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 warboss wrote:

As for rifts SW, do you have a link to Shane leaving? I don't doubt you but I just don't follow it. Is he leaving PEG or just that project? Is someone from Palladium taking over like with Robotech and Ninja Division?

No.. just what information Morgan Vening had posted

Well there no update from PB as of right now. I like to know what smoke he blowing are way.

Latest PBWU

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ – 2017 releases

I have had a few good conversations with Harmony Gold USA over the last two weeks, as we start to move toward new Robotech® RPG and Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two releases for 2017. Harmony Gold approved our proposal and art concepts for the first RRT Scenario Book and our plans for the Ghost Fleet Saga™ series. The latter is being designed to create new RRT factions and a new location and time period to game in. It incorporates Shadow Technology and UEEF covert operations against the Regent, Invid, Inorganics, space pirates and renegade Zentraedi. This is a book we have been developing over the last year.

It is starting to look like our manufacturing plan to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two game pieces with much lower part counts is not going to pan out. We should know by the end of January, 2017. Very disappointing for us. We thought we had a huge surprise coming, but we are already making contingency plans for the 2017 release.

If you need to change/update your address in BackerKit, please send us a message through Kickstarter, or an email to kickstarter@palladiumbooks.com, and we’ll take care of it. A lot of people have been submitting address changes. Excellent! Please, keep those address changes coming in. Thank you.

So, first para is putting cart before the horse.

Second para is putting the horse down.

I find it hilarious they're making all these big plans for the future, and yet they have nothing close to concrete before end of January. Meaning that even if they get GOOD news, it looks like anything before the end of next year is probably out of the question. And if it's bad news as they expect, 2017's a write off too.

EDIT: Oh, and third para, yeah, update your addresses for something that we don't even have a timeline for. Why update addresses before it starts manufacturing? I know several people have moved multiple times in the last three years. I expect some people will move multiple times before Wave 2 starts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

 Genoside07 wrote:
What gets me is Shane leaving the Rifts Savage World kick starter.. He is the main guy behind Savage Worlds and seems to be the one that did most of the work on Rifts SW..
I know Kevin has gave RRT backers the royal shaft.. but Shane was someone that was trying to help right the boat, but then I think Kevin is the scorpion on the frogs back.

Also my prediction for 2017 is a nice letter from Palladium game stating their bankruptcy and a not so detailed line items for where the money went for RRT.

Nah, they have no reason to declare bankruptcy. No one is going after them for kickstarter funds and they can just keep living off of the remaining amount whatever it is (whether interest or slowing chipping away at the principal) as the project "boils" over yet paradoxically has nothing to report for years.

As for rifts SW, do you have a link to Shane leaving? I don't doubt you but I just don't follow it. Is he leaving PEG or just that project? Is someone from Palladium taking over like with Robotech and Ninja Division?

Here's the link to the mention.

Note, Shane Hensley is the creator of the KS Campaign, but Sean Fannon appears to be the person behind the design. And AFAIK, Sean is still working on things, and Jodi appears to have taken over Shane's role.

And agreed re bankruptcy. Unless someone wins big in a lawsuit against PB, or the entropy of support finally forces PB to close it's doors, Kevin is going to stave off bankruptcy until he's drained PB of everything of value. There's no way he'd want to leave any money in the coffers to pay back creditors (including and especially, Kickstarter Backers). Just doesn't seem like it'd be in his nature.

From a business perspective, going to the Ghost Fleet/ Haydonite era makes sense because it's the IP in the entire Robotech series that's the least likely to be challenged. It gives HG and PB a clearer canvas to work on things. Inorganics and some of the REF Destroids would be good to see as miniatures.

But there are a few issues with this.

1. I don't necessarily want to see Haydonite era mecha. I definitely want Macross era, Southern Cross Hovertanks and Bioroids, New Generations Alpha, Beta and Cyclones before talking about even newer stuff.

2. Talking about Haydonite era mecha leads back to the scale problem which was, IIRC, not quite definitively resolved.

There's nothing wrong with writing new content, especially when they got pretty much zero going on elsewhere for RRT. It can be even seen as a good thing, if pitched right. Unfortunately, given the stupidity of the past few years, it's damn near impossible for PB to pitch correctly any more.

I don't even know what to say about the obsession with lower part count.

EDIT: Hmm. They have no concrete quotes yet. Assuming -- badly -- that PB has all the design files ready to go... End Jan firm a contract, runs into the Chinese New Year, which basically means nothing gets done in Feb (PRC tends to go on long break over the CNY period).

March 2017 to start things moving again, about a month to cut steel and test (assuming things go smoothly), verification work and then production run... April and May are shot. Shipment by sea would take a month or so from PRC to US, so Jun, Jul 2017 to reach US... if trade routes hold, which given the political climate, might not.

Admin, paperwork, sorting and parceling out, would consume Aug and likely Sep 2017. That's best case. A bit of SNAFU problems, and weeks would roll by. Pragmatic optimist? Like Morgan says, end 2017, early 2018. Odds are not good for that.. for any delivery, to be honest. We've long since entered the "long shots" category on whether PB can even fulfill this.

"It is starting to look like our manufacturing plan to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two game pieces with much lower part counts is not going to pan out. We should know by the end of January, "

Haha... On man I can't even say the words I want to say about this on this forum.

 Swabby wrote:
"It is starting to look like our manufacturing plan to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two game pieces with much lower part counts is not going to pan out. We should know by the end of January, "

Haha... On man I can't even say the words I want to say about this on this forum.

The dakka bad language filter is quite creative as long as you don't try to adapt or change words.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Morgan Vening wrote:


So, first para is putting cart before the horse.

Second para is putting the horse down.

I find it hilarious they're making all these big plans for the future, and yet they have nothing close to concrete before end of January. Meaning that even if they get GOOD news, it looks like anything before the end of next year is probably out of the question. And if it's bad news as they expect, 2017's a write off too.

EDIT: Oh, and third para, yeah, update your addresses for something that we don't even have a timeline for. Why update addresses before it starts manufacturing? I know several people have moved multiple times in the last three years. I expect some people will move multiple times before Wave 2 starts.

They think it makes them look proactive when they're actually just stalling while simulatenously covering their butts for the future. Maybe even someone in the office saw prior to psoting and told Kevin that he's a genius who is reinventing the crowdfunding huckster genre!

As for the first two parts, nothing unexpected. We've been calling that here since it became obvious that their claimed work towards that goal was just smoke and mirrors. I'm guessing that Prodos didn't work out as in their thread they're perennially late on AVP but also now causing other campaigns to be late that they've been contracted to cast for.

Note, Shane Hensley is the creator of the KS Campaign, but Sean Fannon appears to be the person behind the design. And AFAIK, Sean is still working on things, and Jodi appears to have taken over Shane's role.

My bad. I confused Shane with Sean. Thanks for the clarification.

 warboss wrote:

 Swabby wrote:
"It is starting to look like our manufacturing plan to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two game pieces with much lower part counts is not going to pan out. We should know by the end of January, "

Haha... On man I can't even say the words I want to say about this on this forum.

The dakka bad language filter is quite creative as long as you don't try to adapt or change words.

Exactly!

It is just the novel compound words that could get you into trouble...

So, have at it!

 Lynx7725 wrote:
I don't even know what to say about the obsession with lower part count.

It's a misdirect, plain and simple.

Context for those who might not know the full story: In the lead up to wave 1 going to production, they showed off a Spartan that had a simply ridiculous parts count. This set off a portion of the backers, and became known as "Spartangate" (because naming conventions are usually simple and stupid).

There was a great deal of digital ink spilled back and forth (apparently this was how it MUST be done, except for all the companies who don't do it that way, and some bull about the designs not being made with minis in mind, as though an anime from the 80's involved eldritch lovecraftian non-euclidean shapes no metal mold could capture).

Anyway, wave 1 was made, shipped, and lo, while some figures are less obnoxious than others (the Battlepods usually get less ire than the VTs/Destroids), those boxes were filled with 2-3 inch tall figures that had 12-24+ pieces (the VT arms are 4 pieces EACH, so 8-9 bits to trim and/or assemble based on gunpod choice).

As the delays mounted and the months ticked by, they began (at some point, I don't remember exactly when) to use the excuse that they were 'investigating ways to trim the parts count'. This has gone on for, what, quarters now? A year? They've allegedly (from what Ninja Division has said) had all of the digital models for 2 years or more, as I recall, but have apparently spent massive amounts of time "trimming the parts count". There are allegations that the 'file type isn't compatible' or something, but A) that's silly, and B) tangential to the 'parts count' matter.

Which, to bring us back to my original statement; they took a complaint some backers had (many, but not all) and have used it as an excuse for why wave 2 has sat with all but negligible progress for nearly 2.5 years (assuming that work would have begun on it in earnest once wave 1 went from design to production).

Like their ongoing alleged quarters (weeks and months and more) of 'waiting on quotes' from potential factories, it's just an easy cop out, and all the better it throws the blame on the backers in a thinly veiled manner. "Oh, we'd be so much further ahead but we have to worry about the parts count, you see" is the subtext I get from their copy/paste missives.

 warboss wrote:
As for rifts SW, do you have a link to Shane leaving? I don't doubt you but I just don't follow it. Is he leaving PEG or just that project? Is someone from Palladium taking over like with Robotech and Ninja Division?

Okay, looks like he is with another company since September: see his "Linkedin' profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-hensley-12b11a1
Which is Daybreak Games here:
https://www.daybreakgames.com/home

My search kung-fu cannot find much else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think I was going to do a line by line commentary on PB's latest missive, I will spare you the snark.

Wasn't the scenario book developed by a "fan-friend"?
Seems a bit of a lie saying they were developing it over the last year. I am almost interested just to find out if it remains the same or Kevin does some unholy editing of the document.

The "plans" for the Ghost Fleet Saga I would say goes into the "any year now" normal PB cue so I would not get all that excited. I would chalk that up to a similar misdirection as the "low parts count" comment on wave 2.

So we are into contingency plans for wave 2.
Yup.
Any year then.
Colour me surprised.

Haydonite era?

Way to go chasing squirrels PB. As if they could even put out one non-Rifts book in a year as-is. Isn't the Dead Reign or whatever Zombie-genre redefining book (in "raw" form) they were supposed to have out in "Fall" still a no show, putting their new book count out at 1 - or 0, I forget which?

I don't think the Great Wave 2 Piece Reduction Quest was even smoke and mirrors. The magician was trying to get off the stage and forget to even make an attempt to cover his exit.

PB, just shoot the damn cow at this point; the bull stopped giving milk over two years ago.

"It is starting to look like our manufacturing plan to make Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave Two game pieces with much lower part counts is not going to pan out. We should know by the end of January"

Oh darn... it looks like the master plan to work with Prodos Unicast fell through. But fear not true believers there's plenty of other companies that make rubbery gumball machine toys. Brace yourselves because we might have word about a possible Robotech® RPG Tactics™ quote sometime late 2019®™.

 Stormonu wrote:
Way to go chasing squirrels PB. As if they could even put out one non-Rifts book in a year as-is. Isn't the Dead Reign or whatever Zombie-genre redefining book (in "raw" form) they were supposed to have out in "Fall" still a no show, putting their new book count out at 1 - or 0, I forget which?

The book is "Hell Followed", and is due to ship out next week. It apparently arrived about lunchtime, Michigan local time.

Making it the second book of the EIGHT announced at the start of the year that would be finished by mid-year. So, a quarter of the books, in twice the time. Par for the course, in Palladium-World.

Also, for those who want more RRT Core Sets, they're on sale at half-MSRP this weekend (also available through CGB's if you ask nicely, apparently). I'm sure that's because they're so benevolent, and not because they're still wanting to shift the craploads they have.

That might arguably be the remaining reason for the Wave 2 charade, beyond the obvious refund issue. If they announce failure, they can't sell people on the promise of a future for the game. Which might impact their ability to sell more of it. As long as they can sell it above clearance costs, that's more money going into PB's coffers, which looks like it's necessary to keep the lights (but not the heat) on, and the doors open.

I can't imagine the core sets are flying off of the shelves, even at 50% off. They must be stuck with a heck of a huge amount of inventory. I wonder if they have to pay an inventory tax on their stock of unsold games.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/does-your-state-tax-business-inventory

PB is in Michigan, which has a partial inventory tax, but I wonder what the specifics are. At some point, they may be better off liquidating or destroying their unsold stock.

Morgan Vening wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Way to go chasing squirrels PB. As if they could even put out one non-Rifts book in a year as-is. Isn't the Dead Reign or whatever Zombie-genre redefining book (in "raw" form) they were supposed to have out in "Fall" still a no show, putting their new book count out at 1 - or 0, I forget which?

The book is "Hell Followed", and is due to ship out next week. It apparently arrived about lunchtime, Michigan local time.

Making it the second book of the EIGHT announced at the start of the year that would be finished by mid-year. So, a quarter of the books, in twice the time. Par for the course, in Palladium-World.

Well PB update is up . I like to know if PB and Kev are really doing anything at all with Robotech and RRT. I myself see a no show for 2017 on both. It looks like on face book and KSRRT site , people are calling out for class action lawsuit. But longer this go on maybe more will jump on I don't know we shall see.

The sad truth about the excuse about changing the files or files not working is.. Most computer program systems; graphic (Photoshop, illustrator), CAD, Zbrush or Otherwise.. Most have a import and export feature
to another file type.. they want to be compatible with other programs knowing the files may need to be changed from customer to supplier or vise versa, because not everyone has the same program and usage preferences..
If Palladium just came out as said they have no money left .. no one would be surprised. but then Kevin would need to explain what he did with it..
And that is way harder than converting files.

The files obviously got stolen in a hack. Endless Crisis of Treachery PartVII®™

Well, now that Kevin has torpedoed his primary excuse for the lateness of RRT, what will he do to keep delaying it indefinitely now? Bring up the scale issue?

My wife started telling me this story, and the fact it wasn't about Kevin Simbieda was fething shocking:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/water-elephants-author-desperate-sell-156-hatchimals-article-1.2904597

Merijeek wrote:
My wife started telling me this story, and the fact it wasn't about Kevin Simbieda was fething shocking:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/water-elephants-author-desperate-sell-156-hatchimals-article-1.2904597

never knew eBay of all places ever put a limit on things, also I see those hatchimal things all over the place in stores so not sure what this run on them is about

Yeah, I had no idea EBay had a limit. Still hilarious. Still very KS.

Wasting our money in wave 1 stock that he can't get a return on (due to his lousy handling of the products) is the obvious one.
But also that he has "invested" his own and PB's money in collectibles, like action figures and animation cels, that he thought would make him rich, only to have that stuff stolen by staff or struggling to sell it on ebay... Foolishness.

not too mention he has killed any market on his signature, by making it so widely available the way he has.

On one hand, it's something of a catch 22. Even they might be coming to (or at, or long past) a point where they'd happily even take a loss to move their remaining stock. Inventory tax aside, just having pallet upon pallet of unsold and barely moving stock must be a such a waste of space, and demoralizing to look at. They can lie to us, but walking past thousands of boxes in there has to hit home eventually.

On the other hand, having a deep down 'fire sale' level slash would probably just confirm outright that they were desperate for cash and/or that the game has no future, very limited demand, etc.

Not that what we all think has ever really mattered to their business practices, but even at half off, anyone in the US would likely get a better deal buying from CSI with free shipping on two cores. Obviously, even moreso when CSI has a sale going beyond their usual 1/3 off MSRP.

I assume it'll take something catastrophic to bypass their usual barriers and filters for the Palladium Truth(tm), as seen by Him, Kevin, Visionary, for Us, The Fans.

It would be funny to see some big retailers just Nope right out though. Like CSI putting cores down to whatever their cost was or less, just to try to get rid of the things. Something steep enough to indicate they're washing their hands of this mess.

Because petty as it may be, at this point I'm onboard with 'actions and inaction have consequences', and 2 years of bullgak with no end in sight could use a little shaking up. I doubt anyone will be jumping through legal channels over a couple hundred bucks, and even with Facebook and the KS Comments and other venues like here, something like 2% or less of the backers seem to give a feth about pursuing larger scale litigation.

And I can't fault them for that; why throw good money after bad? Nobody can guarantee a success (either recouping money or shuttering PB's doors for good; recompense or revenge), so why kick in more cash to continue not to get anything?

I don't think Kevin understands that. People do talk and every day his product (name/respect) looses ground by his actions or non actions..

If a new gamer will ask about Rifts.. The game is very generic to allow anyone to play anything.. but the rules have never been updated
and running on decades old system that is in dire need of a over haul. Character in the game are broken with levels of heroes never being close to even.
Then you need to buy a number of books to keep up with things.Most gamers will use the game only as a stepping block to other rpgs

A new gamer will ask about Robotech tactics, The system feels like it needs to be worked on and there is only the main box set of miniatures.
the expansions are only more miniatures from the main box set. The current community is lacking because of no real support form Palladium games
and unknown future of upcoming models. Once a promising game.. now a dumpster fire

Even with Games Workshop the newer game/comic shop is wary of dealing with them because of so many people say their order requirements are
crazy and not worth dealing with them direct unless you plan to buy crazy amounts each week.

Also, to copy from the comments; It's been a long time, let's go over the numbers, shall we? Thanks to Talizvar for sensibly setting up some timer links.

- RRT Funded: 3 years, 6 months, 23 days ago.
- Was supposed to ship in full: 3 years ago.
- Wave 1 shipped between 2 years 1 month ago (for North America) and 1 year, 7 months ago (the last shipments finally going out)
- The last update was 3 months, 2 days ago.

- Days until June 12th, 2017: 184 days
- Days until Black Friday 2017: 349 days
- Days until the end of 2017: 386 days

Some might be asking "why June 12th?" Because that was when wave 1 went into production, and they barely managed to get it out to retailers for that tasty Black Friday money (oh and started shipping to backers in early October).

"But there was that longshoreman's strike! And the fire at the port!" I know. And Wave Two doesn't contain a book or dice production like Wave One did, but Wave One had roughly 1/2 the figures, and it didn't have the dozen'ish resin components. So let's call that a wash (it probably isn't, but I'm not interested in arguing whether they're a month or two ahead or behind, for now it'll suffice until we're closer to them missing 2017).

That's the benchmark; it took them roughly 4 months from starting production to start shipping to backers. Obviously if they're getting 'final confirmation' or whatever in January, then Chinese New Year would impede them from launching right into things (insert snark/scorn here, yes, I know they probably won't be producing at all, just stop, you know who you are), but all else being equal (even if it isn't), that's the starting point. Give or take X weeks or months, CNY doesn't necessary have to be the do or die point, as it wasn't for wave 1.

So to give them undeserved benefit of the doubt, mid 2017 is the canary in the coal mine.

And 6 fething months passes pretty quickly.

 Forar wrote:

And I can't fault them for that; why throw good money after bad? Nobody can guarantee a success (either recouping money or shuttering PB's doors for good; recompense or revenge), so why kick in more cash to continue not to get anything?

I can't fault them for making that kind of a business decision but the issue for me is that they won't admit that they made it. You (Palladium, not Forar) realize that Robotech Tactics isn't a sustainable long term product line? Fine... I can accept that... but they need to publicly state that and accept the completely justifiable flak that goes along with the decision as well as refund ALL the money that remained after wave 1 shipped. The truly despicable part about Palladium is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. That's what makes Kevin Siembieda and his employees scumbags. Wayne reorganizing the old outdated Robotech file folder in reverse alphabetical order instead of alphabetical or making one cold call to a manufacturer doesn't justify dragging this failed project out another 3 months until their next "effort". I know I'm preaching to the choir, Forar, but figured I'd add that.

Sorry Warboss, it seems I was unclear, that part was aimed towards the 'omg legal action woooo!' sorts of commentary that crops up.

How many people who got ripped off for a couple hundred bucks are going to be excited about paying more money to probably not get anything or the revenge they might seek.

 Forar wrote:

So to give them undeserved benefit of the doubt, mid 2017 is the canary in the coal mine.

And 6 fething months passes pretty quickly.

Yup, and they should know by January supposedly (but whether or not they share any information is another story). We all know they don't give a rat's ass about getting anything (whether information or product, both promised) to backers in a timely fashion but rather that they care about making it for Gencon or not. If they can't make gencon then their next goal would be Black Friday/2017 holiday shopping season. After that, they're back to not caring. As you said, it took them last time months between starting production and starting shipping so if they don't start production in January then the motivation/likelihood of 2017 at all decreases significantly if they can't sell at gencon for 100% msrp.

the fact they have the base RRT game at half off should be a warning that things are not looking good for PB right now.