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No, it was on us, to the tune of 46K...

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
No, it was on us, to the tune of 46K...

Sorry, what I meant is that most companies are reputable and when they commit to something they try to get it right, even if it means extra work or investment. So, my hope is that Defiance found a jeweler that will produce the wax model, invest it, create the master, clean it, and send it back to Defiance.
Hopefully Defiance will send the cleaned master to someone else that can cast it. I don't want them trying to figure out how to switch Trollcast to Defiancecast or whatever the heck they were trying to do with their other abysmal attempts.

I don't have any confidence that Defiance can do any of those things competently on their own. And at this point, as far as we know, the only person that actually works for Defiance is Tony- based on Darred's blog, howard Whitehouse's statement on TMP, and Rust Forge's statement on Frother's. The recent Facebook responses sound exactly like Tony.

Kickstarter backers were bamboozled by the 'Tony's Gone!" announcement.

Indeed. I was just being facetious.

In the meantime, another update... on the update.

Update #25 Nov 21, 2013
An Update on an Update

This isn't really an update. I wanted to call attention to a comment we made in the last update (#24) about hardsuit sizing. We wanted to clarify the size that is being depicted in that bottom photo and call attention to the fact that it is around 47mm tall compared to the UAMC Marine figure next to it. As people are discussing the sizing we felt it was best to be as clear as possible as we're reading a lot of different #s being discussed.

Here's the link to the comment. Feel free to continue to chime in on that one:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/defiancegames/28mm-power-armor-hardsuits-defiance-games/posts/668177?cursor=5183230#comment-5183229

Honestly may be worth trying to get your money back on this. Considering they were intentionally deceptive in regards to management.

Of my 25$, there are about 20$ left with my name still on it... I've made my peace and moved on. I just keep the thread updated for your enjoyment.

If I get crappy minis in the end, then it'll be nice for scenery or scenarios.

If you want a refund, and act quickly, it should still be possible to get one. NoseGoblin posted this in the thread in Dakka Discussions:

 NoseGoblin wrote:
I was hoping that the company was turning over a new leaf but with all the recent news it seems that is not a possibility.

As a result I requested and was given a full refund.

 NoseGoblin wrote:
I contacted them and never received a reply. I then opened a ticket with Amazon Payments. I would imagine they still have some leeway in deciding that they will or will not give refunds so I am assuming they (Defiance) decided that they would approve the refund.

It seems he did it through "opening a ticket with Amazon Payments". That's not a method I'd heard of before, but it sounds like it might be similar to Paypal- you may have a window near the date of purchase in which to request a refund.

But then who'll keep you entertained?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
But then who'll keep you entertained?

Maximus. Duh.

Update #26 Nov 27, 2013
Pre-Turkey Day Update
5 comments Like 4 likes
For those of you who are celebrating tomorrow - Happy Thanksgiving! For those of you who are not we'll all make sure to have extra helpings in your honor! For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

Thanks to everyone who posted to let us know your thoughts on the hardsuit sizing - it was very informative and helpful as we are moving everything forward. Here's a photo of the proposed hardsuit size next to a UAMC Marine figure to give you a real apples-to-apples comparison:

If everyone is happy with that - we'll be moving onto 3D prints and preparing for the tooling phase. Please feel free to comment again!

In other news, after reviewing the various options we're going to use FundaFull - http://www.fundafull.com - they had some features we liked and they're actually somewhat local to us so that's always a bonus! We're in the process of organizing it all and it *should* be ready to go after the holiday weekend if all goes according to plan.

As mentioned in a previous comment that you might have missed - Bob Naismith was partially done with the female Marines and we posted them up a bit prematurely. He is going back into them with a vengeance along with doing an additional original sculpt. We hope to see something back from him in a week or two and we'll pass it onto you as soon as we do!

Again for those of you celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow - enjoy. For the rest of you have a great rest of the week and we'll be talking again soon!


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For my money's worth, I'll say this. It looks like the exact same suit, so I don't know if they are just doing this to give us the impression of having a few of them, but it is fishy.

So, I haven't really heard back from Kickstarter about this. Some new stuff has come up since I reported the KS last time. Should I keep pursuing this?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

For my money's worth, I'll say this. It looks like the exact same suit, so I don't know if they are just doing this to give us the impression of having a few of them, but it is fishy.

Of course it is fishy, it is Defiance.

Yeah, it's the same figure that has already been shown before, they've just photographed it next to a physical marine.

A skeptic would suggest that they just went with the size they originally planned to do all along.

So, another not-really-updating-anything update although I do like seeing the power armor next to an actual marine and not a photoshop job.

Also, dem containers in the background..

At least they are now paid for containers.

Aye, at least that bit of misery got the morphine it needed.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

Spoiler:

For my money's worth, I'll say this. It looks like the exact same suit, so I don't know if they are just doing this to give us the impression of having a few of them, but it is fishy.

Sure does look like the same. Same darker patch of ground to the right of the left most grass... same rocks behind each tuft of grass... I guess they just went with what they had planned all along!

yeah looks like they stuck with the size. Not sure if thats because people said the size was good or because its less work.

I worked with DF a little bit in the past, just playtesting their rules and giving feedback on the early company, been in the email group ever since, jrecieved an email from Gary a few days ago, I hope it clears some things up:

Hey all.

I don't know how many people actually come our here but I wanted to update you all as best I could with the Situation at Defiance Games.

I know there's been a lot of confusion as to what's actually going on. The fact is that myself and the team that had been working on the Kickstarter have left the Company.
Tony is now running things and we're moving on. Howard has been around giving our team valued advice but otherwise he's been pretty much out of the company for a long time. I know he's asked Tony to remove his rules from the Website. He's moving on as well.

Take care.
Gary

Aside from all the other issues, it always amazes me just how crap their pictures are. It's not that hard! A cheap point-n-shoot with marco function and a cheap lightbox with lights can cost less than $200, and you get tons better photographs. Right now it's like their using a cameraphone with greasy fingerprints all over the lens. And don't even get me started on the lighting...

~Tim?

 winnertakesall wrote:
I worked with DF a little bit in the past, just playtesting their rules and giving feedback on the early company, been in the email group ever since, jrecieved an email from Gary a few days ago, I hope it clears some things up:

Hey all.

I don't know how many people actually come our here but I wanted to update you all as best I could with the Situation at Defiance Games.

I know there's been a lot of confusion as to what's actually going on. The fact is that myself and the team that had been working on the Kickstarter have left the Company.
Tony is now running things and we're moving on. Howard has been around giving our team valued advice but otherwise he's been pretty much out of the company for a long time. I know he's asked Tony to remove his rules from the Website. He's moving on as well.

Take care.
Gary

Why did Gary claim he was in charge and carry on with the kickstarter when this was clearly not the case. He was clearly part of this deception.

 winnertakesall wrote:
I worked with DF a little bit in the past, just playtesting their rules and giving feedback on the early company, been in the email group ever since, jrecieved an email from Gary a few days ago, I hope it clears some things up:

Hey all.

I don't know how many people actually come our here but I wanted to update you all as best I could with the Situation at Defiance Games.

I know there's been a lot of confusion as to what's actually going on. The fact is that myself and the team that had been working on the Kickstarter have left the Company.
Tony is now running things and we're moving on. Howard has been around giving our team valued advice but otherwise he's been pretty much out of the company for a long time. I know he's asked Tony to remove his rules from the Website. He's moving on as well.

Take care.
Gary

Okay, so what exactly does that mean for the backers exactly? Are they still supposedly going to fulfill the Kickstarter pledges or are they pushing it aside?

Defiance games as a business did the KS so Defiance (with Tony as the owner from the sound of it) is the one who has to fulfil the KS

assuming it can (bringing in new staff/contractors as needed)

(Gary and the rest ran the KS as employees of Defiance but from the above they've all left)

if not and the money runs out either from being spent on getting the KS stuff done or from pre-existing debts then Defiance folds and the KS backers are out of luck

On the one hand, more diversity of products is always good... but at this point, we've wished well to this company, even when we snickered at their failures, for 2 years. Maybe it's just time for Defiance to just give it up. I'm sure there is a big bank in New York looking for someone with Tony's skills.

Has anyone actually checked defiance exists as a legal entity? I have heard that they've let companies lapse in the past in all but name and was curious if defiance was still a registered entity or not?

Yes, they are registered as an llc in Wyoming which is supposed to have very lax rules for corporate governance and transparency. I don't have the link right now, it was deleted when posted on their Facebook page but Google will find it with some work.


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https://wyobiz.wy.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?eFNum=090047168059237013184254039215154122145244098244

Found it again. I'm not sure how to get access to the documents listed in the history, it's not as user friendly as Companies House in the UK.

They claim their copyright on theit own website as an LLC, but what do I know? Seriously, I have no idea how to check that up.


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Ninja'd.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Defiance games as a business did the KS so Defiance (with Tony as the owner from the sound of it) is the one who has to fulfil the KS

assuming it can (bringing in new staff/contractors as needed)

(Gary and the rest ran the KS as employees of Defiance but from the above they've all left)

if not and the money runs out either from being spent on getting the KS stuff done or from pre-existing debts then Defiance folds and the KS backers are out of luck

Actually, if Gary misrepresented himself as an executive of Defiance that is something which can potentially make him personally liable for obligations incurred on Defiance's behalf as such, if Defiance does not come through on them.
Kind of a tricky thing to argue (costly, mostly) so I don't think a KS project totalling <60K USD will warrant that, really.

Still, while I'd have to look up how the US (and wyoming specifically) handles this sort of thing exactly, he's not entirely clear AFAIK.

Also, does Kickstarter not have a bit of a responsibility in making sure those they allow to use their platform are legitimate businesses?

If there is no paper trail linking Gary to Defiance management, didn't KS fail in its due diligence? (I'm genuinely asking, I'm about to open the store and I can't spend too much time trawling KS policy)

I thought the premise of KS was to allow individuals the funding necessary to form legitimate businesses and bring products to the market. Considering that one of the first kickstarters I heard of was a guy setting up a campaign to buy a sandwich that raised several thousand dollars after it went viral, I don't think that was a requirement. Putting in that requirement also opens them up to some more liability as they'd have some obligation to actually *CHECK* and see if the information submitted was real and not just fake (like the Munsters address I enter on web registration forms I don't care about) if they're vouching for kickstarters only being run by legitimate businesses. It's markedly better for them to just be a hands off portal where everyone can interact at their own risk.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Also, does Kickstarter not have a bit of a responsibility in making sure those they allow to use their platform are legitimate businesses?

No, because it's not meant for legitimate businesses. The established businesses are the blow-ins here, not the start-ups and random schlubs.