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So, wave 2 is scheduled for April 1st, 2021 then?

So... I finally got around to looking at the PBWU and Kevin continues to be a tool, who sees mediocrity as phenomenal.

The first RPG book in nearly 10 months, and it takes what, 20 hours to sell 120 copies, and that's seen as something to crow about? That's simply NOT impressive.

A 10x10 booth cost $1600 last year. I'm pretty sure PB's booth was at least twice that. 120×24.95 = ~$3000. Meaning their sole big ticket item barely (or not even) covered booth price, let alone salaries, transpo or hotels. Or more mundane costs, like production, art or author/editor time.

Sure, they had other things for sale (I saw the tumblers!), but if GenCon wasn't a significant loss, I'd truly be shocked.

Continuing on, Kevin gets a bug up his ass about the potential for screwups with regards preorders of the Atlantean Hardcover, pulling his best Marcus Kincaid impersonation, literally "NO REFUND" in all caps. Yeah, Kevin. We know PB's policy on refunds. Normally this wouldn't be an issue for me, but the PB tendency to have books available for preorder years, if not decades before release, might be cause for some tolerance or double check.

The RRT section is the usual pablum. Everyone is excited! Every is looking forward to more! No criticism was heard (or at least absorbed). Spoke to 5 manufacturers!

Zero actual information. Were these manufacturers ones that were already part of the quotes process? Or new ones that get to extend the "waiting on quotes" another couple of months? Was any kind of decision reached? Or was it just a handshake meeting that was otherwise meaningless? Were all five manufacturers capable and willing to do the project, or were some considered unsuitable?

See, that's five questions off the top of my head that could have been answered to provide concrete details to backers, WITHOUT going into detail that is understandably not supposed to be revealed (pricing, names, proprietary information). I'm sure a couple minutes of thinking could have come up with significantly more details beyond "everything is awesome!".

Nothing else of note, really. Just now waiting on Scott's next Kickstarter update, and what excuse, if any, he'll provide for atill not having Force Orgs up.

 n815e wrote:

We stopped at a McDonald’s to grab some lunch. We sat by the windows talking and watching people as they came and went. A particular group of guys stepped out of a car and I said to Wayne and Chuck, “Those guys look like gamers. I wonder if they’re heading to Gen Con?”

A few minutes later, a tall gentleman from that group, wearing a Fallout T-shirt, walked over to our table to ask if we were going to Gen Con. I was wearing my Rifts® Promise of Power T-shirt with the big, red and white Rifts® logo, so I imagine it caught his eye. I know Chuck was also wearing a Palladium T-shirt (Rifts® Cyber-Knight Game Master). We said yes, and we all enjoyed a good laugh about it. The man, whose name was Tim, asked me if we worked for Palladium Books. We laughed and said, “yes.” Tim then asked if we were booth help or actually worked at the company. I smiled and said, “I am Palladium Books.” “You mean like ...” “Yep, I’m Kevin Siembieda, the owner and main game designer,” and introduced Chuck and Wayne. Tim was surprised. We shook hands and laughed some more. We wished him a safe trip and fun time at Gen Con, and invited him to stop by the Palladium Books booth.

Good times with a wacky crew.

Gee, anyone notice how quick they were to get out of there once they realized who they were talking to - not even a request for "sign my whatever". Somehow I'll bet "Tim" was never seen at the booth...

Anyways, great news with Tatsunoko - four more years of this dumpster fire and the sea will finally put us (and PB) out of our misery.

Despite their best efforts, working like demons day in and day out, braving storms and cold/dark warehouses, sadly 6-7 years wasn't enough to produce the perfect culmination to RRT, and now dastardly legal requirements make it impossible to continue. Such a shame, so sad, truly they will be beside themselves over it.

Oh, and because I was curious, I crunched the numbers. I'm assuming March 31st as the end point, but I'm thinking it was earlier than that?

As it stands, the midway point between when RRT was to deliver in full, and the license reverts, will be... Thursday before last.

Literally as PB were opening for the first day of Gencon, there was as much time remaining as time passed.

That doesn't take into account other factors like producing, freighting, and shipping product, so if you want to take the 7 months or so that'll take (based on Wave 1), and assume they don't want to sell any retail, they've pretty much got three years. Which is less time than since they started shipping Wave 1.

I'm thinking this isn't going to end well.

Maybe everything is going to happen sooner than we think...

Genesis Climber MOSPEADA subtitled (the orgianal robotech invid invasion) is on Amazon prime video right now...

Seems like Blue sky is stretching into the united states.. Not good for harmony gold.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J71ZHTG?autoplay=1&ref=dvm_us_api_cs_hud_PS_api&pf_rd_p=cad2c637-2029-40b1-b569-41f786ec79fb&pf_rd_r=WAGKZ7X3RRW64YX5C92N

Apparently been there for a while...Maybe the Battle tech guys are betting Harmony Gold is going to lose the licence

Not good for us RTT backers...but we never got the stuff we paid for... then Kevin will need to return the money.

I would really love to see (and then have explained to my legalese-is-deliberate-bs brain) the actual text of the contract between KS and PB on such failures.

I have a feeling it's more of Kickstarter's "Creators should totes give the money back or that'll be, like, bad and stuff."

Merijeek wrote:


I have a feeling it's more of Kickstarter's "Creators should totes give the money back or that'll be, like, bad and stuff."

Ha!

Yes, probably something close to that - but at the very least, I think PB would have to show where all the money went too.

That would be interesting...

Guess we have a new countdown.

1313 days until Robotech dies an ignoble death and Palladium finally has an actual excuse for failing to deliver Wave 2 for over half a decade.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but in practical terms, I think very little will change in 2021. It's unlikely given performance to date that Wave 2 will be done and delivered. They won't / can't refund. They won't release the financials (since it would likely expose their use of the funds as fraudulent).

PB will still be in breach of their kickstarter obligations (they won't release the financials, they won't refund, they won't have the product). Right now, they are not making nor have they made a good faith (in Michigan commercial law 'of a reasonable professional standard' for the industry) effort to complete the project.

It will still need bringing them to court to force a discovery process, which means throwing good money after bad.

I reckon they'll just go very, very quiet about it.

Oh, I fully expect PB won't roll over and submit. Because I have no doubt that doing so woul lead to bankruptcy, if not immediately, then at least as a consequence.

And while it's interesting that Michigan law may arguably already see them in breach, there's always been the issue of Kickstarter's TOS protection shield.

Trying to fight PB when they're living to the letter of that bs clause is a lot more difficult than fighting them when they're literally incapable of finishing due to loss of license.

It's like putting your car in the shop, and them putting off working on it after they've fixed a third of the problems, but not wanting to give it back and the terms of service being vague on timeframe. It's one thing if it's in the workshop in parts, and they claim it's being worked on. It's completely another if they've crushed your car into a cube.

So yes, it's likely still going to require legal action. But that legal action becomes a lot simpler if they are unable to secure a license to produce.

I mean, it's a bit harder to argue that they're totally working on it and things are heating up if they no longer own the license and producing new works for the IP would be some measure of illegal and/or actionable by companies that have no problem lighting others up with litigation.

Note, I'm certainly not claiming that PB would totally change their tune and say "oh, sorry, our bad, guess we owe you guys something". If anything, i imagine it'd become a "CRISIS OF TREACHERY 2: TREACHERY HARDER!" and they'd have weeks (probably months) of sad newsletters about how hard they worked on RRT and how much money and time was spent and they were so close but then the dastardly Others caused them to have to stop, they're so sorry and know it hurts, it hurts them even more, but don't worry they're working on getting the license back soon(tm) and will get right back to work as soon as they're legally allowed to.

A reasonable person would see this as "a big fething problem", but they'll just use the same song they have been for years; lies, obfuscation, and hoping that more backers get bored or die off as the months tick by until they retire or can't work anymore.

As Morgan points out, it'd be quite a change in ones avenues for calling them out, but that problem always boils down to it taking money to do so, and the risk of possibly spending more to recoup little or nothing. For a few local'ish backers that might be feasible, but I imagine that for the ~2,400'ish international backers in particular (~45%) that's not a viable option.

The average backer contributed something like $300. Very few are going to have the ongoing frustration/anger/desire for justice to spend hundreds or thousands more to try to recoup that.

So PB waits out the clock and RRT remains a stain on their already lackluster reputation and the world keeps turning.

Though if Scott (or whomever) continues to deliver a non-update every 2 weeks for that timeframe, means things would go sideways somewhere on the cusp of #300.

Well, I am sure the true "Crisis of Treachery: Crisis Harder" will be not getting all those Wave 1 boxes sold off before the license expires.

Anyone want to imagine a fire sale like no other?

I would dearly love to see them try to sell them after the license expires and rat on them to the IP holder.

I would like to see what "big plans" they have to expand the game. What little they were toying with will be as dead as it can get. Now even the warehouse items have a drop-dead shelf-life.

I imagine that every Christmas Surprise Package will have a free box of RRT.
Or, perhaps, if rumor is to be believed and it was Wayne's decision to buy so much Wave 1 stock, Kevin will start compensating Wayne with that stock (at full msrp value).

I'm sure they stuff the Palladium grab bags friggin full of Robotech garbage. It's already dead stock even after 2021 it'll be dead stock as there's so much of it Palladium will never get rid of it all short of creating an artificial scarcity by E.T. Atari 2600ing the stuff by sending it off to a landfill so there's fewer around and it can be RARE! OOP! on Ebay.

If Scott keeps to schedule, we should get his sixth non update tomorrow..

But if Harmony Gold wants to sue someone, I feel that Palladium games damaged the Robotech license with
the way they handled the RTT kickstarter.. Just look at about all associated kickstarters ended up canceling
because of non funding..

It is really sad because RTT could have strengthen both companies if done right. But it was handled with almost no care.

Karma seems to be taking a slow boat to China to get around to PB (and HG).

I suspect Scott's next update will be that Kevin and Tommy Yune had an important phone call and was reassured that everything will be fine come 2021 with the Robotech license. In fact, Tommy advised Kevin he should move forward with the Mospeada/Sentinels/Shadow Chronicles kickstarter and get that ball rolling right away for the next Robotech anniversary - the end of the Macross War (in more ways than one)! In unrelated news, Kevin is heading north to Canada - for an undisclosed amount of time - to help the Rogue Heroes shell company produce all future Rifts products!

winterdyne wrote:
In a nutshell, Robotech is the anime equivalent of a manufactured boy band, comprised of three individually quite different singers, er, series - Superdimensional Fortress: Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada. Overdubbed and adjusted in plot to munge them all together.

The name itself was put initially used by Revell (yes, the model kit / toy company) who wanted something to allow them to market their licensed japanese model kits (some of which were from other series than ended up in the Robotech melange).

Harmony Gold had problems with merchandising as the Macross kits put forward by Revell were already in production under the Robotech name, so both parties effectively agreed to colicense, and Robotech became the name for the imported animation.

Anyway, Harmony Gold's license comes from Tatsunoko who didn't quite have the authority to issue the license in the manner it was - designs and merchandising rights are actually under the authority of the authors of Macross (Studio Nue) and the money men (Big West). Tatsunoko have the distribution rights to the physical animation ONLY.

So, when the license Tatsunoko put out expres in 2021, they will not be able to license out the designs of the mechs, any merchandising or derivative work rights or so on. Tatsunoko and Big West / Studio Nue weren't on friendly terms last I checked either. Hence, Robotech (as a franchise based on licensable assets) dies.

Thanks for the summary, I never knew the bit about the Revell models. At last the mystery of the Robotech Defenders is solved!

That's cool! I recognize the Shadow Hawk at the front, what looks like a Griffin in the top left, an obvious Thunderbolt at the bottom, and what looks like a Battlemaster on the right. Can't make out the other three, but none of them appear to be Macross/Robotech illustrations.

They are from the anime Dougram, an actually pretty decent early 80s giant robot anime. Subtitled episodes can be found on Youtube, if you are curious, though I suggest starting with episode 2. Episode 1 is a flash-forward episode in a series that hadn't even started yet and was only made because the producers wanted the titular giant robot, the Dougram to appear in the first episode when it otherwise wouldn't show up till the 8th. A lot of the mech designs in the show turned up later in Mechwarriror and Battletech, but without the copyright issues that dogged the Macross designs. I wonder if that was because FASA got the usage rights from the correct company (as opposed to that Studio Nue/Tatsunoko snarl associated with Macross) or if Dougram is so forgotten in Japan that nobody bothered to check if the copyright was being infringed in the first place...?

squidhills wrote:
They are from the anime Dougram, an actually pretty decent early 80s giant robot anime. Subtitled episodes can be found on Youtube, if you are curious, though I suggest starting with episode 2. Episode 1 is a flash-forward episode in a series that hadn't even started yet and was only made because the producers wanted the titular giant robot, the Dougram to appear in the first episode when it otherwise wouldn't show up till the 8th. A lot of the mech designs in the show turned up later in Mechwarriror and Battletech, but without the copyright issues that dogged the Macross designs. I wonder if that was because FASA got the usage rights from the correct company (as opposed to that Studio Nue/Tatsunoko snarl associated with Macross) or if Dougram is so forgotten in Japan that nobody bothered to check if the copyright was being infringed in the first place...?

Yeah, I am unsure why the "Shadowhawk" was my favorite 50 ton mech, but I always liked the look of it and it seemed to have something for anything.
I really enjoyed the incredibly old "Crescent Hawk" games which could never be repeated due to the mess of "unseen" models.
I loved those old model kits, they were the first I came across with the rubber bushings so the models were poseable and separate weapons you could swap-out.
The best "action figure" hands-down when I was a kid was the Cyclone that was a plastic metal mix and could transform (before there were transformers) that was about $20 way back then.
The Alpha fighter was amazing that came out the similar time also was transforming, weapons swap, a poseable pilot.

Yeah, great nostalgia, really highlights the fact that various kinds of copyright law can kill dead availability of cool stuff... this is why we cannot have nice things?
The intent is for the original creator to get their money so hopefully they are motivated to create more good things.
Robotech seems to be a prime example of when copyright may not be performing as intended.

So, we all reconvene in 2021 and see if we can get more cool Macross stuff into North America and we shall never speak of HG again.

I'm not going to lie. I couldn't care less about Macross. Sure, I occasionally watch Do You Remember Love? I enjoyed Macross II when it snuck into the home video market.

But I'm a middle-aged fuddy-duddy that wants my Macross to be called Robotech and have the epic story of three generations.

 n815e wrote:
I'm not going to lie. I couldn't care less about Macross. Sure, I occasionally watch Do You Remember Love? I enjoyed Macross II when it snuck into the home video market.

But I'm a middle-aged fuddy-duddy that wants my Macross to be called Robotech and have the epic story of three generations.

I'm exactly like That. Only, you know, the direct opposite

LOL, Albertorius.

And Scott's latest update has dropped all pretenses...

New Kickstarter Update is up

Claims that resins and exclusives are being worked on. Renders of the resin bases and a call for feedback on them. They're OK. Vagueness regarding everything else.

A GenCon report that mentions LESS than Kevin did. Gives almost no details on the tournament. First name of the winner, congratulations to other "winners" of the tournament who shall remain anonymous, no mention of numbers, no mention of forces fielded, no mention of the winning army, nothing. Also, no mention at all of the meetings with manufacturers Scott had mentioned in a previous KSU, and Kevin again provided more details of (in that he acknowledged that it happened), in his PBWU. When you're losing out to Kevin f'n Siembeda on providing information.....

Hurricane Harvey, and best wishes for people in harm's way.

And that's it.

Still no update on quotes, some 10 weeks after Scott took over, and the theory that it could start manufacturing this year. Despite mentioning working on it, and it being a big factor of the previous Update that there'd be in-person talks.

Still no Force Orgs, some 8 weeks since it was broached, and 6 since it should have been up.

We got to see our second lot of renders, over the last ten weeks. At this rate, it'll take until midyear 2019 (19 packs x 5 weeks per render) if they're grouped by pack like the bases are. Or as much as three years (or as it'll be better known, 6 months before PB lose the license) from now if they're split up by individual model, as they did with the Zentradi Infantry. Assuming they don't drastically accelerate (or more likely stop doing them).

It does look like Scott's at least kinda trying. But it's really just smelling like business as usual. ie, freshly made and amply supplied manure pile.

What, exactly is the evidence that Scott is trying? I'm not seeing it.

Well, we went something like a full year without a usual 'sign of life' render, and now we have a few.

Is it swift or stellar work? No.

Is it more than we'd been getting? Yes.

Is that a high bar to clear? No, god no, it's so low even a global limbo champion would struggle to get under it.

It is possible, in a world of subtle greys, for something to be 'better' and still 'not good'.

Edit: had they been slowly parceling this kind of info out, say, 2+ years ago, it probably would've been much better received. For a while leading up to Wave 1 they gave us a new render or prototype or whatever once every couple of weeks or so and that was generally fine (until Spartangate and things started going completely sideways).

They've been asked for progress, this is progress. It's not a lot, it's fairly slow, I have no faith in them completing the project (prove me wrong, donkey caves!), but it is objectively more/better than we were getting for a long while there.

So, for the barest of effort they get the faintest of praise.

yay.

More like "meh".

All this time and all they can show of the resin components is half-baked renders that look like they die-pressed from a circuit board?

Man, as bad as this has been in the past, they manage to set the bar lower and lower with each non-update.

Has this been posted yet anywhere?

 warboss wrote:



Has this been posted yet anywhere?

General summary? I'd watch it myself, but watching and hearing Kevin speak makes me want to do bad things. Hoping someone with lesser issues can break it down for people.

And isn't that the guy who's given flowery puffpieces in the past? Because it gives him access?