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I mean at least for the tablescape ks, we know why shipping is so slow. Cause the creator doesn't have the cash on hand to pay for all the shipping at once.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Clearly, the shipping has not gone well. But it's amazing how much malice many are reading into delays and problems which are completely outsite their control.
That's fething nonsense.

Malice, yes some of their antics can inspire "evil intent" I certainly am not feeling immune.

The problem is they are running on empty for KS consumer good will, it had not been managed well.
If they had outlined a plan and showed steps of progress, many excuses (or good justification) would be evident for delays.
At the very least it could be reported incrementally rather the now helpful "no comment" for Wave 2.
They just seem to demonstrate they claim they run into one problem into another eyes wide open with no contingency plans.

I have helped deal with customers in the UK usually needing replacement parts under warranty: not too terribly hard.
Even arranged a service partner to hold stock for us of "wear" items, the "gee wiz" is "sticker shock", not "hard to do".
I have switched to believing ulterior motives (we are cheap!) and do not want to admit the real reason for the hold-up.

I cannot with good conscience bring myself to be naïve enough to think they could be that stupid and have such bad luck that all these last minute delays account for all the other time lost.
I am almost certain now that every single delay and "poor decision" could all be traced to spending as little money as possible that they could get away with.
That is the simplest answer that makes sense.

It certainly wouldn't be hindered by the fact they moved to 2 waves (significant increase in shipping costs, even if wave 2's boxes are likely significantly smaller; 27 figures versus 70, no core box, though add ons may influence that as well) or their complaints in one of the updates about the mold costs being double what they anticipated.

Even if they budgeted in a healthy cushion into their target numbers, those are pretty massive increases in their production and shipping costs.

So even if I don't follow some people's "omg maybe they're broke!" line of thought (Hi Rick!), it's also not much of a reach to note that they might not be quite as well off as they anticipated, based on their own words and actions.

 Forar wrote:
It certainly wouldn't be hindered by the fact they moved to 2 waves (significant increase in shipping costs, even if wave 2's boxes are likely significantly smaller; 27 figures versus 70, no core box, though add ons may influence that as well) or their complaints in one of the updates about the mold costs being double what they anticipated.

Even if they budgeted in a healthy cushion into their target numbers, those are pretty massive increases in their production and shipping costs.

So even if I don't follow some people's "omg maybe they're broke!" line of thought (Hi Rick!), it's also not much of a reach to note that they might not be quite as well off as they anticipated, based on their own words and actions.

There's also the budgeted time. The initial thought was that after their initial time investment pre-campaign, that they were only going to have to spend 8 months getting this stuff done. That it's 21 months, with no end in sight, and every manhour spent on whatever, is a manhour they're not getting income/productive effort from, means the money has to come from elsewhere. And as Kevin has admitted in a recent PBWU, it's not like they're flush with cash.

None of this is the backer's fault, and as Talizvar said, if they hadn't completely pissed away all their goodwill, maybe they wouldn't generate so much anger. There are many campaigns that have run into significant issues, but because they've garnered a lot of goodwill (even if it's just great communication), they're given a lot of leeway. But the constant perceived* dicking over of their backers, the constant promises** that fail to eventuate, and the generally tone-deaf attitude (Everything is awesome! Not our fault!) lead to most critics not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

* Some of those issues may not be a problem to everyone, but there were valid reasons for being pissed (at least to those backers) and significant (though not majority) people disappointed, not just by the actual event, but by the handling of it by Palladium.

** The timelines were just never realistic (given the information about progress we now have), and communication (and the oft promise to "do better") is just an onrunning joke at this point. Every time they pick up a little ground, they piss it away by lengthy delays between communications, and/or not addressing issues at hand.

 Forar wrote:
I guess I expect more professionalism out of a company that lauds being in business for a third of a century and has been shipping product globally for decades.

Really? Do you know nothing of Palladium? I remember Palladium from playing a short RIFTS campaign back in the 90s, and my experience with Palladium's rules and sense of "balance" (or total lack thereof) left me with zero confidence in the rules. Though I do have a lot of respect for their in-house artists. I just don't like their rules team. That is why I split a RRT pledge for models, only. And that, only because PB said Ninja Division was doing the models and I really like Soda Pop / Ninja Division. I specifically did not want to repeat any of my Palladium RIFTS experience. Had this been an all-Palladium project, I wouldn't have touched it at all.

As for being in business, I understand that they nearly collapsed due to embezzlement not that long ago - so kinda weak on internal controls and management. The management weakness there seems to be repeating itself as a root cause for issues with RRT.

But despite that, I got some models, and should receive more, eventually.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:
I cannot with good conscience bring myself to be naïve enough to think they could be that stupid and have such bad luck that all these last minute delays account for all the other time lost.
I am almost certain now that every single delay and "poor decision" could all be traced to spending as little money as possible that they could get away with.

I am pretty sure that Palladium simply doesn't have resources and budget to do anything else. I think they grossly underbudgeted shipping and logistics from the get-go, and got squeezed even harder by the increases in shipping costs, so are pinching every penny to get anything out, anywhere. Otherwise, people might not get stuff at all.

Given the choice between late and never, between something and nothing, I am always happier to get something late over nothing never. If things are as bad as they seem, the chance of project collapse increases, which turns into even more delays or potential non-delivery.

Turned out well

That's a gashapon....

With a plastic disk attached, if I'm not mistaken. I believe Mike is planning to use it as a Cats Eye recon plane.

The plastic disc seems out of proportion compared to the model

The longer they dither around about shipping stuff out to the rest of the world....

the easier they will find it to convince themselves that it might make sense for the RoW to wait until wave 2 is finished as that will save loads of cash and make their job a lot easier

nobody will mind... right?

after all they can go out and buy and extra core box from their local gamestore/online retailer if they're desperate to pay

Oh god, don't give them any ideas. You never know which PB fanboy in this thread might suggest that to them

Sining wrote:
The plastic disc seems out of proportion compared to the model

And look at the dust on it! Disgraceful.

Joyboozer wrote:

Sining wrote:
The plastic disc seems out of proportion compared to the model

And look at the dust on it! Disgraceful.

It's a YF-19....1/200 scale with a black can of spraypaint's lid as a radar dish. It was not perfect but about the right size and the top I had to sand down a bit to remove the picture. I plan on touching up the top. It took all of 10 minutes to put together and in all will make a decent Cat's Eye. Since the mini is a 1/200 Veritech it actually scales well into being a 1/285 Cat's Eye.

 Mike1975 wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

Sining wrote:
The plastic disc seems out of proportion compared to the model

And look at the dust on it! Disgraceful.

It's a YF-19....1/200 scale with a black can of spraypaint's lid as a radar dish. It was not perfect but about the right size and the top I had to sand down a bit to remove the picture. I plan on touching up the top. It took all of 10 minutes to put together and in all will make a decent Cat's Eye. Since the mini is a 1/200 Veritech it actually scales well into being a 1/285 Cat's Eye.

Are you going to paint it, or just leave it as is? Those gashapon look fairly decent.

I plan on touching up the top of the Radar Dish, maybe add something to give it some detail and that's it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Really? Do you know nothing of Palladium?*snip*

Ah yes, the ever popular "man, Palladium is a bunch of fethwits, y'all should've known better than to give them money!" defense.

First and foremost, the thousands of backers that DID take that risk are why you got those models that you seem so pleased to have gotten/are in theory being worked on.

For my small part; you're welcome.

Second, if you actually read the thread from the start, you'd know that many backers here went in with some hesitance specifically because of their reputation and history. A third party (and practically an unknown) seeming to be 'doing most of the heavy lifting' between the models and rules alleviated many of those concerns, only to have them return when PB apparently took over much of the responsibility post campaign.

Third, even with them being 'slow and prone to fethmuppetry' (if we're to accept the "Palladium couldn't find their gak with both hands and and a map" stance you seem to be promoting), that is at best an explanation for their current behaviour, not an excuse.

I mean, hey, they could strive higher. Work harder and smarter, both with the community and new field that they're trying to enter, what with having a vested interest in this product line being a hit and expanding them to possibly hitherto unknown levels of profitability.

Or they could feth over ~20% of their backers, whom should just shut up and take it because reasons and shipping is totes hard guys.

just on a side note I just heard people in the RoW can order the game from Palladium and it will ship without waiting.

Asterios wrote:
just on a side note I just heard people in the RoW can order the game from Palladium and it will ship without waiting.

Will it ship outside the US for free???

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Asterios wrote:
just on a side note I just heard people in the RoW can order the game from Palladium and it will ship without waiting.

Will it ship outside the US for free???

no they will have to buy the game and pay for shipping like normal, yet PB has no problems doing that, but has a problem shipping those who already paid for the game and shipping.

You get what you pay for. Pay full shipping, and it ships quickly.

Pay pennies on the dollar, and it ships slower. That's not hard to understand.

Pennies on the dollar?

Citation needed.

Because Palladium seems to be shipping boxes for $70-150 (1 and 4 boxes), and CSI will do it for $60-135 (same). International backers paid $30-50 (plus however much was baked into the tier itself).

Which means that Australian BC backers may have paid ~2/3 of their shipping (which was presumably intended to be offset by other international backers that they didn't have to spend the full amount on).

"But that's just for wave one!"

Yup!

And that onus was on them; to set a shipping rate that was sustainable, and to balance their desire to go to market in less than 3 years with product. Two waves of shipping costs a lot. We've been saying this since they announced it last January.

Assuming a mere $15 per Battle Cry, that'd put an Aussie Reckless backer at having paid $110 a year and a half ago. That's... pretty reasonable, and vastly more than you're trying to make it sound like they paid.

And that's comparing direct mailing to whatever the costs are on this bulk shipping/redistribution option.

So they basically paid a fair amount (compared to direct mail) and are getting substandard (a quarter year delay or more) service for it.

But do go on and tell us how paying $40-50+ in shipping for a battle cry is "pennies on the dollar".

Edit: and again, that's cherry picking one of the worst case scenario options. Care to explain why the ROW backers whom are being directly mailed got a 2 month delay? Oh, right, they had to repurpose their people to the Palladium Holiday Grab Bags!? Definitely a higher priority to ensure their Fans get $84+ worth of product! Signed! *jazzhands*

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
You get what you pay for. Pay full shipping, and it ships quickly.

Pay pennies on the dollar, and it ships slower. That's not hard to understand.

so your saying PB is screwing over the backers because they paid what PB asked for shipping? with no other option for faster delivery ?

 Forar wrote:

Edit: and again, that's cherry picking one of the worst case scenario options. Care to explain why the ROW backers whom are being directly mailed got a 2 month delay? Oh, right, they had to repurpose their people to the Palladium Holiday Grab Bags!? Definitely a higher priority to ensure their Fans get $84+ worth of product! Signed! *jazzhands*

You're forgetting that the real reason the RoW people are essentially unimportant is because PB already has their money. Not true for the grab baggers.

Merijeek wrote:

 Forar wrote:

Edit: and again, that's cherry picking one of the worst case scenario options. Care to explain why the ROW backers whom are being directly mailed got a 2 month delay? Oh, right, they had to repurpose their people to the Palladium Holiday Grab Bags!? Definitely a higher priority to ensure their Fans get $84+ worth of product! Signed! *jazzhands*

You're forgetting that the real reason the RoW people are essentially unimportant is because PB already has their money. Not true for the grab baggers.

well of course, if they did the same to the other buyers that they did to the backers, the other buyers would be doing CC reversals and such and can still get there money back, so its not RoW is unimportant because PB already has their money, they are unimportant, because they can not get their money back at all.

PB created a total shipping budget. They should have charged a lot more for ROW shipping.

The same $15 paid goes a lot faster for US domestic shipping versus $15 for US-OZ international shipping.

Nobody should expect equal quality of service when you try to get more for the same price.

Claiming that the US should somehow subsidize ROW backer shipping is very wrongheaded, but it does put the truth that ROW are getting a better deal than they should have, and that ROW did not pay their fair share of the project.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
PB created a total shipping budget. They should have charged a lot more for ROW shipping.

The same $15 paid goes a lot faster for US domestic shipping versus $15 for US-OZ international shipping.

Nobody should expect equal quality of service when you try to get more for the same price.

Claiming that the US should somehow subsidize ROW backer shipping is very wrongheaded, but it does put the truth that ROW are getting a better deal than they should have, and that ROW did not pay their fair share of the project.

and is that the RoW's problem? is it their fault that PB which has done orders overseas undercharged the S&H portion? does it mean that RoW should get screwed because PB didn't think? or are you one of those people that says its everybodies fault but PB's do you drink from Kevin's Kool-Aid ? or is it the fact http://youtu.be/MMzd40i8TfA

Yes, it is 100% their fault. When ROW saw that they were not being upcharged on shipping, VAT or customs, they absolutely should have considered the iron triangle of better-faster-cheaper to anticipate that increasing the amount of shipping cost for the same money paid would result in worse and slower. Any ROW backer who didn't anticipate that has only themselves to blame.

Palladium said ROW would get the stuff, and it would not cost more than a domestic US backer. That is what they are doing. Their decision to hold ROW to the end, at the cheapest possible way is totally consistent with that.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

The same $15 paid goes a lot faster for US domestic shipping versus $15 for US-OZ international shipping.

Nobody should expect equal quality of service when you try to get more for the same price.

What the hell does speed have to do with it?

You know the one absolutely essential step involved in shipping something? ACTUALLY SHIPPING IT.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yes, it is 100% their fault. When ROW saw that they were not being upcharged on shipping, VAT or customs, they absolutely should have considered the iron triangle of better-faster-cheaper to anticipate that increasing the amount of shipping cost for the same money paid would result in worse and slower. Any ROW backer who didn't anticipate that has only themselves to blame.

Palladium said ROW would get the stuff, and it would not cost more than a domestic US backer. That is what they are doing. Their decision to hold ROW to the end, at the cheapest possible way is totally consistent with that.

actually Domestic was not charged S&H and yet we got our stuff first. and RoW was being charged more for S&H, since they were charged while domestic wasn't.

John Hwang, the defender that PB deserves but not the one it needs. None of his explanations are actually making PB look better in anyway.