in a box" so I can get on in my life ignoring 
