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Morgan Vening wrote:

It is open, and impartial, but it's also not really responsible. While I know it's a piece that provokes emotion, the Monster is likely going to be three if not more sprues. For an item I'd be surprised went to more than a quarter of backers. Whereas the Ghosts/Lancers, there's 13,000 of each owed, and they could concievably be a single sprue if they're not focusing so much on retail. Similarly, 19500 Gnerls and MPA's are owed, again, potentially handled by a single mold. And I doubt most backers would prefer Zentradi Heavy Infantry over FPA or Armored Valks, but the ZHI was unlocked earlier. I'm just pointing out there's no simple solution, and even an impartial one is going to have some people flipping tables.

Very good points.. but the flip side of that is that if they only need to make 1,000 Monsters but every backer at a BC and up gets two ghosts each (so 10,000+ minis) then the costs may swing back over to the monster (especially if they switch material to something with a higher per model cost like metal or resin). Going with the route that pleases (or fulfills in some way) the most check boxes of rewards is a reasonable route as well.

It'd be kind of a hard thing to enforce though. Once the Kickstarter is done, and I doubt PB would do it if there was a lien on future earnings, as per the KSFAQ, "Project creators keep 100% ownership of their work.". If the game was to end up successful (a monumental task), I don't see what'd stop them from being able to do more in the future. I mean, it's not like PB care considerably about how they're perceived, or that they haven't gone back on their word to backers multiple times in the past. Would you really trust them if they said they wouldn't do any more going forward? Or that yes, all backers would get, for free, anything owed they eventually produced?

It's impossible to enforce short of a lawsuit... but at least that "promise" would be on the record, enforceable for those who want to persue it (not me), and I would agree with it as a resolution. If they agreed to it, then RickFury could unleash his tide of legal devastation on them for that as well if they later used the retail profits (if any) to come out with those minis. I wouldn't bother and at least I'd have most of the minis I'd have pledged for. If they offered to give the minis due for free and have the backer pay the imaginary wave 3 shipping, I'd consider that.

It's enforcible via a legal agreement, something with liquidated damages. Any lawyer can draft the agreement.

Thing is, nobody would sign it.

Only Judge Judy can save us now... I'd pay $5 to have Kevin Siembieda try his "we're working on it so you can't have any product or money back even though we have literally nothing to show for 8 months of supposed work" excuse on her.

So we're KSing to have Judge Judy try Kevin?

Sining wrote:
So we're KSing to have Judge Judy try Kevin?

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

funny thing is Kevin would show up just because he would think it is good publicity.

How much does it cost to get people on Judge Judy? I would put money into a kickstarter for an episode of Rick vs Kevin.

New PBWU.

They're apparently "working and planning for more support of Robotech® RPG Tactics."

They're also working long and hard on stuff. Really long. Really hard. They tell us so.

They've done some paper standees for RRT. It's only a year past when it might have been useful (ie, when the boxes were going out). Because IMO, it's unlikely that anyone who hasn't put their stuff together in the last year, are suddenly going to be inspired now. At least that's how I see it.

They did an in-store demo at a local store, and gave them a fairly reasonable plug. Honestly, not a bad idea. Again, I think, 6-9 months late.

" In the months ahead, we’ll be making moves to strongly support Robotech® RPG Tactics™ with demo packages and organized play.". Another "This'd have been good if it'd been in place a while ago, but it's a good start.

As for Wave 2? In the immortal words of Billy Birmingham, we've got feth all for you. Literally, this is it. "As for Wave Two, we are looking into and exploring some new options with regard to manufacturing and reduced piece count, while working on other areas of support.".

Oh, and the Christmas Grab Bags spruiking has begun. Cause of course it is.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, it's been brought to my attention that some are getting frustrated by the lack of progress especially in light of the attempt to "reduce parts count". So I figured I'd do another listing.

September 18
"We continue to explore ways to reduce the piece count without sacrificing quality and are considering every possibility."

September 24
"Meanwhile, we continue to explore ways to reduce the piece count and are considering every possibility without sacrificing quality."

October 8
"As for Wave Two, we continue to explore our options with regard to manufacturing and reduced piece count. We thought we had something that would work, but some concerns have been raised and we are looking into it more as well as into other options."

October 16
"As for Wave Two, we are looking into and exploring some new options with regard to manufacturing and reduced piece count, while working on other areas of support."

So, they've been doing this for at least a month, while working really hard. And long. And hard. And long. And they've got zero to show for it. Zero, zip , nada, zilch, bupkis, nothing, nicht, nil, naught, skunk, diddily squat, a big fat goose egg.

At some point, you need to crap or get off the pot. Just a reminder, the last non-cancelled date for completion for Palladium is end of Q1, 2016. According to the Forar count, 167 days.

On Working Hard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

 Mike1975 wrote:
On Working Hard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

Palladium misrepresenting themselves? Inconthievable!

Well.... I guess.... depending on who you ask, Palladium are very thievable. It's a made up word, but it rings of truthiness.

Hmmmm if they are looking for a new manufacturer someone should point them towards prodos.

At this point, someone should point them at anyone with a pack of modelling putty and more than one finger!

SeanDrake wrote:
Hmmmm if they are looking for a new manufacturer someone should point them towards prodos.

Defiance. That way people might actually believe them when they say it wasn't their fault it all went to hell. Again.

Merijeek wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
Hmmmm if they are looking for a new manufacturer someone should point them towards prodos.

Defiance. That way people might actually believe them when they say it wasn't their fault it all went to hell. Again.

The same could/would be said with Prodos, although that is a case of incompetence just like Palladium as opposed to outright fraud like with Defiance. Either way, stupidity is multiplicative in my experience with others, not additive. If Prodos AND Palladium collaborated on this, it wouldn't be dumb x2 but rather dumb squared. Now, if their defense, Prodos has at least surprisingly been trying to reform their ways for the past couple of days so hopefully the above won't be true in the long run from now on but only time will tell. Promises of new open communication and improvement in the management of troubled KS ring hollow for me in the short term; it's only if the change is permanent that matters.

 Conrad Turner wrote:
At this point, someone should point them at anyone with a pack of modelling putty and more than one finger!

First, that is a harsh dig at Michael Perry.

Second, would you really rather this be passed off to MIKH or Jody Siegel?

So in that month (or was it 2?) Palladium has been diligently working on trying to reduce the parts on an undisclosed number of wave 2 models to no avail. . .

I picked up a DIY casting kit and working from the convention exclusives, have managed to get myself a customized squad of FPA and started on the MPA. I actually started on the MPA, but didn't leave enough spacing between pieces in the first mold so after about 4 or 5 pulls, the molds fell apart. SInce it was my first try at casting, I took 4-5 pulls to get enough parts to build two MPA. I plan on including the John Woo MPA ace as well as the Melee Stun Baton MPA ace.

Poor Kakizaki may be in trouble right about now. . .
https://goo.gl/photos/vtrRYFajUu9nSFMR8

FPA squad looking to bust some heads once I finish basing and painting.
https://goo.gl/photos/MBuv5T8zT9V3SFos5

Next is to cast up 4 more MPA units and maybe try to convert the Nousgarma Ger suits with missile pods from light artillery pod spares. The only problem with them is that the backpack boosters are a bit larger and I don't think I have the scuplting skill so I'll just have to see how it goes with the smaller backpack.

I also need to get ahold of a Miriya Super Gerwalk and see if I can cast up parts to convert the regular valk kits to Supers.

The boosters should be reusable in all 3 modes and I'll need to adapt the top fuselage from the guardian for use in fighter mode as well.
The arm missile pods should be reusable in all 3 modes though I'll have to make adjustments to support the gunpod in fighter mode.
The legs should be resusable as-is for guardian, they can just replace the lower legs on the battloids and will require a little bit of modding/greenstuff for fighter, but once I get a master and mold that, I'll just cast that provided I don't lose too much detail.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Conrad Turner wrote:
At this point, someone should point them at anyone with a pack of modelling putty and more than one finger!

First, that is a harsh dig at Michael Perry.

Second, would you really rather this be passed off to MIKH or Jody Siegel?

sorry John, I can't answer that as I have absolutely no idea who Michael Perry, MIKH or Jody Seigel are.

My comment was only a dig, harsh or otherwise, in your own mind - and I can't be held responsible for that.

Given that the rewards that were stated during the campaign to be in resin could, and should, have been worked on from the day after the capaign closed, many of the people on this very forum could have sculpted the masters from milliput, produced the moulds, and cast up the final parts for those rewards BY THE TIME WAVE 1 SHIPPED, the point still stands.

What HAS PB been doing to make ANY progress on those rewards? Because from where I sit, it sure looks like Bupkiss to me!

 Conrad Turner wrote:
What HAS PB been doing to make ANY progress on those rewards? Because from where I sit, it sure looks like Bupkiss to me!

PB has been all talk when it comes to wave two. Before the latest cut past comments he said at length that they have been speaking to their China reps. So your right it's all bull. Wave two is as of now vaporware, at least that's what I get out of it. Until then the only thing that you can count on is WRRD continuing to apologize for Kevin's incompetence. WRRD that was not a dig at you. I know your still passionate about rrt and without you admitting it even I can tell your disappointment. You had a dream and PB turned it into a nightmare.

 Conrad Turner wrote:

sorry John, I can't answer that as I have absolutely no idea who Michael Perry, MIKH or Jody Seigel are.

Mildly off-topic, but it needs saying since the Perrys are some of the more influential sculptors of wargaming. Michael and his brother Alan are the Perry twins who sculpted many models for Games Workshop before moving onto their own brand called Perry Miniatures. The have made what many consider to be some of the best historical models on the market and in plastic. Both brothers are very heavily into historical re-enacting and it was while doing this that Michael lost his right (dominant) hand in a cannon accident. He then spent the time learning to sculpt with his left hand and returned to form doing better with his remaining non-dominant hand than most people can do with two.

While I believe you when you say there was no offense intended, you can see where saying that fingers are required could be seen as an uncalled-for broadside against a respected sculptor since his situation is rather distinct and unique in our very niche market. An assumption on John's part that you were aware of him, but if you were at a party and made that statement within earshot of Mr. Perry there's a good chance he'd be hurt. Granted, he'd probably channel that into making more insane displays for the Tower of London...

Getting back on-topic, I'd say even his earliest attempts would put Palladium to shame, but in order to compare something we'd have to see something to compare against, wouldn't we?

Krinsath,

Thank you for the explanation.

Now that I have read that, I do recall the name Perry in connection with GW at some point, but I was unaware of the man in particular, and certainly did not know about the accident.

I am glad that he didn't let it stop him, and appologise for any unintended offence.

cannonfodr wrote:

I also need to get ahold of a Miriya Super Gerwalk and see if I can cast up parts to convert the regular valk kits to Supers.

The boosters should be reusable in all 3 modes and I'll need to adapt the top fuselage from the guardian for use in fighter mode as well.
The arm missile pods should be reusable in all 3 modes though I'll have to make adjustments to support the gunpod in fighter mode.
The legs should be resusable as-is for guardian, they can just replace the lower legs on the battloids and will require a little bit of modding/greenstuff for fighter, but once I get a master and mold that, I'll just cast that provided I don't lose too much detail.

I already got the top boosters and the arm boosters done for my super sprue:

Sorry about the confusion, but this being a GW-centric site, I figured the Perrys were common knowledge. The guy does good work, despite the loss of use of his then-dominant hand.

MIKH and Jody are both notorious for lateness. For example: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491317.page

The devil you know, vs the devil you don't.

Cross posted from KS Comments;

Wow. Remember when we were talking about how it would probably take a couple of spectacular fails for KS to get some attention?

Apparently one is in the process of blowing up now; http://www.craveonline.com/design/911949-buccaneer-1-5-million-record-breaking-kickstarter-project-leaving-backers-empty-handed

According to the article, ~60% of backers have not yet received the product they're due (in this case, a 3D printer) and the company is saying they are looking into further funding to finish, followed by another claim that they're scrapping the current tech and 'going back to basics' (which is exactly what gives me profound faith in a project; out of money AND starting over!)

Note: yes, this is not an apples to apples comparison. I'm merely commenting on a financially large and successful campaign seeming to be in significant trouble. Which is the kind of thing that starts getting people talking about the uncomfortable truths with minimal backer protection and creators offering things they can't make good on (be it product quantity, product quality, both, time frame, etc).

I feel bad for the backers who are left in limbo, but until people are spurred into action, I suspect we won't see much change.

This could be just the impetuous that was needed.

Perhaps all the PB white knights would like to go over and defend those guys too against the haterz

Time will tell.....

Either way, I would not hold my breath. The ship is already filling with water and nobody seems to want to bail it out anymore since the Captain has no interest in trying to fix the leaks.

On the other hand, I'm almost done with the Battletech 3039 conversions. I'll have those done in a few days.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0VSNzmthd1vaHpZOW5RRlBEQzA

The 3055 ones should be easy since things will be 80% done since all that will need to be done is adding a few new units and then changing the stats for 3050 upgrades.

Wow Mike, neat stuff.
When my life gets a quiet moment I will take a good look at this.
So we grab RRT models for BT and now you make rules so we can grab BT models for RRT... genius! Evil! EXCELLENT SMITHERS!
<ahem>
Have you got around to looking at their "Alphastrike"?
It gave me and my friends some hope of playing massive games of BT.
My friends are rather excited about that but if you are ready to make a fast and dirty RRT version of BT I would support, heck, I may even get excited.

Anyone interested:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page The wiki for all that is Battletech.
http://www.masterunitlist.info/ and this is the insane "Master List" for BT.

For those interested, another kickstarter of note:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech You can all make fun of me later if this sucker slips.
Kickstarter backing #2!
Even after the PB "success"... sucker born every minute.

 Mike1975 wrote:
Time will tell.....

Either way, I would not hold my breath. The ship is already filling with water and nobody seems to want to bail it out anymore since the Captain has no interest in trying to fix the leaks.

Why so cynical? :-P

Also, it's not KS changing intentionally that I'm hoping for.

It's someone looking at them, looking at existing consumer protection laws, seeing the *massive* gulf between them and deciding to slap the platform around until something sensible shows up.

It might take years. Hell, it might take decades. But it's not impossible.

There's already been some movement at the state and federal levels (and a bunch of standing around as well). As the platform/genre/business model/etc grows, so will attention on it.

Cool. I think the boosters would be better in 2 parts. Reason for this is that the basic versions that we see, the front bit is a micro-missile launcher. This can get swapped out for extra fuel tanks (as seen with the Elint Seeker or Super Ostrich trainer) or twin particle cannons on the Strike variant.

Asterios wrote:

I already got the top boosters and the arm boosters done for my super sprue:

I'm surprised PB hasn't considered leveraging the fact that their current stuff is already in a bazillion pieces and just design the Super Valks and VF-1D/VE-1 kits to take advantage of that.

To convert a regular Valk to a VF-1D is pretty simple. Add a separate top forward fuselage piece for the battloid/fighter/gerwalk modes (the canopy goes back further for the back-seater), add alternate head and done. For the VE-1, add 3 radomes and the 3 sensor pods to replace the gunpod. 1 Add-on sprue to the regular Valkyrie box and they're set. Additional arms/legs options that can be swapped with the current ones would be icing. Knowing how PB likes to split things, say 42 total parts on the add-on sprue before any extra arms/legs and you could probably cut that down to half.

For the Supers, 3 sets of back boosters that can be added to the back of any mode, 2 sets of arm pods for battloid and gerwalk, 1 arm pod for fighter, a new fighter fuselage and new set of legs. So that's a new sprue for the fighter and an add-on sprue with super parts for the gerwalk and battloid. Reuse the current gerwalk and battloid sprues and they're done with that too.. Say 27 parts (6 back boosters, 4 arm pods, 1 arm pod for fighter, top/bottom fighter fuselage, 4 fighter leg parts split down the middle, 2 wings, gun pod, 4 battloid leg parts split down the middle, 4 guardian leg parts split down the middle) per valkyrie at minimum, probably more as PB would split the boosters and arm pods down the middle as well?

cannonfodr wrote:
Cool. I think the boosters would be better in 2 parts. Reason for this is that the basic versions that we see, the front bit is a micro-missile launcher. This can get swapped out for extra fuel tanks (as seen with the Elint Seeker or Super Ostrich trainer) or twin particle cannons on the Strike variant.

Asterios wrote:

I already got the top boosters and the arm boosters done for my super sprue:

I'm surprised PB hasn't considered leveraging the fact that their current stuff is already in a bazillion pieces and just design the Super Valks and VF-1D/VE-1 kits to take advantage of that.

To convert a regular Valk to a VF-1D is pretty simple. Add a separate top forward fuselage piece for the battloid/fighter/gerwalk modes (the canopy goes back further for the back-seater), add alternate head and done. For the VE-1, add 3 radomes and the 3 sensor pods to replace the gunpod. 1 Add-on sprue to the regular Valkyrie box and they're set. Additional arms/legs options that can be swapped with the current ones would be icing. Knowing how PB likes to split things, say 42 total parts on the add-on sprue before any extra arms/legs and you could probably cut that down to half.

For the Supers, 3 sets of back boosters that can be added to the back of any mode, 2 sets of arm pods for battloid and gerwalk, 1 arm pod for fighter, a new fighter fuselage and new set of legs. So that's a new sprue for the fighter and an add-on sprue with super parts for the gerwalk and battloid. Reuse the current gerwalk and battloid sprues and they're done with that too.. Say 27 parts (6 back boosters, 4 arm pods, 1 arm pod for fighter, top/bottom fighter fuselage, 4 fighter leg parts split down the middle, 2 wings, gun pod, 4 battloid leg parts split down the middle, 4 guardian leg parts split down the middle) per valkyrie at minimum, probably more as PB would split the boosters and arm pods down the middle as well?

the boosters are in 2 parts (one booster and one booster on both arms and legs), they are only attached like in a sprue which can be cut off. the leg pieces will be trickier and in 2 pieces for each leg I think, I'm doing them like the "Jetfire" transformer toy.

or did you mean split each booster? who do you think I am Palladium ?

 Forar wrote:

 Mike1975 wrote:
Time will tell.....

Either way, I would not hold my breath. The ship is already filling with water and nobody seems to want to bail it out anymore since the Captain has no interest in trying to fix the leaks.

Why so cynical? :-P

Also, it's not KS changing intentionally that I'm hoping for.

It's someone looking at them, looking at existing consumer protection laws, seeing the *massive* gulf between them and deciding to slap the platform around until something sensible shows up.

It might take years. Hell, it might take decades. But it's not impossible.

There's already been some movement at the state and federal levels (and a bunch of standing around as well). As the platform/genre/business model/etc grows, so will attention on it.

So, if Mike stopped working on the bucket brigade... who is left? WRRD? What about the guy (iirc Bad Syntax/Eric Smith) who paid $5,000 and posted those unboxing pics/videos from gencon? Is he still active (either on KS, the palladium forums, or the facebook group? From a quick look at the KS comments, Jaymz and Jorel don't seem keen but both fluctuate wildly with their love of Palladium and go back for regularly scheduled beatings but isn't Jaymz the guy who set up the wiki a year or two back? They let go/fired/separated/whatever the guy who was supposed to be the "robotech" guy a while back and shoehorned in a pencil sketch artist to cover his spot... but we never hear/heard from either for the most part. What about the vulgar canadian taxi driver (alex clark? or was it someone else?) who made it his personal mission to insult everyone expressing concern over a year ago when the project had quick obviously struck an iceberg. Is it pretty much just Red Duke keeping the flames of excitement alive and NMI with his razor sharp knowledge of the game mechanics working on further upgrades? Obviously in addition to Kevin, Wayne, and Alex of course.

I'm trying to remember the other names that don't generally post on dakka in the community back before wave 1, whether good or bad.