Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Out of curiosity, how do people think Palladium want people to approach them with recommended Cons?

Lets set aside what this tells us about the PB / ND relationship.

Can't really be the KS comments as we're pretty sure they don't read them (and I asked about Adepticon there several times). Can't really be contacting the KS creator as I *also* did that several times (ironically asking about Adepticon) with zero response and no show at Adepticon.

And I can't find a contact us email on Palladium's page.

That would leave... snail mail, phone and perhaps their forums (snark: can see NMI canning posts suggesting Cons that PB go to as being 'disrespectful')?

I might give them a call on Monday just to find out.

They don't really follow the forums either. NMI will claim he's passing information along, but we've had that done for some questions and a month later still don't have a response.

There's also the ever so useful Palladium Help Desk Ticket! It's like an email, but several times more obnoxious to set up!

Yes. Without exaggeration or hyperbole, calling them remains one of the best ways to get in touch, and one of the least efficient ways of connecting with 5,342 backers.

Like, what on earth would they do if even a small fraction of their backers decided to call them? Just 1%. 52+ people ringing them up across the day would mean whomever answers the phone probably isn't doing anything else all day.

 Forar wrote:

52+ people ringing them up across the day would mean whomever answers the phone probably isn't doing anything else all day.

Just think of all the facebook farms that will lay fallow with pigs running rampant across them unhindered by birds! Oh, the humanity! I'm sorry but I actually have worked the hours they talk about working supposedly for years and you get alot done. They have nothing meaningful tk show for all those worked weekends and late nights except a 95% failure rate on 2013 RPG book and minis projects. If they are spending that much time there with so little product to show, they're just wasting their time doing things other than tabletop games production.

Not only that, but as I think I've mentioned (here? Perhaps somewhere else), we've seen in the tech/video game industry and others that "raw hours worked" does not equate quality results. There are diminishing returns where after so many hours working at something, eventually not only do you see lesser results for your efforts, but mistakes are more likely to both be made and missed, meaning after a certain point some of the hours you put in might actually set you back further than if you'd just gone off for a nap instead.

People cannot work 10/12/14/18 hour days for weeks and months on end without running into issues, and frankly, I have doubts most of the PB crew are exactly in the prime of their lives. They need rest, they need to take care of themselves, and they need to have a work/life balance that's realistic, even if they love what they do.

 Forar wrote:
Not only that, but as I think I've mentioned (here? Perhaps somewhere else), we've seen in the tech/video game industry and others that "raw hours worked" does not equate quality results. There are diminishing returns where after so many hours working at something, eventually not only do you see lesser results for your efforts, but mistakes are more likely to both be made and missed, meaning after a certain point some of the hours you put in might actually set you back further than if you'd just gone off for a nap instead.

People cannot work 10/12/14/18 hour days for weeks and months on end without running into issues, and frankly, I have doubts most of the PB crew are exactly in the prime of their lives. They need rest, they need to take care of themselves, and they need to have a work/life balance that's realistic, even if they love what they do.

In a normal life, I agree with you. However, I've been working 14 hour days for the last 6 months. Admittedly, I don't have any of the concerns of regular life though. It is Gym, Work, Sleep, sprinkling in talking to the family between those. But having a social life or family life working 12 hour days 5 or 6 days a week isn't possible. I believe the PB guys work 9-5 and take 2 hour lunches, and either play a lot of FB games or surf the internet. Otherwise, there would be PB products leaking out of PB like diarrhea. Unfortunately, it is only verbal diarrhea that we get from PB, not actual work.

Agreed. I think they consider their 1 hour lunch, 2 hour doctor's appointment, and 1 hour chiropractic session as part of the 7am-7pm work day. They have almost nothing to show for the almost double full time efforts of a half dozen staffers plus numerous freelancers beyond 2 books, 2 minis, and 4 fan fiction complilations for the past year. If they were entirely a "part time" outfit like other smaller starting out RPG companies then that output would be more than acceptable... but for a 30+ year vet of the industry with a multiple full time staff who do nothing else? No... they're wasting a hell of alot of those 80 hour 7 day work weeks.

Oh, I doubt that every single one of those "14 hour days" or whatever they claim to put in so frequently is chalk full of productivity.

It was more a commentary on the fact that it's not an ideal to strive for anyway. Having to put in a few long days to catch up on a project or take care of something time sensitive is one thing, but it's not like "omg I put 200 hours into this" guarantees quality. Just like PB taking 2 years to deliver on this project in full doesn't guarantee quality.

I used to work 12 hour shifts, but that was only 7 days out of every 14, so there was some extra downtime. More like 14 hour days when transit time was included, 18+ if I stuck around for a little overtime, believe me, I know it can be done, but yeah, don't expect to have much of a social life either. Doubly so when swapping from days to nights or vice versa every two weeks. That *sucked*.

Such things should generally be the exception, not the rule. If PB is to be taken at their word (lawl), it's the rule. And honestly, if they really are putting in all these long days, and they are making them productive, then they really should have more to show than a couple of books and less than 1/4 of the figures in test sprue form after a year.

 Salacious Greed wrote:
HOW they collect enough money to pay everyone and keep the lights on is a complete mystery, but they do.

They still have fans, amazingly enough. When they had the big embezzlement mess a few years back, the company quite literally survived due to infusions of cash from the fans to replace the money that had been lost.

However, that was over half a decade ago.

And I wouldn't exactly be willing to put money up on a bet that said fanbase has expanded rather than contracted in the ensuing years.

Not that I'm buying into the theory proposed in a few places that the KS was the only way they managed to pay the bills, but the "robbing Peter to pay Paul" theory isn't entirely without its own merits either.

What was particularly telling about the begging mpney from their fans episode was that they were unwilling to sell shares of Palladium to the fans thereby allowing them to invest in a company they loved and also giving them a say in the running of the company itself (which is why Kevin wouldn't do it IMO. Control freaks don't like giving up control) as that would be akin to selling them swampland as I recall. But they'll take your money accountability free, which is one of the reasons I hold Kevin in contempt. You won't let people make a risky investment in your company, but you'll take their charity? Douche move, IMO.

I think these flashback statements are raising a concern in my head of why I am in such a rush to hear about REAL progress:

I want to see that the expensive "hardware" being the dies done as quickly as possible because I could see PB not being good at budgeting and suddenly finding themselves out of funds and asking for a handout.

Call me crazy or is this a legitimate concern?
It MAY not be for "wave 1" but the extra stuff promised (or add-ons paid for) I could see it happening with a 98% chance.

I really would make a point for a short road trip to look Kevin in the eye and decide at that moment what would be most appropriate to do... a pie in the face may be a start.

I can't imagine they've blown through the funding printing prototypes and making a half dozen molds, but they have noted the expected costs increasing, so it wouldn't surprise me if Wave One was in part a manner of (from their perspective) guaranteeing a revenue stream to help cover any extra costs in Wave Two.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, I just think that some folks in the comments are a bit too gloom and doom with the "omg they're broke, zero money, it's allll goooooooone!", and more a matter of "Wow, like, we're just hemorrhaging cash on this first set, recouping some costs starting this year would probably be a good idea" kind of stance.

But if they feth up that badly Tal, let me know when you're going, I'd gladly look into a road trip of my own to get an uncomfortable discussion or two on film.

If they really are going to make a mid May start of production, I could see them showing off the RDF sprues this week and firing things off next week.

That is, however, a BIG "if" there, before anyone bothers pointing it out. We all know this is a big "sure you're going to start punching plastic... annnny week now, eh? Suuuuuuure." kinda moment, and an announcement otherwise would be the real surprise now.

I have faith that we'll see something of wave 1 delivered from the kickstarter. If the retail release bombs because of the backlash from the bungled post kickstarter campaign, I could theoretically see Wave 2 in jeopardy. I don't think that is the most likely outcome seeing as how I suspect alot of middle aged gamers who didn't find out about the KS in time will see Robotech minis and just buy them out of nostalgia without full knowledge of the drama/shennanigans/douchbagery behind the scenes. If the quality of the minis and/or game are bad then they simply won't follow up on those initial purchases and the game will go the way of the dodo likely before palladium cuts the moulds on wave 2.

As folks have said, if it has taken them this long to get out just the minority of minis for wave 1, we have a LONG wait ahead of us for wave 2. That far off wave is the one that I'm worried about at this point. I do believe palladium will have something to sell via retail of variable quality sometime in about 6 months or so.

You know what would alleviate a lot of my nervousness right now? If they just released a pdf of the rulebook for people to peruse. In a miniature game, not showing the rules off (which I consider advertising for the minis they want to sell) makes me really nervous because awesome rules sell minis, and crappy rules don't. So the only reason NOT to release the rules IMO is that the rules aren't very good.

vitae_drinker wrote:
You know what would alleviate a lot of my nervousness right now? If they just released a pdf of the rulebook for people to peruse. In a miniature game, not showing the rules off (which I consider advertising for the minis they want to sell) makes me really nervous because awesome rules sell minis, and crappy rules don't. So the only reason NOT to release the rules IMO is that the rules aren't very good.

Or even finished?

But, but, but... They were 98% done a year ago! [/sarcasm]

Some pics apparently from this weekend's local convention that Palladium attended.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/14095644265/in/photostream/

The zentraedi stuff doesn't look too bad overall mainly because the seams run lateral to the front view instead of straight down the front facing multiple times like with most of the destroids prototypes and the veritech render we've seen.

I do tend to be the cup half empty guy so I do like it when I am wrong, I just want to see the cash rolled into tooling so they are committed to flogging the product to get further money that way (at least able to bank on their greed).

In regards to rules; Palladium is pretty protective of their IP so they really do not like handing out stuff until it is in a saleable condition (past history shows us that.). Quality remains to be seen, as long as we can get past the 24 hours prior to print rewrite: all would be well.

And even then they don't "hand it out" digitally. Most of the PDFs they offer are of books they don't plan on ever reprinting whether because of poor sales, need for updating (but no willingness to do so), or lack of ability due to stolen prints back in the Crisis of TreacheryTM. Even the recent crowdfunding offerings had the PDFs come out long after the physical copies and in a cumbersome fashion only to those who pledged (and NOT available for normal sale via DTRPG).

In this particular case, HG's greed matches exactly up with Palladium's paranoia about piracy so we won't see the rules digitally before the release (and likely even then afterwards only if someone uploads a fan created pirate copy).

Maybe it's due to being in the rear of the shot but the monster looks a bit undersized. The other destroids can basically stand underneath it's hull in several of the scale charts, in these pics it doesn't even look close to that large. Could be the angle but maybe it's undersized?

 paulson games wrote:
Maybe it's due to being in the rear of the shot but the monster looks a bit undersized. The other destroids can basically stand underneath it's hull in several of the scale charts, in these pics it doesn't even look close to that large. Could be the angle but maybe it's undersized?

Best I can see it looks like the recon pod's lateral antenna lines up with the 4 barrels... let's hope that monster is a half size print.

Re: the rules: they were supposedly going to have a preview/prototype/whatever of the book at Penguicon, which of course doesn't mean they can't make further changes before it goes into mass production, but that seems to give at least plausible deniability.

Re: the MAC II: people were saying the same thing about the figure at Gencon last year, that it seemed a bit undersized, and that the scale might be slightly off for it. Wouldn't surprise me any, and not entirely from the schadenfreude of some of the "scale purists" realizing that there's already compromises being made, though the most 'devout' of that lot seems to have realized just what a pure 6mm scale would mean (read: cyclones you can barely see detail on).

Also, every time I see all those figures lined up, it makes me ponder how much money and time were wasted getting those prototypes made and possibly refined for figures that weren't due out for potentially years (in that obviously work was being done on them back in mid 2013, and many may not even get to molds until 2015). Sure, it's indicative that they thought they might actually deliver the entire line to backers in one swoop, but I sure hope those got back burnered when it became even remotely possible they were about to go to a two wave solution.

Edit: did we mention that a backer claimed to have gotten a refund?

"Robert Nelson
I got a refund I am 90 percent sure
I got credited on my card and it says the dispute is closed
I would dispute the charge. Call your credit card company and include documentation of all their false promises
I also emailed palladium and explained how I didn't have time to assemble so many minis. They didn't get back to me so I filled out the dispute form emailed PB to let them know what I was doing and was emailed back saying they would give my pledge to someone else. I sent the form anyway,"

I know others have mentioned it here as well, just wanted to reinforce that it seems to be possible, and the steps he took to get there.

The fact that they gave him a "well we're going to just give (sell?) it to someone else anyway" line makes me think they might finally be realizing that it's not worth the headache to refuse any and all refunds at this point.

I don't see why they would either. Assuming they haven't bled themselves completely dry (as discussed above), why not just pitch a couple of grand at them and get a bunch of the 'whiners' out of the comments? Surely even they can recognize that the longer it all gets drawn out, the more damage those complaints are going to do. And hell, the "complainers" are also probably more likely to be critical of the end results, so not having them doing "unboxing videos" on Youtube and complaining about the actual pieces is probably in their best interest anyway.

Oooohhh!
Put out an unboxing video!
Fantastic idea.
I could see it going like this:

- Here is what I ordered, here is what I got.

- We appear to be short some sprues in the box, we will call up on that later...

- A bit of warpage, a bit of flash, a bit of short shot: this is be expected at the beginning of the run, I am sure the retail versions will be better than the kickstarter trial boxes...

You know, Forar is right, maybe I should get a refund, it will be better for everybody.

 Forar wrote:
However, that was over half a decade ago.

Given how old the company is, half a decade isn't really all that long ago. It's not as if anything's changed at the company in the last couple of decades. They were doing the same things then that they're doing now, only with less publicity.

 Talizvar wrote:
Oooohhh!
- A bit of warpage, a bit of flash, a bit of short shot: this is be expected at the beginning of the run, I am sure the retail versions will be better than the kickstarter trial boxes...

Dunno... the above is dependent on retail boxes coming out after KS ones which may not be the case. If palladium does finally start firing on more than 1 cylinder, they might get some boxes to sell at Gencon if they airfreight them over for the big event. While I have very little confidence in any of us getting our boxes (unless they ship alphabetically and Forar's last name is Aardvark), they can feasibly get some to show off and sell at full retail by early August. Air shipping packages from china using the cheap normal route (assuming no issues with customs) takes about 6-10 business days in my albeit limited experience so they would only have to get the stuff done by the beginning of August. And with that...

http://countingdownto.com/countdown/palladium-s-gencon-robotech-mutually-assured-destruction-pact-countdown-clock

We are in the homestretch. 100 days and some change till Gencon!

What's the mutually assured destruction pact here? I think I missed that.

 warboss wrote:
(unless they ship alphabetically and Forar's last name is Aardvark)!

Heh, nope. Almost the literal opposite end of the alphabet with a W, so if they go alphabetically, I'm screwed, and won't see my gak until, like, 2 months after everyone else.

 Platuan4th wrote:
What's the mutually assured destruction pact here? I think I missed that.

Some backers took their adamant declarations that they WILL be selling at Gencon at face value, and have declared that such a short and firm timeframe on a project that has been so lax with them was akin to a suicide pact, thus, the Gencon Suicide Pact, which was tastefully renamed to the Gencon Mutually Assured Destruction Pact. Especially since, as Warboss points out, IF they got production fired up but couldn't get the crates to them via ocean freight (how our stuff will be travelling), they could still air freight some over, and that selling at the convention before they started shipping backer boxes would likely get ugly. I mean, the Max and Miriya debacle last year raged for months.

Never have I been told by so many people that I was "entitled" and "whining" for offering to give a company money for a product they were making (and based on presumably still having the molds, could make more of).

 Platuan4th wrote:
What's the mutually assured destruction pact here? I think I missed that.

Pretty much what Forar said above. Folks in the comments section started referring to the "gencon or bust!" tone of a Kevin S. update/murmur/press release as a suicide pact in that he would push it out the door to sell at gencon no matter what state it was in (this was of course during spartangate when the questions of quality came to the fore). I renamed it M.A.D. pact to avoid any hard feelings about the use of the word suicide. I guess I could have called it the even milder "Gencon or Bust!" pact as well but I didn't think of that till writing this post. In any case, it was a reference to screwing up the quality of the project just to get it out the door in time for a massively delayed delivery date. It's like someone pulling an all nighter because they blew off a term paper AFTER getting an extension from their professor and turning in a piece of crap. Only time will tell if that is what will happen here. 100 days!

Ah, ok.

Well, we'll see in 100(though I don't have faith in their ability from the past).

 Platuan4th wrote:
Ah, ok.

Well, we'll see in 100(though I don't have faith in their ability from the past).

And if they do, you've got to be concerned too.

For the most part, the deadline pushbacks have been "We want to assure quality*, even if it takes longer". Now it's "It'll be at GenCon, guaranteed!**". It's two contradictory design principles, and given the status of the Valkyrie (as of the last update, they still hadn't SEEN the Pre Production Prototype, but it's already in sprue layout. Even if they approve it immediately***, and the mold is milled immediately***, and the test sprues are pressed immediately***, and shipped immediately***, and approved again, immediately*** (and that's assuming Harmony Gold don't need/want/require to stick their beaks in), that still puts middle of May beyond reach, unless they're willing to start the molding before everything to be molded is properly approved. So barring a horrific issue (like missing a leg), it's likely going to get rubberstamped because a delay here would be problematic.

* Quality is arguable. I don't mind the Regult Pods for the most part, though some of the parts seem excessive. But the RDF stuff looks gak so far.
** Not actually guaranteed.
*** For any defined value of immediately. Given that "immediately" in PB-speak doesn't correlate to general usage.

Remember, they've had the Artillery Pod for over a week already, and apparently haven't assembled it to test fits of the various components. Screw it actually be put together properly, making sure the pegs on the torso fit into the holes in the legs so we don't have a crapload of models that can't be put together. Given it's a single figure, it should have been fit-assembled, put together, and frikkin painted in a week, along with photos of the journey. PB have a timetable that most (including themselves) aren't taking seriously.

Glad to see my money's in such good hands. Wish it wasn't.