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An update was asked about on Facebook earlier, Jarek responded:

Jarek Ever
not today, however, I will try not to spoil too much... we might have a very good news next week. lol Fingers crossed!

yeah,
He still hasn't answered my PMs on facebook should I swear at him?

Panic...

Has he "seen" them? If you're not actually "friends" your msg is sitting in the "other msgs" inbox, which doesn't generate a notification.

To PRODOS Games........

As a KS Backer (and quite a large one), please take all the time you need in the world to sort this out with Fox. Seriously! I'd rather wait another 12 months and recieve a top quality set of minatures based on the AVP world than something rushed out that F"%3's Fox off so much that they decide to pull the plug and we lose what potentially could be an amazing minature line that people will love.

Even if approved tomorrow, NOTHING would or could be posted out to all backers this close to Christmas for people to have some new toys to open. So next week, kick back, relax, and start winding down for Christmas. Seriously.

Yes I'm disapointed. But I still genuinely believe that I'll receive a top quality set of new toys based in a universe I've loved for 30 years. I'd rather wait and get something that's fully supported and endorsed by all the stakeholders, than potentially lose it. People need to stop being the 'Internet Tough Guy' and just kick back, and let PRODOS get on with what they need to do with Fox. If you are anything like me, you've a queue of other stuff waiting in boxes for some love and attention on your painting desks. I for one have blow the dust off a Perfect Grade RX-78 Gundam that's been gathering dust for over 10 years.

Christmas and New Year is approaching. Chill out, relax. We'll all get our things. Given people some breathing space to work through their problems rather than inflame them over a keyboard.

yeah,
1 backer wants you to take your time... Listen to him.
Ignore the 99.9% want the models they pledged for that are rotting away in your warehouse.

Panic...

I don't massively care how long it takes - I'm still waiting for Judge Dredd to finish, I was supposed to collect Winter War at Salute 14 and I might be able to collect it at Salute 15.

But - the delay isn't improving the miniatures - 90% of them are already cast. If we believe Prodos, it's sorting out stuff like the packaging and fluff. Honestly, I backed this for the minis, the rest I can take or leave, so the delay isn't improving what I care about, but it might be necessary.

Prodos' communication has seen improvement after this latest blow up - on this board at least - their FB page is still patchy. I hope that improvement continues as if it backslides to how it has been, then I will revert to the disgruntled state they put me in. The attitude to the backers on this KS (from both Prodos and the 'white knight' backers has made sure I wouldn't pre order from Prodos again in the future.

 Panic wrote:
yeah,
1 backer wants you to take your time... Listen to him.
Ignore the 99.9% want the models they pledged for that are rotting away in your warehouse.

Panic...

Make that two backers.

Mistakes have been made, I am not overly confident in Prodos' communication skills, or their punctuality but there is no reason to doubt the quality or that tremendous progress has been made.

Nor do I doubt their motivations. They have no motive to piss people off, and every motivation to deliver what was promised. It doesn't suit them to have their name dragged through the mud. They may not have gone about it the best way, they certainly aren't perfect but despite all the missteps there is still very little reason to doubt that they will deliver as we have all seen so much of the progress in addition to the above motivations.

If it takes a few more months then that is no big deal for me. I am happy to wait to get a great product. Certainly I can wait when they are so close, and sending out those miniatures now would be an extra financial burden.

Besides, if needed, I can always get angry in a few months.

yeah,
It's cool you're happy to wait for the finished product.
It's really great, your ability to wait is almost inspirational!
I'm waiting too, sadly I don't have your god like levels of patience and I've gotten bored of waiting.
I also don't like be lied to. Are you happy being lied to?

Prodos said they could do two waves.
Why have you got issue with Prodos doing like they said they could and posting the miniatures that have been gathering dust in their warehouse since June?

Panic...

Must admit one is also happy to wait. Once one realised that because of the whole delay was the 'Old Sega V Gearbox' cropping up again it became more understandable.

Yes Fox clearly did no understand KS and that was a mistake as it led to serious lags in communication, which could have been said earlier, but at least we have got there.
Obviously some of the more insane rants and paranoid conspiracies apart from mild entertainment, have ones sure, not helped in the least, far point on the arguments that were constructive.

What have seen (Previous posts) shows that things are moving so looking forward to the finished article. If its late, its late, however that is the risk with KS, apart from failing. At least this one has not gone the way of Defiance.

The longer you wait, the more opportunities there are for things to go wrong. Prodos might not have the money to ship 12 months from now. Fox could pull the license for other reasons. There might be internal drama that tears the company apart. There could be a flood. The list goes on.

They still have something resembling an income from Warzone, right? So that should cover some problems should those arise.

 BrookM wrote:
They still have something resembling an income from Warzone, right? So that should cover some problems should those arise.

That is correct, Warzone is booming along and has seen full retail release in LGSs in the UK, Europe, and even North America (I think) as well as various online stores. It has been getting fairly regular releases and rules expansions as well.

So they at least have a steady stream of income other than AvP. And as a Warzone backer, they were late (probably later than they are going to be on AvP at the end of the day), AvP ended up making communications somewhat infrequent by the end (as I suspect Warzone is doing for AvP right now since they recently released a bunch of new starter sets and minis for it; not to mention the minis they did for Mophidius's Mutant Chronicles KS). At the end of the day though? I am fully pleased with the end product I received (even if a lot of it has since seen re-sculpts because the sculptor they got for the latter half and for AvP is amazing) and will continue giving them my business.

Miniature KS's tend to be scope-creep central and being at all successful on them brings with it community pressure to ramp said scope-creep up to insane levels. Those that don't or do so too slowly (at what may even be a sustainable level) get criticized for being bad deals. In the end you can select two of quality, punctuality, and cost (maybe). The funding format is still going through growing pains (many associated with scope-creep causing delays which leads in to massive upward shifts in expected shipping costs) and we are already seeing a lot of things scaling back. More conservative stretch goals, no longer offering crazy-good deals on shipping (often asking backers pay it in full at a later date), and several other steps. And of course there will always be two competing choruses of backers chanting for either punctuality or for them to take their time and get everything 100% perfect before shipping the first box out.

Folks have a right to be upset about a lack of communication, and even a right to be upset about delays. But do know that Prodos aren't in any danger folding overnight, they have products in retail chains internationally and appear to be doing quite well (they've certainly grown at a fairly steady rate) and as a Warzone player, I'm not nervous that the delays from AvP are a signal of the end times. The only issue is they picked up a license from a big player that wasn't as relaxed as their last one (Paradox) and may be in a little over their head. But at the end of the day, I know they'll be doing their level best to get to the fulfillment stage as soon as they can and make sure that all their backers get what they ordered. I was happy with Warzone even after all the delays and getting split in to 3.5 waves. I agree that communication could be improved, but I also don't think folks have much reason to worry over the health of the company. They will fulfill their promises, it will be delayed, but it will get done.

 Ronin_eX wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
They still have something resembling an income from Warzone, right? So that should cover some problems should those arise.

That is correct, Warzone is booming along and has seen full retail release in LGSs in the UK, Europe, and even North America (I think) as well as various online stores. It has been getting fairly regular releases and rules expansions as well.

So they at least have a steady stream of income other than AvP. And as a Warzone backer, they were late (probably later than they are going to be on AvP at the end of the day), AvP ended up making communications somewhat infrequent by the end (as I suspect Warzone is doing for AvP right now since they recently released a bunch of new starter sets and minis for it; not to mention the minis they did for Mophidius's Mutant Chronicles KS). At the end of the day though? I am fully pleased with the end product I received (even if a lot of it has since seen re-sculpts because the sculptor they got for the latter half and for AvP is amazing) and will continue giving them my business.

Miniature KS's tend to be scope-creep central and being at all successful on them brings with it community pressure to ramp said scope-creep up to insane levels. Those that don't or do so too slowly (at what may even be a sustainable level) get criticized for being bad deals. In the end you can select two of quality, punctuality, and cost (maybe). The funding format is still going through growing pains (many associated with scope-creep causing delays which leads in to massive upward shifts in expected shipping costs) and we are already seeing a lot of things scaling back. More conservative stretch goals, no longer offering crazy-good deals on shipping (often asking backers pay it in full at a later date), and several other steps. And of course there will always be two competing choruses of backers chanting for either punctuality or for them to take their time and get everything 100% perfect before shipping the first box out.

Folks have a right to be upset about a lack of communication, and even a right to be upset about delays. But do know that Prodos aren't in any danger folding overnight, they have products in retail chains internationally and appear to be doing quite well (they've certainly grown at a fairly steady rate) and as a Warzone player, I'm not nervous that the delays from AvP are a signal of the end times. The only issue is they picked up a license from a big player that wasn't as relaxed as their last one (Paradox) and may be in a little over their head. But at the end of the day, I know they'll be doing their level best to get to the fulfillment stage as soon as they can and make sure that all their backers get what they ordered. I was happy with Warzone even after all the delays and getting split in to 3.5 waves. I agree that communication could be improved, but I also don't think folks have much reason to worry over the health of the company. They will fulfill their promises, it will be delayed, but it will get done.

While I do not wholly disagree with most of what you said, in regards to the comments about stock in the retail chain I would point out that you can still buy confrontation stuff new off some retailers and as such that may not be the indicator you think.

 Pacific wrote:

However, our job is to make sure that peoples are aware about the progress and they know that the product is not at risk, maybe then we could discuss the future of AvP rather than "possibility of not receiving their stuff" , as this is not the case.

I think that's really the main point.

I'm sure what a lot of (perhaps silent/lurking) posters are waiting on, and really good to hear coming from someone at Prodos.

I have to agree that this was also the point I was waiting for, after a few days of fluttering once the KS page went down.

Like some others, I'm happy to wait for the product. I've waited longer than initially planned for every Kickstarter I've backed, and I've always been delighted by the final products.

No Friday update to tell us their isn't a update then

 CURNOW wrote:
No Friday update to tell us their isn't a update then

There is sort of, if you read facebook.

Jarek Ever damn Holidays... Hope we get the green light by eob Monday, otherwise it will be after Xmas.
53 mins · Like

After Christmas then for the update.

Is this the same update they were trying to get approved a couple of weeks ago? Or did I miss it?

Same one.

 JoeRugby wrote:
After Christmas then for the update.

Is this the same update they were trying to get approved a couple of weeks ago? Or did I miss it?

There really hasn't been an update worthy of the name since the beginning of November.

Facebook posts:

Jarek Ever - Hi there, yes, the answer is that we are waiting for approval on written material and packaging, and we were expecting the material this week... I still hope we will get it Monday. Hence, at this stage we are looking to release no earlier than beginning of February. ( 4 weeks for manufacturing to get all job done, the origin of print is in Poland other components are also manufactured in the UE, 100 kg away from our dispatch centre, NOT in CHiNA as someone suggested). Thanks.

Jarek Ever - at this stage we want to release the board game asap, although all models are approved (prototype) we would have to send a 15 samples of the product (in still yet to be approved packaging) of each for final approval. So, as we don;t know how long it will take and to avoid any further delay in that stage we decided to : Get the board game approved, start shipping it, and in the mean time focus on final "add-ons" approval. Please bear in mind, this project is a monster in terms of number of components to be reviewed and approved. Thaks

Jarek Ever - at this stage we want to release the board game asap, although all models are approved (prototype) we would have to send a 15 samples of the product (in still yet to be approved packaging) of each for final approval.

So the huge stack of boxes of models that Jarek has told us have been gathering dust since the middle of the year STILL aren't actually approved - only the prototypes were? Lord, give me strength.

All that from FaceBook should have been sent to the KS backers and posted on their forums.

If Jarek can say it via FB, it should be good enough for ALL backers and they should make an effort to give that info to all backers.

biggusdoggus wrote:

Jarek Ever - at this stage we want to release the board game asap, although all models are approved (prototype) we would have to send a 15 samples of the product (in still yet to be approved packaging) of each for final approval.

So the huge stack of boxes of models that Jarek has told us have been gathering dust since the middle of the year STILL aren't actually approved - only the prototypes were? Lord, give me strength.

Apparently.

At this point I'm more eager to get my product just to be done with Prodos than I am to have cool minis.

Facebook:

KS Backer - Jarek - Does that mean that the 'add-ons' aren't approved yet as you imply ("and in the mean time focus on final "add-ons" approval").
Previously you'd said that everything but the printed stuff was already approved...? Or is it that you need the add-ons to be approved in the packaging that is still to be approved??

Jarek Ever - only the packaging in not approved for add ons

 Ruglud wrote:
Facebook:

KS Backer - Jarek - Does that mean that the 'add-ons' aren't approved yet as you imply ("and in the mean time focus on final "add-ons" approval").
Previously you'd said that everything but the printed stuff was already approved...? Or is it that you need the add-ons to be approved in the packaging that is still to be approved??

Jarek Ever - only the packaging in not approved for add ons

So he contradicted himself in the space of an hour or so. At this point I'm not inclined to believe a word he says. I think the only thing that would convince me that all is well now is an official update from Fox - not an update that Jerek says is official, I mean a real official update - a statement from a real Fox representative, one that's clearly made by them rather than attributable.

Lie to me once, and I'll forgive you. Lie to me twice and I'll be far more wary. Keep doing so, and don't be surprised when I call you Billy.

I think you're getting confused by the convoluted approval process used by giant mega corps like Fox

they'll approve the minis (done)

they'll approve the packaging (in the process of being done)

AND they'll have to approve the final product (even though all the individual bits have been approved).... and while it's unlikely they'd demand changes at that stage it's not 100% impossible

(I've seen licensor logos change between when the approved packaging and final release of a product.. oops pulp them and start again, )

No, I don't think so. This is where Prodos let themselves down by failing to communicate clearly.

In the post requoted from Jarek above, he clearly states that the prototypes of the minis are approved, and by inference, that suggests that the final casts have not been - there can be significant changes between a prototype and a final product - that's why it's called a prototype, so it stands to reason that Fox would want to re-approve the minis at the production stage.

That he then says a while later that only the packaging in not approved simply adds to confusion, and contradicts what he'd previously said.

You're right, it may be that both these things - the production minis and the packaging will be approved together, but nevertheless, it does imply that the minis do need to be approved in their final form.

biggusdoggus wrote:

In the post requoted from Jarek above, he clearly states that the prototypes of the minis are approved, and by inference, that suggests that the final casts have not been - there can be significant changes between a prototype and a final product - that's why it's called a prototype, so it stands to reason that Fox would want to re-approve the minis at the production stage.

My highlights - I wonder if this is a language/translation issue?

'Prototype' can mean the first completed item used as a template for the others following. So a kind of initial sculpt/original, that once approved, then gets used as a template for the actual production miniature. A 'prototype', in fact!

I can't see otherwise why he would make a big deal of the fact that Fox has approved it, especially as they have mentioned previously that some designs have gone through a dozen or more re-designs before being accepted (the Predalien for instance), if this wasn't as close to a final production miniature as matters.

If that's the case, you either take it as a truth or not, depending on where you sit through Prodos' motivations, the various back and forth that has been going on, and the vagaries and professionalism of the company's internet communications.

Personally, if I were a betting man I would still put solid odds-on for pledgers getting the board game early in the near year, March-April at the latest.

All of these points are just conjecture until we get a response from Prodos/Jarek/Rob, but that's unlikely considering the precedent.

you could well be right Pacific, and indeed with much of the problems with this KS being communication related, it would perhaps have been prudent for Prodos to hire somebody who does speak both languages well enough to get their points across without causing confusion. If you can't make 2 consecutive posts without contradiction and confusion whether intentional or not, then you're the wrong man for the job.

I'd basically agree with your timescales March/April seems likely (if we assume it will still happen, and we have no real choice at this point). I doubt it will be earlier - they'll likely get nothing out of Fox until the second week of January now, and then realistically (invoking Pournelle's Law) their 4 week timescale for printing is probably too low. So it will be end of Feb before they are ready to ship at the earliest. Then there's the length of time they'll need to ship - they've said 40-50 parcels per day which seems awfully low given they are only shipping the core boxes in wave 1 - there were circa 2500+ backers, so that's 50 days or 2 months of wave 1 shipping, so the lucky ones might see something in early March, the unlucky ones might have to wait until May at least, even June if they are on the wrong side of the planet.

and only then will they start the process of getting final approval for Wave 2, which includes packaging, the bigger hard covered wargaming rulebook, the 3D terrain which we have no reason to believe is even completed yet to name but a few things - so we can expect that to take another 2-3 months minimum, then manufacturing , then final approval, and only then can they pack the minis in retail boxes and ship wave 2 - and they have (by their numbers) half a million or so minis to pack - that's a lot of boxes to make up and hand fill - months of workm abd then at least 2 more months of actual shipping. We'll be lucky to see wave 2 before next Christmas I should think.

But if I were a betting man, right now I'd rather be betting on a more likely result than the state of this game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sheep wrote:
All of these points are just conjecture until we get a response from Prodos/Jarek/Rob, but that's unlikely considering the precedent.

Indeed, total conjecture. I'd much rather see a response from Fox right now (yeah I know that won't happen either) - An official statement from them, from an officially identifiable source rather than a member of Prodos staff telling us what they are posting is official, would be a great way to put things back on track. Delays don't matter all that much, but Fox coming out and stating that everything is OK, that there is no IP issue, and that they continue to work closely with Prodos to get this product launched would go a long long way to settling nerves.

Is it not slightly odd that this game was supposed to go retail in time for this Christmas but at no point ever have Fox put out any form of press release telling the world the game is coming? Why would they not do that to try and garner retail interest? The industry regularly previews computer games and movies months in advance, but this has had complete silence from a company which, if the current box art is to be believed, still have their name on the box.