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 n815e wrote:
Black Cat Bases (stopped doing business, still keeps a web shop open that takes orders and money)

Black Cat Bases actually recently fulfilled an order I had long since written off. Admittedly, the minis I was looking for (A robot resembling Cap Trap from Borderlands) were available in a better form form Armorcast, who are easier to deal with (but still get weird if it's convention season) but BCB did fulfill my rather ancient order. Not sure I can recommend them right now, but they are making good on old orders after some sort of long illness.

That's good to hear.

problem is a lot of those companies are small one man operations it seems, PB blasted their 30 year experience and such and even flaunted it, our problem is we did not realize PB meant 30 years of delays and false starts and promises.

CMON? Those are the ones who did Zombicide, correct? I haven't had any issues with season 2/3 (didn't participate in Season 1) where they weren't on top of the issue in a flash.

Defiance? Yeah, I got suckered into that one, and it's the reason I'm PO'ed about PB dragging their feet.

 Balance wrote:

about the game in your signature I played that game or one like it, but that was like a decade ago.

It would be interesting to know if they're actually giving mike reasons for not implementing his suggestions, or if he just receives no reply.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Wait, didn't TPTB claim to have delivered all of the Wave 1 boxed sets globally? No?

That, unfortunately, is quite possible. I'm the poor git who didn't go in for this campaign for the game. I'm more of a modelmaker than a player, and I have fond memories of both Robotech and "Battle of the Planets" [not a patch on the original "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman", but that's another story.] and wanted a decent model of the ship version of the SDF-1 and the character models.

So it may be correct that all the Wave 1 stuff has gone out, but all my wave 1 items totalled a lousy decal sheet - which they blew around 1/3 of what I paid in postage to get it to me. I look forward to getting that SDF-1, Rick, Roy, Khyron, Miria(? the female power armour figure) and YF-4 set for less than $6 in postage to the UK. I'm quite happy to pay the Grasping Post Office whatever they charge to get it to mee due to import duties and the £8 they add on for the privellege of paying it on your behalf whenever PB actually ship these items [sometime between now and the sun going nova. PB may have some clue as to international business, answering e-mails and the like by then. The SDF-1 is going to be sold straight on no matter what, I have already pre-ordered the one I linked to on HLJ. It will undoubtedly be bigger, more detailed, and arrive quicker than the vapourware we've had so far on wave 2 from PB.

Seriously, PB would lose less money - and gain some slight goodwill - if they just refunded my pledge [which is obviously why they won't do it.]

Kinda makes you wonder, does Palladium just not know how to refund a credit card payment? Like it's not stubborn refusal or lack of funds, they just can't work the tech?

They have my address, they know how much I paid, and what they've spent sending me what little they have. I don't see the problem.

Unless you are suggesting they don't know how to operate a cheque book and pen?

You are, aren't you?

OMG, they don't, do they?

 Conrad Turner wrote:
They have my address, they know how much I paid, and what they've spent sending me what little they have. I don't see the problem.

Unless you are suggesting they don't know how to operate a cheque book and pen?

You are, aren't you?

OMG, they don't, do they?

Oh, they know (or at least claim to know) how to operate a chequebook and pen. The reason I know this, is because when I initially wanted to get the pledge transfer happening (someone was willing to buy my pledges before Wave 1 shipped, as my issue was with parts count/assembly, not the later shenanigans), here was the procedure they put in place.

1) Buyer sends PB a cheque by snailmail for the value of the pledge.
2) PB deposits said cheque.
3) PB waits for cheque to clear.
4) PB changes the details on the order.
5) PB issues a cheque to me, again by snailmail.
6) I cash that cheque.

After much frustration over three months of shoddy communication with PB, the buyer just said "stuff it", Paypalled me the money, I changed the mailing addresses, and we both sent them a KSPM indicating that the change had happened. I did eat the PayPal fees in the exchange (my choice, he was happy to split them), as well as half the shipping cost, about $100US in real terms, but it was worth it to avoid the frustration. That's about what I'd have lost on a refund after KS/Amazon fees were removed anyways.

So, chequebook yes. Internet banking? Mmm... not so much. That was at the point in the whole discussion I went from thinking PB were not just in over their heads, to being horribly, possibly terminally, incompetent and out-of-touch.

CMON is pretty bad at communicating, but they do eventually deliver.

Z3 went pretty well so they do show signs that they are learning.

Z2 was pretty bad. Basic sets arrived just before gencon and there were unsubstantiated rumors that then getting sold to non backers st the event. Shipping started at the end of august only to find out that they were missing containers, but CMON said they would ship out partial pledges. A month went by without any information and few if any reports of anyone getting anything. It then took about 3 months to get everything in the US out. Internati ok nal backers also had problems, particularly since European fulfillment was through Battlefoam UK which didn't have the bandwidth while the European distributor had plenty of available stock so product was on shelves well before backers got theirs.

Relic Knights distribution was also (mis)handled by CMON with European backers again getting the shaft with the rewards being packed last on a slow plane. There was also a bit of a screw up and some backers got xenoshyft instead.

Ironic thing is that Ninja Division did a good job recovering from that and there's a Relic Knights expansion on the way soon (tm). While there were complaints about the quality of the restic and lack of assembly directions, compared to what we got for Robotech, I'd rather have gotten restic instead of what we got.

Anyone remember if there were problems with Sedition Wars or Rivet Wars?

 Stormonu wrote:
CMON? Those are the ones who did Zombicide, correct? I haven't had any issues with season 2/3 (didn't participate in Season 1) where they weren't on top of the issue in a flash.

Defiance? Yeah, I got suckered into that one, and it's the reason I'm PO'ed about PB dragging their feet.

 Conrad Turner wrote:
They have my address, they know how much I paid, and what they've spent sending me what little they have. I don't see the problem.

Unless you are suggesting they don't know how to operate a cheque book and pen?

You are, aren't you?

OMG, they don't, do they?

Going back to Morgan's "joke-but-disturbingly-true" statement that "restart" means "begin doing the same thing again", could it be that they similarly don't know the conventional meaning of refund and think that it means all these people are trying to fund them again?

No wonder they're getting curt! They have all these people who keep saying they want to give them even more money but they never do!

cannonfodr wrote:
Relic Knights distribution was also (mis)handled by CMON

Ninja Division did a good job recovering from that and there's a Relic Knights expansion on the way soon (tm).

Anyone remember if there were problems with Sedition Wars or Rivet Wars?

CMoN deliberately screwed up RK production & distribution in order to poison the well of future sales, knowing that they were spinning the property back to SPM / ND. The sheer magnitude and variety of problems, in the wake of the CMoN "captive" ZC KS' makes that pretty obvious the RK screwups were done out of malice, not incompetence.

Fortunately, ND/ SPM had a lot of backers with a lot of love for SDE, and that carried them through; however, SDE:FK was pretty late, due to a "mono wave" concept, rather than pushing the base box out, and then following with expansions. Also, SPM was way too tight on SDE:FK playtesting, and the final product suffered for a lack of blind playtesting. The RK expansion, with non-KS items is coming, and that's good for SPM, although it's not quite my cup of tea.

Sedition Wars wave 1 was adequate - minis were OK, although there were a lot of TTG complaints about off-center tokens and counters, along with serious (i.e. unplayable) issues of board warpage; similarly, there were issues with minis assembly - it's like working with WMH restic, and that simply isn't any fun. Wave 2 kept all of the bad rules, made the unit and scenario balance worse, changed the minis scale and style and was very late - a total clusterfeth. Basically, SMV completely failed to realize that Wave 2 was their chance to relaunch a lackluster and flailing SedWars board game franchise with clearer, cleaner, and simpler rules. In many ways, SMV is directly comparable to TPTB behind RRT, full of incompetent and clueless yes-men that spend their time blowing smoke up the boss' ass.

I heard the exact opposite about RK and who was to blame... And ND followed it up with Robotech, another clusterfeth. While a huge portion of the latter blame belongs with Palladium, it would be very naive to assume the common thread between the two was somehow blameless.

Well, the various rounds of BBB have reached a conclusion.
They keep threatening to post the various details of the complaints but I cannot seem to find one that can be read.
Maybe I was the only one that faithfully took it the prescribed number of back and forths?
Video springs to mind...Anyway, if nothing sees the light of day, I will dump the 4 letters out there for review.
Anyway, maybe we will something in the months to come...

 Stormonu wrote:
CMON? Those are the ones who did Zombicide, correct? I haven't had any issues with season 2/3 (didn't participate in Season 1) where they weren't on top of the issue in a flash.

Defiance? Yeah, I got suckered into that one, and it's the reason I'm PO'ed about PB dragging their feet.

The point was that CMON was originally New Wave, a scam company. CMON was funded by money that was being stolen from New Wave customers.

We're really going to need to get back on topic in here please.

Thanks!

 Talizvar wrote:

Maybe I was the only one that faithfully took it the prescribed number of back and forths?

I'm still awaiting a response on mine.

And now I'll have to bloody well break out my Dr. Steel disc. Toy Soldiers fo-evah.

 Talizvar wrote:
Well, the various rounds of BBB have reached a conclusion.
They keep threatening to post the various details of the complaints but I cannot seem to find one that can be read.
Maybe I was the only one that faithfully took it the prescribed number of back and forths?
Video springs to mind...

Spoiler:

Anyway, if nothing sees the light of day, I will dump the 4 letters out there for review.
Anyway, maybe we will something in the months to come...

well at least 6 complaints have been filed with the BBB and are now closed most likely over this incident.

Been redoing some cards by request...

Zen Forces

@Alpharius: Good point, I keep forgetting what the topic is here rather than a gripe session on PB.

I have way too much of this darn stuff, I have supported PB more than they have a right. (6 retail boxes of stuff till I figured out wave 2 was going nowhere and snagged another starter box on the cheap). I might as well bulk out all the other units with the big blast templates (let the crying ensue). Need to set up some VF's with the graviton bombs, just have to figure out what an appropriate WYSIWYG munition that would be.

Some people are mounting a small stand with a magnet on the base to place missiles on marking what it has so that you can forgo WYSIWYG since each mini will have it clearly indicated on the base during play.

 Mike1975 wrote:
Some people are mounting a small stand with a magnet on the base to place missiles on marking what it has so that you can forgo WYSIWYG since each mini will have it clearly indicated on the base during play.

Yeah, I knew about that, I am weird that way.
I like doing slight variations on paint scheme to reflect armament.
Remember, we are trying to make it appear as much variety as possible since we are without........ ... ... wave2!

Somewhat on topic;

Just got a notification to my email -

Post approved - "Re: A Thread For Discussing Threats of Litigation Over RRT"‏

Hello UserName,

You are receiving this notification because your post "Re: A Thread For
Discussing Threats of Litigation Over RRT" at "Forums of the Megaverse®"
was approved by a moderator or administrator.

If you want to view the post, click the following link:

http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=149082&p=2878881&e=2878881

If you want to view the topic, click the following link:
http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=149082&e=0


--
Thanks,
Megaverse Management


So, being shocked that my response passed muster I followed the link -

Information

You are not authorised to read this forum.

What
The
Frell

Seriously, PB mods? Not only did I submit that response at least 2 weeks ago but you've locked the thread already? I'd say these guys are shooting themselves in the foot but they can't figure out where the safety is on their Glock.

At least you got approved (sorta!). I posted a reply about 2-3 weeks ago and got this denied message:

"Hello IGotMoose,

You are receiving this notification because your post "Re: So, how about an
alternative to litigation ?" at "Forums of the Megaverse®" was disapproved
by a moderator or administrator.

The following reason was given for the disapproval:

The reported message does not fit into any other category, please use the
further information field.

Your comment has been disapproved for being relatively factless...

Considering Palladium cannot show any work, communicate or account for the
funds raised, it does look very much like "UNABLE"

-- The existence of Wave 1 and photos of Wave 2 items shows accountability
for funds. The nearly 200 Updates on the KS page show they communicate.

As I've said on other forums, I don't think a single person genuinely cares
if the project is late. The problem is the absolute lack of communication
which is completely disrespectful to the 5k+ people that invested in making
Palladium's project come to life. As part of the KS ToS the creator is
required to act in good faith, communicate and be transparent. Palladium is
doing none of those things despite polite requests, firm requests,
aggressive requests and now through legal means.

-- Again, the nearly 200 updates on the KS page, plus the updates made via
Press Releases indicates that Palladium is communicating. Whether or not
you like or agree with the said updates is a personal decision that you
decided to make."

I bolded the parts I found amusing and just shows how out of touch they are ... I have a hard time believing that someone actually typed that out and thought it legitimately answered any questions.

Can someone tell me how to set a custom avatar over on the PB Forums - I can't see how to do it, unless...you're not allowed to, and can only use pre-set avatars?

Gotta pick one of their preapproved ones unfortunately to my knowledge. Only staff and mods seem to get to choose their own.

That's...not cool.

I guess I'll be going with no avatar then!

The other surprising thing for new posters (besides post preapproval) is that you can't ever post pics directly (just url links to them).