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 Lynx7725 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Assuming that everything the Pod says is true, backers will get 90% of the different sculpts and total models that they pledged for.

Yes. It's not great news, but DP9 did explain the rationale, the loss of the Tiger and Sidewinder Gears isn't terrible (for the uninitiated, these are "upgrade" models that are better Gears than the standard Hunter/ Jager Gears, but not super critical to the force. Sort of like an Armoured Valk: good for some scenarios, but not something you'd want in every situation.), and they cleverly bundled it with the news that mold cutting has started. So overall the update came as good news.

If you look back over the communications, guess what? DP9 didn't really leak any "sensitive industrial information", but they posted in-progress shots of 3D Gears (and took action on feedback), explained some delays such as the difficulty they had when the factory told them about the limits of the cutting tool. That was an example of a technical delay that the audience could relate to and could adjust their expectations for. That's what even decent communications can do, it helps manage customer expectations. Something PB very, very obviously don't know how to do.

DP9 is still late, but you don't really here that much burning torches and pitchforks. PB is just.... terrible at this.

I fail to see how removing -2 sculpts and removing -1 model from the total are "good news", and I think other backers who can do basic math will start to come to the same conclusion pretty quickly. I bet the tide turns in the next couple days, as the backers start reading Comments.

PB knows how to show pictures of actual work. Except the gakbags at PB haven't done a lick of work for the past fething year.

Per my earlier note, the reason the torches and pitchforks aren't out is because, "well, at least it's not fething Robotech... "

 warboss wrote:

Things certainly haven't been all rosy and perfect over in Heavy Gear but they're certainly better than this clustermess. [...] I just wanted to show that a company can update backers with bad news instead of just wasting months to years hoping that the problem will just go away.

For the benefit of those who don't know the timeline for DP9 HGB KS:

KS started 24 Oct 2014, and closed on 23 Nov 2014 with $150,406 CAD. Their original target delivery date was Nov 2015, which was, at that time, a strangely pessimistic timeline. The KS hit the usual problems -- too many stretch goals unlocked (in hindsight), et. al. Then along the way they had CAD design issues, CAD to reality translation issues, yadda yadda. Quite normal. The latest update had the following points:

They listed their HK counterpart (so much for industrial secrecy... not).

The current status: Molds are starting to cut, in HK, and expected to finish 5 steel molds by end Feb. Those of you familiar with Chinese customs will know that the Lunar New Year is in 2 weeks, which means not much gets done for the front half of Feb. Otherwise, this timeline looks reasonable.

QC of the molds is expected to finish by mid March, then they intend to ship the molds via sea to North America, which would take a month (reasonable for sea shipping, unless we get port strikes again). Note that they could shave a whole month off their schedule by having a Chinese firm do the plastic injection (and is probably cheaper), but the KS promised NA manufacturing, so they are doing NA manufacturing... and suffers a one month delay for that (and of course a risk of losing the molds at sea, but well... Acts of God.)

Production runs are expected to be for one month, so they are expecting to start fulfillment in May.

All told, they planned for 12 months of work but suffered delays of 6 months or so (50% overrun), and was short some deliverables due to cost overruns.

Personally I wasn't reading every update, not the way I'm spending scrutinizing the crap coming from PB (which mercifully takes a short time because it's usually no content anyway), but enough that I'm aware they hit some issues, have potential solutions, took feedback, and generally were managing the situation. In many ways, it's a typical design-to-manufacturing story that is actually fairly ok.

(For those of you who want to hear sad sack stories other than PB, go take a look at the Buccaneer 3D printer KS, or the CST-01 KS, or the "successful" Jorno KS, or closer to home, the Defiance manure pile.)

Now, it's inevitable that the RRT design-to-manufacture process would hit the same problems. The things encountered in HGB KS are quite familiar stories that results from the various details you encounter in manufacturing -- if you don't run into them, it's suspicious. Anyone who spent enough time around injection molding for plastic miniatures know these things happen. So there's nothing particularly wrong with PB saying they ran into a technical problem, and if they can say what are potential fixes they are trying, all the better still. DP9 did that, the backers made some sensible suggestions IIRC, and we ended up with a superior product.

So instead of trying to inform and create a collaborative environment for a niche product (wargaming) that ultimately thrives on community involvement, PB decided to closet everything. I suppose in hindsight I should just be grateful that the stuff we have now for RRT is not even worse, given the weird stuff that can happen in closets.

And now they want to do a relaunch. I sort of shudder. I suppose it is necessary since they squandered the hype window they had initially, but given previous track record, it feels like the relaunch is yet another retreat into another closet and blindly firing out the slits at random.

 Talizvar wrote:

jaymz wrote:
Just a reminder to everyone that January 31st is the deadline to step forward if interested in taking over the RRT Proboard and/or Wiki....

Would that be slightly less painful than signing up with the AG or FTC?
I find it easier to joke since I do not consider myself knowledgeable enough or have the passion / free time to keep up on it.
Let us hope the apathy is not too strong in the 5000.
Good luck!

It is pretty hands off actually by and large lol.....I am just disassociating myself as much as I can and sticking to my personally groups/pages etc.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

I fail to see how removing -2 sculpts and removing -1 model from the total are "good news", and I think other backers who can do basic math will start to come to the same conclusion pretty quickly. I bet the tide turns in the next couple days, as the backers start reading Comments.

It's a bit going off tangent from this thread, but hell I don't use Tigers or Sidewinders, so I'm not missing them much. So to me personally, it's a minor issue.

It's always balanced off in that the files are done, and if they can afford it in the future, the Tiger and Sidewinder will be high on the likelihood scale to get the plastic treatment. Overall it's a risk-vs-rewards calculation: Get the stuff out as soon as possible minus the Tiger/ Sidewinder and get cashflow going, or throw a diminishing purse in for a hope that people will be willing to wait a bit more.

Given our suspicions of what happened at PB, DP9's decision feels a lot more prudent.

 Forar wrote:
It's funny having some extremes of service to contrast against.

This currently holds the distinction as the most delayed campaign I've backed, along with awful (substantial) communication and iffy product.

Whereas Dwarven Forge just sent me the 'label created' email for their 3rd campaign today.

It's funny how 'people' (read: Lola) would argue that, oh, DF single piece tiles don't compare, it's not apples to apples, etc.

But here we are, approaching 3 years later. Palladium has delivered roughly 1/3 of their models (by type). DF is delivering their 3rd campaign (on time, if not early) and their fourth should launch sometime around March. Roughly 4 times the money brought in across maybe twice the number of backers (with overlap), and they're continuing to fire boxes off like pros.

I preordered Super Dungeon Explore (1.0 original) and backed Sedition Wars, Relic Knights, Zombicide 2, Zombicide 3, and Blood Rage from CMoN. All apples-to-apples minis games. In every case, CMoN delivered 100% of what they said they would. Both SDE and BR were on time. Both Zombicide 2 & 3 delivered *early*. SedWars was basically on time. Had I backed Black Plague, that would have also been on time. The point stands that I was never shorted, even if I had to wait an extra year for Relic Knights as the SPM / CMoN relationship unraveled behind the scenes.

 Lynx7725 wrote:
Note that they could shave a whole month off their schedule by having a Chinese firm do the plastic injection (and is probably cheaper), but the KS promised NA manufacturing, so they are doing NA manufacturing... and suffers a one month delay for that (and of course a risk of losing the molds at sea, but well... Acts of God.)

Would it really be a lost month? Assuming the travel time across the ocean is basically the same, and production isn't that far off either, it seems like (essentially) the same outcome.

Produce Models In China + Ship Them Across Ocean

vs.

Ship Molds Across Ocean + Produce Models in US.

Is a Chinese factory really going to be so much more productive as to shave an entire month off that? I'm sure some time savings might be found, but in a semi-apples to apples comparison, all that's changing seems to be where the stuff is punched out.

At this point, the Pod is so late, and so tight on the budget, an extra month won't make any difference, as long as they deliver.

And bringing it back to the gakbags behind RRT, if they actually had something real to show, instead of lame fething excuses, I'd be glad to give them an extra month for shipping gak around the world.

Forar wrote:
Would it really be a lost month? Assuming the travel time across the ocean is basically the same, and production isn't that far off either, it seems like (essentially) the same outcome.

Is a Chinese factory really going to be so much more productive as to shave an entire month off that? I'm sure some time savings might be found, but in a semi-apples to apples comparison, all that's changing seems to be where the stuff is punched out.

Good point. The answer is probably "Yes" and "No". The issue is really that they are shipping heavy molds, so they can't get good rates on anything other than a ship.

If they produce the plastic in China, then what they are shipping is plastic, and that opens options -- they can air a limited quantity over either as promotional material or early bird fulfillment, with the main bulk going by ship. Alternatively, if they are confident enough, they can set up a distribution center in China itself to fulfill APAC backers, and ship stuff to a European center -- China has regular trade routes to Europe, so shipping can be simpler. The manufacturer Wargame Factory essentially did that for Dreamforge and IIRC Kingdom Death KS, and it simplifies logistics to some degree.

But if they are being clunky about ways of doing things and insist on plastic getting to NA before fulfillment? Well.. again, lighter plastic means they have more options on ships; shipping companies go by weight and dimensions (containerization, after all) and while the bulk would be significantly more, it's possible to split up the shipment and stuff a little bit here, a little bit there onto a NA-bound ship. It's not likely to shave that much more time off though.

Creative application of the shipping options can at least give backers the appearance that the KS is fulfilling, so yeah, I'd say overall having the manufacturing in China makes a bit more commercial sense. But the pre-requisite is that you must have the necessary trust in relationships to ensure things go right.

EDIT: Also, the other aspect is labour cost should be still cheaper over in China, even with the shifting dynamics nowadays. That means you can afford more in a production run, or save some money. Depending on the distribution of global backers, these savings may add up, or disappear during fulfillment.

JohnHwangDD wrote:At this point, the Pod is so late, and so tight on the budget, an extra month won't make any difference, as long as they deliver.

And bringing it back to the gakbags behind RRT, if they actually had something real to show, instead of lame fething excuses, I'd be glad to give them an extra month for shipping gak around the world.

Pretty much. The more I think about it, the more it seems that DP9 essentially ran out of money, but had just enough in reserve to make this call.

Honestly, the KS probably hurt DP9 in the pockets more than they'd ever admit. It raked in up front cash for the KS, but the tradeoff is people won't want to buy the old metal stuff with plastic very likely on the horizon. Sales of HGB stuff must have tanked somewhat -- I know I stopped buying because I have stuff coming in. It's good that they actually looked forward and planned sufficiently so that they have the fiscal resources to cover the fulfillment portion of the KS.

And to bring it back to RRT, yeah, if what we suspect is true, then fiscal irresponsibility is part of what torped Wave 2 badly. To be fair to PB, the two are of quite different scales in terms of units to produce and quantity, but still...

Hard to be fair when PB wont say anything or if they do, it is assurances with no examples and vague dates.

This is the unforgivable thing, never mind they have our money.

I could see they "relaunch" RRT as a version 2 and sell a $20 kit that has peel and stick updates for the rule-book contents and new cover art.

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Forar wrote:
Would it really be a lost month? Assuming the travel time across the ocean is basically the same, and production isn't that far off either, it seems like (essentially) the same outcome.

Is a Chinese factory really going to be so much more productive as to shave an entire month off that? I'm sure some time savings might be found, but in a semi-apples to apples comparison, all that's changing seems to be where the stuff is punched out.

Good point. The answer is probably "Yes" and "No". The issue is really that they are shipping heavy molds, so they can't get good rates on anything other than a ship.

you would be surprised the cost to ship a mold from China to US either thru ship or air is not much of a difference.

 Lynx7725 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:At this point, the Pod is so late, and so tight on the budget, an extra month won't make any difference, as long as they deliver.

And bringing it back to the gakbags behind RRT, if they actually had something real to show, instead of lame fething excuses, I'd be glad to give them an extra month for shipping gak around the world.

Pretty much. The more I think about it, the more it seems that DP9 essentially ran out of money, but had just enough in reserve to make this call.

Honestly, the KS probably hurt DP9 in the pockets more than they'd ever admit. It raked in up front cash for the KS, but the tradeoff is people won't want to buy the old metal stuff with plastic very likely on the horizon. Sales of HGB stuff must have tanked somewhat -- I know I stopped buying because I have stuff coming in. It's good that they actually looked forward and planned sufficiently so that they have the fiscal resources to cover the fulfillment portion of the KS.

And to bring it back to RRT, yeah, if what we suspect is true, then fiscal irresponsibility is part of what torped Wave 2 badly. To be fair to PB, the two are of quite different scales in terms of units to produce and quantity, but still...

It's no coincidence that the Pod has been flogging chibis and other random items all along, while unlocking and reopening the PM for people to add to their pledges... Not sure if that behavior reminds anybody here of anything they've see on other KS' *cough*Prodos*cough* *cough*Palladium*cough*...

I joked early on that the Pod was going to TPTB lite. We'll see what/when the Pod delivers.

The annual Palladium issue of the Onion newpaper is out today with their hopes for the rest of the year.

http://palladiumbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=828:palladium-booksr-weekly-update-january-22-2016&catid=52:weekly-updates&Itemid=183

Just the usual garbage with no real info on Robotech. The grab bags are finally done...so the Rifter subscription drive shilling begins. The notable part was this though:

We expect to be able to move Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave 2 along much more quickly now, have big plans for it and other Palladium game lines, and hope to see new third party ventures, like Rifts® Savage Worlds, expand the Palladium Megaverse®. All are things that should surprise and please you.

Will we miss release dates? I’m sure we will, but by days or weeks, not many months or a year. The proof will be in the products that are going to be out soon.

Um... is it my imagine or would Palladium missing release dates by ONLY many months or a year (as in one...singular.. not a couple, few, or many) be the improvement that they should actually be reaching for? They seem to think somehow that they've been doing better than that on average when in fact its been worse.

Insanity is PB claiming they will do things differently this year, and then turning around and doing the same exact nothing as last year.

As in, I believe it when I **SEE** it.

Wait, what release date will they be missing by "days or weeks"?

Because I'll bet money that will not, in fact, be accurate.

It's just the usual palladium cart before the horse speak. If they came out with 3-4 books, they claim to come out with two dozen the next year. If they're late 1-3 years on average for major products, they'll claim to cut it down to a few days or weeks. Despite how often they tell them, Palladium still hasn't figured out that the key is to tell a believable lie if you want there to be even a slight chance of suckering most folks in with it.

 warboss wrote:
It's just the usual palladium cart before the horse speak. If they came out with 3-4 books, they claim to come out with two dozen the next year. If they're late 1-3 years on average for major products, they'll claim to cut it down to a few days or weeks. Despite how often they tell them, Palladium still hasn't figured out that the key is to tell a believable lie if you want there to be even a slight chance of suckering most folks in with it.

Actually, Warboss, I think they HAVE learnt regarding book releases. In the most craven and weasely way possible, of course. Just had a flick back through some previous catalogs, and most books tend to be in the 160, 192, or 224 page counts.

Of the eight books in the "first six months" schedule, we have page counts for seven. One is 160-192 (Secrets of Atlanteans), one is 160 (Hell Followed), and the other five (Heroes of Humanity, The Disavowed, Haunted Tech, Garden of the Gods and First Responders) are all 96 pages. Couple that with (at least from my older books) PB's tendency to label every page for page count (including flash pages, credit pages and contents tables), and you're looking at closer to 90 pages per, less if there's much copypasta. And of course, two 96 page books are more expensive than one 192 page book.

I still don't think they'll achieve their goal. But they've subtly stacked the deck in their favour by reducing more than half the books to modern Rifter size, and keeping the remaining books to the lower end of their scale.

It's like breaking the Hobbit into 3 movies!

Back in the 80s and early 90s a lot of their books were 48, 64 or 96 pages, particularly the Robitech and TMNT/After the Bomb lines. They tended towards bigger books in the late 90s and early 2000s. They still tend to big books in most lines, but the small books have been showing up again, especially in the Chaos Earth and Robotech lines.

And yet they STILL only manage 3-4 books a year. (Rifters to me do not count as they SUPPOSED to be fan material despite Kevins meddling the last few years with constant additions of official material with this next issue being all official. Work on ACTUAL books not the "fanzine")

Not so Stealthy stealth pushback....again:

"Schedule of 2016 Releases for the First 6 Months
◾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™ sourcebook by Kevin Siembieda – 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)
◾The Rifter® #75 – Summer issue. "

I'll be shocked if they put out four books this year. Shocked I tells ya.

http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=150226&p=2903330#p2903330


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't hold any vitriol but I am saddened that something with tons of potential was treated as a red-headed stepchild. When you have a passion about something, you come up with ideas, ways to make it better, and much more. Unfortunately PB, being an RPG company, has little passion for RRT. Same as with many KS's that are done one after the other such as what CMON does. When you make 6 games or so, you cannot say you care and have equal passion for all of them. That's just reality.

The difference being, CMoN is just a publisher. The developers of the games have a lot of passion for their games, but some have less talent than others at executing.

Morgan Vening wrote:
I still don't think they'll achieve their goal. But they've subtly stacked the deck in their favour by reducing more than half the books to modern Rifter size, and keeping the remaining books to the lower end of their scale.

I'm actually fine with that and would be mildly impressed if they stuck with it. Unfortunately, Kevin "loves" his fans so much that he keeps adding material. He did it with the NG books and others and even the robotech books. The invid occupation book I have from my grab bag has an entirely different sized font and spacing for a section because they put in filler (the whole book was crap frankly...art and text) and weren't willing to actually remove it. It's very jarring but Palladium is only a bit more accurate with their page counts than they are with their release dates.

They *SHOULD* set realistic goals for themselves. Since coming out with a Rifter each season on time is feasible (albeit usually with years of fan submitted material that they pluck from at random), coming out with a book of the same size each season ON TIME (instead of 1-3 years late) should be. I think THAT should be their goal... getting out one rifter and one book each season like clockwork for 2016 in addition to their existing commitments (specifically Robotech). Once robotech is done (ha!) and they're putting out consistently (ha!), they should try to add another book every two rifters to the mix the next year (so 6 books in 2017), etc. Coming out with 8 books and three rifters in the next six months isn't given their history regardless of the page count... unless they all come out pamphlet sized (<48) like the only suprise and on time book I've ever seen them come out with.

Jefffar wrote:
Back in the 80s and early 90s a lot of their books were 48, 64 or 96 pages, particularly the Robitech and TMNT/After the Bomb lines. They tended towards bigger books in the late 90s and early 2000s. They still tend to big books in most lines, but the small books have been showing up again, especially in the Chaos Earth and Robotech lines.

TMNT I never collected, but Robotech has never been that trim, at least on the scale provided.

Edit: apparently I am incorrect on this.

 Forar wrote:

TMNT I never collected, but Robotech has never been that trim, at least on the scale provided.

The RDF field guide, zentraedi book, accelerated training manual, ghost ship adventure, and lancer's rockers were all about that 48 page size iirc. The Macross II deck plan series of books were a bit thicker (64pgs?) but still obviously thinner than the typical non-adventure book at the time.

I stand corrected. Guess I missed some of those during my collecting days.

Possibly because they were too thin to be seen on store shelves. >.>

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's like breaking the Hobbit into 3 movies!

And, boy oh boy, did that result in a superior product and happy fans!

◾Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.

Ugh.

And if they don't say a release date for RRPGT Wave 2, they can't be late, right?

 Alpharius wrote:

◾Dead Reign® Sourcebook: Hell Followed™ by Taylor White – a large, juicy, 160 page sourcebook. Spring or Summer.

Ugh.

And if they don't say a release date for RRPGT Wave 2, they can't be late, right?

I would offer that, unless they develop a flux capacitor or acquire a Galifraen police box, they're already VERY late regardless and actual work and due diligence finally on their part will only affect the end calculation of just how late. That, of course, doesn't sink in for them because logic. The only lesson they learned from putting out nonsensical plucked from the air meaningless release dates that were missed over and over again was to not say anything. A responsible company would have instead learned to try and give GOOD release dates as well as list some possible pitfalls that could derail them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Forar wrote:
I stand corrected. Guess I missed some of those during my collecting days.

Possibly because they were too thin to be seen on store shelves. >.>

No worries... I've still got them all somewhere so they're still fresh in my mind. I sold most of my (complete up until I stopped) rifts collection a decade ago but I kept my robotech stuff. I'm not sure if all those titles were reprinted during their entire run of the license and I suspect they were OOP for long periods of time and obviously off of store shelves (unless your store had the dusty never sold years old copy typical of palladium shelves in FLGS).