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Also this might be reading too much into things, but the Super VT, VEF-1/1D, and YF-4 show all 3 modes.

Rick and Roy only show the Battloid. While Rick's Fighter and Guardian could just be the regular F/G modes, Roy's Skull VT will need custom F&G modes.

And the campaign clearly states that Rick and Roy aren't just Max style custom Battloids, they include "___ in Fighter, Guardian, and Battloid modes (3 game pieces".

Still no sign of the SDF-1...

Of the lot, the thing I care about is this one:



Pre-production master model looked like this:


Yet the production render looks like this:


It looks smaller and more toylike?

I hope the final Monster is worth the $40 I paid.

So, umm, someone please let me know where they denied that they were out of money?

The seemed to dance around that very carefully. Bill Clinton didn't parse things that carefully.

Merijeek wrote:
So, umm, someone please let me know where they denied that they were out of money?

The seemed to dance around that very carefully. Bill Clinton didn't parse things that carefully.

they didn't deny it, nor did they deny spending kickstarter money on the NG crowdfund or on the company or other things like GC or such.

Indeed.

We all understand that Palladium has receipts and payroll.

What we want to understand is that the full $1.4M collected was spent on RRT product, and *only* RRT product.

I gather they're using the old ND renders from the end of the initial campaign as guides, since apparently their manufacturer can't convert them to a usable format. In essence, the manufacturer is having to rebuild the model files from scratch on the other side of the sea, despite having over a year to work on them now.

Yegaads, does KS not get what folks have been asking for. It's like that damn Kirk meme - "I can't hear you over how awesome I am".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Y'know, I find it interesting that the Monster's eyes are molded into the design instead of being decals that would be added on...

Hard to tell the scale of the Monster, without knowing how big that base is - should be larger than the Glaug's if it is to approach the size of the 3D printed one in the glass case.

That and the hazard triangles. Fortunately, those can be filed down.

 Stormonu wrote:

Y'know, I find it interesting that the Monster's eyes are molded into the design instead of being decals that would be added on...

Hard to tell the scale of the Monster, without knowing how big that base is - should be larger than the Glaug's if it is to approach the size of the 3D printed one in the glass case.

and yet the range is taken from the base and not the big cannons hanging out twice the size of the base away.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Of the lot, the thing I care about is this one:



Yet the production render looks like this:


It looks smaller and more toylike?

I hope the final Monster is worth the $40 I paid.

It's the very same render, you know, just positioned differently and sloppily put on a base. The upper left one is even the same pose in both.

As for the update... so many words, so little substance, plus trying to misdirect people looking for a real update on the status of the minis with 2 years-old renders... stay classy, PB.

 Albertorius wrote:
As for the update... so many words, so little substance, plus trying to misdirect people looking for a real update on the status of the minis with 2 years-old renders... stay classy, PB.

Most of what I'd have to say has already been said. But Albie's post covers it most succinctly.

I see there are a number of people leaping to PB's defence, and attacking the "haters". And with PB's own martyrdom in that regard, it's obvious they just. Don't. Get. It.

Nearly all of this would have been avoided if PB hadn't been incompetent in putting out reasonable updates on a reasonable schedule. But as far as they and their fans are concerned, anyone with a legitimate gripe is no different from the "angry and upset people who hate it and savage our every word, deed or image". No difference. Anyone not happy with everything? Lumped into that group. That these people put up on average several hundred dollars of their own money, just for the opportunity to savage them seems to escape Palladium. Sure, not every Dakka or PBForum poster is a backer, but everyone on the Kickstarter sure is.

One part I haven't seen covered, is early on in the post.

We have faced many unexpected challenges and met them head on to the best of our ability. In the process we have learned a lot and produced a damn good product with Ninja Division. As already explained in the past, our biggest stumbling block came right out of the gate, when tooling and engineering issues brought everything to a screeching halt.

Yes, it was explained in the past. But not AT THE TIME. In fact, if I recall correctly, it (EDIT: PB knowing of this issue) happened during the Pledge Manager. And not a word was said. I don't believe it was mentioned by PB until after the second or third delay (so, April 2014?). It definitely wasn't considered a big factor on September 26th, when they said "We are still shooting for a December ship date, but we don’t know yet if that’s a sure thing." and that was for the entirety of the pledge, even though anyone with even the most cursory checks would have known that was IMPOSSIBLE at the current situation. So, again, while the statement is "technically true", in that they had mentioned it prior to today, it's as misleading as feth.

Similarly, the "nothing new physically to show", yes, because nothing physical has been made. Technically true. But they're working on something, yes? Digital sculpts, sprue breakdowns, non-physical, but still tangible "progress". Show that. They did it before. They showed the digital sculpt of the Valkyrie Fighter Mode. EDIT: This one
Show those, for the Wave 2 models that are most complete. Caveat them with the fact that they're still works in progress. Point out what's wrong that's stopped it from being approved for molding. Hell, it'd be part of the commitment to show "plenty of behind the scenes insight" that was mentioned in the Risks and Challenges on the front page of the Kickstarter. It doesn't need to be finished, approved, finalized, preprodproto'd, milled, and test sprued before you can show it to backers. Hiding behind "nothing physical" is just a cheap deflection.

Some disappointed people would like to paint me and Palladium Books as the uncaring and evil enemy.

Nope. Just short sighted, easily distracted, and petty. Which may sound like a personal attack, but there's enough evidence out there to show beyond a reasonable doubt that each characterization is accurate.

Ultimately, the fate of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ rests in your hands. It always has. We need you.

Yup. The game won't survive without an active player base. But it can't and won't do that in a vacuum. That "organized play" is still on the Soon(TM) thing, a year after release, and with seemingly no interest from PB in actually managing it, there's a limit to what people will do to promote a game. Sure, some people will take it on themselves, but those are exceptions, not the rule. Without active engagement from on high, volunteer elements working on their own initiative can at most (based on gaming history), forestall failure. It can't engender success.

Overall, the fact is, this is mostly like the MegaDoublePost. Some blame deflection (this time, including backers!), some meaningless background, and some promises for future commitments to punctuality and excellence that aren't worth the electrons they're printed on. Nothing tangible. Hell, he even admits that the digital sculpts shown, are ones that we've seen before. Out of five fingers, I rate this Update a one. The middle one.

"If a friend borrows $100 and you never see them again, consider it a wise investment!"

Well, if my pledge helped make it so that PB get this project so fethed that the American AG's bring down the company and prevent anyone else from going through this, I'm glad.

If I ever get any further product from PB, it'll be a miracle. The update is, as usual, empty rhetoric. Half an hour later, you need to read it again because you can't remember any of it.

"Goodbye PB, I must leave you"

This might be relevant: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2015/06/dont-let-crowdfunding-be-your-doom

That update was just the worst.

Like, not just an adult, an adult that runs a company and employs other adults wrote that? I'd expect better excuses from a whiny teenager that just flunked their finals. No one with a shred of maturity makes or accepts excuses like that.

Really, I'm mad at myself. I was the idiot that game them money in the first place.

The pertinent parts I'd like to address in the Persecution Complex Update (as opposed to the previous 19 page History of Palladium one):

If there were ever any type of investigation, Palladium has accurate records, receipts, correspondences and documentation for every expense and transaction we’ve made regarding Robotech® RPG Tactics™. I have not spent the money on a new car or boat, there is no new house, no purchase of stocks and bonds, no salary raise, no luxury vacation (heck, no vacation at all), no parties, or any misuse of Kickstarter money whatsoever.

Of course, they chose the extremes just like before and not the single most common and majority theory over where the money went... extra wave 1 stock meant NOT for backers but for retail.

We are accused of being liars, incompetent, uncaring, and on and on.

Liars... So the project is 98% done and you've been working two years extra on that final 2%? When you promised both during the KS and then REAFFIRMED the promise that backers would absolutely get their rewards first before retail, you didn't try MULTIPLE times to break that promise? Incompetent... So taking 30 months or more to complete a project that you budgeted 6 months AFTER you fully knew the scope post funding is a sign of competence? Uncaring... 6 months of almost complete silence on the actual project at hand with an intervening promise to do better and to give detailed progress culminated with an update that literally trolled backers on purpose is how you "care"? If you weren't lying then by definition you were incompetent with the way this project has been delayed over and over. Your level and quality of communication has consistently also indicated you're either uncaring or incompetent as well. Pick two of three and you might have a basis for claiming you're not the third.

Sorry, Palladium, but over half that update is complete bs. I do appreciate the part that is not though with the actual renders although I'd much rather have sprue breakdowns or the exploding parts for the model for the models you ARE done with. I noticed they didn't confirm being actually done with any one model/sprue though sadly. Incremental progress on two dozen uncompleted models for 6 months is worse than having a few of them completed IMO. Rick and Roy look nice and I don't believe we've seen them before. Seeing the Supers and the VEF is nice as well. Those parts (minus the "woe is me!" drama) is the kind of updates you SHOULD have been doing on a monthly basis for the past 6 months assuming you were competent, truthful, and caring.

It's really interesting to note how much perception counts

Kingdom Death (which is just beginning to deliver it's first stuff) DID run out of money.....


the $2 million of KS money was not enough, and they proceded to throw in another $750,000 of their own money (from their normal releases) to finish things off

It's not impossible that if too many backers had got jumpy and asked for refunds, talked to AG,BBB, solicitors etc the whole thing could have fallen apart

but because Adam was careful with what he said (and when he said it),
because the infrequent updates were packed with loads of interesting and relevant info, showing real progress each time,
and because he carried on talking to and engaging the really interested backer in the KS comments (and lets face it these active backers are the ones most likely to act negatively if they get upset)

this didn't happen, people (including me) have largely been OK with the 2 year+ delay

Very practical comments all, thanks for the summary Forar with colour commentary... pretty much how I see things.

Well, what we get out of this update so far:
- Poked the bear and he is grumpy.
- Some fear of being investigated so trying to stave it off by saying the books are good and spending was appropriate.
- No word of out of money or spent it on retail stock.
- No evidence of being any further ahead in any way.
- Evident that they care about what is being said: they released that rant on a Wednesday! <gasp!>

Unfortunately I think this boils down to a non-answer other than a public commitment that wave 2 is important. Important enough to complete within 5 years or less is still unclear.

I will continue with my research and applying pressure because I suspect PB is figuring this massive "update" can buy another 5-6 months.

If by some miracle they refund my backer kit purchases, I may find myself in a difficult position since my only investment in all this would be the rewards.

Well, we will burn that bridge when we come to it.
Thanks all, you are good therapy.

by the way here are the cards Kevin is probably coming out with in the weeks ahead:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vSlYtU04xVTlYdWc&usp=drive_web

Wow, it's a small world... wonder why I'm surprised not at all to see Jay Little "feeling your pain" to Kevin and calling the project backers "Rabid dogs... howling at the moon".

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Pre-production master model

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's just a 3D print of the figure. Aren't "master models" usually involved in spincasting? For steel molds, I thought they just milled out a hunk of metal and started pouring plastic into it.

It looks smaller and more toylike?

I don't know about toylike, but given that there's nothing there for scale other than the base, I can't really say if it looks 'smaller'. Even with the base, there's just not a lot of context to these pictures.

I believe the Officer's Pod Booster Sled and the MAC-II are the only figures that are on a 60mm base. Obviously the gun barrels will give it a much larger footprint on the table.

Edit: if that pic is correctly proportional, it's wider than the 60mm base. A quick and dirty comparison in Paint makes it appear about 40-50% wider at the widest point of the arms, so up to 3.5 inches across or so? And seems to be at least 2.5-3 inches tall or so? Again, assuming that the picture is proportional to the base. If not, our point of reference is way skewed.

I don't have my books on hand, not quite sure how that should compare to the book stats, but I remember someone with a ruler at Gen Con back in 2013 and some math showing that the MAC-II might be a wee bit smaller than perfectly to scale.

I was assuming it to be a 3-D master print at 100% size and detail, per the 3-D digital design.

Scale wise, I was going from the bases in the base game (Valk / Pod / Destroid), which would make the model a *lot* smaller than I had expected. If the base is larger 60mm diameter, then the overall size might be OK.

Really, I want the MAC-II to be in scale - that was the entire point of me ordering RRT, to have the various things in the same scale. If I just wanted a MAC-II, I would have spent it elsewhere.

So.. we have some bits of new info and it all seems too familiar. In an effort to try and learn from the past (something Palladium seems incapable of doing), I've decided to do some comparisons. With this update, we have:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/1335688

Know that Palladium intends to get Wave Two out as quickly as we can, and ideally with much fewer pieces to assemble and without sacrificing detail. As stated, we’re shooting to release RRT Wave Two around the end of 2015 or sometime in the first quarter of 2016.

Ok... so we've got an update that is effectively close to a post summer/gencon update (so a full season or more to accomplish) predicting an end of the year or early next year delivery of Robotech Tactics rewards. I had some deja vu with that so did some digging and found this...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/posts/648924

Delivery Estimate

We are still shooting for a December ship date, but we don’t know yet if that’s a sure thing. What we do know is that Kickstarter backers will be shipped goods BEFORE we ship to distributors.

So a bit later (Sept 25th, 2013) but roughly the same thing. We have an estimate within 30 calendar days of the recent one from a different year telling us that we might get the rest of our stuff in the same estimated time frame in a different year. A little over a month after the above update (Nov 1, 2013), they revised it to February 2014. The reality is that it actually started shipping in August 2014 after gencon and didn't finish until around May (with Dakka's own HudsonD getting a shipping notification on 4/30/2015). So, when Palladium hopes to get it out at the end of the year or early the next near in or around September, the reality is that it is likely to take until the same time the next year or later depending on your location to get your items. This is of course dependant on whether Palladium has learned a few new things (unlikely), international issues (port strikes and fires), holidays (CNY), and even in this case the willingness of unpaid volunteers to ship out stuff for the $1.4 million project.

Let me be the first to predict that the great Gencon 2014 DebacleTM will have a successor in 2016.. if we're "lucky" and something new doesn't throw another unexpected wrench into the works.

Unless test moulds are already cut and in test for several of the models there is no feasible chance of delivery in Q1.

winterdyne wrote:
Unless test moulds are already cut and in test for several of the models there is no feasible chance of delivery in Q1.

There would be if you Nellys weren't so negative!

But won't Kevin's "caring too much" cancel out all negativity??

IGotMoose wrote:
But won't Kevin's "caring too much" cancel out all negativity??

If Kevin actually gave a damn about this game and cared about he would drop everything and devote everything to getting it done till it was done, the fact he only devotes maybe 1% of his time to the game and the rest to other gak says he doesn't give a rats behind and could care less about it and is just paying the backers lip service.

Asterios wrote:
If Kevin actually gave a damn about this game and cared about he would drop everything and devote everything to getting it done till it was done, the fact he only devotes maybe 1% of his time to the game and the rest to other gak says he doesn't give a rats behind and could care less about it and is just paying the backers lip service.

I have a suspicion he has not played the game once.
It would not even be within the realm of his core focus of RPG.
The money has his attention, and the attention of customers = "priceless".
Unfortunately the game is losing it's shine and he is getting less interviews so unless he makes the connection: "more new product = more buzz" agreed, it may have low priority.
That is probably why these GHQ models came-up: it is an easy quick fix with the hopes we are sucker enough to buy a bunch of them.
I am unsure he even cares that much about lip-service as long as he has a captive audience to issue his decrees to.

IGotMoose wrote:
But won't Kevin's "caring too much" cancel out all negativity??

Obviously the Siembiedassiah's love cures all. Though he suffered and was disparaged, he will rise again in 3 years post funding and lead us all to the promised wave (2). In the meantime, like he said in the update, "Purchase the exclusives and have fun with all of this"! (in that order)

I see PB (and therefore Kevin's) biggest fault to be he is a procrastinator - something I'm quite guilty of myself, I'll admit. For me, its something I've had to struggle with overcoming the last year or so, and I've lost all tolerance for it in others now. To me, filing with the AG and the BBB was a realization that the only way to get him moving was to put pressure on him. Using his own deadline and drawing a line in the sand to say "the buck stop here, you're not moving the goalposts any more" felt like the only thing I could do.

My patience with this project is gone; any other person working under someone else would have been fired as a project manager a long time ago. He's "fessing up" to mistakes and delays, but just doesn't internalize or believe that they ARE his fault and he's responsible for the state of malice towards the project.

I hope he keeps his promise of more dialog; maybe he'll get past his mad and actually start examining why we'll all so upset and how easy it could be to temper the rage. Somehow, I doubt it. Change isn't easy and the impression I get from the latest update is that no one would dare turn on him because he's invincible. He's wrong, I just hope he realizes it before its too late for him and his company.

several things I find funny in his update:

Please keep in mind that Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is not Palladium’s only product line or obligation to our fans. Our other product lines have also suffered long delays and painfully few releases as the demands of RRT keep us from making anybody happy.

goes and checks previous years releases and checks this years releases nothing changed there, so now hes blaming us for other areas not getting stuff too.

We care about you, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and its future. Anyone who says otherwise is mistaken or has an agenda to destroy this game, see the Kickstarter fail or take down Palladium Books. That last part may sound ridiculous, and in fact it IS ridiculous, but it’s true.

who does he think he is God? by the time me and other backers are done he will be lucky if he can borrow a dime.

Our distributors remain positive about Robotech® RPG Tactics™, and like everyone else, they want Wave Two and organized play (we’re working on both).

LoL well umm nuff said, LoL.

Our intention from the very beginning has been to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ something truly special. Epic. And fun. Of course, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We got off to a bumpy start regarding the initial product and the release of Wave 2. But we have NEVER wavered from our intention to give you a quality product and give you Robotech®. Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is Robotech®.

and yet they do everything they can to not give us a quality product by going the cheap route.

We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead:

Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces.
Force Organization Charts.

already done by Mike

Stats for Conventional Combat Vehicles (pre-Robotech).

also done by Mike

Expanded rules, errata, and clarifications.

probably done by Mike

A free set of basic rules and paper miniatures will be made available online.

already done by Mike

More photos of painted minis.

done by fans and such

And we’ll try to do more updates.

yes lets hold our breath shall we?

Ultimately, the fate of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ rests in your hands. It always has. We need you. That’s why we funded RRT via Kickstarter. My thanks to the multitude of you who have supported Palladium on this Kickstarter and over the years. I hope that support for RRT continues. We look forward to getting Wave Two rewards into your hands, and much more for Robotech®.

can't support something we don't have all of and the supporters our dwindling with more angry backers appearing.