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Hello,
Well this one has been the works for a while and Kevin just announced it will be coming in March. What do you think?
http://www.palladiumbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=649%3Apalladium-booksr-weekly-update-february-21-2013&catid=52%3Aweekly-updates&Itemid=183

Regards,
Carl

I will definitely not be suporting this based on the extra special crappy move pulled by Palladium.

And I will actively encourage others not to for the same reason.

~Eric

 Taarnak wrote:
I will definitely not be suporting this based on the extra special crappy move pulled by Palladium.

And I will actively encourage others not to for the same reason.

~Eric

Seconded.


I would have dumped a dumptruck of money on this if it wasn't for what Palladium did.

Do tell!

 judgedoug wrote:
Do tell!

Apparently it is a secret. You should just outraged without any further explanation.

Someone better tell, because i've been a huge Robotech fan for 25 years; I am scheduling a dump truck to come to my house in a month and take all my money and drive to this Kickstarter and dump it all over it.

Don't question the internet.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/463682.page#4551657

TLDR, Paulson was talking with Harmony Gold about making Robotech minis, made some fantastic sculpts. Palladium cock-blocked him.

I guess my question would be if you own the licence and have paid for it, then is it really c**K blocking, or enforcing your licence?

Regards,
Carl
I should note that Paulson did not pay for the licence, Palladium did.

 Ghiest1 wrote:
I guess my question would be if you own the licence and have paid for it, then is it really c**K blocking, or enforcing your licence?

Regards,
Carl
I should note that Paulson did not pay for the licence, Palladium did.

Miss the part where he was working with Harmony Gold?

 Ghiest1 wrote:
Hello,
Well this one has been the works for a while and Kevin just announced it will be coming in March. What do you think?
http://www.palladiumbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=649%3Apalladium-booksr-weekly-update-february-21-2013&catid=52%3Aweekly-updates&Itemid=183

Regards,
Carl

What do I think? I think that Palladium should have worked on the two books (NGR 1 & 2) they said were almost done and weeks away that they sold via their amateur wannabe kickstarter early last summer instead of coming out with other ones over the past 8 months. I have faith in Soda Pop to make nice minis but none in Palladium. It all depends on who is offering up the kickstarter and what benefits they'll have. Palladium's homemade crowdfunding had ZERO benefits for the consumer (no goals, no add ons, nothing beyond an apparently long term "preorder") so I'll wait to see what this one offers up. I really like robotech and hope that Soda Pop and the new guy do well by it but that will depend on the details and likely how much input Palladium has for the worse....

Yeah that sucks for Paulson, but if I started making renders of Tau Fire Warriors at 1/35 scale, I would totally understand if I couldn't release them.

I will of course delay the money drump truck until I see renders or sculpts first. I could honestly care less about the rules (but if they're great, then yay).

Ninja/Sodapop/Cipher doing the design only bodes well. Kevin S basically points out "hey I do RPGs and RPGs alone" so it looks like he's just handed the project off to more capable people. I'm fine with that.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 Ghiest1 wrote:
I guess my question would be if you own the licence and have paid for it, then is it really c**K blocking, or enforcing your licence?

Regards,
Carl
I should note that Paulson did not pay for the licence, Palladium did.

Miss the part where he was working with Harmony Gold?

That is the same as owning the license to make miniatures? If I go talk to Dan Abnett can I make my own Space Marine miniatures and market them as such? IF HG doesn't own the rights to the minis it doesn't matter how long they talk, does it? They may have been dicks about it, but as the owners of the license they are within their rights to keep someone from using that license to compete against them.

Palladium has long since had the licence, as I have the books from the early 90s. So was Harmony Gold remiss in making it's licence agreement? I am not sure of course who wrote it, and while he was making them with Harmony Gold's permission, they may have not actually been able by their agreement with Palladium to give that permission. As I stated I do not know what exactly the licence holds, but Palladium has been mentioning this on their forums in the past and it has ramped up in the last year or so. Personally I play their RPGS. Not really a fan of the Robotech RPG however.

 Cyporiean wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/463682.page#4551657

TLDR, Paulson was talking with Harmony Gold about making Robotech minis, made some fantastic sculpts. Palladium cock-blocked him.

Yep, count me out as well for the same reason.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 Ghiest1 wrote:
I guess my question would be if you own the licence and have paid for it, then is it really c**K blocking, or enforcing your licence?

Regards,
Carl
I should note that Paulson did not pay for the licence, Palladium did.

Miss the part where he was working with Harmony Gold?

Aw. I feel bad for Paulson Games. However, they took a shot and missed; It happens all the time. Palladium has the gaming rights for Robotech here in the States and they protected their investment, AND have are launching a product to fill the niche that Paulson found. Perhaps it was a bit Douche-like to let Paulson Games do all the leg-work to generate the feedback, but in the end, if I get good looking miniatures, and a decent game out if it, I'm happy. I'm behind this Kickstarter 100%

Agreed, I absolutely LOVE paulson games' stuff, but I think people are making more of this than there is (many times when things have to be alluded to rather than directly said as facts, I feel this can be the case).

Anyway, I'll be interested in hearing developments about the KS, although I doubt I'll be in for it... but sexy robot models have a way of changing my mind

I'm not really too worked up over the Paulson issue, but I will never support a Palladium product because Palladium has never published a quality ruleset. They make GW look professional by comparison (and that's saying something!)
When half of your core products are just photocopies of your other core products, when half your core rules are just rants by the rules writer about how he knows more about how these things work than other people, that should normally be a warning sign.

Besides, knowing Simbeida he's likely to grab a random concept sketch somewhere he doesn't understand and then make up an entirely new faction that in no way fits the story material at all based on what he thinks it is.

I'll be a purely emotional customer. I like Paulson Games. And from what I've heard on podcasts, Palladium are bad at management and game mechanics.

So I won't buy from them. Cuz I like Paulson Games.

And Cyporiean (really, that many vowels?) is always right.

I just think people need to put away the knives. It's fine to not support it. But while we gave Mierce Miniatures, for example, a good drubbing on here because of their shady history, eventually the thread had to move on to the slightly more on-topic discussion of what the kickstarter currently was about.

JOHIRA's post is an excellent warning, though, and that in particular would sway me to stay away from this more than their protecting their license.

Disliking Palladium for their cluncky rulesets makes a lot more sense then being mad at them for protecting their license.

Having read and played Rifts, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Robotech, I can't imagine they will break the streak and have an elegant, well crafted system this time around, so I can't say I am looking forward to the rules. I am looking forward to the miniatures, if they are well sculpted.

Going through the material on the link this point seems to be the most worrying one

3. The success of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ could be huge for Palladium Books as a company. A successful launch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is the final piece of the puzzle to make Palladium Books® strong again. A successful launch will enable us to eliminate debt and give Palladium the resources to hire more staff and more freelance talent and do so much more for ALL our game lines. I already have a dream team of creators lined up to bring on board. They can hardly wait. The excitement is electric.

Now the big question is how big is the debt, who holds it and what happens if the debt is called in ?

if the KS just funds the bank (or whoever owns the debt) might decide a bunch of cash in hand beats regular interest payments and call it in. Then palladium would a KS to produce with little or no free cash and have to go looking for a new investor to complete the project

I wasn't aware Palladium was still in business. I think I might know one person who owns their stuff.

It went a bit further than that, as I recall. Paulson had some (awesome) minis made, started developing a ruleset and doing promotion for the game. Harmony Gold was into it, but as a result of their (poorly though out, IMO) licensing agreement with Palladium, they couldn't give the go ahead.

So, Palladium tells Paulson no, and then lo and behold: A Robotech miniatures game! A totally original, just thought it up in his bathroom idea by Kevin Siembieda TM.

To top it all off, they then told Paulson to take a hike and started soliciting budget sculptors

Basically they let the guy do all the groundwork and market research and then told him to f-off.

Couple that with the absolutely shoddy production values of their products, and Mr. Siembieda's general bad reputation, I'll pass.

~Eric

 RiTides wrote:
I just think people need to put away the knives. It's fine to not support it. But while we gave Mierce Miniatures, for example, a good drubbing on here because of their shady history, eventually the thread had to move on to the slightly more on-topic discussion of what the kickstarter currently was about.

JOHIRA's post is an excellent warning, though, and that in particular would sway me to stay away from this more than their protecting their license.

I'd personally consider their selling of two homemade crowdfunding offers on their site last year that were supposed to be released last summer to be a bit more appropriate warning to potential consumers. They've chosen to work on and release other books that they didn't have paid in advance in the intervening roughly 8 months since the original release date. Even now the two NGR crowdfunded books from early last summer still aren't next on the production block. If Palladium is in charge of this official kickstarter instead of Soda Pop or this newly created for this reason Ninja company, I don't have much faith that they won't do the same thing again. If the past 20 years has taught me anything about RPGs it's that Palladium doesn't learn from their own lessons.

Palladium have pulled too many gak moves in the past and squandered community goodwill twords them. The paulson thing was Icing on the cake compaired to some of the past, almost legendary Siembieda arrogance and attitude in the past. All in all he's a polorizing figure as the holder of this game company.

Not to mention that every shop that you go into has more then thier fair share of Palladium books/ stuff. The reason is that the stuff is not compatable and consistant, then when someone tries to fix it, they get bounced for it. The game background is great, but it takes honest effort to really LIKE the game and deal with the crazy mechanics.

The point of fact is that not a lot of people like the cut of Siembieda's jib. I could go on about "What they say..." but its all water under the bridge at this point.

(The real question to ask him is to ask how that movie is coming along.... )

Then the almost "movie-like" quality of thier "Espionage/ theft" from some so-called "former employee", the negative way in which former contributers and writers have described as being treated, and the way in which he generally has been said to act.



If you think people have a hate on for GW, you don't know hate until you hear from some of the masses on this one. It isn't just one thing, either, there usually is a combination of issues that end up peeing on peoples shoes about Palladium...

Caveat Emptor

 Taarnak wrote:
It went a bit further than that, as I recall. Paulson had some (awesome) minis made, started developing a ruleset and doing promotion for the game. Harmony Gold was into it, but as a result of their (poorly though out, IMO) licensing agreement with Palladium, they couldn't give the go ahead.

IT still seems like people should be upset at Harmony Gold for leading Paulson along, and Paulson's lawyer should have done his due diligence to ensure the license was available before putting that much work into it.

 Taarnak wrote:
So, Palladium tells Paulson no, and then lo and behold: A Robotech miniatures game! A totally original, just thought it up in his bathroom idea by Kevin Siembieda TM.

Because no one has ever made a miniatures based mech game before? So should we ignore the (interesting looking) new mech game from Paulson because Battletech and Heavy Gear already exist? What a rip off artist this Paulson is!

 Taarnak wrote:
Basically they let the guy do all the groundwork and market research and then told him to f-off.

Actually, Paulson did all the groundwork and market research on a license he didn't own.

 Taarnak wrote:
Basically they let the guy do all the groundwork and market research and then told him to f-off.

Except that (apparently) he didn't do his job right and make an agreement with the people who actually had the license that he needed. I don't see anything about Palladium misleading him with false promises of a deal if he did that work, they just didn't want to deal with him. The fact that someone spends a bunch of effort making something based on your IP doesn't mean you're obligated to buy their work, and you have only yourself to blame if you invest a lot of effort in a project based on someone else's IP without dealing with all the licensing details first.

 judgedoug wrote:
Yeah that sucks for Paulson, but if I started making renders of Tau Fire Warriors at 1/35 scale, I would totally understand if I couldn't release them.

I will of course delay the money drump truck until I see renders or sculpts first. I could honestly care less about the rules (but if they're great, then yay).

Ninja/Sodapop/Cipher doing the design only bodes well. Kevin S basically points out "hey I do RPGs and RPGs alone" so it looks like he's just handed the project off to more capable people. I'm fine with that.

I would love to have a dumptruck of my own sent over to exchange cash for stuff from this game. Just can't do that in good conscience.

It isn't a case of Palladium protecting their license though. Or, not only that. Paulson went to Harmony Gold who own the IP (for the US anyway; messy situation...) in good faith to see about obtaining a license to produce a miniatures game. See my post above for the rest.

Also, I wouldn't trust ol' Kevin to keep his mitts off of this at all. Too many horror stories from freelancers whose work he entirely re-wrote for me to believe that.

~Eric

Edit:
Palladium does NOT own the Robotech IP. They have an incredibly (too) broad license for it in the US, that is all. See above for why Paulson is NOT an idiot or incompetent.

 Taarnak wrote:
Paulson went to Harmony Gold who own the IP (for the US anyway; messy situation...) in good faith to see about obtaining a license to produce a miniatures game.

So how is it Palladium's fault that he went to the wrong people to try to negotiate a deal for the license he needed?