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 stanman wrote:
Sweet more fan rules to prop up the corpse of a stillborn game!

Your last name wouldn't happen to be Bundy?

Nope, it's Stannard. Stan, or Stan man is my nickname since i don't use my first name much.

Ah, thanks. There used to be a huge robotech fan named Stan who was the only person for years running Robotech at gencon (and sometimes the only palladium gm there) so I figured I'd ask.

 stanman wrote:
Sweet more fan rules to prop up the corpse of a stillborn game!

I was thinking more along the lines of 'Great, more fan made crud in the kickstarter thread when it should be in some other RT Fan made rule thread'

But those sort of comment ave been made before by others and completely ignored so why should now be any different.

 MangoMadness wrote:

 stanman wrote:
Sweet more fan rules to prop up the corpse of a stillborn game!

I was thinking more along the lines of 'Great, more fan made crud in the kickstarter thread when it should be in some other RT Fan made rule thread'

But those sort of comment ave been made before by others and completely ignored so why should now be any different.

At least nobody is arguing that it's "basically the same as the actual rules".

Are there tanks and infantry in the game at all 'officially'?

 Alpharius wrote:
Are there tanks and infantry in the game at all 'officially'?

Not at the moment. Hopefully they get the other stuff out first, but I hope the game will expand out to it eventually.

Zentraedi infantry have figs in wave 2 but they're 40ft tall giants so I'm guessing that's not what you mean.

Merijeek wrote:
Shadows of Brimstone (minis-heavy board game): Good game, generally nice pieces, ridiculously late, trying to gouge people extra on shipping, top-level backers are eventually going to find out it wasn't nearly the deal they were led to believe. And backers are going to not only get their stuff after retail, they're going to get it WAY after retail. (No, Forar, not arguing this one with you).

Why would I argue that? There will absolutely be stuff at retail before backers get it.

But unlike this clusterfeth, they never promised (and doubled down repeatedly on that promise) that.

Am I happy about it? Excited? Giddy? No, but I'm not in need of a fainting couch either. Unlike PB and their less than overwhelming 3 dozen ish figures, SoB legit has like 100+ figures and what will probably approach 1000 cards all told, plus dozens of character classes, mechanics, etc. oh, and it's fun to play and doesn't take a week to assemble unless done with painstaking care.

Also, yes, wave two will take quite a while, but unlike PB, they delivered wave one vaguely on time, which I think counts for something.

Or the deal? Meh, I still think backers will pay considerably less than retail, but until more than the core boxes are out the exact numbers will remain to be seen.

Actually, I wasn't referring to stores getting Wave Two long before backers (though I think some people haven't quite managed to comprehend exactly how large that gap is going to be) so much as the whole SoB MC deal becoming a less and less valuable deal the third time.

At $150'ish for both core boxes (give or take shipping, taxes, whatever), I'd be shocked if the rest of wave two was less than $350, which is the break even point even for the highest MC tier.

Everything beyond that is 'the deal'. Now, whether or not MC backers save $100 or $1000 or somewhere in between will depend on a ton of factors we don't have. I mean, we can speculate and estimate based on the limited info we have now, but I haven't lost the faith yet.

I mean, let's be real, this is a company that charges $10 for 15 cards. You don't think this whole product line is going to be $$$? :-P

Now, in comparison, yeah a "Battle Cry" was a considerable savings over retail from what we've seen. Not when comparing single expansions to the cheapest rates CSI and MM will put out, but all told it was solid. Credit where credit is due. But similarly, not quite the same deal some people (myself included) were estimating. I'd have to run the numbers again, but barring some horrific 'pennies on the dollar' crash and burn sale, maybe instead of 20-30% retail we paid 50% for RRT?

But at what cost, Meri?

At what cost?

*cue dramatic music*

Edit: I do think, in hindsight, that perhaps instead of getting swept up in the giant piles of money and backer enthusiasm, it might have been a better idea to not expand so dramatically, as the SoB folks did. And PB did. How good the deal will end up being and what other costs are associated (how long it'll take to deliver) remain to be seen. On that I can totally agree.

Edit 2: while on the subject, I do recognize that there are subjective shades of grey present, and there will be some who find themselves on the annoyed/outraged/this-is-unacceptable side of the spectrum. My primary frustration with such discussions are where, without nuance or context, people like Lola (the whitest of knights on the KS comments) hold up both projects in comparison and find that one delivered a few months late on wave one and the other delivered a year late on wave one and somehow this is a poignant 'sick burn'. As though the extent of the delays, and the quality of the resulting product, and the manner in which is was delivered is without importance. And yet here we are, over half a year since wave one began delivery for RRT, and there are still backers without their boxes.

I know you and I generally see eye to eye, Meri, so kindly understand I'm not trying to argue the matter. Merely finding it to be a jumping off point for a variety of directions of thought I've found myself on regarding the notion of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. Just as there should be backer understanding for delays in production processes, there must also be accountability for creators to manage expectations and meet those they set themselves. By that contrast, I feel FFP have set a high bar and even if they don't clear it (and there are entirely valid critiques to level at the campaign), that some (not you) who would lump all projects together and paint them with the same tainted brush while giving a pass under the misguided 'omg all KS's are late' are ignoring key points and going well past understanding into 'being a permissive doormat' territory.

Who knows. Maybe SoB will push wave two back to early 2017 or something, and I'll find my patience and support waning there as well. But for now, this is simply how I feel the campaigns differ dramatically, even if the 30,000 foot overhead view is "big campaigns for miniatures and materials that are late in one fashion or another and probably have a year or two ahead of them to get everything else out". If uncharitable, there isn't much difference. If one peers into the particulars, I believe the differences come into stark relief.

I could do with more accountability in KS myself. In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out. Part of this is because creators can just not give a damn about anything once they get their money and most backers can't do stuff about it; especially international ones. Secondly, white knight backers are really annoying most people. Everytime someone is asking why something is delayed or why there's no update, there's always one guy who goes 'hey, this is KS, the creator is not obliged to do anything!'

Sining wrote:
I could do with more accountability in KS myself.

In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out.

Agreed that accountability should be there, but the problem is that there isn't a mechanism to do this. Escrowed accounts tied to milestones would be the obvious approach, or some kind of clawback provision for teeth beyond the first 60 days

I agree that CMoN and Mantic are "safe" - love them or hate them, they do deliver. I really ought to back less, but KS continues to have consumed the bulk of my hobby spend for the past 3 years, and has only slowed down a little bit this year. OTOH, I have done pretty well in selling off "extras" to fund the beast, so that's pretty good.

I would make it so that KS should be the ones to initiate legal proceedings against clearly fraudulant cases. As well as institute some kind of refund that would be made to backers if the project was more than one year over it's estimated date of delivery and backers wanted a refund. I mean, just as some ideas.

Somewhere along the way, someone will get smart and provide "KS insurance". If all goes well, the insurer keeps your money. If things go south - demands for refunds, the project is grossly delayed or the like, the insurer has a central place from which they can attempt to recoup losses, making the consequences for failing a Kickstarter far more serious than it currently is.

Some measure of sliding scale of delivery could be sensible. It need not be a firm year, but perhaps at 2-300% of delivery target. Something that scales where small/short projects don't get carte blanc to waffle for an extra 12 months, but longer projects that need 1-2 years aren't harshly penalized for reasonable situations beyond their control.

Basically it'd be nice if there was some system that emphasized making a reasonable estimate, padding it, and then doubling the gak out of it for good measure. Not this "I think we might do it in a year so let's say 9 months and hope for the best" but "it might take a year so let's say two, just to be safe".

There's a bit too much carrot in terms of incentive to over promise on delivery and timeline, and frankly even as a supporter of the system, it's be nice if there was a little more 'stick' involved.

Like, even a binding obligation to provide refunds where requested after said reasonable time frame.

The problem is that ks is kind of a schmuck in this regard. They want to get their commission but they don't want any responsibilities to do with that commission. But they're not above touting how much they help struggling artists and how many things they made come true while ignoring all the failures


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And there is no incentive for them to change either cause they're still the biggest crowd fund website on the net. And unless they get sued for aiding fraud, there's no reason for them to change

They keep touting how much money goes through the system and projects keep breaking the 7-8 figure mark, eventually either it'll get legislative attention for one reason or another.

Crowdfunding being without even basic consumer protection isn't a feature, it's a bug.

Despite how loudly some backers might protest it.

Might take a year, might take 5, might take the next Pebble raking in another 50 million and then blowing up spectacularly, but I won't be surprised if it happens eventually.

Are there a lot of projects that break the 7-8 figure mark though? Other than Pebble and the Cat thing by Oatmeal, I can't really remember the last big KS that hit 7 figures. And those only really hit that much cause they had brand name going for them.

7 figures? A million dollars? Yes, I'd say that's pretty common already.

At a glance I got up to around 80 projects in the million+ range, and I'm sure that'll go up significantly as the years go by.

What is the next frustration inducing element of this KS is that the more interesting models are in Wave 2 which PB will give no hints on progress.

Worse, I had gone and bought extra with the backer kit that all come from that wave.
I am crossing my fingers on the Zent. infantry looking good (got enough for the light and heavy)... hoping for no "heroic" proportions.

I am looking forward to the "Super" and "Armored" versions of the Valks.
It just occurred to me now: when the armored version "blow" their upgrade off they will not have any of the "standard" missile armament... which if being WYSIWYG I would have to model some without the missiles on the wings <sigh>.

Can we stop harassing the Mike guy? He has available a few "cheat sheets" that were helpful for keeping my first game moving along. His "fan fiction/add-on" stuff will be a godsend when I house-rule the heck out of this game (mainly "roll with impact" and missiles) most rules in this are quite good as I found by actual game play (yay!). I definitely have a few suggestions we tried that made the game better and more "true" to the show. Some conventional military stuff would be good for flavor during the "Malcontent" time of Robotech. Could you imagine the pain the Zent. guys would be in some third world country?

Yep, REALLY hate their cards for game use, I will be hacking out my own so all the information is on one sheet per squad... very clunky playing with all those cards. Tempting to just put a die on the pods for MD tracking since they are only 5 pts. I like putting the missile pods attached to the scout squad for better to hit.

I suspect Robotech having a rule-base we play seriously like 40k, X-wing or Warmachine is not looking likely.
I think it will get "corrected" by the fan-base and they can supply the models and we will happily ignore the rest.

I fully plan to host at a game convention in my area next year and say with a "modified" ruleset.

 Talizvar wrote:


Yep, REALLY hate their cards for game use, I will be hacking out my own so all the information is on one sheet per squad... very clunky playing with all those cards.

FWIW, when someone (mike?) posted that laminator 70% off on amazon last year, I picked it up specifically for robotech. I took the cards that I thought I was likely to use for a squad and copy/printed them in color from my printer (both front and back on the same printer paper sheet) which I then laminated. It seems to work theoretically (at least from the perspective of someone yet to *actually* play so YMMV). It's the only thing I've actually done so far with Robotech.

 Talizvar wrote:
I am looking forward to the "Super" and "Armored" versions of the Valks.
It just occurred to me now: when the armored version "blow" their upgrade off they will not have any of the "standard" missile armament... which if being WYSIWYG I would have to model some without the missiles on the wings <sigh>.

The Armored start out like a Destroid, then convert to a basic Valk when their armor is no good, so yeah, you'd be looking at some Gerwalks / Fighters without missiles - good thing the basic pledge gives you so many Valks...

Things are not looking good for this game. I was browsing at my LGS, and I found Robotech RPG Tactics taking the space formerly occupied by Mercs (not much space at all). Considering that Mercs has basically al but died, and this took its place on the shelf, I'm not very optimistic of it catching on.

 Alpharius wrote:
Are there tanks and infantry in the game at all 'officially'?

During the KS they said they didn't have the rights to include tanks, APCs, fighters etc. Only 'mecha'.

Which is why they can't have unmasked characters either.

Who the @#$% negociated that deal...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Are there tanks and infantry in the game at all 'officially'?

During the KS they said they didn't have the rights to include tanks, APCs, fighters etc. Only 'mecha'.
Which is why they can't have unmasked characters either.
Who the @#$% negociated that deal...

The really painful question: is it Palladium Books that fluffed the terms or Harmony Gold that has garbage terms in their copyright?
We may never know.

Sining wrote:
I could do with more accountability in KS myself. In general, I find myself being more turned off from most KS and only going with established names like CMON or Mantic or people I know who have gotten KSes out.

* Use a credit card.
* Know the business history of the creator *and* any parties associated with the project (eg. licensors).
* Nothing wrong with buying only from established names. That's how retail works.
* Avoid backing a company's first KS, tempting as it may be.
* Spend less money on riskier projects.

I dunno about insurance, but eBay does it. But who will pay these insurance fees? If backers won't, will it mean higher KS fees for creators?

We already have consumer protection laws, yet the best protection is a credit card dispute. Any legislation protecting the consumer after funds have been collected will take a long time to get refunds from a party which may have no funds.

ced1106 wrote:

Sining wrote:

I dunno about insurance, but eBay does it. But who will pay these insurance fees? If backers won't, will it mean higher KS fees for creators?

I suspect that would be the only viable method. You force creators to take mandatory KS insurance by charging a higher rate and paying for it with that. If they fail to deliver, each dollar pledged is theoretically covered. Obviously pledge manager added funds wouldn't be.

ced1106 wrote:
* Use a credit card.

* Know the business history of the creator *and* any parties associated with the project (eg. licensors).
* Nothing wrong with buying only from established names. That's how retail works.
* Avoid backing a company's first KS, tempting as it may be.

* Spend less money on riskier projects.

The first one is a bit dubious - after the first X months, a year, you move out of chargeback protection, right? That said, I only back with my AmEx card, as they have the best service in the industry.

The next 3 are solid, from a Go/No-Go standpoint. Do some homework to decide if this is a *company* that should get your first dollar at all, to say nothing of $100, $100s or $1,000s. I'd add "Avoid backing any company out of country." - if TSHTF, going international makes it that much worse.

I strongly recommend to cap spending at the $100-$125 level for "risky" projects. You don't tie up as much cash, and if they deliver, you get the biggest bang for your buck. If it's good, you can always get the rest on discount when it eventually goes retail. The only real question is exclusives, whether paying base retail + shipping is worth the exclusives you'd get.

Kickstarters are probably like loaning money to a friend:

1) Never loan so much that you will hate them if they do not pay it back (Do they have many products you like?).
2) Never loan out more than you are willing (can survive without) to lose (comfort levels may vary).
3) It is easier / safer to loan-out if it appears they are not in dire need of the money (has many assets, just short on liquidity).
4) Is there more than one friend/partner involved? If so, give it a pass, expediential likelihood of failure if any person exits the commitment.
5) Do they have a plan that makes sense to pay you back or are they saying whatever it takes to get the money?
6) Are you willing to see that product (friend) not see the light of day again if you do not help out? Will it bother you if you had not tried?

Best list I figure.