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That podcast...

...I think calling them 'not terribly well informed' was being...kind.

Not to mention that their main point appears to be 'if you're really upset that you're out wave 2/money here, then you probably shouldn't have pledged at all'.

Curiously, they also appear to leave out how Carmen threatened to burn this KS down, or whatever it is he 'threatened' to do?

Odd...

Not being familiar with this podcast at all, is it a popular one?

TwoGunBob wrote:
That dingbat really tried to go over to 4chan and yell them down? Wow, he must usually never leave the confines of the Palladium compound.

Actually, he does quite often. If theres a fight about palladium in another forum 80% chance he's in it. Otherwise its one of the other loyalists.

He will especially watch any site which is suppose to be friendly to palladium.

Didn't we just get told they couldn't reduce the part count, but are now back to trying to reduce the parts?

Look, hater! Kevin wouldn't lie! And if he seems to be contradicting what he said a couple weeks ago...you're just misremembering!

 Alpharius wrote:
That podcast...

...I think calling them 'not terribly well informed' was being...kind.

Not to mention that their main point appears to be 'if you're really upset that you're out wave 2/money here, then you probably shouldn't have pledged at all'.

Curiously, they also appear to leave out how Carmen threatened to burn this KS down, or whatever it is he 'threatened' to do?

Odd...

Not being familiar with this podcast at all, is it a popular one?

I doubt it, unless people who have trouble sleeping listen to it, it practically put me too sleep

Joyboozer wrote:
Didn't we just get told they couldn't reduce the part count, but are now back to trying to reduce the parts?

Yeah, I noticed that too. The last couple of months in particular have been very up and down on that matter.

 Forar wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Didn't we just get told they couldn't reduce the part count, but are now back to trying to reduce the parts?

Yeah, I noticed that too. The last couple of months in particular have been very up and down on that matter.

Don't listen to what he said! Just listen to what he's saying!

You people, always living in the past.

Don't forget, Palladium has been in the industry for 30+ years!

The only consistency that Palladium show, is being consistently bad.

 Alpharius wrote:
That podcast...
...I think calling them 'not terribly well informed' was being...kind.

That is what I thought.. before you report something know something about it...
sounded like they where pulling up web pages as they were reporting it...

Plus just look at the RTT thread here on Dakka.. posters are so dangerous we been assigned
two moderators

Fun, how with every deuce Simbieda drops in the punch bowl, we see more and more backers we've never seen before.

Funny that the title of this update is 'Going Forward' when we're back to waiting for quotes and exploring reduced parts count.

So Gen-Con in late August plus recovering from con-crud kills September. October is Essen. Then we have the cash-grab/send palladium money, get random old stock from the warehouse sale November - January. February is CNY. CoastCon/Adepticon are in March. No worries, that's just 5 months of working really hard, 25 hours a day, 8 days a week minus the occasional day off where everyone in the office goes to see a movie (probably because there's not enough money to pay anyone to work that day). I'm sure work will get done. Soon.

 Digclaw wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
All it did was to play straight into Kevin's hands, his complaints of vindictive backers is proved correct. The Beasts of War article practically writes itself.

Beasts of War stopped covering RRT a long time ago after the unboxing incident. (which also involved Carmen)

"unboxing Incident"????


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
WTF Just Happened?

Briefly - Carmen Bellaire has freelanced for Palladium over the years, including on RRT. He started his own company and purchased a license from PB to do a Rifts board game called Rogue Heroes. He planned to seek funding via KS and RRT backers made it known that they would warn off potential Rogue Heroes backers. Mr. Bellaire posted in the RRT KS comments section that if RRT backers would refrain from interfering with Rogue Heroes then he would use his alleged knowledge and connections to "fix" the RRT mess. If RRT backers did warn people off Rogue Stars, however, he promised to let RRT "burn." RRT backers reacted negatively and Mr. Bellaire stopped posting. Then rumors started to spread of Mr. Bellaire having some kind of medical problems. Ultimately, Mr. Siembieda posted an update to the RRT KS disclaiming that Mr. Bellaire had never made any threats regarding RRT, that all he really meant was that if Rogue Heroes was successful then he could devote his full time to game development, including informally helping with RRT, and that RRT backers' reactions to his bumbling words were so hurtful, it had caused him to attempt suicide,

Thank you for the summary. Carmen clearly isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer in that case. And while depression and suicide are no joke, based on what you've communicated above, he's clearly not up to the task of running a KS with that kind of temperament. I did receive Kevin's rambling incoherent update, though.

Morgan Vening wrote:
Not that I'm saying it happened with regards the Rifts Boardgame either. First off, Carmen doesn't actually link to anything. And second, if there hadn't been discussion about "warning people off", he might not have commented at all. I don't see any argument for banning Carmen, but then again, I don't see any reason for Jay to be punished, or Nathan to have his posts deleted (I don't know if he suffered any further punishment). While the result was tragic, I stand by my opinion that while a little heated, there was nothing in that exchange that warranted a suspension. I've seen similar levels of hostility on the Dakka Forums, that didn't get moderated. But c'est la vie.

That's true, but he's still attempting to head the issues off. For the most part we agree. All I was saying was that I thought the act of him posting about the Rifts Board Game (for any reason) in the comments section of RRT was something that Kickstarter should consider, especially since they are willing to ban a backer for his/her comments from the same discussion.

As I mentioned earlier Jay was likely banned because of his claim that he would troll Carmen's future Kickstarter. To me that was his worst offense and givin' the situation it wasn't that bad. The problem with that is that as of yet, the Rifts Board Game Kickstarter doesn't even exist. Jays suspension doesn't make sense, but if you are going to ban a guy for expressing his opinion heatedly about something that doesn't exists; what about the contributing creator Carmen Bellaire, who says if his (non existing) Kickstarter doesn't fund, he hopes (mind you, in the very same comments section) that this Kickstarter (which does exist) burns...

I hate Kickstarter-

WithintheDungeon wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:
Not that I'm saying it happened with regards the Rifts Boardgame either. First off, Carmen doesn't actually link to anything. And second, if there hadn't been discussion about "warning people off", he might not have commented at all. I don't see any argument for banning Carmen, but then again, I don't see any reason for Jay to be punished, or Nathan to have his posts deleted (I don't know if he suffered any further punishment). While the result was tragic, I stand by my opinion that while a little heated, there was nothing in that exchange that warranted a suspension. I've seen similar levels of hostility on the Dakka Forums, that didn't get moderated. But c'est la vie.

That's true, but he's still attempting to head the issues off. For the most part we agree. All I was saying was that I thought the act of him posting about the Rifts Board Game (for any reason) in the comments section of RRT was something that Kickstarter should consider, especially since they are willing to ban a backer for his/her comments from the same discussion.

As I mentioned earlier Jay was likely banned because of his claim that he would troll Carmen's future Kickstarter. To me that was his worst offense and givin' the situation it wasn't that bad. The problem with that is that as of yet, the Rifts Board Game Kickstarter doesn't even exist. Jays suspension doesn't make sense, but if you are going to ban a guy for expressing his opinion heatedly about something that doesn't exists; what about the contributing creator Carmen Bellaire, who says if his (non existing) Kickstarter doesn't fund, he hopes (mind you, in the very same comments section) that this Kickstarter (which does exist) burns...

I hate Kickstarter-

Regarding the first point, it was more that it wasn't spam in the traditional sense. Funnily enough, Jorel (known for personal attacks at the drop of a hat) did an example of what I was talking about for the Terminator game in the midst of the discussion. Though I highly doubt he's in any way a Creator.

Regarding the ban, if the Kickstarter goes ahead as planned, there's a real irony that Jay's suspension will have timed out when the Kickstarter happens. Given the remorse he's shown, I doubt Jay will sign up, let alone comment, but there's a twisted humor to a guy being suspended for threatening to harass a campaign having his suspension run it's entirety before the new campaign was even potentially scheduled to start (Carmen did say EoMarch/SoApril, but Kevin on the same day said Mid April/EoApril in his PBWU, I'd side with Carmen, cause I don't believe anything Kevin writes, but still).

I mean, there's the official rules and the unwritten ones people generally follow, even if it takes a little prompting.

Best I can tell;

- Creators are allows to suggest other projects that they think are cool on their own campaign updates/comments. While no, spamming people with sales updates can be uncouth, advertising for their own next campaign, or active campaigns they think have value is something I see pretty regularly in some circles. Doing this while their campaign is live can be iffy by diverting funds they might otherwise get, but it's sort of a communal angle that some (certainly not all) campaigns play.

- Backers talking about other campaigns in a live campaign is annoying. I don't know if it's explicitly verboten, but it's kind of bad form. Assessing interest and value during multiple running campaigns isn't easy, but (as an example) it feeling like every damned comment section on the platform was talking about Kingdom Death 1.5 got obnoxious quickly.

- Backers talking about other campaigns in one that has already concluded, even if not permitted (again, I haven't dug into the TOS lately, and whether or not it's explicitly laid out, this isn't just the idealized 'how it should be', but I'm addressing 'how it generally is'), is usually less of a big deal. Some people get their knickers in a twist over it, but especially once a few months have passed, those people are being unreasonable. A fraction of the activity is happening, those sections generally just become general chats until something big happens (major update, delivery pending, boxes being received, etc).

That all said, I'm pretty sure Kickstarter is tired of people trolling with pledges. If he got a ban, that wouldn't be an unreasonable justification, and would fit with the 1 month time out he got. If they really felt he was way out of line with this whole situation and actually drove a man to the brink, he wouldn't have gotten a slap on the wrist.

This kind of stuff is interesting to see evolve, and can get pretty 'meta'... like right now, I suppose. Talking about how we talk on the platform.

Yeah, I honestly think if you say "I will troll" you are done no matter how justified you feel.
I am pretty sure that is what did it to me on the KS site.
Mention it once in your entire posting career and get slapped hard.

As to having two moderators, I suspect this whole thing is a guilty pleasure for both.
It is certainly perplexing how long it has dragged on and passions can remain high.
I always figured apathy is easy: it takes someone to actually care about something in order to get angry.

I think what keeps me engaged in all this is the more naïve part of me just cannot understand how things could run this long and not be considered illegal:

I make an agreement to give you stuff for money with an estimated delivery date.
I take money.
I allow further orders of stuff with more money to be paid up front.
I for a time refuse to give a new date for shipment.
I state often "no refunds!".
I give you some of the agreed stuff and try say that is good enough.

Personally I would expect to have the police sent after me or a small claims court notice sent or a collections agency after me.

I think most people expect justice in this world should work.
I think it all falls off the rails when a narcissist is in charge.

Hi everyone! happy 2017, just checking in after 1 year. only came back to see the drama of the Rifts board game.

I can't believe its been almost 2 years since Kevin has started too reduce parts and ask for quotes. I never knew getting a quote would be this hard, especially since 'wave 1' was already produced.

I think Carman was very unlucky to have ties with Robotech KS just like the rest of us backers. In a sense he is a victim too, his reputation will be forever linked with it. It will take someone with tremendous talent and skill to distance oneself from Robotech KS. look at people like Alesso, McVey, Ronnie, and Andy. they made a good game from GW and now they can do whatever game they want with gamer support instead of backlash.

speaking of GW. I backed Robotech KS during a time when GW cannot do anything right. Now just look how improved GW is! KS will need to step up really well to get money out of me when GW is pushing out great boardgames month after month.

The industry is moving so fast these couple of years! back in 2013 I honestly think the models we are given are ok. too many parts but not a deal breaker. in 2017 those same models have not aged well. I don't expect Kevin has the ability to improved the model beyond the wave 1 scripts. and backers will still be annoyed at whatever finalized wave 2 models.

I still want this KS to fulfill all its promise to backers. Its the right thing to do. I do not support a Robotech 2nd ed when the first KS hasn't been fulfilled.

Its nice to still see a lot of old faces here, you guys are the real troopers!

I was pretty much in the area of apathy as well. I just occasionally drop in to the comments section to see how people are analyzing the latest (non)update from the desk of Palladium. Yeah, my first reaction to Carmen's project was that Kevin duped one of his sycophants into putting together a shell company to run another Palladium kickstarter because Kevin, flush with success of the Rifts/ Savage World kickstarter, had a massive micro-hard on for more of the kickstarter monies. I figured old Kevvy was working up to a froth trying to figure out how to get around the bad karma of the Robotech kickstarter and Carmen was more his partner in crime than an overzealous freelancer. Course in light of the situation with Carmen I'm rather thinking he was an investor for the IP that never expected the RRT kickstarer would STILL be overshadowing his project and effective neutering it so badly.
I'll be more curious what Carmen himself has to say but I think he'll be muzzled significantly by Kevin crushing him with a NDA or he may remain quiet out of 'friendship' to Kevin. I really think this will play out as one of those things you never hear the truth about unfortunately. Regardless, the spin turned to mostly backlash against Kevin and Palladium despite the plethora of misinformation that was spread by some outlets. And believe me, those outlets that half assed reported this with click bait titles have been noted and I hope most of us will be sure not to support them with any traffic.
End of the day, Carmen will be fine, RRT is no closer to being finished, and Kevin continues to pretend people still have faith in him repeating the same update so much with a few changed words it has become a mantra.

 Forar wrote:
That all said, I'm pretty sure Kickstarter is tired of people trolling with pledges.

I'm quite sure they are. Probably as much as a lot of people is tired of pledging for a KS just to see it go tits up and KS not doing anything at all.

So it kinda goes both ways, is what I'm saying, although I admit I have only pledged just $1 for a single KS, the HG one, and that was a placeholder to wait and see on the final quality.

If Palladium is so worried about what people are going to say in the KS comments section they could always just take the approach they do with their books and offer a pre-order through their website. That way there's no uncontrolled public comment section to deal with. But I suspect they were blown away by the volumes of money that using KS raised vs their in house crowd funding. Tragically however they haven't figured out the main reason that Robotech did so well on KS which was the fact as it was being promoted as being detached from Palladium itself. It was a Ninja Division project that supposedly only had PB signing off on which was enough to lure backers in. Had it been marketed and sold as a PB product it would have done far, far worse.

The only reason I was willing to give this a chance was due to the ND name. Not that they are some sort of gaming giant but I'd seen the stuff they'd previously made and even when there were problems they'd at least put their best foot forward and continued to work on getting things resolved. This is certainly not the case with PB who when faced with problems have completely clammed up and keep all of the backers in the dark while they have made zero progress. The moment that the KS closed and PB started exerting control over the project I knew that it was going pear shaped and things were going to fall off the rails. It's sad because as a fan of Robotech I really wanted to see this game take flight, now it's dead and no amount of effort is going to be able to revive it.

This has proven to be the straw that broke the camels back for me, for years we've suffered through HG mismanaging the Robotech property but despite that I never lost my love for it. RRT however managed to do the one thing that even HG couldn't in all those years, it killed my love for Robotech. I washed my hands of this KS as a total loss. I sold my wave one stuff and will do the same with the wave two if it ever arrives. I just have to hang my head in sorrow when I think of what Robotech could have been had things been done differently.

Albertorius nailed it with me. I've done three kickstarters and only one delivered. The other one that has failed delivery has had a creator being completely transparent about mistakes he's made, people that promised him things and failed to deliver. I'm not mad about it but all added up it's enough to get me to refuse to use kickstarter ever again. The company's complete impotence and reluctance to enforce their rules and policies against creators that basically steal investors' money has assured I will never use that platform because I don't want kickstarter to get a cut as they are just as culpable in this because they get a share in the investors money and fail to act on behalf of the investors. In fact it appears they take an antagonistic stance against them when told to do waht they promise to do as a front for creators.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Forar wrote:
That all said, I'm pretty sure Kickstarter is tired of people trolling with pledges.

I'm quite sure they are. Probably as much as a lot of people is tired of pledging for a KS just to see it go tits up and KS not doing anything at all.

So it kinda goes both ways, is what I'm saying, although I admit I have only pledged just $1 for a single KS, the HG one, and that was a placeholder to wait and see on the final quality.

Agreed! The problem isn't the "trolling", as it's actually a symptom of an irresponsible Creator who fails to deliver, then fails to communicate. Fix the irresponsible Creator problem, and the "trolling" disappears as an issue. If there were some teeth that we could sink into deadbeat creators like PB, a KS Creator accountability process, then there wouldn't be this issue of people demanding answers in subsequent campaigns.

I've pledged $1 for a few of KS to keep tabs on the campaign, and determine whether I wanted to convert them to full pledges down the line once the excitement of the campaign wears off. I think it's small money well-spent to stay informed and manage risk.

Also, I paid $40 for my MAC-II Monster. Give me my fething model, you fethers!

I posted a comment on the newest update and earned a 7 day ban because of it. I'm done being nice to PB and KS and KS and am going to be a mouth-breathing cave-dweller in regards to this whole...thing.

After the 16SEP update was a month old I began writing Kickstarter support once a week informing them of the fact that there were no project updates yet. After the third report in I stopped receiving automated emails saying my report was received. This leads me to believe that I was either blacklisted or ignored in some way.

At this point I can't leave comments or write to support. Once I have my ban lifted I'll be drafting a scathing and vulgar email to support to see if I can get my account suspended. Because at this point I don't care. I'm already not going to get my money or my product, nor will I ever use a crowdfunding platform again so who cares, right?

well go figure I just got banned for a month from KickStarter, and now trying to figure out why ?

Researching the Asylum kickstarter lawsuit and well...

"Late this past July, the Washington State Office of the Attorney General somewhat quietly announced that Altius Management and Edward J. Polchlopek III lost the legal battle initiated last year. King County Superior Court Commissioner Henry Judson ordered the duo to pay $54,851 in civil penalties and restitution, as well as legal fees, over the “shady deal” Kickstarter campaign.

Washington state residents who backed the campaign will receive $668 (combined) in restitution — of which, there are 31 total individuals. The civil penalties amount to $31,000 for what is said to be $1,000 per violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. And, finally, the legal fees and costs amount to $23,183."

I'm going to hazard a guess that the only people that really WON were the lawyers. Boiled down to backers getting a whopping $21.55 each if I'm reading that correctly. Sorry if this has already been discussed in detail but I was actually puttering around more than usual as this latest nonsense from Uncle Kevin has right chapped my hide.

Wow!

Kickstarter is not going about this the right way - BUT I guess we shouldn't be surprised as I'm sure that Kickstarter unfairly probably wants to continue to support the notion that they are 100% not able to help or liable in anyway whatsoever, but they'll gladly continue to collect those sweet, sweet Kickstarter fees.

10% right?

Wow.

I'm sure that they'll eventually be actual legislation that reigns in some of this nonsense, eventually.

TwoGunBob wrote:
Researching the Asylum kickstarter lawsuit and well...

"Late this past July, the Washington State Office of the Attorney General somewhat quietly announced that Altius Management and Edward J. Polchlopek III lost the legal battle initiated last year. King County Superior Court Commissioner Henry Judson ordered the duo to pay $54,851 in civil penalties and restitution, as well as legal fees, over the “shady deal” Kickstarter campaign.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the only people that really WON were the lawyers.

Thing is, I'd be totally OK if this happened to PB. The satisfaction of PB being hit with a legal judgement and forced into bankruptcy would be so sweet.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

TwoGunBob wrote:
Researching the Asylum kickstarter lawsuit and well...

"Late this past July, the Washington State Office of the Attorney General somewhat quietly announced that Altius Management and Edward J. Polchlopek III lost the legal battle initiated last year. King County Superior Court Commissioner Henry Judson ordered the duo to pay $54,851 in civil penalties and restitution, as well as legal fees, over the “shady deal” Kickstarter campaign.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the only people that really WON were the lawyers.

Thing is, I'd be totally OK if this happened to PB. The satisfaction of PB being hit with a legal judgement and forced into bankruptcy would be so sweet.

yeah and the $21 would be icing on the cake, get a pizza and a soda to celebrate with

From a 'revenge factor', sure?

From a 'getting what you paid for' standpoint - not so much?

And forget about a refund...

And forget about a refund...

I've already forgotten about it, it's clear PB squandered the money already so there's nothing left.

PB clearly has no integrity and it's rapidly becoming apparent KS doesn't either.

 Alpharius wrote:
From a 'revenge factor', sure?

From a 'getting what you paid for' standpoint - not so much?

And forget about a refund...

Given that those fethers are obviously NOT going to deliver my MAC-II, nor refund backers, they deserve to go out of business. Simple as that.