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Morgan Vening wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Oh, so they've moved the goal posts again. I think it's time to use Asterios/Rick's UPSP guidelines to tell them feth no, give me a refund.

Has anyone figured out how much PB owes us for the unfulfilled models from a Battlecry set? Perhaps Forar? I intend to put it in as my refund amount + individual items ordered. And when Wave 2 doesn't deliver January 1, another letter to the AG on the "see, they can't hit a deadline if it was a barn and KS was two feet from it with a scattergun".

Like Meri joked, it depends on how you calculate it. I did two versions of the math in an earlier post, but a quick summary is it's either ~25% of a Battlecry ($30US) or ~45% of a Battlecry ($60US). Ironically, with PB's response to the BBB, the latter is more easily shown (using retail pricing, add the core and all the supplied expansions, and divide that by the cost of the core and all expansions included in a BC, and that's your percentage of what's been fulfilled. Subtract that from what you paid, and you have the result). I had to approximate the price on some things, but it's not hard to get a ballpark figure.

Given the price paid for shipping, they probably spent at least that, so there'll be no refund there. But every addon expansion that wasn't a BattleCry (Monster, Armored Valks, even stuff that was in the BC, but you purchased seperately) is owed in full.

actually what we figured out was about $50 for the minis missing from a BattleCry.

Updated to reflect the past week and newsletter;

Days since the last update: 27
Days since Wayne said he'd give us a full breakdown on the status of all the pieces: **116**
Days since the last substantial Wave 2 info: 247

Days until the end of Q2 2016: 241 (current target)
Days until Gencon 2016: 274
Days until the end of 2016: 425

It's fascinating/funny that they haven't just said 'fyi, we'll be moving to a monthly update schedule', and instead we get to contrast their 'we'll try to deliver more updates in the weeks to come' while moving to their least frequent (regular) updating schedule to date.

4 fething months on that item breakdown from Wayne is inexcusable. I don't care how small a company they are or how busy their days can be; if they can't get this info within a couple of weeks (let alone nearly 1.5 quarters of the year), they are clearly drowning and don't want to admit it. Even a piecemeal release of a half dozen figures/resin bits per month as they got super duper mega ultra tournament edition alpha final approval would still be substantial info for us and evidence of tangible progress on the project, which they have been sorely lacking for so long that there may well now be babies born who weren't even conceived back when we got the 5 sprue breakdown renders. It takes more time for them to list the progress of this project than it takes for two people to *create new life and bring it into this world* (a few weeks early perhaps, but entirely within a viable timeframe).

Also, this seems vague (as is their way): "More stuff is coming as we continue to work on other areas of support and getting Wave Two into final manufacturing. Shooting for second quarter 2016. "

Shooting for? For what? For it to be in production? On a boat? On hand at the warehouse? Out to backers?

8 months for 'completion' (of whatever they're Shooting For), 9 months until Gencon, 14 months until the end of next year.

I've got 'a good feeling' about this one, you guys.

*jazzhands*

Hey on the plus side, I'll get to talk to you guys about robotech for another entire year!

Face it, Forar, there is only one possible explanation at this point.

Even playing make believe that there is any other is giving them way too much credit.

What's there to face? I've been doing the 'tongue-in-cheek taking them at their word, tinged with mockery and sarcasm' thing for a good 2 years now.

I think I've been pretty clear this is more a creative writing exercise and effort to provide context for those who only duck in irregularly than any sincere belief they'll get off their asses in the remote future. It's basically community service at this point.

Adding *rolls eyes* and *jerking motion* to every sentence just becomes a reason to copy/paste half my posts and include 4 pages of citations and context, at which point I'm no better than their weekly "newsletters".

Given how little they seem to do week to week, if there's anything that could do to move to a monthly schedule, it's those things.

*shrug* If nothing else, it makes me laugh once in a while. And hopefully some other people as well. I won't let their ongoing shenanigans dictate what I find funny, because they are (from my perspective) a comedy goldmine.

wow, I don't know why you are working so hard, Forar.

A mine requires lots of very hard, physical work to get at the small bits of gold it contains.*

PB are, at this point, picking up quite sizable nuggets and actjually throwing them at us in an attempt to shut us up or make us go away. It's a shame that they still don't seem to get the mesage that if they want to shut us up, they need to show us progress on wave two (c). If they want us to go away, they need to give us a "Refund (tm)".

* There is actually more Gold in a ton of computers, than there is in a ton of Gold Ore!

December 2013 was the full anticipated delivery date for the kickstarter.
Ninja Division was supposed to be in charge.

Update 110 Late Aug 2013 I think it was the darn Backerkit that has me the most upset with them fishing for more money.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/581190

I pretty much devolve into a timeline of B.S. the like of which I had not seen before, so I am hitting it with a spoiler here.
This is helpful to me to see how the timing of everything went.I cannot be bothered with the remaining 2 for now.
My point in all this?
Pretty much guaranteed as soon as it gets boring at their end, Kevin rises up and goes on fire and writes his wall of text.

Having reviewed all that stuff that came before, there really was not much left to do.
Heck, we were left with the idea some dies were being cut pretty much at the beginning of the year.
I cannot imagine anything less than being flat-out of money stopping the flow of information this cold.

Looking at past behavior, I think PB is toast in regards to Wave 2.
They are just trying to sweep it under the rug and move-on.
Yeah, the starter box is MORE than enough for you backers (if you got anything else but a starter box: you do not exist in our eyes and were not a true fan-friend).

From the August 26th update:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1335688

We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead:

Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces.
Force Organization Charts.
Stats for Conventional Combat Vehicles (pre-Robotech).
Expanded rules, errata, and clarifications.
A free set of basic rules and paper miniatures will be made available online.
More photos of painted minis.
And we’ll try to do more updates.

Usually there is a fair amount of leeway in a term like "in the weeks ahead" so that it means 1-4 generally. Usually once you reach the next unit of time like a "month", most folks consider it to be the end of the allowable and acceptable period to be true. Once you get to MULTIPLE months like we are at right now, I suspect all but fan friends would consider "weeks ahead" to be over with.

Out of the seven broad bullet points they listed they'd accomplish in the WEEKS ahead, they partially accomplished ONE in the MONTHS ahead with the rewriting of a single rule in plain text format. That right there is classic Palladium style "progress" even when they set the bar as low as what other companies routinely do for free (faqs, galleries of painted minis, some minor pdfs of datacards and paper standees).

Given that Kevin has cited their massive number of updates (while ignoring that over half of them (97) occurred during the 32 days the campaign ran), it seems only fair to extrapolate that statistic for him.

If we use Kevin's Wonderful Math to simply average them out across the entire 929 days since the campaign began, those 188 updates work out to roughly 1 update every 5 days (4.94etc rounded up, accuracy-enthusiasts).

By that standard, they are critically failing at their efforts to produce more updates.

Heh. "Dear AG, yes, PB has submitted many Updates for the project, averaging out to one every 5 days, which means that in the last 2 months they should have had roughly a dozen, instead they've had two."

 Talizvar wrote:

Yeah, the starter box is MORE than enough for you backers (if you got anything else but a starter box: you do not exist in our eyes and were not a true fan-friend).

Thought: Maybe we should start calling that box the "Ender box".

Does that make RRT "Ender's Game"?

 Conrad Turner wrote:
Does that make RRT "Ender's Game"?

Good one. But at their pacing? "Ended Game" is probably more appropriate.

Kevin Wiggins has succeded in wiping out 98% of interest in RRPGT from those dastardly Formic Backers.

So does that make Forar the Speaker for the Dead? And that Kevin is stalked by Rick, the Shadow of the Hegemon and his Shadow Puppets?

Ok, I'll stop dragging this down the route of puns. I'm still just dumb-founded that PB can't either show SOMETHING or concede that mistakes were made. With each day that passes with just spamvertisments the idea that they can't do the former gains credence, while makes the latter seem more apparent. That's just going to end badly for everyone if they can't get out of their denial mode that they've screwed up OR show that they really have been doing something (even if it's crap compared to what they promised; I think at this point "overpromised" is beyond understatement).

That might be a great selling point! "These are the only minis you will ever need for this game, because it is all we're ever going to make!"

 Swabby wrote:
That might be a great selling point! "These are the only minis you will ever need for this game, because it is all we're ever going to make!"

Kevin's All-You-Can-Eat buffet. For $9.99 he gives you a bag of snack-size chips (or crisps in the parlance of our former colonial overlords). When you complain about false advertising he points out that if that's all that you're given, that's all you physically are able to eat, thus satisfying the technical requirement of the phrase "can eat." It wasn't a "all you want to eat" buffet after all.

The logic there sounds legit based on the AG responses...

Well that, and on an airplane you'd pay several hundred dollars for that bag of chips. So you really owe them, anyway.

Oh, and also, too, as well, at no point did "Kevin's All-You-Can-Eat buffet" actually say they would provide you food. A buffet can also be a table. But nobody wanted to eat a table. Therefore, Palladium Books is in no way obligated to provide any food whatsoever, and the fact that a bag of chips was provided just shows how generous The Simbieda is.

 Krinsath wrote:
I'm still just dumb-founded that PB can't either show SOMETHING or concede that mistakes were made.

Kevin has in the past admitted to making mistakes. It's just that the "mistakes" are loving backers/fans/robotech and trusting others too much for his own good. It's his version of the old job interview answer of "I'm a perfectionist and need to get everything perfect" when asked about your biggest "flaw".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krinsath wrote:

Kevin's All-You-Can-Eat buffet. For $9.99 he gives you a bag of snack-size chips (or crisps in the parlance of our former colonial overlords). When you complain about false advertising he points out that if that's all that you're given, that's all you physically are able to eat, thus satisfying the technical requirement of the phrase "can eat." It wasn't a "all you want to eat" buffet after all.

The logic there sounds legit based on the AG responses...

Sigh.. yes... that sadly is the exact same reasoning that Kevin applies to Robotech extrapolated to another topic. :(

Just extrapolating a bit...

RRT basically is dead. As a miniature wargame, the lack of continual releases and updates basically meant this get swept into the back drawers of most wargamers, and the lack of support means nobody, both gamers and retailers, will want to touch this without seeing significant manufacturer commitment.

Good luck with that one.

Wave 1 is out, the basic rules is out, it's basically like a boardgame that gets dusted off every few months for a game. Except it's not a board game, so most people will just keep it in the back of the closet to avoid the hassle of setting things up. Sales for the Ender box is probably tanking or at bottom.

Wave 2 may get done.. actually I believe, barring PB turning turtle, it will actually get done, it's just that by the time I see anything come out from Wave 2, I might be just too damn old to put it together.

But even if Wave 2 comes out, no retailer or gamer would still want to touch the product, because, basically is it's just not conforming to normal business models. Not much in way to support interest for gamers or turnover for retailers. Either way, Wave 2 comes out, it'd almost certainly dead stock and sit for quite a while. Recouping the cost is going to be uphill if not impossible.

If Wave 2 doesn't make it out, then PB most likely would be under scrutiny, and most like won't ever be a factor in the industry again. Works for me -- I'm out some cash, but that company is basically never going to be able to whitewash itself.

If we take the product as what they claim it to be -- an RPG supplement -- it won't fly either, because it's badly marketed, badly priced, and totally inappropriate to the RPG. So that's dead. Not possible for PB to recoup that way either.

So, the game system is basically dead and gone, we're just seeing the twitching of a corpse as it gets whipped by people who don't know what they are doing.

Me? I got most of what I want.. halfway decent models, for Wave 1. I'd be out Wave 2 at least for a bit, but wasn't into the KS for the game system anyway.

Basically there's no good way for PB to get out of this one. They won't recoup costs; they missed that boat by a wide mile. They might break even in terms of legal obligations, if they get Wave 2 out. If certain things happen, they get a load of legalities piled up on them, which won't break my heart. The best I can see them doing is getting Wave 2 done and then slowly peddling a dead system.

Me? I'll just pull up a seat and popcorn.

Palladium Logic:

A cab charges you $40 to get driven 12 miles and then runs out of gas after 8 miles. Since 8 miles is actually 13 kilometers and 13 > 12, then you actually get more for your money!

 CaulynDarr wrote:
Palladium Logic:

A cab charges you $40 to get driven 12 miles and then runs out of gas after 8 miles. Since 8 miles is actually 13 kilometers and 13 > 12, then you actually get more for your money!

Seems legit given their BBB "logic".

As an addendum to my earlier comments; when I give them the 'tongue-in-cheek taking them at their word' bit, it's not just for the humour value, but also as an ongoing challenge to do better. To stop being a running gag. When they produce tangible evidence of progress, they get honest critique/appreciation where applicable. That won't stop the "about time" or "was that so fething hard" commentary appended, but wallowing in "omg the internet is so mean" is to be vastly whinier and more childish than anything I might have said to date. I'm not going to sugar coat my commentary (nor should anyone), and given that we've seen that years of attempted polite and respectful communication efforts go ignored or partially addressed (eg: the Big List Of Questions that have been mostly unanswered even a year and a half later, as I recall).

Act in a professional manner, keep people actually updated, show tangible progress, great. As people have said until blue in the face, it's not just delays that are aggravating, it's delays while a company that seems to have no plan for progress faffs about aimlessly.

Do I seriously think that they needed just 9 months to deliver rather than 6? Not really. I will not remotely be shocked if another quarter or two go by and we end up with another quarter or two tacked onto that target (why do you think I've had the "end of 2016" countdown included for all these weeks/months?), and as my previously appended snark noted, even that was considered optimistic.

Just something to toss down, in case the cry of 'unreasonable haters!' gets thrown around, and to note that there are avenues of progression back to reasonable discourse.

But they require PB to do things, actually do them, not just say they will and then quietly mumble something about conference calls for months at a time.

 Forar wrote:

But they require PB to do things, actually do them, not just say they will and then quietly mumble something about conference calls for months at a time.

From a business perspective, IMO there's really no profit incentive for PB to finish RRT any more, because as a revenue source, it's pretty dead. Way difficult to recoup the cost, and there's no real market for it any more -- they missed it bad. Given that assumption, it's actually quite reasonable for a business to put such a project on the back burner.

Except that at Palladium, apparently ALL their projects are on the back burner. So they may not have a revenue stream to keep the lights on, and they may be busy trying to get enough revenue to survive as a business. If this is true, then I have very little hope for Wave 2.

There's plenty of penalties if they don't complete, which is about the only thing that is driving things forward in fits and starts. But such kinds of motivation rarely give good results.

You know what would be truly scary? Is that Palladium is clinging onto the fantasy that RRT will be their big money spinner. And they proceed to manage the project with that assumption, yet constantly do not have the resources to make the final production run, and just keep waffling and doing small actions to try to raise funds (which is in a way what we are possibly seeing now). They can't report progress because they can't make progress, and that fantasy of theirs keep them from fronting up to reality and working towards a reasonable closure.

Which points to that there is simply no reasonable closure to this poor sod of a show -- there's no win-win situation any more. If Wave 2 comes out, the backers "win", but PB will likely quickly flip over because of poor non-KS sales. If Wave 2 doesn't come out, the backers "lose", PB gets hit with bad worse rep, probable debt, and likely legalities to boot. The best "win" for PB is to stay in stasis until something changes, which means vague hand-waffling and cryptic statements to stave off backers while waiting for a white knight to come along... but that rarely works out.

There's no good ending for RRT likely; all that remains is to see how much twitching is involved. Hey maybe we should "invest" in a shrink-wrapped copy of the Ender Box. Might become quite collectible in future years...

 Lynx7725 wrote:

 Forar wrote:

But they require PB to do things, actually do them, not just say they will and then quietly mumble something about conference calls for months at a time.

From a business perspective, IMO there's really no profit incentive for PB to finish RRT any more, because as a revenue source, it's pretty dead. Way difficult to recoup the cost, and there's no real market for it any more -- they missed it bad. Given that assumption, it's actually quite reasonable for a business to put such a project on the back burner.

If you're basing what you're saying on sense, and observed fact, you'd be 100% correct.

However, if you go by what Palladium Books has said (certainly a steaming load of gak, but if you can't go by what they have to say...what can you go by?) that the molds were being tooled a LONG time ago. So, the single biggest cost has already been sunk.

Of course, since they're out of money, that means that they paid to have the molds made (why can't they show renders, then?) when they didn't have the money to actually produce the stuff?

The incompetence...It truly is turtles all the way down.

No argument there. It's something of a no-win scenario, but there are degrees of losing.

It's why I strive to keep my commentary fact based (if limited by my recollection, but without referencing every post I make a dozen times, I think I've been fairer than they deserve most of the time) and focused on the gulf of disparity between what they've said they'd do, and what they've done.

As a peasant/foreigner/etc I doubt I'll ever be able to drop an actual challenge, but keeping the facts on the forefront means they can't just hide behind people's vague and fuzzy memories. I've had people note "holy gak, has it really been X months since they did Y??", so I like to think there is some value, even if it's just keeping more of the general public aware of what is going on. As a backer, we're well aware of how long this crap has been ongoing, but it's tiresome for non-backers to try to minimize that timeframe and frustration, so having easy go-to references helps prevent some of those debates.

Though of course there are the usual suspects who will consider delivery in the next two decades a victory. They can either take the facts or not, but I'm not going to bother arguing them directly. That's a debate purely based on explaining to third parties, I'm not going to change someone's mind who continues to lavish slobbery tongue baths on PB's terrible business practices.

 Lynx7725 wrote:
Which points to that there is simply no reasonable closure to this poor sod of a show -- there's no win-win situation any more. If Wave 2 comes out, the backers "win", but PB will likely quickly flip over because of poor non-KS sales. If Wave 2 doesn't come out, the backers "lose", PB gets hit with bad worse rep, probable debt, and likely legalities to boot. The best "win" for PB is to stay in stasis until something changes, which means vague hand-waffling and cryptic statements to stave off backers while waiting for a white knight to come along... but that rarely works out.

I disagree, PB does not have the option of putting wave 2 on the back burner, they have already collected the money for it, and failure to deliver will lead to some serious legal issues and most likely closure as a company since all it takes is but one person to get the ball rolling and for others to follow, if but one backer gets a refund thru PB caving in or a legal issue, then it opens the door for all to get a refund, and if PB thinks their money issues are bad now, they are about to get worse, their best bet would have been to refund a lot earlier before things got this bad.

Merijeek wrote:

However, if you go by what Palladium Books has said (certainly a steaming load of gak, but if you can't go by what they have to say...what can you go by?) that the molds were being tooled a LONG time ago. So, the single biggest cost has already been sunk.

Where did they actually say that? I remember them saying over and over that they were working towards it REAAAALLY HARD and OMG GUYS! SO CLOSE! but never that wave two was actually being tooled. It was the sprue version of what they did for a year with the rulebook claiming a dozen time with various synonyms that is was finalized/approved/done but not actually having it go to print for a full year.

Did I misremember ND vs. PB on that comment?

I'm pretty sure the quote was to the effect of ND having handed over the renders ages ago, and PB having the factory they're working with inexplicably create the digital files for cutting the sprues into molds based on those renders, but I don't recall them saying anything about molds being done.

Add to that where they've gone on repeatedly over the last few months about 'trimming the piece count', which would be a silly thing to worry about if the molds were cut; that ship has sailed in that case.

Well, PB will not let us know where they are at but I can hazard a couple guesses:

- Some or all tooling is done in China but PB is unable or even possibly unwilling to pay.
- Possibly too many starter kits bought OR the "disappointing" sales made them realize they will not get return on "investment".

- Tooling is not started and based on sales, PB does not want steel injection molds and are looking for a cheaper alternative (that is their style!).
- What lends some merit to this to me is the GHQ "backers only" miniatures released.
- Point #2 for this is why not continue with the same groups that got wave 1 out? Proven success there... unless something happened.

- Things are how PB says: still hammering out cuts and layout... I really cannot seriously contemplate that!

Oh well, Battletech KS finished with 2.86 million.
Can't wait to play with those virtual miniatures.