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I will have to apologize for behavior in the KS comments but this unmoderated environment brings the flame out.
Plus, someone was wrong on the internet so I have to inform them of their error, to be helpful... yeah.
Yep, vaccine for high horse itus, I will try to be careful of terminal hypocrisy infection.

No need to worry about what you do Over There - just about what you do Over Here!

I have a rep here to upkeep so I am not watched too closely.

I think it's been the venting of some pent-up rage on the KS page. We pretty much know PB's not listening - and they aren't bothering to moderate the comments, so folks are just getting wound up and need to blow off some steam. Unfortunately, a few bystanders are getting singed.

I have my moments at losing my cool with this KS, usually right after Kevin puts up a non-update on the KS site.

Oooh, pushed the Midnight (EST) barrier, but there's a newsletter!

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™

We intend to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ forward in 2016 in a big way. To get the Wave Two Kickstarter exclusives and expansion packs into manufacturing and ultimately into your hands. For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized. With all the past delays and frustration, we don’t want to even speculate on release dates and other details until we have hard, complete information ourselves. But we will be sharing and offering more throughout the year in the weeks and months ahead.

It is all part of the relaunch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. By “relaunch” we mean a new and renewed market push of core games, regular product releases and game support, like RRT rules clarifications and elaboration, rules additions, advanced rules, demos, gaming events and promotions, adventures, PDF and physical releases, and more.

Please know that we are truly committed to making sure we complete and fulfill our Kickstarter obligations and to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ truly epic, with future expansions across all eras of Robotech®. We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.

Don't give us the same Bullgak about how worried you are about giving specifics. Don't want to, don't. But this year of vague generalities is insulting, and needs to end. Oh, going to give news in the next week or two? Feth off. Fething Show, Don't Fething Tell. I'll believe it when I see it, and until they can line up something tangible to go over (by the end of January, by their own vague timeline that I'm going to cheerily take at face value), they deserve every bit of mockery, scorn, FTC, BBB, AG and other letter that heads their way.

LAST chance – Palladium Surprise Package offer ends TODAY after midnight PST, Friday, January 15, 2016

Oh, well, that era has finally come to a conclu..

A secret: Wayne probably will not remove the Surprise Package offer from the store till sometime on Saturday afternoon. So if you miss the midnight deadline you may have time until Saturday afternoon to sneak in your order. We will honor all orders placed until the offer is taken down from the online store.

This offer will NOT be extended.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I believe Kevin left a few words out of the following sentence I took the liberty of correcting.
We intend to move the release date of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ wave 2 back in 2016 in a big way.

WTF with that update.

"We also expect to relaunch Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and get Wave Two expansion packs and Kickstarter exclusives into final manufacturing."

*Flips finger at PB* That's what supposed to happen in 2015. So despite working so "hard", they haven't even got into final manufacturing?

And that line about not speculating about release dates? Well they just speculated that they are getting into final manufacturing in 2016.

They are just gakky at things, Just telling us "Hey the designs are tweaked and at the factory end getting a look over, except the Eclair which has problems" will have gotten some flak, but would have been sufficient to satisfy some of us. They truly are terrible at managing customer expectations.

EDIT: The whole "we got big news for RRT too!" gak in the first email just end up being the same drivel in the second. PB being PB again.

Does he not realise that these updates are supposed to be on the project page and not in the weekly advertisement? It's in the bloody TOS that they have to update us THERE not in direct mail. I don't even get that stupid newsletter and only know about it when someone posts it to this thread.

"We also expect to relaunch Robotech® RPG Tactics™ and get Wave Two expansion packs and Kickstarter exclusives into final manufacturing."

Translation; Q2 ain't happening, boys. Gird up your loins and prepare to hurry up and wait.

What could these business and/or strategic reasons be? It's not like there is a lot of competition for robotech minis/games and the way this has been mishandled, they're not even on the radar for any other game companies. The only reason I could see is that the information would be damning enough to open the floodgates to legal action.

Like not having enough funds to complete wave 2 or no longer having intention to complete wave 2 because they've lost interest/enthusiasm or it would no longer be profitable.

With wave 2 no longer scheduled for the first 6 months of 2016 I think the relaunch will be to rebrand the game as Rifts RPG tactics and maybe a new kickstarter for that. Funds wouldn't go to complete wave 2 though because they'll bank on Rifts doing better despite their lackluster promotion and marketing and plan on using profits from Rifts Tactics to fund wave 2.

So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.
Then there would be observed progress and they do not have to fill a cargo container.
Then that trickle of income can continue!
Rather than the sad pewter offerings they have now (suggest releasing anything NOT that type first).
So many options, so little information shared.

 Talizvar wrote:
So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.

Hell, I can think of some backers that would probably be supportive of that idea. Encouraging of it, even. Right, Forar?

(pokes Canadian Grizzly)

So the comments now have gay text porn thanks to Mr. Wong and Palladium has officially unofficially moved Wave to out of "ideally Q2" to anytime in 2016 or beyond. Did I miss anything else overnight?

It's not gay! It's something that happens in the shadows and smells of brimstone.

Hmm.

 Forar wrote:
Oooh, pushed the Midnight (EST) barrier, but there's a newsletter!

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™

We intend to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ forward in 2016 in a big way. To get the Wave Two Kickstarter exclusives and expansion packs into manufacturing and ultimately into your hands. For strategic and business reasons we cannot share with you everything we have been exploring, considering and working on, but we will share everything with you as we move forward and get things finalized. With all the past delays and frustration, we don’t want to even speculate on release dates and other details until we have hard, complete information ourselves. But we will be sharing and offering more throughout the year in the weeks and months ahead.

It is all part of the relaunch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. By “relaunch” we mean a new and renewed market push of core games, regular product releases and game support, like RRT rules clarifications and elaboration, rules additions, advanced rules, demos, gaming events and promotions, adventures, PDF and physical releases, and more.

Please know that we are truly committed to making sure we complete and fulfill our Kickstarter obligations and to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ truly epic, with future expansions across all eras of Robotech®. We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.

Haven't we been told this for...quite a few months now?

Almost word for word?

 Alpharius wrote:

Haven't we been told this for...quite a few months now?

Almost word for word?

Ah, yes, but since it's not a direct copy and paste, it's "work" toward fulfilling the Kickstarter Wave Two.

So, you know, STFU, peasants!

Merijeek wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.

Hell, I can think of some backers that would probably be supportive of that idea. Encouraging of it, even. Right, Forar?

(pokes Canadian Grizzly)

At this point? They'd continue to get mockery for the 'backers fiiiiiirrrrsssssst!' thing, but actual tangible progress would be better than another year or two holding pattern waiting for them to finally collapse (and we all know PB are the zombie of RPG companies; shambling along and surprisingly resilient to punishment).

It'd probably get more of a shrug than ire from me, at this point, and even previously it was more about them abandoning their promises and the pretense that was used to draw in more money during the PM period. Actually finishing this gak rather than stumbling along for months and years holds appeal here.

I know some people would consider it the launching point for their Legal Tsunami Of Awesome Badassery, but my roller coaster of apathy wouldn't even budge much at that kind of change in direction.

OK, so the latest PBWU is full of chuckle material (or rage fuel for those who haven't yet seen the funny). Kevin kicking the can down the road with a promise of more information soon, yet again is just hilarious. So... here's an annotated list of promises. (inspired by Marnie Jefferson's post over on PB's FB page)

June 14 2015 KSU Conventional Forces - These stats and info will be posted next week
June 20, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - You’ll get to see this material in the next few days.... Force Organization Charts are coming in a few days
July 10, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Info - As for Wave 2, I’m working on a big breakdown of where each and every component is in its development, but that’s going to take some time.
July 10, 2015 KSU Conventional Forces - We’ll need to go over them and make any final adjustments, but they’ll be posted soon
July 16, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Passive Aggresively - I should have more info shortly, including Breetai pics and hopefully, you know, that other thing you’ve all been asking about.
June 20, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - We will be posting the stats and point costs for the Earth Defenders blister packs in a few days.
June 25, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 2, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 9, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 17, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - We have a telephone conference with the manufacturing broker next week to discuss a number of Wave Two related details. Rules, stats and other things are also coming your way. Working on a number of things related to this game line.
July 17, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 23, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
July 28, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - Especially with Wave 2 RRT products coming in the months ahead.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - Rules, cards, force organization tables and more should start getting posted in the weeks ahead.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - We are shooting to release the 20+ Kickstarter Wave Two items at the end of 2015, but don’t know yet.
August 7, 2015 PBWU Conventional Forces - Stats and rules coming any day now.
August 13, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - Especially with Wave 2 RRT products coming in the months ahead.
August 27, 2015 KSU Conventional Forces - We hope to have those stats and rules available soon.
August 27, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Release - As stated, we’re shooting to release RRT Wave Two around the end of 2015 or sometime in the first quarter of 2016.
August 27, 2015 KSU In the Weeks Ahead - Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces. Force Organization Charts. Stats for Conventional Combat Vehicles (pre-Robotech). Expanded rules, errata, and clarifications. A free set of basic rules and paper miniatures will be made available online. More photos of painted minis. And we’ll try to do more updates.
August 27, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - We will be posting the following in the weeks ahead: Actual cards for Wave Two game pieces.
October 30, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - Shooting for second quarter 2016.
October 30, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - they {Wave 2 Stats} should start going up in the next few days, along with their associated paper game pieces.
November 5, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Release - A Wave Two release in the second Quarter of 2016 would be ideal.
November 5, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - Right now we are finishing a couple of RPG books, but in a few weeks, we’ll be turning our full attention back to Robotech® RPG Tactics™.
November 20, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Secrets - but for a variety of business reasons we can not yet discuss or reveal exactly what we are looking into and considering.
December 4, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Secrets - All are works in progress so we cannot reveal any details just yet. We’ll talk about our plans for 2016 as the New Year approaches.
December 11, 2015 PBWU Wave 2 Info - We’ll try to provide some more insight on this next week.
December 12, 2015 KSU Wave 2 Info - We’ll try to provide some more insight on this next week.
January 8, 2016 PBWU Wave 2 Info - I’ll offer up more info and details in an update in the next few weeks.

But this time... he's serious!
January 15, 2016 PBWU Wave 2 Info - I’ll offer up more info and details in an update in the next few weeks..... We expect to post more information and details in a week or two.
January 15, 2016 PBWU Wave 2 Release - we don’t want to even speculate.... Not Yet Scheduled for 2016: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave 2 expansions packs

I know the list isn't completely comprehensive. But I'm not putting in more effort than Ctrl-F "Wave", Ctrl-F "Tactics". Cause trying to properly read even a pair of PBWU's makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, turn the spoon around and jab my brain with the spoon handle.


On a mostly unrelated note, Kevin's committing to 8 items (not including 3 Rifters) for the first six months of the year. Anyone want to take the over on half that? Especially as KevCo are 'refocused on RRT'. And I don't think PB have released 8 non-Rifter books in a full year since at least 2011. Let alone half that.

 Talizvar wrote:
So what would prevent them from having individual dies cut in the USA and release expansion packs piecemeal to retail?
They can also say "we are holding back shipment to backers until their full rewards are filled.".
It is not like we could get much more angry.
Then there would be observed progress and they do not have to fill a cargo container.
Then that trickle of income can continue!
Rather than the sad pewter offerings they have now (suggest releasing anything NOT that type first).
So many options, so little information shared.

...So, they should start acting more like Prodos?

On further thought, I think I'd actually respect a concise but thorough (not 20 pages of rambling; detailed, but on point) admission "look, when we said that mold costs and doubled and moved to 2 waves of shipping and all these other overruns, we fell behind."

Bite the bullet, admit actual failing regarding the 'promise' of backers first, show some fething humility and humbleness, and state that completing X figures and going to retail is what would be necessary to complete wave two.

Obviously if they're in financial trouble (not even drowning, just on too tight a budget to buff things up) it'd be hard to 'make it good' for the backers to really offset this sting, but if they're *serious* about getting this product line fully to market, hard choices have to be made. They tried (and failed, laughably) to sell RRT at Gencon after playing it up as 'for the games good!', so if that's the standard and precedent, then have the ovaries to admit aloud that For The Good Of The Game We Need Money From Retail.

I suspect they wouldn't get 75 or 80% approval again (not that I'm suggesting it should be another vote; sham or otherwise), but aside from a few who would lose their minds (and may already have anyway), I think most reasonable people would roll their eyes and go back to apathy more than anything.

So, yeah, if that were the case, I might even support that, if they didn't try to ineptly pull a fast one on us again. None of this "omg we're such fans, like YOUUUUUU, and just want to do what's best for YOU, the FAN, of ROBOTECH(tm)(c)(r)" crap.

Basically write it out, send it to me, and let me take an axe to whatever he has avalanched onto the pages.

Edit: the anger I read from most people is based off their silence and inability to do anything but spew nothingness in great quantities onto their updates and newsletters. The eye rolling or even ire over abandoning all pretenses of "backers fiiiirst!" would be, imo, made up for by showing actual, tangible plans to proceed and then actually following up on them.

Eh, mine comes from that and from the fan-friends whose only response is "You guys are horrible people for questioning The Mighty Simbieda! You're probably all serial killers! We all know Kevin will knock it out of the park again, you just need to give him tiiiiiiiiiiiime!" crap.

As for what theyre actually working on (from the newest update);
New Books Slated for the First 5-6 Months of 2016

The Rifter® #73 – Winter issue – Cat. No. 173 – 96 pages, filled with “official” source material by Siembieda, Rosenstein, Walton, Kluge and others. In final production right now. Ships early February.
Rifts®, The Coalition States: Heroes of Humanity™ Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda and Matthew Clements – in final production right now. Ships end of February.
Rifts® The Disavowed™ Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda and Matthew Clements – in production right now. Ships March, 2016.
Rifts® Secrets of the Atlanteans™ Sourcebook by Carl Gleba – Spring, 2016.
Rifts® Haunted Tech™ by Kevin Siembieda sourcebook – Spring or Summer.
The Rifter® #74 – Spring issue – 96 pages, filled with “official” and optional source material. Ships April or May.
Garden of the Gods™, a Palladium Fantasy RPG® Sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda – Spring.
Lopan™, a Palladium Fantasy RPG® Adventure Sourcebook by Glen Evans, additional material by Kevin Siembieda – Spring or Summer.
Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.
Chaos Earth® First Responders (more than you may imagine) – Summer.
The Rifter® #75 – Summer issue.

The first 2 books plus the rifters is probably what we'll see for the year.

 Forar wrote:
Oooh, pushed the Midnight (EST) barrier, but there's a newsletter!

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ [...]

 Lynx7725 wrote:
WTF with that update.
[..] EDIT: The whole "we got big news for RRT too!" gak in the first email just end up being the same drivel in the second. PB being PB again.

No kidding, it's basically just another collection of weasel words strung into sentences.

Merijeek wrote:
Eh, mine comes from that and from the fan-friends whose only response is "You guys are horrible people for questioning The Mighty Simbieda! You're probably all serial killers! We all know Kevin will knock it out of the park again, you just need to give him tiiiiiiiiiiiime!" crap.

Definitely agree there, as I find it hard to believe those kind of folks would have had any money left in the first place for their KS pledges after the door to door, phone, and internet con-artists got done abusing them if they truly possessed such a level of credulity.
Basically it's trolling the dissatisfied, whether those folks have a legitimate issue/complaint or not, because if everyone is free if not actively encouraged by peer pressure to praise what may not be praiseworthy, the opposite point of view should be just as acceptable.

And their typical defense strategy, ''We tell company [X] what they want to hear (instead of what said organization in all probability needs to hear) and at least get what we want.'' (or, at least, this time they did), solves nothing for nobody.
Of course, there is always the inevitability of some such fan friends eventually becoming just as disillusioned/crushed/banned/otherwise driven away from the fold as those they previously spoke out against to look forwards to.

 Forar wrote:
[..] show some fething humility and humbleness, [..]

Yeah, this is the part that irks/angers me the most about folks like Siembieda or Dubois (over at DP9) et al not only ending up in charge, but remaining in charge for so long, despite their repeated demonstrations of absolute ineptitude regarding even the most minor of details.
Anyone suffering from such a lack of inability to say ''I frakked up, but [this] is what I'm going to attempt/do to fix that.'' about even the smallest instance of failure should never again have been trusted to do or produce anything at all.

Their lack of ability to even see and understand they have such a problem, is just plain wrong.

_
_

 Smilodon_UP wrote:

 Forar wrote:
[..] show some fething humility and humbleness, [..]

Yeah, this is the part that irks/angers me the most about folks like Siembieda or Dubois (over at DP9) et al not only ending up in charge, but remaining in charge for so long, despite their repeated demonstrations of absolute ineptitude regarding even the most minor of details.
Anyone suffering from such a lack of inability to say ''I frakked up, but [this] is what I'm going to attempt/do to fix that.'' about even the smallest instance of failure should never again have been trusted to do or produce anything at all.

Their lack of ability to even see and understand they have such a problem, is just plain wrong.

Yeah, that's one of my personal "time to pull the ripcord" flags when dealing with a company. I get that mistakes happen, and that things don't always go as we wanted. I get that sometimes things turn out to be more complex than it was originally thought, or that the complexity of thing X outstripped the available expertise on the matter. This is reality, and none of us are perfect.

However, when you put a baseball through a window, stand up and own that mistake. Mantic has accumulated a pretty checkered history with their KS projects at this point and their bigger foul-ups do indeed make me less inclined to back their KS projects in a major way. However, they do acknowledge that they've screwed things up and need to do better, and they recently showed that they had hired additional people and what they would purportedly be doing to address the problems. That's probably not enough to allay my fears about handing more than couch-cushion money over sight-unseen, but it does make me willing to continue to do business with the company for those products I can see and know I like. Had they acted like PB to date though without really acknowledging that there IS a problem with not providing real information, that probably wouldn't be the case.

Fun fact based on Morgan's post: this coming April 10th, it will have taken longer to present their promised full breakdown of each and every component than it will have taken the average woman to create a viable new human being. Also, a child born during the original delivery estimate is almost assuredly walking around and probably talking, which is more than PB can really claim to be doing.

Almost makes you feel as old as realizing that there are teachers in the schools that never lived a day during the Cold War...where did all these damn kids on my lawn come from?!

Forar, if I believed they'd get back to sending stuff to us if they did a portion of Wave 2 direct to retail, I'd be all for it - it would show progress, after all.

I just don't believe a) they have the money to do even a partial wave and b) that after doing a partial retail wave that we'd ever see anything because somehow they'd feth that up and end up even deeper in debt, unable to continue.

I'm actually partially wondering if those phone calls to China might be to finish paying off Wave 1 debt so they'll stop holding Wave 2 hostage.

I can understand us not getting the big update on wave 2 we were promised back last July.

After all, they are T.o.i.l.ing* so hard it must be hard for him to keep up and he wants it to be perfect for us valued backers, but how can he when the situation keeps changing before he can get us the information.




*T.O.I.L. A scheme my company has just set up which is the equivalent to what used to be caller 'flexitime'. Stands for Time Off In Lieu. All the 28 hour days they put in on Wave 1 means that there as only Kev in now - the others have booked the rest of the year off because they have already worked it.

There is a lot of sense in what forar says about releasing a par of WAve 2 to retail first - even if it will be annoyong.

However, i also wonder is there could be a bigger change of direction.

One big critisism we nearly all raised was the parts count and how Wave 1 was mot really a starter set. Now in recent months I have takenin KS product such as Incuersion with realtively high detailed one piece models. I will shortly get my Firwteam Zero which by the reviews so far are ven better. Both are still very paintable, if that is your bag. So why the need for hard plastic, multi part kits if you want detauiled models

The point ? I wonder if PB are considering a softer plastic , one piece (or very few piece) model production, with the obvious lack of alternative posing (maybe one to three per type). It would ceratnly suit a revamped starter box - preassembled models would be a bigger draw than the current set up - and I wold tentativeluy suggest the similar wave 2 models could be included in a second "starter" at least for retuil.

As for the "specials" , PB could still use this method or possibly ask GHQ to step in - these are supposedly KS limited so possibly metal does make more sense?

Others are better and more knowledgeable but if the 3d render is ready , I assume it is still viable for this alternative merthod?

As for the existing Wave 1 product,PB could firesale it to garner at least some extra funds to make it happen. POssibly replacing the sprues with the newer one piece models?

I know it sounds a little absurd for them to be starting over again, but at this point, anything is possible.

Just some rambling thougts

Personally, I would have released like the Battletech starter box.
Less parts the better and PVC.
Less eye watering detail but a closer out of the box experience.
Then the more centerpiece models done "properly" as upgrade kits.
Throw in some punch out cardboard terrain and tokens and it would all work out.
Ah well, hindsight is 20:20.

I can't see PB having the money to cut new models of existing models. Especially when the current stuff is hard tool for styrene that is dirt cheap to produce. It's not like they're converting from rubber to styrene, for a long term savings.

And Wave 2 probably is 1,000s of casts each model. I could see restic / bones, perhaps, to simplify the molds.

At this point nothing is "possible" without money.

I still haven't seen any evidence that PB has a penny left for this project.

wilycoyote wrote:
There is a lot of sense in what forar says about releasing a par of WAve 2 to retail first - even if it will be annoyong.

However, i also wonder is there could be a bigger change of direction.

I doubt it. Palladium is more known for repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different reaction. The "relaunch" will end up as just some stuff that they were supposed to release for free last summer and, if we're very very very very lucky, some miniatures that they were supposed to ship us for free two years ago. As for wave 2 going to retail first, I don't care anymore. They've already broken that promise (or more accurately attempted to as hard as they possibly could and were foiled by fate). Just like with "convension/kickstarter exclusives", it's just a running joke at this point. If they sell at retail (and that is a huge IF since it requires them actually making new products) and that helps them fulfill their long overdue contractual obligations then so be it. It's not going to change history and how badly they'll be known for actually treating their most lucrative and hopeful customers.