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Frankly, even if I could be remotely consider a 'thorn' in their side, I don't think they're going to throw my box down a flight of stairs or anything.

But it seems pretty clear that when they said they were shipping by backer kit number, they were either mistaking that for the KS#, or have had to change that approach, and there are outstanding questions regarding how size of the order and location (other than US and EU) affect delivery priority.

Does it actually matter if I get my stuff in 2 weeks or 6? Not particularly. But when we've basically needed to swat them over the nose like a naughty puppy just to get a straight answer regarding a variety of topics, finding out that they're not doing what they've said they were going to do is kind endemic to the situation.

Look, if they said "hey guys, when we said we were going by Backer Kit? We were wrong, it's actually KS#, and btw, fulfillment will be in the order of USA, ROW, EU. And Battle Cry boxes will ship, then Showdowns, and then all larger orders, based on the above criteria", there'd be grumbling, but at least we'd understand the inconsistency.

Letting the inconsistency exist and not addressing it just comes across as more of their mix of inexperience/incompetence/trying to feed us what we want to hear while quietly ignoring that reality is something different/etc.

Credit where credit is due, the last few updates have been better, and if they'd been that up front with us all along, I think we could've avoided a lot of trouble and shenanigans, but it remains hard to take them at face value when something as simple as "what order things will be shipped in" is provably different from their previous statements with only a handful of data points.

Changes happen. That's a fact of business. But I'd rather be told the changes have been deemed necessary, not have to go Sherlock on this gak.

It is the eternal conundrum; it's a fairly small thing, why sweat it? Because it is a small thing, why can't they just be honest/up front? It makes even the small gak seem sketchy, and makes it all the harder to buy the bigger stuff doesn't also have caveats and asterisks aplenty.

I would chalk it up to trying to stay on guard for any further shenanigans by PB.

Go back and look at their history of product launch and "playing well with others", that is enough negativity for now.

We can all agree that the topic and product IS exciting to think about.

Is the product as perfect as described? No, but certainly "good enough" for what was spent.

The real issue was not managing expectation in a realistic way. They seem to be on the right track now, there just is an awful lot of water under the bridge.

 Manchu wrote:
Unwritten Rule Number Four of DakkaDakka: Lizard People are a complete hoax and certainly don't control all important political and financial institutions.

Seriously, however, the tone of this thread is and has been consistently terrible. Every time I start posting here, I feel driven away because I am actually still enthusiastic about the game and the miniatures. It's not all or nothing. As in, I am not a PB apologist simply because I am still on board and genuinely excited to be receiving some cool stuff, hopefully this week some time.

PB has made a mess out of their communication in the past and that is inarguable. But this thread is totally unbalanced. The fact that otherwise (presumably) sane posters are seriously considering that PB has engineered a conspiracy against them is a pretty startling reading on the old bat gak barometer.

And yet that idea is prevalent enough that PALLADIUM felt the need to address it in one of their updates. In any case, if I don't get shipped this week but container #3 arrives, what would you attribute that too then? I meet all their publicly posted criteria for early shipping. If container #3 comes in and they have (according to THEIR posts) everything they need, what would an analytical mind like yours come up with as the reasonable excuse? You'll have to excuse me if I don't assume the worst with palladium because ASSUMING THE ABSOLUTE WORST (short of outright fraud) has been the most accurate predictor time and time again with the progress of this KS. The absolute worst predictor has been taking what they say at face value.

Let's just get it straight for the record either (a) your stuff is shipped this week or (b) PB has it out for you personally. Is that what you're saying?

 Manchu wrote:
Let's just get it straight for the record either (a) your stuff is shipped this week or (b) PB has it out for you personally. Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying that if my stuff doesn't go out in the week after container #3 arrives despite me meeting every criteria they've given us for the order of shipping moreso than others who have posted they've gotten either the packages or shipment emails then they're using additional criteria.

 warboss wrote:
then they're using additional criteria

Do you or do you not mean "additional criteria" to include personal vendetta?

Is there a specific reason for citing container #3?

I went ahead and reread the update for gaks n' giggles, and it states thusly:

"That means that once container #3 gets here, there won’t be any single backer’s Wave One rewards that we can’t ship. We’ll just be limited by how much stock we have, but containers #4 and up should restock us just about as fast as we can ship out backer rewards. When container #5 or #6 comes in, we’ll have enough to ship out the last of the backers’ Wave One rewards. That should be just past the middle of October."

Now, I read that as container #3 is required to have every TYPE of item in stock to be able to fulfill orders ("there won’t be any SINGLE backer’s Wave One rewards that we can’t ship"), but up to container #5 or #6 meaning they'll be able to ship everything.

But who knows, I didn't go to college so maybe I'm not able to invent nuance as well as others.

 Manchu wrote:

 warboss wrote:
then they're using additional criteria

Do you or do you not mean "additional criteria" to include personal vendetta?

What other criteria would you instead suggest? You've been quick to shoot down that idea without suggesting any others. If I don't have a shipping notification in two weeks roughly, what else might cause the delay? I assume from your optimistic tone that you and JudgeDoug voted yes in the poll and I know Mike did... and you've all gotten your notifications. I didn't and I've publicly expressed my displeasure with the way this has been run both on KS and their forums. Do you consider it impossible that they'd take offense despite the history of Palladium being portrayed as vindictive?

I voted NO in the GenCon poll even though I knew I was going to GenCon. I have also made critical posts in this thread.

I don't know why I need to post alternatives to your theory that PB has it out for you personally in order for you to understand that your theory is off the deep end.

 warboss wrote:
I assume from your optimistic tone that you and JudgeDoug voted yes in the poll and I know Mike did... and you've all gotten your notifications. I didn't and I've publicly expressed my displeasure with the way this has been run both on KS and their forums. Do you consider it impossible that they'd take offense despite the history of Palladium being portrayed as vindictive?

I find the concept highly amusing that Wayne and a bunch of underpaid employees and volunteers who have the Herculean task of shipping over 5,000 rewards would even be bothered to attempt some sort of witch hunt to spite certain backers. They probably just don't even care and want the shipping over with as soon as possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There's a huge difference between

being critical of Palladium's mistakes, of which there are certainly many;

and being critical of every decision Palladium has made out of some warped personal sense of duty.

Since I fall into the first category, however, I am obviously a Palladium fanboy and I'm being rewarded for my white knighting and that's why my pledge shipped!... not merely because I've got a fairly simple domestic UPS backer#26 Blitzkrieg pledge - or, whatever method was chosen to ship packages.

I'm betting NMI sat down for 1600 hours and made a list of the 5000+ backers and researched their internet presence and then rated them all from 1 to 5000+ based on how much he likes them and that's the order they're shipping in. FOR SERIOUS

So remind me, why is it you can't joke about Palladium anymore even after all the screw ups? We're just to remain tight lipped and grimace through it without making light of the situation?
And you can talk Mike, you jumped on me in the comments section for making one joke.

1600 hours to flag a dozen names from the forum that have been causing him trouble? Wow.. now you're the conspiracy theorist... either that or you have no clue how to CTRL F look up names in a database. FOR SERIOUS

Joyboozer wrote:
We're just to remain tight lipped and grimace through it without making light of the situation?

Seriously WTF are you talking about?

First, as I already posted -- it is not all or nothing. Second, what's the joke? Warboss has clarified he sincerely thinks it is possible that PB is conspiring to delay his shipment because of a personal vendetta against him.

Joyboozer wrote:
So remind me, why is it you can't joke about Palladium anymore even after all the screw ups? We're just to remain tight lipped and grimace through it without making light of the situation?
And you can talk Mike, you jumped on me in the comments section for making one joke.

That's a black-or-white logical fallacy; Manchu was earlier arguing against the "with Palladium or against Palladium" mentality.

 judgedoug wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
So remind me, why is it you can't joke about Palladium anymore even after all the screw ups? We're just to remain tight lipped and grimace through it without making light of the situation?
And you can talk Mike, you jumped on me in the comments section for making one joke.

That's a black-or-white logical fallacy; Manchu was earlier arguing against the "with Palladium or against Palladium" mentality.

I was referring to where you quoted a comment I made that was obviously sarcasm last page. Why are the only two choices of hat in this campaign tin foil or arse?

Eh, don't worry about it Joy. I'm done with the thread for a while. Just like with after the vote, it isn't healthy to get frustrated so much about something that is supposed to be fun but PalladiumTM happens. We'll see if I get my notification over the next two weeks or so or whether the fact that being pretty much at the beginning of the alphabet, with a very simple pledge, extremely low backer and backerkit number, and a US address have no effect on whether I get my stuff further up in the queue as stated. I just want my dealings with Palladium to end so that I can write them off for another decade.

 warboss wrote:
it isn't healthy to get frustrated so much about something that is supposed to be fun

I completely agree. Having learned it the hard way with KS projects like this one and worse ones, I now ask myself whether I can handle "pledging and forgetting" before I click the pledge button. I wrote off RRT as "will happen when it happens" some time ago. Now that it is starting to happen, however, I am super excited.

Can't wait to paint some Brownies! -- if I can make it through assembly, haha.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
I voted NO in the GenCon poll even though I knew I was going to GenCon.

Also, I just fact-checked myself here and it turns out that I misremembered; I actually voted YES. I guess I was in a "just feth it" mood at the time.

Joyboozer wrote:
So remind me, why is it you can't joke about Palladium anymore even after all the screw ups? We're just to remain tight lipped and grimace through it without making light of the situation?
And you can talk Mike, you jumped on me in the comments section for making one joke.

Since I have no idea what you are referring to I will just say it may well have been just deserved or understood in a different context. This is the internet after all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The idea that PB would spend time making a list of have and have not's is plain ridiculous. If NMI was making the list I would likely be among the last ones. They simply don't have the time and effort to put into doing that much work. You are talking about people who took pictures of Geese as an update on their page as people who will take time to make an enemies list. Granted those who constantly and continuously say and look for grounds for lawsuits may well make it to some sort of list. We have all heard about how lawsuit prone PB is.

Random speculation as to what might have occurred accepted.

At least it was probably funnier than Lola, Rick, Jaymz and Jorel going at it.

Man, those guys need to grab a room and just get it out of their systems.

True enough.lol

 Forar wrote:
At least it was probably funnier than Lola, Rick, Jaymz and Jorel going at it.

Man, those guys need to grab a room and just get it out of their systems.

Cannot. Exalt. Harder.

Really guys it isn't that far fetched that a jilted egomaniac like NMI could happen across your paperwork and move it to the bottom of the stack.

Mike there have been others who have been far more vocal in their dislike of him than you. Your critisism is there but it is nowhere near as venomous as others.

And palladium has earned every negative comment in this thread, objective or subjective with their own actions past and present.

We kickstartered more argument than product.

I'm finally starting to get my money's worth from this kickstarter.

No tracking email yet, though.

 Swabby wrote:
And palladium has earned every negative comment in this thread, objective or subjective with their own actions past and present.

What has happened is, this thread has become a zone of super-concentrated negativity. Legitimate criticisms have mutated into bizarre hyperbole. This doesn't help inform folks reading the thread. It doesn't encourage PB to do a better job. It doesn't even let frustrated backers blow off steam, given in practice the result is driving blood pressure even further through the roof and squandering what enthusiasm remains despite PB's blunders. What we need instead of a zone of negativity is a zone of objectivity. Perspective rather than invective, gentlemen.

Latest murmur
Everyone who saw the blunder agreed it was the biggest and best blunder they'd ever seen, and blood pressure was through the roof!

 Manchu wrote:
Legitimate criticisms have mutated into bizarre hyperbole. This doesn't help inform folks reading the thread. It doesn't encourage PB to do a better job. It doesn't even let frustrated backers blow off steam, given in practice the result is driving blood pressure even further through the roof and squandering what enthusiasm remains despite PB's blunders. What we need instead of a zone of negativity is a zone of objectivity. Perspective rather than invective, gentlemen.

And other legitimate criticisms have been ignored.

Given that the resin stuff has absolutely no reason to go through China, and therefore there is no reason that it could not have been worked on at the same time as the 'Wave 1' plastics, why has PB said absolutely nada on the subject? Why are we waiting until 'Wave 2' for any of the resin product promised? If that had been worked on at the start, it is entirely possible that the majority of the resin would have been completed, delivered to PB, checked, shipped to backers, and received months ago (making it the de-facto 'Wave 1' and the current base box which is going out 'Wave 2'.)

Now I can understand PB maybe not wanting the KS exclusive special characters getting out there BEFORE the game is released, but there would have been nothing stopping them from keeping them back for the base box delivery for people that had that, and as the SDF-1 is not even a game piece I just can't understand why they could not have released that earlier.

Given that they released a swimming pool full of cash for this endevour, there should have been enough available to get at least some of the resin out alongside the first wave of plastic, who would not have liked a Rick hunter and Kyron in their boxes? And that would have allowed some characters to be used in the very first games. And as there is to be limited return on the KS/Con exclusives, it makes more sense to me to have done them first where it is reasonable to expect that they will be cheapest. Now, 280 days after they originally stated they expected delivery, the costs of manufacturing moulds for resin and casting the pieces will have gone up - and we have not heard that they have actually started doing anything yet.

I had previously said I would try and get a refund. If this gak continues, I might just go for it, but for the moment I am quite prepared to have my $145 of product for the $8 international shipping that they asked for. They would be better off giving me a refund - there are certain things I would pick up retail if I ever saw them in Britain, but if I get what I pledged for in this KS, I may not need anything from PB ever again. It was my memories of Robotech that got me into this KS but they have been forever soured by the way PB has handled the campaign from the moment it closed to now. (Funny thing is, I never would have guessed that Unicorn Farts tasted so sour. I wonder if they water them down and sell them to Harribo as Tangfastic flavouring?)

How does that line from the Street Fighter movie go, again? "That day was the most important day of your life. For me, it was Tuesday."

Suppose they drafted up a plan on how they were going to do things, posted that as an update, and then the shipping guys proceeded to do something completely different because the shipment lists exported in the wrong order. A pile of boxes get put together, a pile of boxes get shipped out to backers, and the list gets done, but it happens to be in the wrong order. If it's not a big enough deal to notice, why would they say anything about it in an update?

Conrad Turner, Not that I disagree with your statement with regards the resin components, but I don't recall the four character models (Roy/Rick/Khyron/Miriya) being resin. I know the promo Miriya was resin, but that was supposed to be different to the BC exclusives.

Doesn't change what you said when it comes to the SDF-1, the bases, the objective packs, or (maybe) the Super 1D's. As of the last information on the subject, Update 109 (24 Aug 2013), they didn't know if those were going to be metal, resin or plastic. Hopefully they've made their decision on that, or do quickly.

Hell, I'd not be surprised if when they do finally get Wave 2 done, backers get a "Umm... if you've got resin items, it'll be a little while longer" Update. While I do agree with Manchu that some of the claims made against PB stretch credibility (here, but especially on the KS), on the other hand, I can't stress how little I think of PB's capability, forward thinking, ability to manage expectations or learn from mistakes. For a "professional" company, they appear to be anything but.