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At this point I don't think Palladium Books realizes how badly they have killed interest in the game over their handling of the Kickstarter. This continued 'Yeah we're working on quotes' has runs its course.

Palladium will not admit they are in the wrong. Ever.
Palladium will not admit they didn't listen to Ninja Divisions' counsel. After all, Kevin knows whats best.
If anyone has ever followed Palladium over the years, we should know they treat a release schedule as a release suggestion.

Am I bitter? Yes. I called it when the Kickstarter came out that this was being hyped on geek-nostalgia. But I wanted to get give PB the benefit of the doubt and see what they could produce. This is why I didn't back the RIFTS Boardgame, and likely why I will never back anything Palladium attempts in the future.

Perhaps they are talking with Model LLC which does the plastics for Heavy Gear, they are located in Indiana. The detail on those kits is a bit meh and there were a number of issues with the parts either pitting or being partially formed. I think it'd probably be a step down from what the RRT models are currently at.

Why hasn't PB stated the reason they need to change production companies? While the models are a bit of a PITA to build they at least they would be consistent, I have a feeling that if they switch up companies "for reasons" the models are only bound to be worse. PB doesn't seem to have any sort of grasp on the ball when it comes to miniatures which is why I think their seeking out a factory is only going to cause problems, their only expertise was from Ninja DIvision which has long fled the coop. Based on 4 years of non-action and complete blackout of information cloaked in "we're working on it" I have zero faith in PB's ability to get any of this sorted out.

I backed because of ND's involvement only to realize we'd all been completely bamboozled, that broke my faith in kickstarter. While PB has generated a lot of ire their money is safe in the bank, but I feel burnt by this whole event and that's caused me to skip using KS as a platform since. Sadly the blow back falls on smaller better companies that could really use the help, but after the RRT mess I just don't feel I can trust using KS ever again. The real legacy of RRT is that they're so toxic that they've poisoned the well for others that have nothing to do with RRT.

 stanman wrote:
Perhaps they are talking with Model LLC which does the plastics for Heavy Gear, they are located in Indiana. The detail on those kits is a bit meh and there were a number of issues with the parts either pitting or being partially formed. I think it'd probably be a step down from what the RRT models are currently at.

Why hasn't PB stated the reason they need to change production companies? While the models are a bit of a PITA to build they at least they would be consistent, I have a feeling that if they switch up companies "for reasons" the models are only bound to be worse. PB doesn't seem to have any sort of grasp on the ball when it comes to miniatures which is why I think their seeking out a factory is only going to cause problems, their only expertise was from Ninja DIvision which has long fled the coop. Based on 4 years of non-action and complete blackout of information cloaked in "we're working on it" I have zero faith in PB's ability to get any of this sorted out.

I backed because of ND's involvement only to realize we'd all been completely bamboozled, that broke my faith in kickstarter. While PB has generated a lot of ire their money is safe in the bank, but I feel burnt by this whole event and that's caused me to skip using KS as a platform since. Sadly the blow back falls on smaller better companies that could really use the help, but after the RRT mess I just don't feel I can trust using KS ever again. The real legacy of RRT is that they're so toxic that they've poisoned the well for others that have nothing to do with RRT.

A backer posted the following in the latest Update, and I thought I'd repost here, so people could have a reference for when PBWK's start the whole "You should have done your research about Palladium! They're always late!" screed.

To Quote Kevin (http://www.mtv.com/news/2628811/kevin-siembieda-robotech/)
"Palladium Books is the license holder, publisher, and design partner. We provide creative input, suggestions, and make all the final approvals. Palladium's team is also contributing to the writing and editing of the rule book, but it is Ninja Division in the trenches making it all come to life: sculpts, art, packaging, rules development, playtesting, etc.
From the start I gave Ninja Division the lead in the creative design and development of Robotech RPG Tactics. Ninja Division's people are doing all the sculpts, artwork, and most of the development for this product. They have also designed and managed the Kickstarter. Ninja Division will also be managing the manufacturing for us."

That's why I personally backed. I'd heard all the rumors about PB. I'd done my research. And I was blatantly lied to and when the bait and switch happened the day after funding, and got steadily worse, when SpartanGate happened, I immediately sought the ejection button. Feth the white knights.

If they are changing manufacturers what are the chances that the wave one stuff that has been made is the end of the wave one stuff forever?

No idea.

IP ownership and mold management and storage and whatnot is well beyond my expertise.

In theory? In reality?

There's a lot of 'ideal vs practical' to mine there alone.

Palladium own the molds. Unless they are incredibly stupid.

Joyboozer wrote:
Palladium own the molds. Unless they are incredibly stupid.

Umm.... have you met Palladium?

To the question at hand, actually I'd expect PB to "own" the molds. But there are still several issues that could be a factor in them being re-used.

I've been told that there's some moves towards uniformity that wasn't around when I was in the diecast industry. But that doesn't necessarily mean universal mold components. So they'd have to find a manufacturer that could use the same molds. And given they don't seem to have their pick of manufacturers, that could be an issue, depending on how state of the art the original company was, and how state of the art the new one is.

Forar mentions storage. They're steel, so improper care can lead to issues of corruption (ie rust). That they've been likely sitting somewhere for 3 years unused, could be an issue. Especially if PB haven't paid (or been lax on paying) storage fees.

And one factor that might not be an issue, but could well be, is corruption of a more human nature. It's not common, but in some developing countries, getting the original company to ship to a competitor might require excessive "fees". They have to find the molds, then they have to pack the molds, then they have to ship the molds. All of these things are going to be claimed as "VERY" expensive, and if they're not paid for, could result in the "loss" of the product. Again, I'm not saying this is a common occurrence, especially among more professional companies, but it would be the kind of shady dealer PB would be most tempted to hire. As this would be the last opportunity for them to get money out of PB (if PB are moving the molds, there's been a breakdown in the relationship), so gouging the everloving crap out of PB wouldn't be unexpected.

Now, if PB were smart, they'd have on hand the final digital files that were used to create the sprues, so that the new manufacturer could easily produce new molds (expensive, but better than building them from scratch), but we get back to Joyboozer's original statement. And when it comes to that statement, I've come to the conclusion that you can NEVER underestimate PB's stupidity. Or laziness. Or cheapness. Or punctuality. Or honesty. Or responsibility. Or accountability. Or self-assessment. Because they'll inevitably fall short.

In reality, wave 1 was so overproduced that a second run isn't likely to be needed.

At this point, PB would have to produce wave 2 and do a complete 180 in terms of promotion and support to generate any interest again from non-backers to increase sales.

Chances are, the game will sit collecting dust and be a part of Christmas Surprise Packages until they close their doors. Which is probably fine with PB, it's part of their "business plan" to have a warehouse filled with products to sell at a snail's pace for a decade or more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think a lot of us regained some hope when Scott came on board (I almost started painting models again), but it's basically been two months of the same stuff, worded differently. Even if Scott is being more honest and making an effort to get things moving, PB has a natural tendency for sedentary behavior and, with no sense that they even have project milestones set to a schedule (much less faith they would even stick to them), it's just more chugging along.

Yes, they may actually be shopping around for a good price this time. But nothing to say when they plan to stop talking and start doing.

I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking of selling off my stuff. I have to make space in my house and this is taking up storage that could be better used.

The dies for molds are not necessarily plug and play. There are many types of injection molding machines that use a different mechanism (hydraulic, electrical, etc) to squeeze. It isn't like there are a million machines all over the world. There are categories of machines and different parts of the world are more inclined to have machines with a specific purpose. For example, high detail and a lot of undercuts for use in aerospace is what is typically in the USA.

If you want to create 100,000 xbox controller shells you'd goto China and not the USA.

Like others said here, you have to store the dies carefully. And they are custom and heavy. It'd be odd to ship them to China for a run then back to PB then back to China for another run...

PB "owning" the dies are one thing. PB physically having them is another (Kevin BS won't get his dies out of a factory in China unless that BS is wrapped in a thick roll of franklins) and PB being able to do something with the dies (if they even have them) is another story.

Morgan Vening wrote:
NEVER underestimate PB's stupidity. Or laziness. Or cheapness. Or punctuality. Or honesty. Or responsibility. Or accountability. Or self-assessment. Because they'll inevitably fall short.

Thanks for this... I needed a good laugh..

But as with most kick starters they are used as testing the interest of the product and help COVER cost.. My personal feelings is Palladium cut Ninja Division loose because they need their part of the money
to help pay for more of the work. Sad thing is when this was originally announced many people that I know was hopeful and seeing it as an alternate to Epic. I agree there is no helping it now.. no matter what they promise
they are working on..

Funny thing is a guy lost it on the Palladium Facebook page about how they announce books with no end in sight.. And how they have 4-5 books still showing they are shipping in Summer 2017 with about a month left before fall, with only one book going to press in the past few months..
Just like Robotech Tactics; they admitted to sending out a Non disclosure agreement to a supplier recently.. That is the first thing you do as a company before anything else...So they are not even at step one.. three years later... It will never happen.

But Kickstarter already has their money and Kevin can keep saying "we are working on it" but I am sure they are happy knowing we kept the doors open with the kickstarter money of a company that would clearly be closed
up by now if not gotten it.

Oh...

There are 2 large categories of molds: soft and hard (that's what she said)

Soft tools wear out quick, are for low numbers of parts, and are cheap. Hard rubber mold would be an example.

Hard tooling example would be a steel die. More expensive, for large number of parts, and come in many different rockwell hardness, which in turn is more expensive. So, if you want to make 100,000 xbox controller shells from one hard tools that is one price for the tool. If you want 500,000 shells from one tool, that is a much higher price.

So, where this matters to PB. When you sit down with the mold designer, you take their input and listen to their expert advice and align that with your business plan.

For example (and I'm making this up, but the rough numbers were what I used on my iPhone case), if you want 20k parts, you'll have a 5% probability to get that from 2 soft tools. 95% from 5. And the tooling costs $3k / soft. If the tool breaks during a run and no backup is ready, the line will re-tool and your final 2k parts will be delivered 2 months later.

That is more or less the nickle tour of doing this.

And those soft tools are usually consumed during the process.

TL;DR

PB might have made soft tools for wave 1 and they can't make anymore (without new dies), which could be a reason why they order so much of wave 1

They showed one of the dies in their updates long ago. It was a steel die (for the Spartan, I believe)

 Stormonu wrote:
They showed one of the dies in their updates long ago. It was a steel die (for the Spartan, I believe)

Yup. Update 156. Dated September 19th, 2014.

The takeaway I remember having of that Update was that it was a trip Wayne and John Cadice made to see production, and that I found it funny at the time that they went over to see the product well after it was past the point that it could have possibly mattered. The trip was in early September, yet everything was already well underway by the time they arrived. Nice to have a boondoggle trip on the Kickstarter dime.

I seriously doubt the NDA is to protect PB's exclusive license to a 30 year old IP (of which most of the initial production run is rotting in their warehouse), or the off-the-shelf technology used to generate the models.

I suspect they are simply trying to conceal their poor reputation as a company continually fishing for quotes that they have no intention of accepting in order perpetuate fraud against the backers.

Whenever I go to their FB page and see someone complaining of books being late I'm fighting the urge to copy/paste everything the DotF said to you guys whenever you all complained about Wave 2 being late.

DotF?

(Surely NOT Daughters of the Flame?!? )

"I got up early, walked my mile or so and thought I would get an early start at work. I was almost at the office when our alarm company called to notify me that the motion detector had gone off a few times, should they call the police? When I arrived, the alarm was, indeed, blaring. No doors looked disturbed, but I thought it best to call the police. Everything was fine. No forced entry. No robbery. Whew. The Westland police were very nice about the entire matter and they loved the office and the artwork on the walls.

We suspect the culprit was a spider – a sizeable Daddy Long Legs walking over the motion detector. Wild, right? I’m having the alarm company check out the sensors just to be sure. "

Spiders are the new turkey (from the weekly update)

 Alpharius wrote:
DotF?

(Surely NOT Daughters of the Flame?!? )

Sorry, I didn't realize that was an acronym for something else here. I meant the Defenders of the Faith, the people who can't smell Palladium's gak.

Autarch wrote:
I suspect they are simply trying to conceal their poor reputation as a company continually fishing for quotes that they have no intention of accepting in order perpetuate fraud against the backers.

But bad for them is normally what goes with a NDA is a credit check...Don't worry... I am sure they can get approved for a "cash only with money up front"...

I thought DotF was Dictator of the Forums, i.e., NMI.

First word is usually abbreviated.

 Swabby wrote:
"I got up early, walked my mile or so and thought I would get an early start at work. I was almost at the office when our alarm company called to notify me that the motion detector had gone off a few times, should they call the police? When I arrived, the alarm was, indeed, blaring. No doors looked disturbed, but I thought it best to call the police. Everything was fine. No forced entry. No robbery. Whew. The Westland police were very nice about the entire matter and they loved the office and the artwork on the walls.

We suspect the culprit was a spider – a sizeable Daddy Long Legs walking over the motion detector. Wild, right? I’m having the alarm company check out the sensors just to be sure. "

Spiders are the new turkey (from the weekly update)

Here I thought the culprit was going to be angry Robotech RPG backers looking for Wave 2 stuff.

We should make one of those sinister silhouette videos with a distorted voice demanding that wave 2 be delivered or we will send more spiders.

I suspect were Kevin to look around, he would actually find more refrigerator art missing - taken by spiders, obviously,

My MoM sAyS My ArtZ so GUUd It goTs CrosS-SpeCEEZ Appeels.

The police also said how awesome the next book is.

My father was a detective. I spent about 10 years in the professional surveillance business.

The cops don't give a flying feth about what you've got on the walls. They need to get onto their next call.

You got to understand this is Kevin we are talking about... I am sure he hears voices.. He was just thinking the police was complementing him about the artwork on the walls.
The same voices that told him it was okay to sale before shipping to any backers and always telling him how great an author/publisher/artist/humanitarian/basketball player/Gardner he is...
Maybe he needs to get some medication before the voices start to tell him to burn things and we find him walking around nude in public...

I am sure he gave all the cops signed copies of Rifters.

Which were gratefully taken for use in the fireplace.