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In Thailand so my flag may look funny for a bit.
I had a bit of a panic attack when "on-topic" was being pushed for: How could that be managed?
I am rather hesitant to go look at the KS for Rifts... this is a whole different monster than the Savage Worlds one.
It is way too difficult to see this as a separate company offering.
Even if this manages to get some money in for PB, they have demonstrated they have no appetite fort RRT and the money would go wherever RRT's went.
No free-pass for criticism, I understand that bullying can be damaging but it feels like we are being blackmailed from criticizing what looks like an obvious money waster of a KS.
This is one of those few instances that I feel that exercising our better nature can be better spent elsewhere.

<sigh> Okay, heading off to take a look...

I got the main RTT box set and from what I could tell the models looked good. I haven't built them, but still. People in the new campaign thread are saying the china factory was bad, what was wrong with the factory that made them?

I did a regular pledge for RTT, I think it was $150.. I got the boxed game and a plastic bag filled with extra sprues (and somehow managed to get every sprue to fit in the box!).. was there anything from wave 2 I should still be waiting on, or was wave 2 mostly extra add on items?

The models are passable. There's a few flaws (the sides of the legs are flat on the VF's in fighter mode) etc. But for what they are, they're ok.

They're a lot of work to assemble properly (well over an hour per model) and you need to do some sanding and putty work to hide seams etc for a decent standard of finish.

The tooling isn't bad (for what it is - basic 2 plate injection mould), but the layout isn't optimal, nor is the part breakdown (position of seams) brilliant. That's what causes the majority of the problems, not the actual number of parts. Folks don't really realise that; they think it's just a lot of parts when it's actually those parts being difficult to put together and clean up to look nice.

Yes, you and the over 4,500 other people pledging battlecry or more are still waiting on a fair amount of stuff from a basic battlecry pledge ($130+)

At kickstarter addon price (not retail):

Rick & Roy VF-1's ($30)
2 Super Valkyrie ($35)
Khyron Officer pod ($15)
Mirya Female Power armour ($15)
2 Lancers ($20/2 = $10)
2 Ghost ($20/2 = $10)
3 Female Power armour ($30)
3 Male Power armour ($20)
3 Gnerl fighters ($15)

So, $180 minimum at KS addon rates. PB basically owe significantly over a million in product at retail.

Asterios wrote:

GuyverBlue wrote:
I am NOT defending Carmen or PB but I do work for an electric utility as a GIS/OMS technician. It is possible for a single residence to be out of power to any number of reasons: issues inside the residence itself, service to the residence, transformer issues and more.

yeah thing like not paying the power bill ? but wait, does that mean he doesn't have a smart phone since he could have done a facebook page update on a phone now too.

I meant to post earlier but got sidetracked. My last job had me running around a good portion of southern Indiana quite often and there were many areas that had homes I went to with little or no cell reception. So it is conceivable that someone couldn't log onto FB because their power went out. And from personal experience up until two Novembers ago I didn't own a smart phone, just a flip phone that I bought in 2008. I doubt I would have been able to open FB on that. Having said that, I have no clue about Carmen's cell phone reception where he lives, nor do I know what kind of phone he owns. I also agree with you that their reasoning for a lack of an update at that point doesn't pass the smell test.

winterdyne wrote:
The models are passable. There's a few flaws (the sides of the legs are flat on the VF's in fighter mode) etc. But for what they are, they're ok.

They're a lot of work to assemble properly (well over an hour per model) and you need to do some sanding and putty work to hide seams etc for a decent standard of finish.

The tooling isn't bad (for what it is - basic 2 plate injection mould), but the layout isn't optimal, nor is the part breakdown (position of seams) brilliant. That's what causes the majority of the problems, not the actual number of parts. Folks don't really realise that; they think it's just a lot of parts when it's actually those parts being difficult to put together and clean up to look nice.

Yes, you and the over 4,500 other people pledging battlecry or more are still waiting on a fair amount of stuff from a basic battlecry pledge ($130+)

At kickstarter addon price (not retail):

Rick & Roy VF-1's ($30)
2 Super Valkyrie ($35)
Khyron Officer pod ($15)
Mirya Female Power armour ($15)
2 Lancers ($20/2 = $10)
2 Ghost ($20/2 = $10)
3 Female Power armour ($30)
3 Male Power armour ($20)
3 Gnerl fighters ($15)

So, $180 minimum at KS addon rates. PB basically owe significantly over a million in product at retail.

and that is not counting add-ons and the resin add-ons seriously what was their excuse for not doing the resin bases again ?

Asterios wrote:
and that is not counting add-ons and the resin add-ons seriously what was their excuse for not doing the resin bases again ?

"We couldn't be arsed"

well this is what I sent kickstarter about the RBG:

This project is in violation of your rules and guidelines and federal law in the US:

1: this project creator states it is located in Livonia, Mi. but a check of said company in that state or even in the USA does not exist, said company on their own website does state they are located in Canada.

2: said project is selling product in their project (under add-ons) related to another company and that is just product being resold which violates your rules here: "Resale. All rewards must have been produced or designed by the project or one of its creators — no reselling things from elsewhere."

3: said project creator came onto another project and threatened the backers that if this project does not fund he will make sure the other project burns. messages can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/415122038/comments

4: furthermore I believe this project to be a shill company for Palladium Books to further defraud and bilk more backers of money after they have yet to fulfill half the rewards on their other project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm?ref=user_menu


Addendum; furthermore I would also like to protest my banning from posting comments with no evidence of any infraction caused by me.

 Albertorius wrote:

Asterios wrote:
and that is not counting add-ons and the resin add-ons seriously what was their excuse for not doing the resin bases again ?

"We couldn't be arsed"

Pretty much this. Though it's as much what do they do if they did print it. People would be pissed if they sold it. PB can't afford to ship it as a W1.5. Having it sit in the warehouse would generate some ire. Etc.

Honestly, the resin components has been my barometer of when Wave 2 is going to happen. Given the leadup time, and the amount of resin that needs to be mastered, molded, produced and QC'd, the completion of the resin would be an indication that Wave 2 was almost ready. If they wait until after Wave 2 is being manufactured, certain deliveries may be held up waiting for the resin components to be complete.

I mean, that'd be a very PB thing to do (Oh, we can't send you what is over 4 years late, because the thing we've had the capacity to do for 5 years, we haven't done yet, and we can't afford to ship after the fact). But I think there have been enough mentions of the resins that it'd surprise (but not shock) me if they actually forgot about them.

Let's see. If it funds, they get at least $5k for doing nothing.

If they hold PB and RH accountable, they make zilch...

Tough decision for KS...

well now we know what Kevin was doing with those geese, he was training them to take out the power in Michigan:

http://fox40.com/2017/05/09/caught-on-camera-goose-knocks-out-power-to-thousands-in-michigan/

seriously you cannot make this up.

"The goose did not survive."

;(

Guess you could say his goose is cooked?

 n815e wrote:
Let's see. If it funds, they get at least $5k for doing nothing.
.

Joking aside, KS hosts the web traffic and often promotes Kickstarters, not to mention handling the $$$ at the end of the campaign. It's not NOTHING, though it can seem WAY out of proportion when a KS does a huge volume. I wonder at what dollar value breakpoint KS starts to actually turn a profit on an individual project.

Yeah, I get it, creators get to use their platform, benefit from its brand recognition and get some small amount of support in exchange for that money.

But the majority of the real work of Kickstarter was done years ago in building the thing. Now it is mainly just following the steps of a standard process, addressing problems and doing occasional enhancements.

For example, they don't have a team of people working with creators to build great project pages, financial consultants to help ensure that creators are setting goals correctly to help ensure project success, insurance for failure, do targeted advertising, an admin team that can customize the project pages to fit creator needs/wants, or a customer support team that does more than ignore most requests.

They really are, essentially, doing next to nothing for the fee.

Good for them for building it and getting it going.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"JR" wrote:

IF this is Palladium Books that is really running this project (and I don't think it is, but IF you are), go ahead and use any money left from RTT to make this an awesome game and get it out to these backers. It's obvious their supporters hate you anyways, so don't spend another minute or dollar on them. Spend the money where it will do the most good. It's plain that nothing you do or say will please them anyways so you don't lose any friends.

It's amazing. I'm hoping this guy pledged a large amount of money.

JR is probably Jeff Ruiz, a.k.a. NMI

$100 is not worth it for a paper map.

I pledged $200 on the assumption money from the Rifts game will be diverted to fund wave 2 of RRT

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I pledged $200 on the assumption money from the Rifts game will be diverted to fund wave 2 of RRT

it will not.

Pretty sure he's joking.

Because he's Kid_Kyoto, and...

...well, because he's Kid_Kyoto.

 Alpharius wrote:
Pretty sure he's joking.

Because he's Kid_Kyoto, and...

...well, because he's Kid_Kyoto.

Well with Kid_Kyoto it can be hard to tell at times, when you think hes going left, he goes right, when you think hes going up, he goes down, hes a rascally one.

 n815e wrote:
Yeah, I get it, creators get to use their platform, benefit from its brand recognition and get some small amount of support in exchange for that money.

But the majority of the real work of Kickstarter was done years ago in building the thing. Now it is mainly just following the steps of a standard process, addressing problems and doing occasional enhancements.

For example, they don't have a team of people working with creators to build great project pages, financial consultants to help ensure that creators are setting goals correctly to help ensure project success, insurance for failure, do targeted advertising, an admin team that can customize the project pages to fit creator needs/wants, or a customer support team that does more than ignore most requests.

Given the diversity of the things that are backed on Kickstarters, I don't see how they could do several of these things. One project is making a video game, another is making miniatures, the third is making bicycle wheels, the fourth is renovating a theater. Given how long KS has been going so far, they shouldn't need to financially consult creators. There are endless articles online about how to successfully Kickstart and what pitfalls to watch out for, and basically every KS is still available to peruse, and potentially contact the creators for advice (whether they give it or not is another matter).

Failure insurance would be nice, but...project creators can do that themselves? You can literally get insurance on anything these days, but insuring a $100k project by some nobody is going to run more than 5% of 100K. As to targeted adverts, they could indeed do that ("Hey you backed this project, you might like this other project"), but at some point it's going to be basically spamming everyone who ever backed everything and I don't think people would appreciate it.

They really are, essentially, doing next to nothing for the fee.

Don't forget that credit cards charge vendors a fee as well - somewhere in the region of 1.5-3% of the amount. So Kickstarter might be taking 5%, but since they're collecting from mostly credit cards, they might only get 2-3.5% when all is said and done. And if a project fails to fund, Kickstarter gets bumpkis, but hosting the volume of web traffic that they do isn't free by any means. And then there's the staff necessary to do the things they actually do, even if it's formulaic at this point, it still has to be done by people who need income.

This is not to imply that Kickstarter isn't making good money, but I've yet to see any project creator begrudge them the 5% cut they take.

 John Prins wrote:

 n815e wrote:
Yeah, I get it, creators get to use their platform, benefit from its brand recognition and get some small amount of support in exchange for that money.

But the majority of the real work of Kickstarter was done years ago in building the thing. Now it is mainly just following the steps of a standard process, addressing problems and doing occasional enhancements.

For example, they don't have a team of people working with creators to build great project pages, financial consultants to help ensure that creators are setting goals correctly to help ensure project success, insurance for failure, do targeted advertising, an admin team that can customize the project pages to fit creator needs/wants, or a customer support team that does more than ignore most requests.

Given the diversity of the things that are backed on Kickstarters, I don't see how they could do several of these things. One project is making a video game, another is making miniatures, the third is making bicycle wheels, the fourth is renovating a theater. Given how long KS has been going so far, they shouldn't need to financially consult creators. There are endless articles online about how to successfully Kickstart and what pitfalls to watch out for, and basically every KS is still available to peruse, and potentially contact the creators for advice (whether they give it or not is another matter).

Failure insurance would be nice, but...project creators can do that themselves? You can literally get insurance on anything these days, but insuring a $100k project by some nobody is going to run more than 5% of 100K. As to targeted adverts, they could indeed do that ("Hey you backed this project, you might like this other project"), but at some point it's going to be basically spamming everyone who ever backed everything and I don't think people would appreciate it.

They really are, essentially, doing next to nothing for the fee.

Don't forget that credit cards charge vendors a fee as well - somewhere in the region of 1.5-3% of the amount. So Kickstarter might be taking 5%, but since they're collecting from mostly credit cards, they might only get 2-3.5% when all is said and done. And if a project fails to fund, Kickstarter gets bumpkis, but hosting the volume of web traffic that they do isn't free by any means. And then there's the staff necessary to do the things they actually do, even if it's formulaic at this point, it still has to be done by people who need income.

This is not to imply that Kickstarter isn't making good money, but I've yet to see any project creator begrudge them the 5% cut they take.

about the fees, they can be found and explained here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/fees?ref=faq-basics_fees

I usually attribute 10% to the entire KS fees(KS and credit card).

also on a side note, the Pro-PB/RH backers on the RBG are now starting to sound like they are in the denial stage they experienced in the RRT project, talking about they can talk ideas which PB can do and so forth and so forth.

Given the diversity of the things that are backed on Kickstarters, I don't see how they could do several of these things. One project is making a video game, another is making miniatures, the third is making bicycle wheels, the fourth is renovating a theater. Given how long KS has been going so far, they shouldn't need to financially consult creators.

I'm merely pointing out potential services, as examples, that they could provide for their fees.
Compared to other platforms in other industries, they offer bare bones service and they drop inexperienced creators into a pool of sharks. Some paid consultants offer help or free, well-meaning individuals isn't the same.

They also don't recognize that they have two sets of customers. The ones that generate the funding and the ones that provide the funding. They have done everything they can to protect the generators of funds, while offering nothing to the providers of those funds other than "lip service". That has actually cost them, since it doesn't recognize the fundamental truth that continued funding isn't going to come from those sources that have been burned by this.

I will probably never back another kickstarter project, even from companies I trust and have experience with, because doing so provides money to support Kickstarter itself, which does nothing to uphold the standards and rules it sets for creators. That's 5% of whatever I would have pledged on each project that interested me that they are losing, times however many unsatisfied customers.

 n815e wrote:

Given the diversity of the things that are backed on Kickstarters, I don't see how they could do several of these things. One project is making a video game, another is making miniatures, the third is making bicycle wheels, the fourth is renovating a theater. Given how long KS has been going so far, they shouldn't need to financially consult creators.

I'm merely pointing out potential services, as examples, that they could provide for their fees.

If Kickstarter is doing market research and advising Kickstarters, then they're basically either investors in the project or they ARE the project. Either option would be a bad business decision. Kickstarter gives you a platform to stand on to raise funds, and they handle the funds. They built the platform intentionally to not take any responsibility for the project's success or failure - and they make that pretty clear up front. I don't fault them for that, if they did, they'd have to charge WAY, way more than they currently do.

Note the average successful KS in 2015 was worth $11,222, of which $561 would be Kickstarter's cut, plus the money handling fee you mentioned. $561 on average doesn't pay for a lot of services overall.

Kickstarter would be more fair if the % dropped off as the dollar value went up, but at the moment very small kickstarters ($1000 or less) pay very little for the platform. You could say the big guys are subsidizing the small ones.

Compared to other platforms in other industries, they offer bare bones service and they drop inexperienced creators into a pool of sharks. Some paid consultants offer help or free, well-meaning individuals isn't the same.

Can you expand on this? The other platforms in other industries. I know for-profit fundraisers (for charitable organizations) do all the work but take the lion's share of the money as well.

They also don't recognize that they have two sets of customers.

I don't quite agree. Their customers are the project creators. Just like an advertising firm's customers are the products they're designing for. The backers are the customers of the project creator. Kickstarter facilitates the transfer of money between the two, it's true, but so does your credit card company. Did you stop using VISA/Mastercard as well? Did they give you a refund when the project went south? Of course not.

 John Prins wrote:

 n815e wrote:

Given the diversity of the things that are backed on Kickstarters, I don't see how they could do several of these things. One project is making a video game, another is making miniatures, the third is making bicycle wheels, the fourth is renovating a theater. Given how long KS has been going so far, they shouldn't need to financially consult creators.

I'm merely pointing out potential services, as examples, that they could provide for their fees.

If Kickstarter is doing market research and advising Kickstarters, then they're basically either investors in the project or they ARE the project. Either option would be a bad business decision. Kickstarter gives you a platform to stand on to raise funds, and they handle the funds. They built the platform intentionally to not take any responsibility for the project's success or failure - and they make that pretty clear up front. I don't fault them for that, if they did, they'd have to charge WAY, way more than they currently do.

Note the average successful KS in 2015 was worth $11,222, of which $561 would be Kickstarter's cut, plus the money handling fee you mentioned. $561 on average doesn't pay for a lot of services overall.

Kickstarter would be more fair if the % dropped off as the dollar value went up, but at the moment very small kickstarters ($1000 or less) pay very little for the platform. You could say the big guys are subsidizing the small ones.

Compared to other platforms in other industries, they offer bare bones service and they drop inexperienced creators into a pool of sharks. Some paid consultants offer help or free, well-meaning individuals isn't the same.

Can you expand on this? The other platforms in other industries. I know for-profit fundraisers (for charitable organizations) do all the work but take the lion's share of the money as well.

They also don't recognize that they have two sets of customers.

I don't quite agree. Their customers are the project creators. Just like an advertising firm's customers are the products they're designing for. The backers are the customers of the project creator. Kickstarter facilitates the transfer of money between the two, it's true, but so does your credit card company. Did you stop using VISA/Mastercard as well? Did they give you a refund when the project went south? Of course not.

I disagree, Kickstarter does need to change their way of handeling things, since with the current laws and Kickstarters hands off approach, Kickstarter has become nothing more then a legal loophole for scammers to operate.

I don't quite agree. Their customers are the project creators. Just like an advertising firm's customers are the products they're designing for. The backers are the customers of the project creator. Kickstarter facilitates the transfer of money between the two, it's true, but so does your credit card company. Did you stop using VISA/Mastercard as well? Did they give you a refund when the project went south? Of course not.

My credit card companies don't provide a means for people to scam me out of money. In fact, they do what they can to protect against that.
Kickstarter is nothing without the backers. If the platform fails to do anything more than protect itself and the creators, eventually enough backers will decide to take their business elsewhere.

Can you expand on this? The other platforms in other industries.

LinkedIn - provides a service, advertises, support is good, I don't have to go elsewhere to learn how to use it effectively.

 n815e wrote:
My credit card companies don't provide a means for people to scam me out of money. In fact, they do what they can to protect against that.

But did they refund you when you got scammed on Kickstarter? No, because Kickstarter is up front about the fact that there are risks.

Now, I too would like it if Kickstarter did something about enforcing its own TOS - stomping on a few bad apples would probably help in that regard. For reference: https://www.kickstarter.com/fulfillment. Apparently KS has a 9% failure rate on backed projects, though it varies with the definition of 'failure'. However, it's something all crowdfunding platforms suffer from - Indiegogo and GoFundMe have their own notable scams.

Personally, I back very few projects anymore. The creator has to be known to me in some fashion (reputable) or I"m not touching it, and even then, well, I've got so much miniatures stuff now I have little need to back any more projects (painting backlog from here to eternity).

 John Prins wrote:

 n815e wrote:
My credit card companies don't provide a means for people to scam me out of money. In fact, they do what they can to protect against that.

But did they refund you when you got scammed on Kickstarter? No, because Kickstarter is up front about the fact that there are risks.

Actually, I know at least one backer did (Azazelx?). The reason why more people weren't able to, wasn't because the risks were there, it was because of the timeframes involved. Most credit cards have a limit that is easily surpassed by Kickstarter timelines. I remember when it all went pear shaped for RRT, and most cards were found to have a 90 or 180 day policy. So it's not about risk, as much as it's about the bureaucracy of the banking industry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Latest PBWU is here.

Kevin is out sick (hidden subtext, "sick and tired of you donkey caves"). Wayne posting.

All core RPG's 30% off.

That's it. Everything else is a cut and paste until Kevin is back next week.

I rate this PBWU BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Normally, I use the facepalm emoji, but given the circumstances, I just can't even...

 John Prins wrote:

 n815e wrote:
My credit card companies don't provide a means for people to scam me out of money. In fact, they do what they can to protect against that.

But did they refund you when you got scammed on Kickstarter? No, because Kickstarter is up front about the fact that there are risks.

Actually, no. Chase didn't refund me because I didn't contact them within the first 500 days of the RRT Kickstarter closing.

It's Kickstarter's terms and conditions that allow a KS to continue ad infinitum. Because, you know, they're 'working on it'.

Morgan Vening wrote:
Actually, I know at least one backer did (Azazelx?). The reason why more people weren't able to, wasn't because the risks were there, it was because of the timeframes involved. Most credit cards have a limit that is easily surpassed by Kickstarter timelines. I remember when it all went pear shaped for RRT, and most cards were found to have a 90 or 180 day policy. So it's not about risk, as much as it's about the bureaucracy of the banking industry.

That's actually very interesting. It almost might be worth getting a credit card with long-term policies just for Kickstarter backing. When Ninja Division "pulled out" of the RTT, that would have been the ideal time to bail, though we didn't really know how badly Palladium would bungle it.