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Joyboozer wrote:
Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.

Eh, you don't know? PB is known in the RPG industry for selling affordable RPG books. (I'm being nice.) That comes at a cost... which means it's cheap black and white pages, even most of the art. And that's when they were in the 80s and 90s, and they hadn't change much.

'Bout the best RPG book they put out was the Rifts main book, which had colour art pages in the middle. RRT is a total departure from their usual.

And wow, now we have an estimate for Wave 2. 45 years. At least.

My flgs has one of their latest releases on the shelves. I happened to notice it and I was astounded as to how cheap the quality is.
Someone mentioned that they were shocked by how much the rrt book cost them to produce.

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.

Eh, you don't know? PB is known in the RPG industry for selling affordable RPG books. (I'm being nice.) That comes at a cost... which means it's cheap black and white pages, even most of the art. And that's when they were in the 80s and 90s, and they hadn't change much.

'Bout the best RPG book they put out was the Rifts main book, which had colour art pages in the middle. RRT is a total departure from their usual.

And wow, now we have an estimate for Wave 2. 45 years. At least.

PB's books are basically exactly the same as they were in the 80s, down to layout. At least now the Kevster is using actual layout computer programs instead of honest to god cutting and pasting of physical pages.

That said, B/W pages with B/W art is not mark of lack of quality. You can do absolutely amazing stuff with that. It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.

And that's not even talking about content.

love it how people seem to think PB is going to do wave 2, problem is they just will not wake up and realize PB is not going to invest 100% in something they will only get 40% return on at best. its not smart business.

so PB is doing what many shady companies would do, which is stall waiting for people to grow apathetic and forget about their money, and they will have to do nothing, until then they can say they are working on it.

 Albertorius wrote:

It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.

And that's not even talking about content.

Well, to be honest I don't find PB books that bad. It's just that everyone else has moved so far ahead that they are comparatively ancient. As ideas go, some of their books are fairly good. If you're plumbing for adventure ideas, PB books aren't too terrible.

The sad part is that PB appears to have the idea that "cheap is good", and tried to apply that to everything. Wargaming is by nature a more high-end luxury product, with, by now, a certain level of expectations. The "Cheap is Good" approach has different connotations in this industry, which PB was (and is) evidently not prepared mentally nor logistically for it.

I really cannot foresee PB managing RRT as a game line the way GW or Warlord or PP or CMON does their various game line. Personally, I'm just waiting to get Wave 2, and then I'm probably calling it quits. As good a ruleset RRT may have, the crux of any wargaming line longevity is commercial support, which is very iffy in this case.

Asterios wrote:
so PB is doing what many shady companies would do, which is stall waiting for people to grow apathetic and forget about their money, and they will have to do nothing, until then they can say they are working on it.

From what I'm seeing here, what that seems to be doing is rile people enough to write complaints.

Dunno how much good it will do, but if enough peoples does it...

 Albertorius wrote:
From what I'm seeing here, what that seems to be doing is rile people enough to write complaints.

Dunno how much good it will do, but if enough peoples does it...

PB knows people can write in complaints all they want but until they unify and do something about it, PB has no worries, this crowd will not unify, you have those who want too, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who just don't care, and that is what PB is relying on, they are counting on people doing nothing, and when good people sit by and do nothing when wrong is being done, this society is screwed.

I would organize. The problem is I don't have the funds to do anything. If someone needs my signature for a class action suit, I'll give it. If someone needs me to the pay the bill for a lawsuit, I can't. Sadly, I used the sale of an ancient* collection of Star Wars action figures to pay my way into this Kickstarter. Granted the stuff was just taking up space, and all, but I'd rather have that back than this mess we currently have.

*My collection started when my dad brought some figures back from ToyFair in the 70's. My first figures were the first out in the wild, and I had them before they were in stores.

Asterios wrote:
<snip>...they are counting on people doing nothing, and when good people sit by and do nothing when wrong is being done, this society is screwed.

The reporting PB to AG and FTC is still a reasonable start.
PB will not get a dime from me until wave 2 happens, take that how you wish.
If others remember being burned by PB and never buy from them again: that is a pretty damaging thing to do as a consumer.
Letting people know at any forum a perspective customer may visit that PB does not make good on anything approaching an "advanced order" is worth doing.

"Organizing" typically still needs someone as a go-to so it has some coherency.
My money loss and PB's behavior does not motivate me enough to take-on that kind "hassle" never mind being on the wrong side of the border.

I think if I can generate enough apathy as stated, I would feel much better walking away from PB and never looking back.
May they shrivel as a company due to that kind of organization: either method will achieve the desired result.

 Talizvar wrote:

Asterios wrote:
<snip>...they are counting on people doing nothing, and when good people sit by and do nothing when wrong is being done, this society is screwed.

The reporting PB to AG and FTC is still a reasonable start.

it is and if you can get hundreds of backers or maybe even thousands to file it might accomplish something, but like I said most of the backers are apathetic and defeatist, so they will not file.

Ok at present one person has inquired about what it takes to run the proboard and one has offered to take over the proboard and wiki.

Therefore unless someone steps forward by end of day i will hand them off to that person.

I can be contacted here or palladiums forums jaymz

Thank you to every one that supported both sites

People are grumbling more and more on PB's Facebook comments, and one guy has been dutifully adding links and reminders to file with the BBB/FTC/AG/etc, so it's out there.

People can choose to file or not, and there's no guarantee anything will happen if they do, even in large quantities.

Sure, some are apathetic or defeatist, some don't care, some are even happy with how things are going. None of us can force anyone to actively express their displeasure (or even be displeased in the first place).

I guess we'll just need someone else to lead the Legal Tsunami(tm). Its original founder seems to have lost his taste for (figurative) blood.

I really cannot foresee PB managing RRT as a game line the way GW or Warlord or PP or CMON does their various game line. Personally, I'm just waiting to get Wave 2, and then I'm probably calling it quits. As good a ruleset RRT may have, the crux of any wargaming line longevity is commercial support, which is very iffy in this case.

My expectations of this were always low. Not based on whether or not PB was willing to step up to the plate, but based on that this is a niche product.
Although I tried to guide PB in how to meet miniature wargamer expectations on a minimalist level in order to help the game succeed (they didn't do anything I suggested), I would have been perfectly happy just getting the models.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Lynx7725 wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Mike, if they're quantities are only runs of 1000, I don't think your print costs are even close to accurate, unless their books are cheap black and white rubbish, I haven't seen any since the very early 90s.

Eh, you don't know? PB is known in the RPG industry for selling affordable RPG books. (I'm being nice.) That comes at a cost... which means it's cheap black and white pages, even most of the art. And that's when they were in the 80s and 90s, and they hadn't change much.

'Bout the best RPG book they put out was the Rifts main book, which had colour art pages in the middle. RRT is a total departure from their usual.

And wow, now we have an estimate for Wave 2. 45 years. At least.

PB's books are basically exactly the same as they were in the 80s, down to layout. At least now the Kevster is using actual layout computer programs instead of honest to god cutting and pasting of physical pages.

That said, B/W pages with B/W art is not mark of lack of quality. You can do absolutely amazing stuff with that. It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.

And that's not even talking about content.

Yeah, early GW, GDW, WEG, and FASA stuff was B&W along with TFG and ADB stuff. Even R. Talsorian did most of their work that way back when they still did regular new stuff, before the FUZION ONLINE era. And D20's rise and fall was mostly 200 page hardbound B&W stuff. It's not like everybody does full color Osprey and D&D stuff.

But consider that the format of the first PB product: Mechanoids was essentially a fat, 3 volume, B&W comic book. By that I mean it was actually newsprint cut to half tabloid & stapled. I used to have a copy a dude gave me for doing some yard work for him when his leg was broken since it seemed like the kind of thing I was into. (He meant sci-fi). I had a copy of TMNT, Robotech, and the Palladium RPG monster-manual thing back then. So I was quite amused by it. And the idea of fanzine rpgs seemed cool to me at the time. So cheap as it was it had me making a big stupid mess at kinkos trying to emulate it with spiral binding and failing.

I was sixteen I think.

Not that that is any excuse for this mess with the RRT kickstarter but I do have a few fond old memories of PB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanoid_Invasion

 Albertorius wrote:
That said, B/W pages with B/W art is not mark of lack of quality. You can do absolutely amazing stuff with that. It's just that PB books are B/W, with B/W art, and also of low printing/binding quality and badly composed.

And that's not even talking about content.

I'd disagree with you there as I think it is. Now, that said, there are exceptions to the rule but those exceptions are few and need to be earned. The industry and the world have moved on and most customers expect more. The lack of an automatic transmission and airconditioning may not have been marks of a lack of quality in the 1970's but they're standard now and you'd be hard pressed to find a new car without them that would be lauded as an example of quality. The flipside of that though is NOT a mark of quality though as there are plenty of badly done books in full color with modern style art. The difference is that nowadays a company has to prove themselves an exception to the rule rather than just being given the benefit of the doubt. There is of course a sliding scale for truly new ventures from newcomers to the field but that doesn't apply to the dinosaurs at Palladium that keep plodding around as if the giant technicolor modern formatted asteroid didn't hit publishing two decades ago. Even new companies acknowledge that as they frequently try to upgrade their books to full color in KS stretch goals. Palladium is more of a prototypical example of that general first impression rule with their horribly outdated (to match!) and incoherent rpg rules.

I guess I was lucky and don't recall ever having an issue with the page binding on PB books, but what I found more commonly was that the laminate on the cover (front and back) would begin to peel on books I used a lot (handling and putting back in their place on the shelves).

One of the few I kept, a well worn copy of Psyscape, has like 2 or 3 inches of it peeled back off a corner.

The inner layout and B/W art never really bothered me, though their layouts (for finding rules) always left a lot to be deserved. There were rules that had general applications that would just get tucked into a spell or ability description, stuff like that. Made all the more obnoxious when they'd have copy pasted info multiple times just eating up page space, along with full page images that didn't really need to be full page (imo).

I never had any binding problems.

I did have Forar's "laminate peeling from the cover" issue occasionally.

However, about every damned PB book my friends and I had (a significant number back in the day) had what we called the "Palladium Curl", which was when the front cover would automatically curl itself into a C shape.

I just see it as a fairly common assumption by companies that have been around for a long time: what was good enough then, is not good enough now.
At least look at what your direct competition is doing.
When "White Wolf Publishing" came out, it looked like they were going to eat PB alive.
Funny how PB remains shambling along because it has never changed ownership so they even outlasted WWP who created a better IP in my opinion.
They have had no encore since the 80's and very early 90's and little else of note since.
Pathfinder and even D&D have found a new lease on life lately with some good RPG systems.
I am sure printing in black and white is the thing to do when your competition can do this:I am sure they must have gone into convulsions when they produced the RRT rulebook, it was so different for them.
Probably never to be seen again.

 Forar wrote:
I guess I was lucky and don't recall ever having an issue with the page binding on PB books, but what I found more commonly was that the laminate on the cover (front and back) would begin to peel on books I used a lot (handling and putting back in their place on the shelves).

One of the few I kept, a well worn copy of Psyscape, has like 2 or 3 inches of it peeled back off a corner.

I take very good care of my books (never opening them flat on a table for instance) and I had occasional binding issues from back in the day but admittedly they weren't common; the cover lamination peeling though was/is an issue. The first rifts sourcebook (original version, not the revised one) was particularly bad though for binding for reasons I'm not sure of (different printer?). I don't think I ever saw an in use copy that wasn't falling apart (whether in my own rifts group or at gencon convention game tables with strangers).

I never had a binding issue, and the only books that had the curl for the longest time were the ones that were owned by someone else. Just noticed a few of my oldest books are now starting to get their top edge peeling.

 warboss wrote:

 Forar wrote:
I guess I was lucky and don't recall ever having an issue with the page binding on PB books, but what I found more commonly was that the laminate on the cover (front and back) would begin to peel on books I used a lot (handling and putting back in their place on the shelves).

One of the few I kept, a well worn copy of Psyscape, has like 2 or 3 inches of it peeled back off a corner.

I take very good care of my books (never opening them flat on a table for instance) and I had occasional binding issues from back in the day but admittedly they weren't common; the cover lamination peeling though was/is an issue. The first rifts sourcebook (original version, not the revised one) was particularly bad though for binding for reasons I'm not sure of (different printer?). I don't think I ever saw an in use copy that wasn't falling apart (whether in my own rifts group or at gencon convention game tables with strangers).

I personally never had issues with the binding. Everything has been fine from the day I got them...I also never had much issue with the peeling but I know a few people have.

Back to RRT, going over last week's update, I noticed this;

Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two is coming ...

– but you can get started with the core box set and Wave One expansions right now.

Suuuuuure it is.

And from the previous week;

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.

"We expect to post more information and details in a week or two."

Good news guys! This update will have been 2 weeks since that was said, that means info will be coming!

Should be coming!

Might be coming!

... *snort*

The information is only being withheld because Kevin loves you, The Fans(tm), so much.

.... [/insert ''You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!'' meme here.]



But only because, for some unfathomable reason, there isn't one yet with KS's face plastered onto it.

_
_

Of course, Nicholson's version is "because you wouldn't be able to take what I have to tell you because it's so terrible".

Simbieda's version is "It's so awesome you'd blow through every pair of shorts you have ever owned because it'll give you nerdgasms that will shoot both forward and backward in time."

 Smilodon_UP wrote:
.... [/insert ''You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!'' meme here.]

Dude, no! That's a perma-bannable meme there...

Really? Seriously?

Why?

Asterios can answer that better than I can.

Howdy

As of midnight the proboard and wiki will be under new administration. The wiki may take a few days to transfer as we figure out how to actually hand it over. The proboard will be transferred tonight.

The new admins of the proboard will be Talizvar and n815e.

Thank you to everyone who supported the two sites while I ran them

Thanks for the work you put into it, Jaymz.