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I'm gone for a few days and look what happens when I leave you all unsupervised. Gosh.

Albertorious, I want to say sorry, I feel for you, etc., but.... you're not really missing out on anything anyway, are you? Although, this, in my book, is the proverbial "third strike" in terms of forum-dickery from the TPTB. (The others have been discussed ad nauseum here.) But I must say, I feel kinda snubbed to not also have been banned. Aren't I enough of a troll??

In therms of the other bs: "Wooo! Canadian game made by Canadians with a setting based on Canada and Canadian cities and people! ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY AMERICAN FLAGS!!!" I mean, I get it. There's more of them than us and you'll make more money off them. But, guys. Come on.

 warboss wrote:

John Prins wrote:
No, the forum isn't a totally free and open exchange of ideas, what game company owned forum is? One of the forum rules is basically "Don't make disrespectful comments".

I don't suppose that courtesy was extended to albertorius when 11badger apparently called him an ass a week or two ago in the landship thread and then bragged about doing so yesterday?

You're right, the rules aren't applied consistently. Another of the forum rules is 'Leave the sorting out of bad posts to the moderators', so yeah, 11Bullets should have been warned for both disrespect and trying to be a moderator.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Firebreak wrote:
In therms of the other bs: "Wooo! Canadian game made by Canadians with a setting based on Canada and Canadian cities and people! ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY AMERICAN FLAGS!!!" I mean, I get it. There's more of them than us and you'll make more money off them. But, guys. Come on.

Designed in Canada, molds cut in Hong Kong, casting in America, boxed and shipped from the province of Quebec. Needs more flags.

Canadians aren't into plastering the national flag all over stuff. It's actually kind of off-putting to try American-style jingoism in your marketing with Canadian national symbols. Playing up the Made in the US for the massive American market seems wise to me. I'm no expert on sales and marketing though.

The Pod being who they are, why would he want to go around the IP block? If these aren't people he'd have a conversation with, just stay away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Firebreak wrote:
IIn therms of the other bs: "Wooo! Canadian game made by Canadians with a setting based on Canada and Canadian cities and people!

Wait, Terra Nova is Canada?

Is PAK Quebec? All the more reason to NUKE IT FROM ORBIT!

It sort of was. It's not nearly as explicit as White Scars = Mongols, but the Buck-man used to mention once in a while that they'd base such and such citystate off, like... how people thought of Montreal, or something. More in-jokes and less on-the-nose than most wargames do. Perhaps "inspired by" would be a better way of putting it.

I'm sure one of the older fans - ah, sorry, trolls - can correct/expand on that in the main thread, if you like.

Oh, OK. Got it. Not being familiar with Canada, beyond the fact that you guys invaded and marched on the Capitol just over 200 years ago... And we did a fine job of kicking the Frenchies out 250 years ago as a result of the French and Indian War!

 warboss wrote:
I didn't realize that they also IP blocked when they did that. Depending on how broad the block is set, you can sometimes just unplug your home router and get a new address as long as your ISP doesn't use static addresses. Barring that, you could read it on a web enabled smart phone as well. Smilodon, did you get IP blocked as well?

Oh, there are multiple ways to hide/change your IP to avoid the block. But... why would I want to do that, given everything? They (they being the Pod mainly, and Robert in particular, but also a number of fans there) clearly don't want me there, so... eh, better rip that band aid and be done with it.

Well not to go too off topic but no "Canadians" actually did anything to the White House. That was British troops. And you burned our capital, too. But there were "Canadian" men who distinguished themselves in militia service, particularly around Niagara where they earned some of the first battle honours of any Canadian unit, and that unfortunately is a fact that usually gets conflated in myth and misinformation.

Firebreak wrote:I'm gone for a few days and look what happens when I leave you all unsupervised. Gosh.

So it's your fault, then!

Albertorious, I want to say sorry, I feel for you, etc., but.... you're not really missing out on anything anyway, are you?

I've decided to define it as my birthday present from the Pod a week earlier. You can extrapolate from there

Although, this, in my book, is the proverbial "third strike" in terms of forum-dickery from the TPTB. (The others have been discussed ad nauseum here.) But I must say, I feel kinda snubbed to not also have been banned. Aren't I enough of a troll??

Clearly you're doing something wrong

John Prins wrote:You're right, the rules aren't applied consistently. Another of the forum rules is 'Leave the sorting out of bad posts to the moderators', so yeah, 11Bullets should have been warned for both disrespect and trying to be a moderator.

Bah, water under the bridge, you know.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Pod being who they are, why would he want to go around the IP block? If these aren't people he'd have a conversation with, just stay away.

That's basically it, yes.

Wait, Terra Nova is Canada?

Is PAK Quebec? All the more reason to NUKE IT FROM ORBIT!

Firebreak wrote:It sort of was. It's not nearly as explicit as White Scars = Mongols, but the Buck-man used to mention once in a while that they'd base such and such citystate off, like... how people thought of Montreal, or something. More in-jokes and less on-the-nose than most wargames do. Perhaps "inspired by" would be a better way of putting it.

I'm sure one of the older fans - ah, sorry, trolls - can correct/expand on that in the main thread, if you like.

A whole lot of Terra Nova's locations are straight out from Canada. For example:

Peace River, the megalopolis of the Badlands:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_River,_Alberta

Port Arthur, the city of Earth expatriates and home of the PAK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur,_Ontario

In that very same page, you can also find Fort William, largest city of the WFP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William,_Ontario

and so on and so forth.

Oh, OK, thanks for the references - I wasn't aware that they had taken the place names directly.

Albertorius wrote:Oh, there are multiple ways to hide/change your IP to avoid the block. But... why would I want to do that, given everything? They (they being the Pod mainly, and Robert in particular, but also a number of fans there) clearly don't want me there, so... eh, better rip that band aid and be done with it.

Fair enough. Me.. I'd probably be curious to see how the topic progressed for a few days.

A whole lot of Terra Nova's locations are straight out from Canada. For example:

Peace River, the megalopolis of the Badlands:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_River,_Alberta

Port Arthur, the city of Earth expatriates and home of the PAK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur,_Ontario

In that very same page, you can also find Fort William, largest city of the WFP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William,_Ontario

and so on and so forth.

Interesting... I didn't know that. I suppose the imperialistic Republic to the south then is based on....

 warboss wrote:
Interesting... I didn't know that. I suppose the imperialistic Republic to the south then is based on....

I would say there's more general in jokes and winks in the South, in general:

Marabou is a very flashy fashion style, with feathers as trimming.
Timbuktu is an historical african city in Mali.
Saragossa is, well, a different way of saying Zaragoza, which is a spanish city.
Ankara is Turkey's capital city.
Aquitaine was a french region.
Ashanti are an ethnic group from Ghana.
Innsmouth is... well, Innsmouth. That was very obvious tongue in cheek ^^.
Bethany is a village from the Bible.
Newton is the city of universities. Guess where the name comes from .
Réunion is a french island near Madagascar, but I'm pretty sure there's someone here who would be able to tell you more about that one than me.
Siwa Oasis is a... well, an oasis near the city of Siwa, Egypt.
Olduvai is known by it's archaeological digging sites, exactly as the Olduvai Gorge on Earth.
Mekong is a huge asian river that ends in Vietnam...

Basically, every name come from a very clear place ^^. IIRC, the ones near the Badlands have the most canadian references.

 Albertorius wrote:

Réunion is a french island near Madagascar, but I'm pretty sure there's someone here who would be able to tell you more about that one than me.

Seeing as the actual Réunion island is mostly known for its mountains, and high-quality coffee... Yeah.

And Perth is a small town obsessed with being perfect. (At least the Canadian one is.)

 Firebreak wrote:
And Perth is a small town obsessed with being perfect. (At least the Canadian one is.)

HG's one is the capital of the HA. 'Nuff said.

Nomeny wrote:
Also, being a paying customer doesn't entitle you to anything except the product you paid for, and maybe I'm wrong but DP9 does not charge a fee for posting on their forums. And most places will 86 you regardless of payment if they decide you are unwelcome.

Certainly a company is entitled to ban someone who is being disruptive or abusive on their forum, but we do need to remember one thing. Company forums like DP9 or other game manufacturers host are not charity efforts, or done out of the goodness or their hearts. They are fundamentally different than fan run forums like Dakka or Warseer. Company run forums are marketing tools to generate interest in their products. Being arbitrary or unfair when banning people from company forums just generates bad word of mouth which is exactly the opposite of what the forum should be for. Just look at the fallout here or people complaining about DP9 and saying they won't do business with them again.

I'm just saying. I'm not that fussed about the Gencon/KS backer issue. I'd rather see the game be a commercial success than not, and I understand exposure at Gencon is important for that. I'm just commenting on what I perceive as poor public relations choices regarding their forum management.

Conversely, people that didn't like his posts, and there are some, will feel more inclined to recommend the forum to friends getting into the DP9 universes. While Albertorius may feel that he was unfairly or arbitrarily banned, others on the DP9 forums felt that it was long overdue. I'm personally surprised that he managed to last as long as he did, given the tone of his posts, and his adverserial relationship with the Pod. I'm inclined to believe that it's a good public relations choice from the perspective of making their forum a place where fellow enthusiasts can...enthuse. It's not like Albertorius can't come and complain about it in venues like Dakka, after all, and perhaps feel more at home among fellow, like-minded people.

I mean, I get the hurt feelings that follow from being banned from a forum where passionate feelings about something are expressed. I've been banned from a few places in my time, and I've come to terms with the fact that they weren't my places, and the topics weren't anything I should have bothered to be riled about. You get banned, you understand that you're no longer welcome, and you move on. Frankly I think I'm better for it, as moving on is healthy, and you can't argue your way into anyone's good graces.

On a positive note, on the front page of DP9.com: "We have put the New Heavy Gear Blitz Plastic Miniature Army Boxes, Two Player Starter Box, and new Quick Start Rulebook up for Pre-Order on the Dream Pod 9 Online Store. Please note that orders with these new Pre-Order products will only start shipping after all our Kickstarter Backer Reward Packages have been shipped out in August."

If anyone is selling their pledge I might be interested in picking it up! PM me if you are.

 judgedoug wrote:
If anyone is selling their pledge I might be interested in picking it up! PM me if you are.

My pledge is $1, so... ^_^. I will probably sell my metal stuff, but seeing we're an ocean apart, it probably wouldn't be cost effective.

 warboss wrote:
I didn't realize that they also IP blocked when they did that. Depending on how broad the block is set, you can sometimes just unplug your home router and get a new address as long as your ISP doesn't use static addresses. Barring that, you could read it on a web enabled smart phone as well. Smilodon, did you get IP blocked as well?

I don't think so, but I'm not sure if my ISP uses a static address or not.
So far as I remember just clearing cookies & cache made the forum visible; not like I ever visit it all that much over the course of a year anyways.

And as pointed out by others the Pod has also never bothered slapping down those fan-friends acting as ''moderators'' in the past, and that clearly hasn't changed any coming into the now; always good for a healthy internet community but not atypical either.
It does get so old that for any gaming venue folks are always treading across eggshells to avoid somehow antagonizing the inevitable yet quite often tiny percentage of ultimate fan-friends that merely get replaced in a never-ending stream, who're all the while frothing over any perceived attack.

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_

Hahaha, they've announced their next Heavy Gear Blitz Kickstarter for Peace River, NuCoal and Utopia.

"Listen! We haven't fulfilled our last project, but get fired up for the next one!"

Who does that?

Unfortunately, I LOT of companies.

BUT - 'voting with wallet' when it happens would be a VERY effective way of dealing with it, where necessary!

 brettness37 wrote:
Hahaha, they've announced their next Heavy Gear Blitz Kickstarter for Peace River, NuCoal and Utopia.

"Listen! We haven't fulfilled our last project, but get fired up for the next one!"

Who does that?

Is that verbal news from gencon? Or is there a link? I wonder how the timing for that will work. They've already announced that the Space Landship Yamato spinoff will be crowdfunding a month or two after gencon so that's a whole lotta searching potentially for the same dollars in the same couch. As for who does it, plenty of companies unfortunately as Alpharius said.

 Alpharius wrote:
Unfortunately, a LOT of companies.

Yeah, it is an unfortunate practice, but not an unknown one. I tend to use it as another reason for backing or not a project.

 judgedoug wrote:
If anyone is selling their pledge I might be interested in picking it up! PM me if you are.

At $60 msrp iirc, the single army pledges (and free rules download) are a reasonable alternative option especially with online discounts and free shipping if someone ends up carrying them. I don't have a model pledge (only in for a buck) but I asked a year ago about buying a quarter of a pledge and got no responses either.

If the announcement is true (not saying it is, I just have not seen either way), it might help explain the... eagerness... to try to avoid bad publicity.

Are Nucoal supposed to get plastics in the future?

According to the post a few further up, yes.

 brettness37 wrote:
Hahaha, they've announced their next Heavy Gear Blitz Kickstarter for Peace River, NuCoal and Utopia.

wow, Utopia, really? ...the faction so long ignored or nerfed it has never been a viable stand-alone force on the tabletop in any version of HG:Blitz!.

I'm not even sure there was ever a dozen solid supporters of the faction at the same time years back, let alone in NuBlitz, and even the most ardent supporters were not always fans of the sculpts.
And a mold was what, around $15K, that would need to be collected for converting that one faction to plastic models - I was surprised by the 1K backer numbers for this KS, but with Utopia as part of another, not sure I can see that happening again.

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Maybe with a broader base of fans and plastic miniatures available there will be Utopia fans out there.