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For my mental health I should really stop reading PB's KS updates and the subsequent comments/rants but for the life is of me I can't. It's like driving by the scene of a horrific car crash and I can't help but stare.

Wait.

Paulson's making 6mm-scale minis now? That's not the same 15mm-scale mecha?

Tell me more.

 paulson games wrote:

 Salacious Greed wrote:
And they don't want to lie to a future customer.

Citation needed You're acting like they are trying to maintain some sort of moral high ground, they certainly didn't have many problems adjusting truth to fit their needs before and during the KS launch so I see no reason they'd suddenly start being upfront with people now.

No citation. Merely the average squemish human being's inability to lie in the face of another person. I don't know PB personally, so can't vouch for whether they are officially soulless or not. Merely being facetous and snarky. I am fully prepared to serve my internet penitence for being called out on PB being actual human beings...

On a side note, ND published a picture of GAMA, and they're pimping both Relic Knights and Anima Tactics while ignoring their SDE KS. SDE has a ton of followers, as they've blown past 2k backers, even though every other SG is a paid add-on. Never seen so many people so ready to hand over money to such a shady company. I'm boggled by it, as I just see SPM/ND holding their hand out for more money with every other SG. I hope their new rules are better than the old ones, as I couldn't play the game more than once...

ND is putting up pics of them at the gama trade show. I've posted in a few of their FB updates but I never get a response. I'm not rude only polite. Maybe if we all post on their latest FB post where their at the show it might get a response. Let's just do it politely.

Reposted from Game Classy:

Boom
From the announcement:

Soda Pop Miniatures and CoolMiniOrNot announce the ending of the publishing relationship of Soda Pop Miniatures titles Super Dungeon Explore™ and Relic Knights™.

“We are happy with the cooperative effort with CoolMiniOrNot over the past 3 years as publishers of our titles Super Dungeon Explore™ and Relic Knights™”, said John Cadice, Creative Director of Ninja Division*. “We are now looking forward to self-publishing these titles and bringing great games to our fans everywhere!”

“As agreed with Soda Pop Miniatures, we will finish fulfilling all existing orders on these titles including those on the Relic Knights Kickstarter, and transfer full control and inventory to Soda Pop Miniatures in an orderly fashion in the coming weeks,” added Chern Ann Ng, Director at CoolMiniOrNot. “The team at CoolMiniOrNot has greatly enjoyed publishing these excellent titles. We wish Soda Pop Miniatures and Ninja Division all the best on their future plans.”

Please direct product inquiries for Super Dungeon Explore™ and Relic Knights™ to sales@ninjadivision.com.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Wait.

Paulson's making 6mm-scale minis now? That's not the same 15mm-scale mecha?

Tell me more.

Check the news and rumors thread

Soda Pop are promoting SDE at Gamma and have been posting about it on facebook but via the soda pop page as it's not a Ninja division product

Ok I posted on ND's FB page. Looks like I'm not the only one concerned.

Oh, because this is 'kind of new', here's a snippet from a comment from PB during the free for all going on;

We're sorry about the delay in delivering the rewards for this project, but it is coming, and soon. There is no question about whether we will deliver. If something were to happen that would cause us to be unable to deliver, we would, of course, offer refunds as Kickstarter's terms dictate. But that is not the case here; not even close. We'll deliver as promised, as soon as we can. Wave One will deliver in June or July, as we've said before. Wave Two by the end of the year, hopefully well before.

So, I'm gonna stop you right there. "June/July" isn't what you've "always said". The last update was "June, maybe May". So that's back a month.

Second, "wave 2 by the end of the year" strikes me as gradually walking that goalpost back from "october", which was rather definitive before.

And hilarious, now that I think about it. By the time they get home from Gencon and recuperate from whatever con crud they've picked up and passed onto the warehouse crew, that's a mere 2 to 2.5 months after a time sucking black hole to wrap up at least 16 more molds. Even "end of the year" puts that at 4.5 months.

Seems awfully optimistic.

Let's just say that all snarky saccharine "I'm suuuure they'll make their taaaaarget!" is fading away to expect the next target to be September. Y'know, once the insanity of Gencon has died down.

... and they've wrapped up counting all the money from their next con exclusives and wave one.

Out of curiosity, is anyone else *NOT* seeing any trolling other than by the Palladium mod who keeps posting warnings in a very civil thread (at least now that Akashic has returned down under his bridge)? I used to say that the moderation on the Palladium boards was very moderate (pun intended) compared to the aggressiveness of various posters but frankly that has not been true for a few months. NMI keeps jumping in and handing out warnings for things that don't frankly seem to deserve them (like valid factual easily proven criticism).

Oh, that is inventive.

Nobody reads anything in the RRT subforum.

So move the contentious thread to the RRT subforum.

It is kind of a ghetto with the last post prior to this kerfuffle with the crappy looking minis almost a full month prior. That should be a gauge of how much interest there is at this point beyond the palladium diehards. If they want to follow up the $1.4 mill KS with catering to the dozen regular Robotech posters then so be it... come out with the 1994 quality minis.

 warboss wrote:
Out of curiosity, is anyone else *NOT* seeing any trolling other than by the Palladium mod who keeps posting warnings in a very civil thread (at least now that Akashic has returned down under his bridge)? I used to say that the moderation on the Palladium boards was very moderate (pun intended) compared to the aggressiveness of various posters but frankly that has not been true for a few months. NMI keeps jumping in and handing out warnings for things that don't frankly seem to deserve them (like valid factual easily proven criticism).

I just got a private message from that douch warning me not to troll. Twice he modified my post. I notice he does come to defend akashic and hand out warnings to everyone else. I know there's a don't buy from Liam group on FB. Maybe they should add NMI.lol

Actually, when he started trolling the thread I tried finding the Facebook page and it has been deleted.

I just read that palladium thread. WTF?

NMI's reaction to people in that forum now has me thinking that Palladium Books might have crossed the threshold into some kind of Heaven's Gate cult level of fanaticism.

 Swabby wrote:
I just read that palladium thread. WTF?

NMI's reaction to people in that forum now has me thinking that Palladium Books might have crossed the threshold into some kind of Heaven's Gate cult level of fanaticism.

That's what I'm seeing too. I don't know if I'm going to support the next two eras. I have my macross books and lots of pieces I mean "miniatures" coming my way. The company and some of the fans and associates have turned me off from PB. Honestly if this project drowns PB and they have to close their doors I won't shed a tear. Even GW never engendered such negative emotion from me.

Joyboozer wrote:

 Cypher-xv wrote:
I think the person who made this design is buddies with some bigwig at ND. I don't think this person has played any tabletop game ever. How in the $%#& could such a piss poor model with limited poses be shown to us and be told the paint will cover up the imperfections.

ND only get paid for their work, the actual cost of production is paid by Palladium. The original sculpts were rejected based on production costs and were redesigned under instructions from Palladium to be able to be done much cheaper.

source? [citation needed]


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cypher-xv wrote:

 Swabby wrote:
I just read that palladium thread. WTF?

NMI's reaction to people in that forum now has me thinking that Palladium Books might have crossed the threshold into some kind of Heaven's Gate cult level of fanaticism.

That's what I'm seeing too. I don't know if I'm going to support the next two eras. I have my macross books and lots of pieces I mean "miniatures" coming my way. The company and some of the fans and associates have turned me off from PB. Honestly if this project drowns PB and they have to close their doors I won't shed a tear. Even GW never engendered such negative emotion from me.

With the utmost of respect to you, earned largely through this thread of awesome in the last (how long has it been? 5 or so years now, right?) years, you're fething insane if you support the next clusterfeth of a kickstarter from these bull gaking arseclowns.

I was actually having similar thoughts as I was catching up on the last 5 or so pages. I wonder if this KS might bring PB down, and would it, in a sense, be worth my several hundred bucks if it were to happen?

I probably would never ever ever ever back another KS from Palladium. Planets would have to get into some super magical COSMIC alignment before that would happen again.

Thankfully I'm only in for 1 battlecry

Sining wrote:
I probably would never ever ever ever back another KS from Palladium. Planets would have to get into some super magical COSMIC alignment before that would happen again.

Thankfully I'm only in for 1 battlecry

Oh, how I wish that were so. Even a showdown, and I'd be "Meh, lesson learned".

I got drunk on the fumes of the Kickstarter, and living in Aus, figured getting boxes in anticipation of other people wanting them, went double Reckless (with addons).

You know what they say about payback? Regret's a bigger B.

 Cypher-xv wrote:
That's what I'm seeing too. I don't know if I'm going to support the next two eras. I have my macross books and lots of pieces I mean "miniatures" coming my way. The company and some of the fans and associates have turned me off from PB. Honestly if this project drowns PB and they have to close their doors I won't shed a tear. Even GW never engendered such negative emotion from me.

This!
I really am impatient to get the backer kits and all my stuff so I have no reason to deal with these clowns ever again.
Even professionally they hurt to look at, if they were a supplier I had to manage I would recommend resourcing and drop them even before finding a new supplier.
They really are that bad.

It'll be a cold day in Hell before I back another PB Kickstarter.

Hey guys, want to hear something cheery I just thought of?

That wave two at "the end of the year" (let's be real, probably 2015)?

... might hit Chinese New Year again.

Yes, the "might" here is both sarcastic and blindingly naive. Just sharing a little Thursday morning facepalm!

 Azazelx wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

 Cypher-xv wrote:
I think the person who made this design is buddies with some bigwig at ND. I don't think this person has played any tabletop game ever. How in the $%#& could such a piss poor model with limited poses be shown to us and be told the paint will cover up the imperfections.

ND only get paid for their work, the actual cost of production is paid by Palladium. The original sculpts were rejected based on production costs and were redesigned under instructions from Palladium to be able to be done much cheaper.

source? [citation needed]


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cypher-xv wrote:

 Swabby wrote:
I just read that palladium thread. WTF?

NMI's reaction to people in that forum now has me thinking that Palladium Books might have crossed the threshold into some kind of Heaven's Gate cult level of fanaticism.

That's what I'm seeing too. I don't know if I'm going to support the next two eras. I have my macross books and lots of pieces I mean "miniatures" coming my way. The company and some of the fans and associates have turned me off from PB. Honestly if this project drowns PB and they have to close their doors I won't shed a tear. Even GW never engendered such negative emotion from me.

With the utmost of respect to you, earned largely through this thread of awesome in the last (how long has it been? 5 or so years now, right?) years, you're fething insane if you support the next clusterfeth of a kickstarter from these bull gaking arseclowns.

I was actually having similar thoughts as I was catching up on the last 5 or so pages. I wonder if this KS might bring PB down, and would it, in a sense, be worth my several hundred bucks if it were to happen?

God the fandom is what's driving me away. Will I ever support PB or ND? Maybe not, but I don't like to say never. After all I've seen the same with some 40k fans.

For the next update it will be Kevin blaming GW for making some of the best miniatures in the world and that because of GW we are at fault for having such high expectations.

Good point; it rarely pays to deal in absolutes. If I ever did back a PB Kickstarter for the later generations (mighty big IF) I can say it wouldn't be as large of an investment as I have in the current one.

Personally, I just plain want my money back at this point. I'd rather invest in a game that already exists and keeps to a regular release schedule (such as Infinity) than wait forever for this. Not only am I out of luck on the money and time fronts (this was supposed to be a Christmas gift from my wife) but the local interest in the game is pretty much dead too. Not that I'd want to promote this game any more any way. Yeah, I'm butthurt here.

Each and every "update" that PB puts out only serves to demonstrate that they will not be able to deliver on time. Ooh! A render you're revising! Wow! A pre-production mini! None of these things are convincing me that they are getting any closer to the final product. There are no sprues of parts to show off. There is no printing of the rulebook to tease us with. Their last update before the pictures of the billion-part mecha was a blast marker? Pathetic.

This is made even worse by their claims during the KS that everything was just awaiting approval from Harmony Gold. After that, straight to China for production! Well, turns out that that claim was just a big a pile of bull .

Angryrant over. Who wants to take bets on which of the KS projects I backed will deliver first? Robotech or DreadBall Xtreme?

@Etna, feel the same with regards money back. All enthusiasm gone, and frankly skepticism I'll make my money back on the secondary market. Being in Aus makes shipping problematic, and a national population of under 30Mil means it won't take many others dumping stock to glut the market.

As for RRT vs Dreadball, deliver first? If to completion, I'd wager significantly on Dreadball. To first send, I'd still put the odds in Mantic's court, but I wouldn't bet the farm.

Another plea for change and transperancy has gone up. Better check it out soon cause its a matter of time befor this gets shut down.

http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=142732&p=2771461#p2771461

I'm curious as to how many folks would be interested in a refund if they could get it. Maybe collectively we could raise enough of a stink to get our money back.

 jacobus wrote:
I'm curious as to how many folks would be interested in a refund if they could get it. Maybe collectively we could raise enough of a stink to get our money back.

Count me in.

Would you take 90%, which I've seen offered by other campaigns?

While I'm not at that point yet, it does make me appreciate moreso those campaigns that have gone as far as offering to make things right for backers with such significant desire to abandon the project, cut their losses and run.

This is from the same guy that started the I love PB business practice. Talk about a 180.


I'm a new player to Palladium but I've played a lot of systems and I came back to you guys 15 years later because of your content. I've got to say though, its been hard getting the system. If you are looking to make this a game that is easier for new players to adapt to without needing to change the rules I hope that this helps, I've given it a lot of consideration.

Rules:
I can't say honestly. I havent play tested enough to know how things are handled but a "MDC attacks to SDC creatures incapacitate them or leave them in dire need of cybernetics pending death instead of just INSTANTLY killing them" might be a good idea to make the game look a little more appealing. I know I'm not fond of my character being instantly killed because of an ugly situation or another player carelessly lobbing around MDC grenades.

Organization:
You won't like hearing this but this is where Palladium falls down (Rifts at least), you have all this AWESOME mindblowing content and then this really intimidating format. Here are a few things that will make games run faster and character creation less of a choir.

1. Equipment/Weapons/Armor tables. (I'll even do them up for you no charge if you just give me the information)
One table for weapons, another for armor, another for miscellaneous equipment; make sure the player can see the price, the category (ie: Heavy Energy Weapon), the damage, etc.
2. Layout.
2.a: I feel like you could just include the "Quick Reference" in the index and save yourself a little room.
2.b: Following your opening page throw in a lexicon; I should know what a D-BEE is before page 273 (or whatever it was). I had no idea what I was reading about a lot of the time when I first started reading the setting information.
2.c: Character creation cheat sheet. You see these as a trademark of White-Wolf books and they're a godsend for teaching new players. This is a simple one page summery that will help players "make the character" they're thinking off without needing to sift through pages and pages of information. For most players its enough to know Principled means "A selfless person who lives by a strict moral code," and Scrupulous means "A person with a good heart who doesn't play by the rules." And the same is doubly true for O.C.C's. Borg: A full conversion cyborg and Shifter: A Mage who uses their power to control rifts and summon monsters is way easier to pick between than four pages of information. Its also a really easy way to have SDC and HP and PPE and everything else all in one place in an EASY to understand way that is intuitive.
2.d: Open EXACTLY as you have, with what a role playing game is, that's beautifully written, then write a few pages on the setting, then put the character creation rules first, then continue with the REST of the setting information. A new player can read your write up about what "Rifts is" and think "oh thats so awesome!!! I'm going to play a Native American who worships a trickster spirit!" and then later he's going to be concerned with exactly what tribe he or she is in. So the location write ups are more like a bonus sugar on top for storytellers and more experienced players to be able to say to the new guy "You know what, that sounds like X" to me... and then flip through too that page. Having to flip past it on the way to "your character" again, is a bit intimidating and makes the player feel like "Do I have to know all of this?!?"
3. Classify, Classify, Classify; You have all these awesome technical terms that make RPing great but I spent an hour and a half going back and forth trying to find out what is considered "light armor" and I'm not going to lie. It sucked. Simply having "requires: Jet Packs" somewhere in the stats really helps new guys know "Oh I need a jet pack proficiency" or "These might be BIG but they're still clearly power armor." I think this is where Palladium falls down, people have a huge list of reasons that other games are better but honestly I think if more players could just pick it up and GO than it wouldnt be so intimidating.
4. Base R.C.C's; give humans an official R.C.C entry in the corebook and maybe add in a couple of extra low power non MDC R.C.C's that can select O.C.C's, even if they're just flavor text. It might not seem important but again, it would just make things less confusing and its a nice stepping stone into just how vast Rifts is.
5. New Composition Books; this is probably going to be the most controversial suggestion yet but I am trying to be honest with you guys because I know what a great company you are and I am sure that this will be howled at by the roar of devoted fans but... Release a book that compiled (at least a lot) of cool new O.C.C's, thats all it has to do. Maybe you could do what The Star Wars Saga edition did and release a book for each Category of OCC. Its just you guys have SO much awesome content and I have 25 books sitting here and I'll be honest... its a mess. I cant remember where each thing is half the time, I have to go back and forth. There is just so much and its all over the place! The same can be said for equipment, especially power armor and giant robots.

It would be nice to have a single book that had a kickass picture of a sample OCC and the write up, with each entry ending with something like:

Quote:
"Titan Juicers" are popular with X's (R.C.C) see Rifts Book X, for more information Titan Juicers and Juicer culture see Rifts book X.


That way dedicated players can have his rules (and they're easy to locate) and then when he finds his "hit" character (a lot of times we have hit and miss characters) they (PC or Storyteller) can track down Rifts book X and read all about the setting and the kind of things he needs to know about that kind of character so he can incorporate it into his game.

The same is true about power armor, giant robots, we already kind of see this with a couple of the Magic books youve already released... and since most of it is just copy and pasting and minor edits it couldnt be that expensive and that much right? I honestly, have no idea so forgive the ignorance if it is.

I know that a lot of old players who paid for the books are going to HATE this idea because they've already spent so much money on what they have but from a "realist" point of view people are only playing pen and paper because of the customization that they have for their characters and what they can do and RCC's and OCC's are were a lot of those ideas come from for a lot of players and honestly, what is easier to bring to a game session two books or seven? I am pretty sure most of us would happily buy them just as reference ideas and heck maybe you could even throw in two new "items of interest" be they OCC's, RCC's, vehicles, power armor or bots in each book? That alone would...

Well you get the idea.

I hope that these ideas will help Palladium go into the future and reach newer younger players. Right now the biggest problem Palladium has is the layout and the fact that it has SO many "inspiring" things scattered through so many different places that most of it will probably never actually be used. (Which is a real shame.)