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I don't think as Conrad stated that the idea of legitimate concerns having been ignored can or should be applied to these forums. You can complain all day here on these forums and it is unlikely that PB will even hear a peep of it since they do not come here. It's like complaining about the beach and how clean it is to a Forest Ranger in Yosemite.

That being said, there is a difference between

1. Listening to and addressing concerns
2. Listening to and catering to people's every concern
3. Simply listening and remaining silent.

PB has chosen the third option most of the time to their detriment. The second option will not get them very far since most concerns range far and wide such as the whole mini vs model debate. The first option is the best but they have only recently started taking up that torch, and reluctantly at best. All three options can open one up to severe criticism regardless of the final decisions made.

Morgan Vening wrote:
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.

Yet interestingly they have the ability to scour every backer's entire internet history for comments related to Palladium and rate each and every backer so they ship in the order of Fanboy->Hater.



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 warboss wrote:
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

Oh, come now, there's more than a dozen names who have been critical!

What database management software uses CTRL-F? MS Access?

I'm hitting CTRL-F over and over again on MS SQL Server Management Studio and nothing is happening. However, I whipped up a quick SQL query that NMI can use on their database. Alter table and column names to taste.

UPDATE BackersList SET ShippingOrder=IDENT_CURRENT('BackersList') WHERE BackerName='warboss'

should set you to be the last package shipped. Hope NMI isn't browsing these forums!! <.< >.>


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 Manchu wrote:

 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.

I'd like to posit that it has proportionally also become a zone of super-concentrated hilarity.

Agreed!

You should see some of the ridiculous offers for people's pledges that some people have thrown about!

What are we up to now? $56 for Battlecry?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll raise that to $60

Judgedoug, at best you are applying just as much hyperbole in your replies about the speculation as the speculators are.

Manchu, it is possible to be both negative towards palladium and still excited about the game. Really man, palladium has fostered this ire from the minute the kickstarter ended. Why blame the consumer for negativity when it is the seller that is floundering?

Let me go into the next phase of speculation:

1) "Proper" packing of the kits. If some items are missing is it because of "Wave 2" OR cargo container was not in and shipped anyway OR a mis-pack?
1a) I could not underscore more that if they pack correctly that is no small accomplishment. Even more so would be how they handle a complaint if something is missing.
2) Sprues: no short-shots, broken-off bits, warped pieces: if these are good, die design was excellent and manufacturing process was dialed in correctly.
3) It looks like we will be shipped the "add-ons" in full printed packaging, companies like GW tend to ship "package" deals in generic packages or in a large box: not cheaping out!
4) Overall condition of product: packaging was sufficient to protect product, printed covers not abraded or bashed about before packaged for shipment.
5) Outside of U.S.A. shipments: how are they being handled, how long a delay allowed for each "batch"? Interesting if they communicate their method.
6) Will they actually wait till all Wave1 kits shipped before retail or will it go in parallel when container 6 arrives?

They seem to be in a more forthcoming means of communication because product is made.
I hope they see fit to continue, it may help promote some forgiveness from a few of us bitter folks.

1) "Proper" packing of the kits. If some items are missing is it because of "Wave 2" OR cargo container was not in and shipped anyway OR a mis-pack?

They listed all that should be in Wave 1 so if you are missing something from that batch, they screwed up somewhere.

1a) I could not underscore more that if they pack correctly that is no small accomplishment. Even more so would be how they handle a complaint if something is missing.

Unfortunately they have never given a response to the "What if' something is messed up or missing. Nothing beyond we will take care of you, trust us.

2) Sprues: no short-shots, broken-off bits, warped pieces: if these are good, die design was excellent and manufacturing process was dialed in correctly.

3) It looks like we will be shipped the "add-ons" in full printed packaging, companies like GW tend to ship "package" deals in generic packages or in a large box: not cheaping out!

Good news or just plain easier for them? Likely that latter.

4) Overall condition of product: packaging was sufficient to protect product, printed covers not abraded or bashed about before packaged for shipment.

So far this seems to be the case. Time will tell as more packages arrive.

5) Outside of U.S.A. shipments: how are they being handled, how long a delay allowed for each "batch"? Interesting if they communicate their method.

This in my mind is a big problem, I think they are not 100% sure yet and so don't want to say anything. Understandable but that is not the right way to go.

6) Will they actually wait till all Wave1 kits shipped before retail or will it go in parallel when container 6 arrives?

They have said that all the pledges would go out first. Take that for what you will after GenCon though.

They really need to address the questions about non US shipping imo. Those folks have been left out in the cold waaay too long.

 Swabby wrote:
They really need to address the questions about non US shipping imo. Those folks have been left out in the cold waaay too long.

Agreed

I don't see why.

Plenty of people on the KS comments are totally down with them focusing on US packages first.

That many of those people have US locations listed in their profiles is surely just a coincidence.

Nope, no bias or self serving interests there.

:-/

 Swabby wrote:
Manchu, it is possible to be both negative towards palladium and still excited about the game. Really man, palladium has fostered this ire from the minute the kickstarter ended.

In truth, you are conflating two distinct motives for criticizing PB: (a) excitement about the product/game and (b) excitement about PB's blunders. Keep in mind, there is not a single person contributing to this thread regularly who has not criticized PB about something at some point. When things first started to go sour, basically everyone was still making criticisms because they wanted a better product. Over time, it has become about hatred of PB regardless of the game. That's the toxic, concentrated negativity I am talking about.

 Forar wrote:
I don't see why.
Plenty of people on the KS comments are totally down with them focusing on US packages first.
That many of those people have US locations listed in their profiles is surely just a coincidence.
Nope, no bias or self serving interests there.:-/

Oh, relax.
Made by Americans for Americans!!! (with some Chinese elbow grease)
Many of us are allies so we will not be forgotten.
I am sure if we made a pie chart of contributions by country the USA would be the main one, it is only fair.
Our Canadian shipment will make a fine Christmas present.

Christmas?

Optimist.

Also note, that was mostly sarcastic/tongue in cheek.

But seriously, look back over the last year. "Why are you worried about Gencon?" people have said. "You'll get your stuff a few weeks later!"
"Why worry about it? They said they'd deliver in October!"

I get the feeling the same people will be telling me to settle down for the same reason for at least the next month, maybe two. I mean, is it not justified to be a bit frustrated to hear "yay, shipping has started!" a month and a half ago, only to have to work out that, oops, only core boxes. And then it's actually started again! Oops, only in the US and only Battle Cry boxes (note: they never actually said it would be just BCs, and Wayne specifically noted on their forums that size wouldn't necessarily hold up ones order).

I mean, I know you're a reasonable dude, Talizvar, but the mix of needing to keep reading between the lines and apparently getting shuffled back is killing what little excitement I'd been able to recapture.

Don't worry! Wave one will only take like another 2-3 months to arrive! Joy!

eh. yay.[/apathy]

 Manchu wrote:
Over time, it has become about hatred of PB regardless of the game. That's the toxic, concentrated negativity I am talking about.

I was already there before the kickstarter even happened. They have some serious issues as a company that I am not sure will ever get resolved. It is made worse by the behavior of the sycophants (NMI and some of the MA crew especially) that surround them. They really do act like smug asses that are ruling over their own little hermit kingdom on the net. That helps foster the toxicity you are decrying here.

I want the game way more than I want to deal with this sham of a company.

Forar -- do you plan to play RRT at all? or use the miniatures for some other ruleset? or just sell everything off?

Alpharius wrote:Agreed!
You should see some of the ridiculous offers for people's pledges that some people have thrown about!

Swabby wrote:Judgedoug, at best you are applying just as much hyperbole in your replies about the speculation as the speculators are.

Merely trying to approach an equivalency of comedy to match the level of absurdist vitriol and paranoid delusions that coat the majority of posts.

Unfortunately, my posts are facetious, while others are entirely serious.



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 Swabby wrote:

I was already there before the kickstarter even happened. They have some serious issues as a company that I am not sure will ever get resolved. It is made worse by the behavior of the sycophants (NMI and some of the MA crew especially) that surround them. They really do act like smug asses that are ruling over their own little hermit kingdom on the net. That helps foster the toxicity you are decrying here.

Oddly enough, while I absolutely agree with your assessment of NMI and the overall tone of PB's forums, I also agree with a lot of their bans - there are definitely some users who have specifically gone to their forums and specifically trolled said forums to such a degree that any other moderated forum would have also suspended or banned those accounts. It's just several times more egregious in people's minds because Palladium is associated with it.

 Manchu wrote:
Forar -- do you plan to play RRT at all? or use the miniatures for some other ruleset? or just sell everything off?

My friends and I certainly do plan to play. I'm concerned about the quality of the rules, but of the 8 BC boxes coming to my group, 3 are going to one friend, 2 are going to another, and I've got the other 3.

Even with plans to sell off roughly half of my Wave One figures, we'll still have something to the tune of 400+ figures (from Wave 1 alone; our total order is over 800 figures between the two waves) to get on tables in the coming months. Err, whenever we get around to building them, at least. My other friends are exponentially better builders and painters than I am, but I try not to embarrass myself too badly.

Failing that, my friends and I might just have to acquire another rules set, modify the base rules or others, or scratch build our own. One guy is making a Star Wars miniatures game that uses the old SW figures with the X-Wing dice, so it wouldn't be our first attempt, but I'm rather hoping we don't literally need to build both the figures AND the game itself.

Oh, and in regards to shipping based on size; from Wayne himself on the PB forums:

It isn't quite correct to say that the bigger the pledge, the later it will ship. What I said in an update was that we'd go roughly in order of BackerKit ID number, but that it would largely depend on what we had in our warehouse to ship

In any case, I bet there is still an opportunity to emphasize enthusiasm and concerns about the product. PB is a really problematic company, no one doubts that. But I do think there is a lot to be excited about with this product. I have spent hours with the photos of the rulebook -- I can only imagine I will spend many more with the actual thing!


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 Forar wrote:
My other friends are exponentially better builders and painters than I am, but I try not to embarrass myself too badly.

Ha I know how that feels! I am worried that the fiddly sprues will be a major obstacle for me given I am already lazy about assembly. I cannot decide whether to try assembling VFs or Battlepods first.

 Forar wrote:

Failing that, my friends and I might just have to acquire another rules set, modify the base rules or others, or scratch build our own.

My initial intention upon seeing the beta rules was disgust and the resolution to just use Alpha Strike as it's fast and easy and quick.

 Forar wrote:
One guy is making a Star Wars miniatures game that uses the old SW figures with the X-Wing dice

I have been excited by this prospect literally since warboss proposed it on page one of this thread. TBH all this time later I am actually now more excited about trying RRT when at first I had no plans to even try to learn the rules.

Though, between Xia, Shadows of Brimstone, X-Com, C'thulhu Wars, a half dozen RPGs people want to run and literally dozens of older favourites (so... much... X-Wing...), RRT is going to need to stand out to hit the table regularly, otherwise it's going to become an exercise in hundreds of hours in assembly and painting time to hit the table a few times a year, in which case I'll probably just sell everything I haven't assembled and use their stuff when we do decide to get a game going.

Gaming days are a precious commodity, and RRT's got a hill to climb. Ongoing issues and shenanigans aren't doing it any favours in that regard.

 judgedoug wrote:
just use Alpha Strike

I still want to try this!

For the record, I am excited about the product and I really do look forward to playing. Enough so that I will be parting out a 20k point eldar army and two other smaller 40k armies to get more RRT on the aftermarket. This will be my primary minis game.

That said it will not be because the ruleset is solid, or the company making it. Only because I love the source material more than any other fiction.

 Mike1975 wrote:
What are we up to now? $56 for Battlecry?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll raise that to $60

I wish... although honestly I'm not looking to gouge someone, I'm simply looking for people to break-even + shipping. So far though even though people want to sell they are expectant they'll get 300% markup apparently.


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 Manchu wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
just use Alpha Strike

I still want to try this!

I will third that!

 judgedoug wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:
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.

Yet interestingly they have the ability to scour every backer's entire internet history for comments related to Palladium and rate each and every backer so they ship in the order of Fanboy->Hater.

How about, if you're going to quote a line, copy the whole line, and reply to the whole thing? And not attempt to quote out of context?

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.

I count the allegation that PB would intentionally delay packages to people who have been problematic, to be one of those things that "stretch credibility". In the past, I've often given the possibility that PB are intentionally deceitful or incompetent/ignorant. I only used the former because it meant the possibility the actually KNEW what they were doing. But I've come to feel it was the latter, and they've just been fumbling backwards, until they finally stumbled across their first finish line.

You want to mock people for feeling PB are a vindictive, sorry, pathetic bunch (which I agree with), who'll go to great lengths to screw over people that have been mean to them (NOT something I agree with)? Quote the correct person.

 Dark Severance wrote:

 Mike1975 wrote:
What are we up to now? $56 for Battlecry?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll raise that to $60

I wish... although honestly I'm not looking to gouge someone, I'm simply looking for people to break-even + shipping. So far though even though people want to sell they are expectant they'll get 300% markup apparently.


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 Manchu wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
just use Alpha Strike

I still want to try this!

I will third that!

If you had caught me a few months ago. I might have bought another BC. Right now I have CAV and the soon to be Heavy Gear KS on the plate.

 Dark Severance wrote:
I wish... although honestly I'm not looking to gouge someone, I'm simply looking for people to break-even + shipping. So far though even though people want to sell they are expectant they'll get 300% markup apparently.

Luckily, based on the massive cut a BC was off MSRP, if there's interest out there, it'll be possible to sell at a profit without gouging people.

I'm likely aiming around 30-40% off MSRP, with the caveat that if demand is sizable, perhaps that'll go up a bit and still have room to be well below PB's shop prices, and even decent online/retail shop prices.

But having personally tossed them a big chunk of cash over a year and a half ago, yeah, recouping some costs is also something of a priority.

That said, I've always planned on moving at least some figures. In hindsight, I wish we'd stuck around 4-6 boxes instead of 8. Would it have alleviated all my concerns? No, but it'd be those hundreds less floating out there apparently in the aether.

 Forar wrote:
I'm likely aiming around 30-40% off MSRP, with the caveat that if demand is sizable, perhaps that'll go up a bit and still have room to be well below PB's shop prices, and even decent online/retail shop prices.

Yeah that isn't too bad, unfortunately you are in Canada, which I just got back from there a couple weeks ago for work. Has someone broken down the costs of a Battle Cry pledge on what the MSRP for it is?

Someone broke down the BC costs in retail a while back. I think it was in the $500 range.

That was Morgan and I. Others ran some numbers as well, but we went over it with a fine toothed comb ages ago. It required some estimating based on PB's own changing numbers, and I'm not sure we revisited it since the ~20% bump up in MSRP, but yeah, $500-600 sounds about right.

Also keep in mind that some of the costs may be significantly low balled, in that things like Rick and Roy won't be available at retail, so $10-15 for them might be significantly lower than people pay for them, at least initially, assuming the market doesn't get flooded.

Then take that, and see some online shops and even local stores often sell around 25-30% off or better (MM, CSI, etc). Dropping to 40% off when we paid maybe 20-25% still leaves some margin to recoup costs and still undercut decent retail/online prices.

But, and this is a big BUTT, that presumes that there's sufficient demand to the supply. Those numbers might go right out the window if the supply floods (huge piles end up on the secondary market) or the demand is negligible, or both.

But even then, man, if people won't pay $10-15 for a box that shops are trying to sell for $25+, we're going to see this thing crash and die rather swiftly.